NationStates Post-Modern Tech Community Thread

[Supreme Authority]

That's contingent upon how realistic you want to be, but there are certainly plenty of military-specific advances in biotechnology feasibly developed for use before that period.

Are you looking specifically for direct augmentations and enhancements to a soldier's physique, or more general innovations hewing to the field of biotechnology?

I'm aiming for (almost) everything to have some basis in real science (but with no regards whatsoever to ethics). I'd appreciate any ideas for military biotech, not limited to human enhancement.

[Vistora]

That's contingent upon how realistic you want to be, but there are certainly plenty of military-specific advances in biotechnology feasibly developed for use before that period.

Are you looking specifically for direct augmentations and enhancements to a soldier's physique, or more general innovations hewing to the field of biotechnology?

I'm aiming for (almost) everything to have some basis in real science (but with no regards whatsoever to ethics). I'd appreciate any ideas for military biotech, not limited to human enhancement.

Ooooh... given the exquisite technical detail with which you describe your Strikers and the impressive knowledge of general biology it exhibits, I'm assuming you'll want something comparably comprehensive and rigorous, while far enough down the conceptualization line to be in an applicable state in an early PMT setting. I could run off a few ideas off the top of my head and provide the details and research behind it, but I feel as if I wouldn't be doing your inquiry adequate justice if I didn't pull out a few more stops. I'll peruse the more unique resources afforded to me, and see if I can dig up anything of particular interest. Such will take a little time, however.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

I am using the 300 km range band because it is possible to have a coastal radar operating up to 300 km range, that is tropospheric ducting or over the horizon based. Small coastal radars, not 100 km spaced arrays. Combined with prior information of civilian maritime activities in the area (schedules etc), one can could guess the incoming maritime target beyond line of sight isn't going to be friendly. And of course, I kept forwarding railguns since they can outrange these defenses, at least in current near term.

Ducting only works with VHF and UHF radars under certain weather conditions. OTH radars, because they operate in the HF band, are by nature large and immobile and highly susceptible to being spoofed by clutter. With shore based fire-control radars being all in the S, C, or X band you're limited to radar LOS targets which in practice is only around 30-50 km.

It also applies to railgun fire as well; if the opposition is smart, he or she will keep moving said defenses around, complicating engagement. Combined with ESM measures and tropospheric ducting effect near the coast, it would be possible for the said battery to engage the landing ship if it successfully triangulated the said ship.

That's true, but the ships would generally be under strict EMCON to prevent that from happening. Most likely if the enemy is mounting an amphibious assault he has already achieved local air supremacy so firing solutions for his ships will come via aircraft. In that case the TEL has a very narrow window of opportunity to fire before it gets detected and engaged by missiles and/or shellfire.

I afraid we would have to agree to disagree here--Saddam's forces were outnumbered and basically overmatched in everything else. It is important to note that they are only using export model Soviet equipment (some KEPs that their tanks used are plain old steel, not even tungsten) and they don't have the luxury of C4&I sophistication of Coalition forces.

Previous Saddam forces also do not have much in a way of tactics to respond to overwhelming Coalition might. Apples and oranges here. Suffice to say, Vistora is right, only WW2 showed some sort of peer level parity. Your own statement validated this conjecture enough, bolded emphasis mine. Please do not use Desert Storm or any of Coalition experience in Middle East theater as a model of peer level conflict--they only showed how 3rd world military crumble upon technologically and numerically superior forces. A proper example would be the prior initial phase of Iranian-Iraqi conflict (before other countries involvement) instead.

That's what I was saying. My point was the US tactics used against the Iraqis are the same tactics they would have used against the Soviets or any other "peer-state" competitor. The Iraqi forces may have been hilariously overmatched but before any shooting started the US expected a slugfest (US casualty estimates were several thousand per week which looks ridiculous in hindsight) and prepared like they were about to fight one. Iraq did after all, have the fourth largest standing army in the world and were equipped with top-of-the-line soviet export weapons (at least that's what USI believed beforehand). Saddam's defensive strategy, at least on paper, wasn't that terrible and was developed with help from numerous Soviet military advisors. That the iraqi's had (by western standards) poor training and horribly outdated equipment doesn't change that, although it's what obviously resulted in their total failure to mount any significant resistance of any kind to both US ground and air operations.

