Out of Pod Experience

Cashiers are most definitely going to be one of those occupations on the decline in the near future. Anybody who has been to a CVS or even just any grocery store has seen firsthand the expansion of self-checkouts in the last decade. Furthermore, the expansion of internet commerce will continue to impact retail, but perhaps to the benefit of niche retailers that aren't viable online (juice freshly juiced into growlers, on demand from hundreds of fruits/vegs on hand, in the time it takes to get McDonald's as a retail chain, anybody?)

Nurses, though they may be on the increase right now, will definitely decrease as America's baby boomers die off. Hopefully Social Security and Medicare will recover contemporaneously, but probably not (thanks to our politicians for spending the every penny of surplus since the 1930s and writing worthless IOUs, like Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber).

I'm glad to see lawyers and judges level off. They're like dandelions - a few are definitely beneficial for the lawn as they fix nutrients that benefit surrounding plants. The flowers can even be pressed for wine, the nutritious leaves and stems eaten in salads, the leaves dried to make a nutritious tea, and the root's waxy secretions used for medicine and even rubber! That's the original reason why they're in America, imported from Eurasia. But left unchecked they simply wipe out everything else.

Guards, watchmen, and doorkeepers on the increase - essentially private police who operate for private concerns, and sometimes not in the public's best interest. America in 2015 has never been safer than it is now, but with all of the paranoia and fear instilled by our politicians and media it's no surprise this will continue to climb (tune into the news at 9, something new you never knew you were supposed to be afraid of!)

Police seeing a slight decline - there are definitely too many police without enough to do. Hell, our federal law enforcement agencies are busy entrapping perfectly innocent people and targeting thought criminals (laundering their entrapment methods through the use of "informants"), because there otherwise ain't enough real crime to justify their budgets.

Doctors - seeing a mild increase after decades of mild decreases - definitely a good thing. With the unjustifiable quotas imposed on the number of graduates in the field of medicine by various medical associations and state licensing agencies, doctors are overpaid and there aren't enough of them. Probably one of the reasons nursing as an occupation is on such an upswing as well. Lift the quotas and allow anyone with the aptitude to graduate with a medical degree - and bring down healthcare costs at the same time. Of course, the doctors staffing these boards and agencies might have some words to say about that. And there's enough underutilized medical equipment that costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars as well that ought to be more heavily utilized and shared between doctors and medical facilities, starting now and continuing later.

And farmers - don't get me started. As few of them as there are nowadays, they're sucking our reservoirs, lakes, and rivers dry throughout the West so California can export 80% of its almonds and all of its alfalfa to China. Lobbying for corn subsidies and sugar tariffs to put corn in every food item, and corn in our gas tanks, while the internal combustion engine will be a mostly dying technology as the decades roll on.

Cashiers are most definitely going to be one of those occupations on the decline in the near future. Anybody who has been to a CVS or even just any grocery store has seen firsthand the expansion of self-checkouts in the last decade. Furthermore, the expansion of internet commerce will continue to impact retail, but perhaps to the benefit of niche retailers that aren't viable online (juice freshly juiced into growlers, on demand from hundreds of fruits/vegs on hand, in the time it takes to get McDonald's as a retail chain, anybody?)


gotta take issue on this one . Here in the UK there a major backlash regarding self service checkout . Transpires the average consumer here in the uk resent the fact that when shopping in a supermarket the they are presented with a robot and theres an active campaign to get them removed

the supermarkets and banks are listening aswell

doesn't just stop there. call centres are being relocated back to the UK from india due to backlash of jobs being lost and the language barrier problems

I prefer self-checkout. I don't have to interact with people, and it is faster, so I can more quickly get the hell out of there and return to my cave. Of course sometimes you'll get some mouth-breathers gumming up the works, bringing the self-checkout aisles to a halt. Or some momo decides it would be cute to roll an entire years worth of groceries up to the tiny self checkout station...

Yes, and ALL that data will then be routed into some mainframe located at an undisclosed location where your shopping habits will be data mined by an automated software.

Protip: In the near future don´t buy too much fertilizer and especially don´t buy fertilizer and cooking pots at the same time unless you too want to take a vacation at some undisclosed location.....

Extraordinary rend... ahem, vacation.

I actually pay for most everything with cash and make absolute minimal use of credit/debit cards myself. Suffered a bout of credit card fraud committed by someone in London who bought my information from the hackers of Midwest Payment Processing in 2009. I additionally use a wide variety of other steps to protect my privacy in this day and age (VPN, hard disk encryption, no social media, careful use of electronic communication, etc). Unlike most people, I like to stay a bit off the grid in terms of all information being online, just one click away.

I personally wouldn't care for RFID auto-checkout, and would opt for more traditional methods of purchases (with the exception of eBay/Amazon/NewEgg/vaping products), but seeing as how 90% of people just can't shut up about everything they see, do, buy, sell, and eat on the internet, and don't care what the No Secrets Anymore agency does unless they're looking at their wiener pics, most people would likely embrace it.

For those not convinced yet:

Smart phone/tablet app + 3D Printers/Makers and/or warehouse robots + driverless cars + home address == teh future.


On a side note, if we manage to get flying drones working for delivery, we just might need fewer roads, so add road construction crews to the list of declining jobs as well.

I think most people these days who do blacksmithing also do other stuff to make ends meet. More modern methods of metal working.

Personally I like the look of more primitive stuff. Making stuff for yourself is rewarding also.

My first experiments with blacksmithing and woodworking/lutherie:
bottle opener
recreation of an old folk instrument

I actually know someone that is a hat maker. And she makes hats in vintage styles. Doubly anachronistic. But vintage is big right now. Probably thanks in part to Mad Men.

Some old ways of doing things are just stupid though. I've heard you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey. You have to wait for your manservant to come out and do it for you.

http://www.tacomaweekly.com/news/view/business-spotlight-vulcan-knife/



You can google their shop for a ton of other pictures of what they sell and what they do.
Most of their advertising doesn't even touch on all the stuff they can do.

In certain countries, the population is either leveling off or in decline. Furthermore, the "baby boomer" cohort in these populations is larger than those in younger cohorts, sometimes hugely so in certain countries. For example, Germany. Or Japan. The US is not quite as top-heavy as these countries, but still, the "baby boomer" cohort is the largest single segment of the population.

I was referring primarily to the United States and secondarily, Western/OECD nations. The website posted by the OP refers to the United States. You have a point when it comes to the rest of the world.