Karl Marx saw this coming (Score 1)

Has anyone read the communist manifesto lately? I think Marx pretty much predicted what is happening now with jobs. Much of what is being discussed here is the inevitable consequence of capitalism -- survival of the fittest requires a continual increase in productivity which ensures that fewer and fewer of us have jobs, resulting eventually in the collapse of capitalism. I'm not saying Marx had the solution, only that he understood capitalism's limitations. It almost happened in the 30s, but they didn't have robots then. Robots and AIs are the ultimate productivity machines. Remember Ross Perot's giant sucking sound? I can hear it now...

We need to consider the possibility of symbiosis (sp?), or mutually beneficial pairing of humans and machines in order to survive this crisis. We can't get rid of machines, so we must incorporate them in our minds and bodies to keep from being overwhelmed by them. In other words, "the borg" ;-) I don't know if this would be desirable or even possible, but does anyone have a reasonable alternative?