The Iran-Iraq war is probably not worth looking at because both sides were incompetent.

If Syrian conflict to be of any indication, the presence of actual Russian IADS (S-300 and attendant systems) indicate something particularly important. NATO tactics might not be applicable to any IADS worth its salt--multi range/altitude coverage, multiple radar sets, shoot and scoot within five minutes, decoys systems...et al. However it is important to note that a proper strategy will involve higher commitment than displayed by NATO performance, namely more combined arms tactics involving everything, including the humble grunt to hunt highly mobile air defense elements.

The tactics would be the same. Employment of aerial decoys, standoff and escort jamming, stealth aircraft taking out C4I infrastructure, and lot's of HARM and tomahawk spam. If CMANO is to believe it's just as effective against "advanced" IADS containing HQ-9, S-300 and/or S-400 systems. Spam enough MALDS and/or ITALDS (which are cheap and expendable) and the IADS will just run out of SAMs. Playing as a CSG in CMANO I usually follow up decoy launches from one VFA (10 hornets or super hornets carrying four ITALDS each) with AARGMs from another VFA (usually 10 hornets or super hornets each carrying four AARGMs each) and a VAQ (four growlers with 2 AARGMs each) to take out the SAM radars and TELs as they engage the decoys (ITALDs or MALD-Js). The advantage of the AARGM over the HARM is that it carriers an additional MMW seeker so even if the radar stops emitting and displaces the missile can still home in and destroy it. Combine this with tomahawk launches from the CSG escorts I can usually take out most (if not all) of the TELs and radars without any losses on my part (besides all of the decoys and some of the AARGMs and tomahawks that get shot down). The same applies if you were attacking say a NATO IADS equipped with Patriot or MEADS although currently only the IAF, USAF and USN possess the air-launched decoys needed to make the strategy work (AFAIK the TALD, ITALD, and MALD/MALD-J are the only decoy missiles currently in widespread service). I know the Soviets modified obsolete K-10S and KSR-2 missiles into ECM drones but AFAIK they've all been retired from service.

[Thoricia]

What do you guys think of the potential feasibility and usefulness of some sort of micro-missile launch system? Not gyrojets per say, but rather a launcher intended to fire relatively large quantities of targeted, explosive-payload missiles, each perhaps the size of a .50 BMG round, cartridge and all, up to a 20x105mm round.

Now micro and mini missiles are something I've thought about quite a bit for armor and exo-suits to use as antipersonnel and against other power armors. Now there's two types of these that I've thought about and one is more a rocket and not actually a missile

The first would need line of sight because whatever the weapon system was mounted on would need to laser at the target to guide the missile in.

The second would just be a mass launcher or pepper box that would just dump entire walls of miniature rockets in a salvo.

[Thoricia]

A few more hypothetical technologies and scenarios, for the general sake of discussion and my own desires to validate technology in my canon.

Firstly, there is a notorious prevalence of megasized capital ships in PMT warfare. Rule of cool more than permits their application, but since the slow demise of gun-heavy battlewagons after WWII naval strategists and tacticians largely agree that big gunboat platforms are impractical; by sticking a lot of expensive equipment on one large ship, they are precluding the agility, distributed range, and compartmentalized expense should damage occur of spreading such equipment across multiple smaller ships. One variant of this megaship notion is that of a battlecarrier; as a hybrid between a battleship and an aircraft carrier, it mashes together a ship design already long obsolete with another that some are theorizing will suffer the same fate after not too long. As romantic and cool such a ship would be, it's undeniably impractical. However, I was curious about the feasibility of a similarly conceived hybrid, but rather scaled down; rather than combining a battleship and aircraft carrier, a ship that combines a smaller destroyer or cruiser with an amphibious assault ship. The former is still a very relevant platform for VLS cruise missiles and, in the future, railguns, while the latter is still a critical part of modern military transport and logistics. Geared towards amphibious warfare, with the weapons platforms supplying support fire, would such a ship be of any advantage in a future navy?

