Continuing on the happy fun optimism theme... here's an excellent short piece from TechCrunch on the impact that software technology will have on employment (and the coming scarcity thereof).
(If you're not familiar with TechCrunch, it's a chronicle of tech issues and startup companies; I read it often.)
The subject is a poignant one for me because I am in part responsible for destroying my best friend's career.
We were room-mates at a fraternity at an elite University. After school we both found professional work in our desired fields; he as a journalist and I as an electrical engineer - starting in the OK-but-not-great job environment of the mid-80s.
With lots of hard work we rose through the ranks and attained some status within big companies which were household names. In the early 2000's we made comparable salaries.
My buddy's since lost his good paying job because print media has been eviscerated by the web. He lives gig to gig, freelance, for a fraction of what he once made.
The only way to survive the future is to have a hand in its creation. That whole standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" thing didn't work out so well...
test test. Blogger ATE my comment, dammit.
ReplyDeleteLewy, it's not your fault that your friend lost his job. The inexorable march of progress and technology, as well as the hubris of print journalism, reached its logical conclusion when the web swept up newspapers and dumped them in the rubbish bin. I can see you feel badly about it, but millions of talented and accomplished people are scrambling to survive on sustenance wages. I hope your friend finds his niche in the "new" economy.
ReplyDeleteYour post is very thought-provoking. So many tasks once performed by human hands (and brains) are now gobbled up by technology. Those who thrive on living and working on the edge of discovery are flourishing, but so many others are caught like deer in the headlights, jobless and stunned.
I don't know what will become of the surfeit of idle workers.
Lewy, you were not the one who made the print media obsolete.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, electronic communication has made us closer together than ever before, and also each of us solitary and alone.
The only way to have stopped this would have been to refuse to develop the machines we all now depend on.
It would probably be a safer world, that way. But I would miss knowing what, you and Lady Red, and Florrie, Matt, Fay, et al think about things.