PACIFIC COAST HIGH SCHOOL

The Inevitable Fate for

Unemployment

Justin Su
PCHS English 12: Fall 14
Mrs. Cindy Rogers
17 October 2014

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Justin Su
Mrs. Cindy Rogers
PCHS English 12: Fall 14
17 October 2014
The Inevitable Fate for Unemployment
Imagine a world where humanity no longer needs to work or think where autonomous
systems and processes define the purpose
of humanity. Autonomous robots and their
artificial intelligence, essentially, are
human creations, programmed through the
jargon humans wrote. Despite seen in
Terminator films, Wall-E, and I, Robot,
mechanical minds [are] making human
brain labor less in demand, even out-

Fig. 1. This wallpaper from I, Robot shows

performing humans themselves (CGP

robots defining humanity (Badger).

Grey). Within the realm of economics, the products demand determines the amount of product
supply in this case, burdening the supply of jobs available. Since the dawn of harnessing
electrical power, the computing revolution launched the most developed and profited industries
in United States, as apparent through the robust worth of Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The
irony of expediting autonomy in technology, however, is the derogatory human psychological
effects, like increased patient cases of insomnia, fatigue, cyberbullying, obesity, and eventual
unemployment. The caustic side effect of the dependencies of technology is the individuals lack
of genuine kinesthetic learning and of originality. The United States unemployment situation is

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not only based on societys reliance on artificial intelligence and hackneyed labor, but also
influenced through societal decisions on economic bubbles and careless spending. Therefore,
economic competition, domestic spending, and technological automation are regrettably
responsible for the upsetting unemployment situation in the United States.
The primal influence over the United States employment statistics is economics itself
with its physical and mental competition seen throughout history. For example, outsourcing jobs
started as a sensible, globalized extension of sending some work outside a firm to specialized
companies, but shown to be creating long-term structural unemployment in the United States,
hollowing out entire industries (Pearlstein). No doubt, outsourcing jobs to third-world countries
not only conflicts the interests of United
States economic growth, but also
represents economic imperialism
commonly known as the advantageous
formations of monopolies. The economic
grasp on business corporations tightens as
opportunists compete for profit incentives,
Fig. 2. This image affirms that the American
where the capitalistic effects of the few
Dream is truly over (Veterans Today).
extinguish the American Dream of the
many. Furthermore, the baby boomers [are] essentially clogging the usual professional
pathways, leaving few opportunities for people beginning their careers (Casselman). As
societys tireless elders abstain from retirement, employers must abide by the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, deeming unlawful upon employers who fail or
refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with

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respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such
individuals age (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The competition within
the employment system keeps many unemployed college graduates complacent, never being able
to showcase their academic potential. The casual, clever consumers in the United States,
however, insist on purchasing cheap foreign products, ignoring the counterintuitive fact that
buying American-made products creates jobs (The Made in America Movement Made in
USA). Importing rather than exporting is the antithesis downgrading the United States gross
domestic product, commencing an economic recession. Experiencing the dismal effects of the
Great Recession, the people of the United States must appease the dire power of economic
influence and coin a New Deal to pacify unemployment rates.
In addition to competition, reckless domestic spending unbelievably burdens the middle
class, drastically increasing unemployment rates in the United States. For example, the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) provides up to $700 billion to the
Secretary of the Treasury to buy
mortgages and other assets that
are clogging the balance sheets
of financial institutions and
making it difficult for working
families, small businesses, and
other companies to access
credit otherwise known as
Fig. 3. This cartoon illustrates that Americans are risking

bailing out the Wall Street banks

bailing out, lowering the value of the dollar (Tom).