I don't think big gun platforms would cease to exist given most NS nation's military budgets as well as PMT technologies breathing new life into old designs specifically railgun and coilgun technologies advancing along as steadily as they have been, that being said I'll dive into your destroyer/carrier idea and tell you it's already been done by both Japan and the Soviet Union the former more recently (iirc the ships are still in service) and the latter obviously as the Kiev which was called a cruiser carrier. No I myself have used the Kiev as the basis for an amphibious assault vessel that had VLS systems for suppressing coastal defenses as well as being capable of launching VTOL craft for close air support or for launching helicopter assault forces. Essentially though if you as a writer want them then use them, I know I personally enjoy making them and using them myself

Secondly, to revive an age-old topic in PMT technology; are there any potential legitimate military applications for mechs? In regards to modern and near-future tech, the answer is obvious; probably not. Considering they'd simply be tanks, but easier to target, less stable, and able to carry only lighter weapon systems, there is little reason to bear the expense of creating then quickly losing something of such horrid mechanical complexity. However, we'll start this notion with some assumptions; mobility-wise, the mechs in question use agile, humanoid legs that can be manipulated with equivalent precision, as opposed to the chickenwalkeer stilts sometimes witnessed in works of fiction. This might give it a legitimate advantage in mobility and agility, both laterally and vertically, over treaded tanks. Similarly, they have arms with articulated digits, which could (or perhaps would not) give them a general utility value and allow for more variable usage. For a general conception of what type of mech I am envisioning, those found in the Titanfall games are closest to the mark, not armless chickenwalkers, but not the ridiculous fare of some Japanese media either.

Covered this one already a little

Thirdly--and this is less technological than strategic--under what circumstances, if any, could a nuclear weapon see usage in an otherwise conventional war without immediate escalation to all-out nuclear apocalypse? Obviously, an ICBM detectably launched from one country's heartland to their enemy's military base would be an instant trigger for retaliation. But would more obfuscated scenarios result in a more measured response?

Tactical nukes in an RP are a tricky thing, obviously you'd need permission and as a plot point they'd be perfectly acceptable with careful planning and collaboration with other players beyond that in NS it's devolve into a dick measuring contest fairly quick I think unfortunately

[The Macabees]

Like Thoricia says, tactical nukes can be pretty interesting when used correctly (collaboratively), which is true of almost every aspect of PMT.

I've used nukes twice that I remember. Once was during the Jolt era, during an RP called "A Passion Play" (the oft-cited War of Golden Succession), where my fleet is unable to clear the seas between Stevid and I of enemy ships and so months later we nuked part of the Stevidian fleet in port. They responded by nuking a fleet of mine just outside of a major port and historic city, and we used it as a way to end the war (out of fear of escalation -- but this was developed as part of the story, rather than something that just happened randomly and out of OOC spite).

The other instance was more recently, when to justify the reorganization of a government and its seizure before it fell to fascist UWO, we spread a zombie-like virus in Holy Panooly and used it as a pretext to nuke 'ground-zero', the city of Guamlumpeiron', and launch a 'medical operation' to distribute antidotes that we conveniently had conveniently put in production recently.

I've always wanted to do a full-blown tacnuke/chemical warfare RP. One day perhaps, when there's time.

[New Aeyariss]

Giving my thoughts on use of oversized ships, we have to remember the way that sea battles are waged. In the modern times notion of "manouevere" is less important (although far from absent) from tactical thinking of the Navy officers. You can think of it as sort of "cat and mouse" game - people who think that naval warfare is "missile spam" or imagine it being like two galleons constantly bombing each other with their cannons are thinking about wrong times.

In general, my concern against oversized ship is that they simply serve little strategic purpose. OTH radars, so overused by NS MT Navies, CAN NOT distinguish between a tanker and a carrier, not to mention extremely poor resolution (imagine one pixel on your screen representing several km2, and when a blip appears, you have no way of knowing what it is). In short, they can not be used for anything other than early warning. And we have to remember that a single hit to a "normal size" warship can seriously damage or even sink it (Chinese estimated that it takes 300kg warhead to cripple a carrier). And study done by certain navy officer concluded that out of all circumstances where missile attack was "defendable" - the ship mounted defenses failed 65% of times. While it would take dozens of shots to sink a superbattleship, it is at the same time a missile magnet. Finally I as well have concerns about level of noise it's engines & reactors would generate and implications for ASW it will have.

