Today, the ditch digging s done with small excavators, not with hordes of guys with shovels...

This is a good point. Technology replaces labor with capital. I remember reading controversy over the stimulus program, that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent for every job created. Those people would have been much better off if the money went directly to them, instead of indirectly through jobs programs. But that's not politically popular (with the right.)

Alternatively the government could subsidize wages. Agree to pay x% of the wages for certain industries. Which is basically what we already do extensively with tax breaks for companies that create jobs. But that's also not politically popular (with the left.)

As automation replaces more and more of the unskilled workforce, we should just accept it and adopt a basic income.

"As automation replaces more and more of the unskilled workforce, we should just accept it and adopt a basic income."

Maybe. There are still vast pools of unskilled jobs that exist globally. They're vanishing in the US in no small part because our industries are forced to compete with business concerns that can take advantage of what equates to slave labor in less developed parts of the world.

Be careful, industry subsidies can violate WTO rules and get export markets closed off. America has treaties with lots of countries promising not to do that. Those other countries also promise not to do that. If America violates it, their trading partners will too and the global economy will be hurt, including America.

Today's ditch digging is done with emacs and vim, building useless CRUD apps

Laying single-mode fiber with emacs?

There'll be a plugin for that.

*major mode

Well, Emacs is still single-threaded, if I'm not mistaken, so it's a good fit. :)

Laying single purpose modules with npm.

You need to use shovels in quite a few scenarios, specifically when you're working around existing infrastructure

Welp I guess that yields the whole point moot.

Good.

There remains a hell of a lot of fiber needs laying.

And when they're done? What about the jobs!

While a job might not produce anything of value to a customer, I think it is often forgotten that a job also has the dual purpose of skills training.

People doing "useless" jobs might acquire the skills to do other and more useful jobs in the future. Keeping people unemployed has a high cost in the form of loss of skills over time, mental health etc.

If you don't keep things going you might risk losing some people forever as their skills become so obsolete and their motivation and work capacity destroyed.

Companies will usually not higher long term unemployed so that is why many people can get permanently lost to the labour market.

> you might risk losing some people forever as their skills become so obsolete

This is likely why I'll likely never be able convince myself to take a break from programming until retirement.

Unless, of course, today's chatbots evolve to write code better than we do. Or at least cheaper.

Of course age discrimination will likely have you changing careers well before retirement.

The infrastructure in this country is in an absolutely dilapidated state. Roads are potholed, bridges are collapsing, water and sewage pipes date back to the Civil War, Internet connectivity is expensive and slow. There's more than enough work to keep a whole lot of people busy for a generation, if we're willing to pay for it.

If its true that such jobs would reduce unemployment substantially, then a number of potential workers might already be recipients of other government programs, meaning the marginal cost is not nearly as much as the salary.

Implementing such a program in that way though requires a fair amount of attention. If it ends up not reducing unemployment, that means it is diverting workers from other industries, which doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad program, but it's a different kind of thing.

When they're done they start all over again. Unless you've invented some magical material that never needs replacing it will have broken down by the time they finish. It's not like we have so many unemployed people that we're going to replace/upgrade every piece of infrastructure that needs it in a year.

After getting prosperity for a generation by building strong infrastructure, I think we can safely turn this task over to the next generation.

Who knows.

More jobs, more wages, more actual money in the economy to displace credit cards and pay down household debt, and improved infrastructure may well see new business opportunities come into existence.

What makes you think they will ever be done?

It's a big country! When you get towards completing a single project, I bet there will always be something else that needs doing.

Like an airport in a town of 2,000 that nobody uses, but ensure the Congressman will get reelected?

I could only imagine the abuse with a gov't directed jobs program!

And things like that don't happen in the private sector?

Corruption is a human problem, not a government or corporate problem.

If a company builds something useless, it's not my money, so I don't care. Gov't projects spend tax money, so I care.

I would much rather have another airport built than another prison.

I would much rather have an affordable public transit system built than another airport.