Friday, February 19, 2016

David Brooks, "A Little Reality on Immigration": Only Rocket Scientists Need Apply



In a Times of Israel article entitled "Top Israeli researcher: Robots could take over most jobs within 30 years," we are told (my emphasis in red):

"Moshe Vardi, of Houston, Texas’s Rice University, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington on Saturday that society’s major challenge in the coming decades will be to find meaning in a mostly automated life.

'We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task,' Vardi said. 'Robots are doing more and more jobs that people used to do. Pharmacists, prison guards, boning chicken, bartending, more and more jobs we’re able to mechanize them.'

With robots eliminating many middle-class jobs, Vardi said unemployment could rise beyond 50 percent."

Thirty years? I most likely won't be around to see it, but it would appear to make sense why people entering the job market today might be a little anxious about their future sources of income.

Which brings me to David Brooks's New York Times op-ed entitled "A Little Reality on Immigration," in which Brooks addresses Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. Noting that "by 2044, America will be a majority-minority country [nice oxymoron, David]," Brooks concludes (my emphasis in red):

"Donald Trump’s G.O.P. is a rear-window party pining for a white America that is never coming back. Ronald Reagan’s G.O.P., and maybe some future G.O.P., will fix the immigration system and attract the people who will make the country innovative, dynamic and interesting for decades to come."

Ah yes, people who are going to make the US "innovative, dynamic and interesting for decades to come." If indeed, unemployment is going to skyrocket to 50 percent, things could indeed become "interesting." Meanwhile, maybe only rocket scientists should apply for Green Cards.

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