General JFC Fuller predicted that future navies will have ever increasing role of submarines. Even in WWII, USN submarines alone sunk 55% of all Japanese ships. The water provides very good C3D2 factor, which will greatly increase survival ability. Although there are still many issues to overcome... I think that what is worth looking at is semi-submersible vessels.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Giving my thoughts on use of oversized ships, we have to remember the way that sea battles are waged. In the modern times notion of "manouevere" is less important (although far from absent) from tactical thinking of the Navy officers. You can think of it as sort of "cat and mouse" game - people who think that naval warfare is "missile spam" or imagine it being like two galleons constantly bombing each other with their cannons are thinking about wrong times.

In general, my concern against oversized ship is that they simply serve little strategic purpose. OTH radars, so overused by NS MT Navies, CAN NOT distinguish between a tanker and a carrier, not to mention extremely poor resolution (imagine one pixel on your screen representing several km2, and when a blip appears, you have no way of knowing what it is). In short, they can not be used for anything other than early warning. And we have to remember that a single hit to a "normal size" warship can seriously damage or even sink it (Chinese estimated that it takes 300kg warhead to cripple a carrier). And study done by certain navy officer concluded that out of all circumstances where missile attack was "defendable" - the ship mounted defenses failed 65% of times. While it would take dozens of shots to sink a superbattleship, it is at the same time a missile magnet. Finally I as well have concerns about level of noise it's engines & reactors would generate and implications for ASW it will have.

General JFC Fuller predicted that future navies will have ever increasing role of submarines. Even in WWII, USN submarines alone sunk 55% of all Japanese ships. The water provides very good C3D2 factor, which will greatly increase survival ability. Although there are still many issues to overcome... I think that what is worth looking at is semi-submersible vessels.

Unless it's a torpedo a 300kg warhead will not reliably sink any decently sized surface combatant, much less a carrier. If by "cripple a carrier" you mean "temporarily take it out of action" then it would be more believable. In 1969 abaord the USS Enterprise a Zuni rocket onboard an F-4J phantom detonated after it was overheated from an aircraft engine starter unit placed next to it. The explosion ignited the aircraft's JP-5 fuel and ignited three more zuni rockets which exploded, blowing several holes in the flight deck and allowing burning JP-5 fuel to pour into the lower decks. A 500 ib mark 82 bomb on the F-4 then exploded and blew an 8 by 7ft hole in the flight deck. This was followed by a five more mark 82 bombs exploding which ruptured a 6000 gal fuel tank on a tanker aircraft. In total there were 18 explosions resulting in 8 holes in the flight deck with penetrations to multiple lower decks and burning fuel running down to those decks. Casualties totaled 28 dead and 344 injured. Aircraft damage totaled 15 destroyed and 17 damaged. The fires were all extinguished within four hours. After 51 days at port the ship was fully repaired and sent back into action.

The USS Forrestal experienced a similar incident in 1967. A Zuni rocket was accidentally fired from a parked F-4B Phantom aircraft due to an electrical surge. The rocket flew across the flight deck and hit a fuel tank on an A-4E Skyhawk about to take off which ignited the aircraft's fuel. Additional fuel tanks ruptured and ignited which sprayed burning JP-5 fuel all across the flight deck. Within several minutes eight 1,000 ib bombs and one 500 ib bomb exploded. It was observed that some of the bombs exerting an enhanced power 50% greater than a standard 1000 lb bomb due to the unintentionally-enhanced power of the badly degraded Composition B. The explosions tore large holes in the flight deck and allowed burning fuel to flow into the lower decks. Casualties totaled 134 dead and 161 injured. All fires were under control in 3 hours.

In both cases you have several thousands pounds of explosives detonating and thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel released which penetrated multiple decks into the carrier. In both cases the fires were under control within 3-4 hours and the ships could have then theoretically resumed flight operations if necessary. This is good representation for what would happen if multiple anti-ship missiles were to hit the upper decks in rapid succession. A modern Nimitz or Ford class carrier, being larger and bulkier than either the Enterprise or Forestall and with significantly more advanced damage control capability, would likely be even less adversely affected.

