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If every shop clerk, Starbucks barista, bus driver, electrician or other professional realized that there must be a better way of working, what would happen? T
by pemulis 15y ago
If every shop clerk, Starbucks barista, bus driver, electrician or other professional realized that there must be a better way of working, what would happen?
The first three you listed are well on their way to being automated within a few decades. The last one seems out of place, since electricians are relatively well-paid and often self-employed. I think that we're seeing a gradual shift away from a service economy, mirroring earlier shifts from industrial and agricultural economies, as service jobs are automated or taken over by people in poorer countries. I'm not sure what to call the economy that's coming, though. A creative economy? A reputation economy? An economy where people work on the things they find interesting, and if other people find them interesting, too, they get paid. Many of the menial or boring jobs will be automated.
- skittles 15y agoI call it the "Star Trek" economy, but I think something more like "The Matrix" is coming. Most people will have cookie-cutter lives where basic needs are supplied for them. Others will rebel against that life and do something they think has meaning (the red pill poppers). I'm willing to listen to alternatives, because my prediction depresses me. I just can't see us shifting back to a less automated world where skilled labor and basic labor is more valued than they are now.
- Psyonic 15y agoVonnegut explores this in "The Player Piano." His take isn't terribly positive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano
- TeMPOraL 15y agoI used to think of it in terms of Star Trek until I (recently, thanks to HN :)) read Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" story about Bitchun Society, in which death and energy are not a problem, economy is based on reputation and today's luxuries are theirs basic rights. Interesting book, BTW :).