(The Washington Times). Not

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only did the stock market lost $1.2 trillion when the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
2008 fail to pass in the United States House of Representatives, but also bailing out the banks
who publicly lent unattainable currency significantly plummets the United States dollar value.
Combatting heavy inflation and high product prices, employers [in the United States] laid off
about 1.5 million workers in 8,263 private nonfarm extended mass layoff events (U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics). Employees are unfortunately not immune to severe changes in economy, as
constraining businesses budgets force employers to ultimately lay off millions with excruciating
difficulty. Without a consistent income, the unemployed struggle to meet deadlines on payments,
especially mortgage loans, leading to the sudden burst of the housing bubble and millions of
foreclosures. Aggravating the hysteria, the United States spent $800 billion in Iraq, not counting
our ongoing obligations to veterans, where the United States debtors must miraculously pay off
the war debt in their taxes (Iraq wars failures breed rising sense of isolationism). Expecting
the unemployed, even those who just make ends meet, to pay the nations debt with high interest
rates is physically improbable and ethically unjust. The increasingly national spending and debt
flatten out the middle class, where the unemployment ironically becomes the promised
American Dream.
Highly controversial among conservatives and liberals, technological automation is
arguably intuitive, yet ironically inhuman through its eradication of human labor force. Union
labor groups may reject the idea that artificial intelligence could ever compete and replace
professional jobs qualifications, such as the duties of physicians and lawyers. IBMs Watson bot,
however, is already [understanding] what people say in their own words and give back accurate
diagnoses, simply eliminating the demand for general doctors (CGP Grey). Aggregating
knowledge from other robots, professional robots are simply replacing the academic jobs that

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were once thought as prestigious. Unconditionally,
the minds of mechanical robots are out-competing
humans for jobs in a way no pure mechanical
muscle ever could (CGP Grey). The physical labor
employment is ceasing to exist, and the automation
industry is exponentially increasing. Automation has
Fig. 4. This image dictates that humans
need not apply anymore in the world

mercilessly won the fight for time efficiency,

slandering egos everywhere. Interestingly, humans
are severely vulnerable to automation, and

(CGP Grey).
complacency is not the accurate axiom of modern
unemployment:
As mechanical muscles pushed horses out of the economy, mechanical minds will
do the same to humans Horses aren't unemployed now because they got lazy as
a species, theyre unemployable. There's little work a horse can do that do that
pays for its housing and hay. And many bright, perfectly capable humans will find
themselves the new horse: unemployable through no fault of their own (CGP
Grey).
Society may impugn on the liability of modern jobs, but society itself pursued automation from
the desires for accessibility, versatility, and docility. Technological automation defines the new
economic standards of the future, where increasing unemployment in the United States is purely
inevitable.
The conniving competition, dilatant debt, and alluring automation foreshadows a
complete buyout of human employment. Forever in debt to the economic system, Americans can

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cynically agree that the compounded competition is unbearable and advanced automation is
always hirable. According to conservative Representative Steve King from Iowa, careless
Americans were hedonist children who prefer unemployment during the onset of the Great
Recession:
Now, what kind of a family, if you had six kids and a third of your kids would
say, Im not doing the chores, Mom? If any of them say, I refuse, Im not
going to participate, Im not going to contribute to the American GDP. Pretty
soon those kids [would understand] you get to eat after you do the work! Not
just in hopes that one day you might actually do the work! (Burkhart).
The economic power of automation, however, decisively
denies current human employment and futuristic job
creation. Not only is automation presently seen in
assistance to laborers everywhere, but also automation is
the inevitable fate for unemployment integrated
inevitability just as science proves the inevitable explosion
of the Sun. In a pragmatists perspective, the tempted
behavior of Americans, even humanity itself, accustoms to
the incentives of profits, power, and practicality. Modern
Americans, especially the current generations, mentally
crave the latest and greatest product from the industrial

Fig. 5. This poster declares that

constant effort is the only solution
to the unemployment situation in
the United States (Gilmartin).

furnaces. Nevertheless, American is one of the few

countries fortunate to privatize the versatile automation industry, but education, knowledge, and
initiative can always offer a solution to the unemployed in an ignorantly automated America:

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Wake up all the teachers time to teach a new way
Maybe then they'll listen to whatcha have to say
Cause they're the ones who's coming up and the world is in their hands
When you teach the children teach em the very best you can.
The world won't get no better if we just let it be
The world won't get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me (Melvin).

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