Anti ship missiles have a rather poor record in RL conflicts. Every time a ship has detected an incoming anti-ship missile and used soft countermeasures the missile has failed to achieve a hit. So you could say soft countermeasures historically have a 100% success rate. For a recent example just a few months ago the Arleigh burke class destroyers USS Mason and USS Nitze were attacked with several salvos of Chinese built C-802 missiles fired by of houthi rebels in yemen across a span of several days. Nulka decoys, jamming, ESSM, and standard missiles were employed in defense and none of the missiles successful reached their targets. Playing CMANO I've witnessed AShM attacks against CSG's, unless they're launched at very close range and in massive numbers, mostly fail to score any hits. The odds are pretty stacked; after being picked up by AEW the AShM has to evade missiles fired by the CAP, evade long and short range SAMs fired by the carrier escorts, burn through copious amounts of jamming by the escorts and carrier, not get fooled by numerous active radar decoys, not get fooled by chaff, and then avoid the carrier's misisle and gun CIWS. The missile will also usually impact the ship above the waterline near its center (that's how the homing system is programmed) so for a large ship like a carrier the ship's propulsive equipment generally will not be heavily damaged or destroyed as they are located below the waterline. The missile usually hits the hangar which destroys lots of aircraft but otherwise leaves the ships propulsive and sensor/defensive systems operational.

Nuclear attack submarines are the apex predators of the ocean and the main reason super-dreadnoughts or whatever are a very bad investment. A super-dreadnought could tank hits from anti-ship missiles all day but would not be any less vulnerable to an underwater explosion from a torpedo which due to various physical effects has a destructive power equivalent to several times it's explosive content. Once a torpedo is launched the only real way to defeat is to attempt to lure it away with an acoustic decoy, Hardkill interceptors may be in development and could be used by a PMT navy but they currently don't exist in any operational capacity. Besides a nuclear armed AshM a heavyweight torpedo is really the only weapon which could reliably cripple a carrier or large surface combatant with a single hit.

[Bashriyya]

I am prepared to adopt Mechs armed with railguns and go PMT, not sure of their effectiveness though.

[Thoricia]

Giving my thoughts on use of oversized ships, we have to remember the way that sea battles are waged. In the modern times notion of "manouevere" is less important (although far from absent) from tactical thinking of the Navy officers. You can think of it as sort of "cat and mouse" game - people who think that naval warfare is "missile spam" or imagine it being like two galleons constantly bombing each other with their cannons are thinking about wrong times.

In general, my concern against oversized ship is that they simply serve little strategic purpose. OTH radars, so overused by NS MT Navies, CAN NOT distinguish between a tanker and a carrier, not to mention extremely poor resolution (imagine one pixel on your screen representing several km2, and when a blip appears, you have no way of knowing what it is). In short, they can not be used for anything other than early warning. And we have to remember that a single hit to a "normal size" warship can seriously damage or even sink it (Chinese estimated that it takes 300kg warhead to cripple a carrier). And study done by certain navy officer concluded that out of all circumstances where missile attack was "defendable" - the ship mounted defenses failed 65% of times. While it would take dozens of shots to sink a superbattleship, it is at the same time a missile magnet. Finally I as well have concerns about level of noise it's engines & reactors would generate and implications for ASW it will have.

General JFC Fuller predicted that future navies will have ever increasing role of submarines. Even in WWII, USN submarines alone sunk 55% of all Japanese ships. The water provides very good C3D2 factor, which will greatly increase survival ability. Although there are still many issues to overcome... I think that what is worth looking at is semi-submersible vessels.

It's almost as if you're implying most players would neglect having a super capital ship be a part of a fleet which would likely have numerous anti-missile defenses as well as ASW capabilities within that fleet, which I have never honestly seen.
And yes while OTH radars are used as early defense any decent fleet would have a CAP in the air to investigate any blips.

