Technology gives one person the abilities of a thousand, and then it burdens the Earth with the thousand people it just made obsolete.

Foxconn needs more automation. The Chinese workforce is starting to demand higher wages due to stronger competition for skilled workers.

Come on Nelson. So the more technology we have the more people the earth is "burdened with" and made "obsolete". Please enlighten us. Show me your brilliance. Can you actually show me examples of technology causing an economy to shrink?

\"...and for the extraordinarily high suicide rate of its employees.\"
So, their employees are killing themselves at a record rate, so they plan to xxxreplacexxx augment them with robots...

Hi Dennis
The desire to possess neat technology does create demand, but if the humans remain out of work, then they are by some standards obsolete - even if their govt somehow finds the budget required to keep them housed and fed - and buying the techno-bling.
So the economy expands, but not sustainably. We do need to find \'valuable\' work for the majority of people, or the system is essentially a Ponzi scheme. Inevitably, there will be \'corrections\'.

So what are all the redundant factory workers going to do? If they don\'t have jobs, they won\'t be able to buy all the fantastic stuff the robots manufacture, and the consumer-based economy will tank, if it hasn\'t already!!!

@Olaf the Orful: yes, that is at least the claim of Michael Ford in \"The Light in the Tunnel\" book (available at Singularity Hub).

...oops Martin Ford, not \"Michael\". Sorry.

Well thank you Nelson, Mr. Clarke and Olaf. Obviously, with your logic, factories of any sort are putting people out of work. Which in turn is making people obsolete and a burden. So the obvious solution is to get rid of all factories and go back to making everything in a mud hut. Back to my initial request. Can anyone point to an actual instance where new technology made an economy contract? And stay contracted? Anyone? Really? I am really tired of people claiming technology is an overall negative. It has become a mantra in some circles and the argument is wishful thinking. It does not hold water. There have been instances where new technology has caused the workforce of a sector to shrink. Like Cotton. The advent of machines to pick the cotton caused the loss of many cotton picking jobs. But it also caused the price of cotton to go way down resulting in cheap clothing. Not spending half your paycheck on a pair of jeans and a shirt is a positive thing. This goes for clothing, vehicles, food, cell phones and cell phone towers. Bridges. Machines to build roads. Machines to process asphalt. You know, the stuff that makes up the world we occupy and allows people to be middle class. Stuff like the computer you are going to try to refute my argument with. If technology is such a negative, please throw your computer out. This away I will not have to hear this tired nonsense anymore.

@Nelson, airline travel took a big bite out of the passenger train market. By your logic, we should be lamenting the loss of the rail jobs without considering how many the airline industry created, right back up the chain.