Quote:
Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy
The 21 century will be highlighted by technology capital versus historical land and machinery capital against labor.
The economic problem is the island economy problem.
The technology capital owners have an office building as the only office building on the island. The technology capital owners are 1% of the population.
The technology capital owners own the only robotic restaurant on the island, having put the other labor restaurants out of business.
There are two other employers on the island: the government and the fishing industry.
The fishing industry earns money by selling fish / food to the government employees.
The government earns its money from the taxes on the restaurant income and the fishing income. . . The only people who can afford eating at the restaurant are the 2% of the labor who waits on the technology capital owners.
There is no one left to afford eating at the restaurant because all the fishing income is taxed to pay for the governmental employees to buy the fish. . . except the two percent who go out once a week
Its a welfare state spiral with residents who can't afford to spend money at the automated restaurant.
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So, the tech company needs a robot manufacturer. They can't operate robots that no one ever built. They need autocad experts to draft the plans for each robot. They need computer coders to code the bots. They need engineers to oversee the construction. They need welders, and the guys who dip the hot shaped metal into water (I don't know what they're called but it's a thing). They need centrifuge operators, and die cut operators. That's just to make the robots. Even if the bot manufacturer is 100% automated, they still need someone to make THOSE robots. And to walk through the plant to make sure all the bots are operating properly. And technicians to fix any that have problems. And programmers to tweak the programs if something isn't 100% correct, or if the end-user needs customization.
Those people need to go to the bathroom sometimes. So they need plumbers on the island. They also need electricity - so they need electric workers. They need communications, so they need someone to build and operate cell towers, and an ISP for wifi.
They need someone to pave roads. They need someone to repair roads that were already paved. They need all the exact same things that most communities need everywhere.
Since they can't all be automated, they'll need actual people on this island who make robots, do programming, run networks through buildings, swap out servers, pave roads, and yes - grow food. If it's not a food growing climate they'll need someone to build hothouses. That means they'll need accommodations for truckers - which means a hotel.
Now look at all the people living on or visiting this island who need goods and services. What started out as an exercise to prove how horrible it would be if robotics "took over" an island turns into an entire community created because - someone had to make the robots.