Another thing to keep in mind with PMT is there needs to be certain degree of collaboration between writers due to the differences in technology between MT, which have hard data we can reference towards and PMT which has for the most part only theories we can kinda base our ideas off, so cooperation would need to prevalent and take precedence in my opinion.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Ship based OTH radars are still pretty useless in PMT as being PMT doesn't suddenly change the laws of physics. Surface wave and backscatter OTH radars need to be several kilometers long, bistatic, and need to be supported with separate ionosphere measuring stations (For OTH-B radars) to be effective. Their primary purpose is land based early warning detection of intercontinental bombers and ballistic missiles. A surface fleet's early warning capability comes in the form of AEW craft equipped with long range, higher power S or L band radars.

I haven't been RPing for very long but I recall the whole "OTH radars on surface ships" was sort of an ill-thought out justification for massive super-capital ships when their original purpose of just being giant warships armed with thousands and thousands of missiles was exposed as being an egregious abuse of "rool of cool". They make about as much sense as giant super-heavy landships armed with battleships guns, or not much sense at all. Even if we ignore the backwards tactical and strategic justification the list of problems is rather exhaustive; how is its structure going to support the enormous weight of the ship? How will you build a drydock large enough to build it? How will the draft be limited so it can travel into harbors or transit thorough straights where the ocean isn't as deep? How will its enormous acoustic signature not interfere with ASW operations? How will it maneuver in and out of harbors and other areas with lots of sea traffic? How will its massive tsunami sized wake not swamp shore facilities or cause other smaller ships to capsize and sink?

[Vistora]

Ship based OTH radars are still pretty useless in PMT as being PMT doesn't suddenly change the laws of physics. Surface wave and backscatter OTH radars need to be several kilometers long, bistatic, and need to be supported with separate ionosphere measuring stations (For OTH-B radars) to be effective. Their primary purpose is land based early warning detection of intercontinental bombers and ballistic missiles. A surface fleet's early warning capability comes in the form of AEW craft equipped with long range, higher power S or L band radars.

I haven't been RPing for very long but I recall the whole "OTH radars on surface ships" was sort of an ill-thought out justification for massive super-capital ships when their original purpose of just being giant warships armed with thousands and thousands of missiles was exposed as being an egregious abuse of "rool of cool". They make about as much sense as giant super-heavy landships armed with battleships guns, or not much sense at all. Even if we ignore the backwards tactical and strategic justification the list of problems is rather exhaustive; how is its structure going to support the enormous weight of the ship? How will you build a drydock large enough to build it? How will the draft be limited so it can travel into harbors or transit thorough straights where the ocean isn't as deep? How will its enormous acoustic signature not interfere with ASW operations? How will it maneuver in and out of harbors and other areas with lots of sea traffic? How will its massive tsunami sized wake not swamp shore facilities or cause other smaller ships to capsize and sink?

When you refer to massive super-capital ships, around what dimensions/displacements are you imagining?

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

When you refer to massive super-capital ships, around what dimensions/displacements are you imagining?

A warship longer than a kilometer in length and/or displacing significantly more than the worlds largest supertantankers.

[Neornith]

When you refer to massive super-capital ships, around what dimensions/displacements are you imagining?

A warship longer than a kilometer in length and/or displacing significantly more than the worlds largest supertantankers.

Any large arsenal ships or battleships in the 400m up range is where I personally begun to class super capitals.

A kilometer long warship requires a huge suspension of belief in my party but if people want to use them and others are willing to interact with them oh well I guess.

[Vistora]

When you refer to massive super-capital ships, around what dimensions/displacements are you imagining?

A warship longer than a kilometer in length and/or displacing significantly more than the worlds largest supertantankers.

Shit. Even my own canon's gold standard in ridiculous naval superlatives is only 850m in length and displaces 540000 tonnes. For the record, the Atlantis-class FF is intended to be a mobile naval base, although the usefulness of such a vehicle is rather dubious...

[The Macabees]

Interesting links for 1/9/2017:

• Researchers have created an antibiotic spider silk that heals wounds (Sciencealert)
• Using data science to beat cancer
• The Future of Employment (that now famous econ paper that says that >40% of U.S. jobs are at high risk of automation)

[Thoricia]

Interesting links for 1/9/2017:

• Researchers have created an antibiotic spider silk that heals wounds (Sciencealert)
• Using data science to beat cancer
• The Future of Employment (that now famous econ paper that says that >40% of U.S. jobs are at high risk of automation)

Speaking from personal experience, automation hasn't caused any loss of jobs in my area of manufacturing it's actually increased our workforce and created a demand for higher skilled workers, granted now instead of four guys running parts around the clock two robots do their work, however we now need at least three full time people tending the robots, two full time to ensure that the robots have the proper materials to run, one person doing quality control around the clock and we've had to increase the size of our shipping staff by two full time employees to handle the higher influx of parts being shipped out. So no I don't think automation is killing jobs is just creating a demand for higher skilled blue collar jobs that most manufacturers are scrambling to try and fill because no matter how automated you become, someone has to fix the robots, someone has to remove the parts and ensure they're to the right specification, someone has to make sure the right parts are being labeled and shipped to the correct locations. The only thing it does is make countries with higher paid workforces that produce a high quality part competitive against cheap manufactured goods from third world countries reducing the overall cost per part.

Furthermore with automation and the higher volume of goods produced, companies can reinvest and expand their operations to bring in more robotics and employees with them. Our first robot went online last year and we've created a higher demand for our product and we're installing two more robot cells to try and keep up with the demand we have and it's something we hope to continue to expand and utilize for our manufacturing processes along with increasing our workforce as well

[The Macabees]

<snip>

Agreed, and it's true that historically automation has caused employment growth (as counterintuitive as it may sound).

The issue for many is that during previous structural shifts like these low-skill workers saw their wages increase (over the medium-term, I don't want to say the short-term), because their unskilled labor was packaged with machinery to increase its productivity. We see this to some extent during the current shift, but not to the same extent. For example, we do see this with Uber drivers, where a mobile phone and GPS makes the skilled labor of a taxi driver (who needs to memorize the streets) non-valuable. But, in general, what we see more of is unskilled labor that needs to become skilled, and this process is easier said than done.

What happens is that most people who find their jobs automated either have to figure out how to program computers, or learn whatever skills they need to, or they have to join a growing pool of unskilled labor competing for low-value jobs. It's a "hollowing out" of the labor force, where there is an income bifurcation between unskilled labor (lower wages) and skilled labor (growing wages).

That's how many economists see it. I still think it's a bit premature to judge how this structural shift will take place (and I think that re-tooling has been made easier by the same technology that's automating), but that's the issue as it's understood now in any case.

[Thoricia]

<snip>

Agreed, and it's true that historically automation has caused employment growth (as counterintuitive as it may sound).

The issue for many is that during previous structural shifts like these low-skill workers saw their wages increase (over the medium-term, I don't want to say the short-term), because their unskilled labor was packaged with machinery to increase its productivity. We see this to some extent during the current shift, but not to the same extent. For example, we do see this with Uber drivers, where a mobile phone and GPS makes the skilled labor of a taxi driver (who needs to memorize the streets) non-valuable. But, in general, what we see more of is unskilled labor that needs to become skilled, and this process is easier said than done.

What happens is that most people who find their jobs automated either have to figure out how to program computers, or learn whatever skills they need to, or they have to join a growing pool of unskilled labor competing for low-value jobs. It's a "hollowing out" of the labor force, where there is an income bifurcation between unskilled labor (lower wages) and skilled labor (growing wages).

That's how many economists see it. I still think it's a bit premature to judge how this structural shift will take place (and I think that re-tooling has been made easier by the same technology that's automating), but that's the issue as it's understood now in any case.

That hasn't been my experience thus far because usually every manufacturer has different processes and in some cases unique products, so instead hiring the qualified help we've actually elevated out current employees with in house training because there is a bit of a transition there and our manufacturing process is still a hybrid of what it once was, plus we already have several months of time invested in already trained employees so from a cost standpoint it's actually cheaper in the long run to retain and retrain employees

[The Macabees]

Sure, different companies will respond in different ways, and so will different industries. Employment and technology have both micro- and macro- repercussions.

Edit:

All Employees: Manufacturing

[Vistora]

Although the commonly cited argument against technological unemployment (really just being an illustration of how lump-of-labor is fallacious) is the creation of jobs proximate to the robot itself, such as desiging and programming it, that really seems to be an easily digestible condensation of far broader forces at work. The real uptick in job creaton seen after the second industrial revolution, for example, arrived when the massive gains in efficiency provided by automation allowed companies and such to vastly grow their operations and thus inflate the size of their sectors that required human labor, even those not directly related to servicing the automation machinery itself. Moreover, the gains in efficiency and therefore productivity and the resultant general economic expansion opened up entirely new markets, where cheaper products meant consumers had money to spare on more, newer stuff, and producers had the means to supply them.

Granted, I tend towards the more optimistic view of technology's impact on economics in the future, and I think technological unemployment is lower on the list of potential threats posed by AI. Nevertheless, I think there is a lot of credence to be given to that final point of mine, as it is one of the more fundamental bases of market economics that I cannot see disintegrating anytime soon.

[Thoricia]

Hello Gentlemen and Ladies,

I have a request, or a challenge if you would like to view it that way, I have in mind a roleplay for the future, loosely based on Star Wars, but in a PMT/MT setting, I've been having a think myself but I can't seem to think of anything that would require a small squad of guys to enter a military installation, steal plans and then blow up some kind of super weapon, what i'm stumped at is, I need something insanely impractical, (those who know me, know I love the impractical, see: 2km Super State Destroyer Oppressor Class "The Executioner") what I need are some ideas, something thats powerful enough to warrant the operation, but has to be within the realms of PMT/MT, my first thought was to fit a Nuclear capable "grand cannon" onto a vessel, oh yes, this has to be ship based, bigger the better, I'm open to ideas and hope someone can throw some ideas my way, you will be credited for any ideas that I use in the roleplay.

Thanks

Kraven

Thought about this for abit and the only thing I can come up with is a ship that could carry some gray goo nanomachine swarms in a shell that would effectively eat up a nations coastal defense network, beyond that I'm kinda stumped because nukes are kinda vanilla and any planet killers in a PMT setting would essentially kill the person using it as well to (inb4doomsdaycult) .

And what the team would be destroying would the plans for the shell that could feasibly carry the nanites or the code to activate the nanites etc etc etc

[Balochistan and New York]

Anyone have ideas for manufacturing/production tech?

[Thoricia]

Thought about this for abit and the only thing I can come up with is a ship that could carry some gray goo nanomachine swarms in a shell that would effectively eat up a nations coastal defense network, beyond that I'm kinda stumped because nukes are kinda vanilla and any planet killers in a PMT setting would essentially kill the person using it as well to (inb4doomsdaycult) .

And what the team would be destroying would the plans for the shell that could feasibly carry the nanites or the code to activate the nanites etc etc etc

I think thats a nice idea, but The Reich have never gone down the nanite path for any of its technology, so I think it would be too far a leap for The Reich to suddenly develop a doomsday nanite shell, one thing that popped into my head was Microwave, how would one develop a weapon based on Microwave technology?

The US army has already been developing DEW microwave weapons and a quick look on Wikipedia can give you some thoughts on expanding the idea, it's current use however is intended for non-lethal crowd control. Basically a dish, from what I'm remembering, is mounted on a Humvee and it's pointed at a crowd and it heats the skin up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

Anyone have ideas for manufacturing/production tech?

Could you expand on what you mean and maybe I can help somewhat since most my RL experience is in manufacturing.

[Post War America]

Thought about this for abit and the only thing I can come up with is a ship that could carry some gray goo nanomachine swarms in a shell that would effectively eat up a nations coastal defense network, beyond that I'm kinda stumped because nukes are kinda vanilla and any planet killers in a PMT setting would essentially kill the person using it as well to (inb4doomsdaycult) .

And what the team would be destroying would the plans for the shell that could feasibly carry the nanites or the code to activate the nanites etc etc etc

I think thats a nice idea, but The Reich have never gone down the nanite path for any of its technology, so I think it would be too far a leap for The Reich to suddenly develop a doomsday nanite shell, one thing that popped into my head was Microwave, how would one develop a weapon based on Microwave technology?

If you'd be willing to have stuff in orbit this might be your cup of tea.