Prologue
I began writing this last night before bedtime, and found myself deep in thought for hours. As it turns out it became a long post, but it also inspired me to attempt to narrate it. Why you may ask? Well, not because I'm the best narrator, but because I think the message is important, and thus I would like for those who don't enjoy reading long posts, to hopefully enjoy the video.
That being said, after hours of trying to record it and failing, I think I'm finally somewhat happy with the result and I'm waiting for my old laptop to be done with the rendering. I will share a video version of this post in just a few hours. However, if you do read it and enjoy it, thank you for gifting me your time.
The looming problem of Automation
I keep on hearing people who I know mean well, making comments that could potentially have a long term negative effect. I’ve heard some eloquent voices state that automation is nothing we should worry about, and that the socio-economical shift we are experiencing is solely based on the evils of the greedy ones aided by our flawed economy.
Greed is an emotion that we all surely experience, but it’s also an emotion that absolutely everyone denies ever having. “I’m not greedy, other people are” is probably the same phrase that everyone uses, and it’s precisely why the accusation, or more accurately the diagnosis of a greed problem is hardly effective.
This is not to say greed is not present, but more to say that all of us humans experience the whole spectrum of emotions. All the positive ones that we have no problem admitting to, and all the ugly ones, like greed. But when we are facing a paradigm shift, like automation, I believe we don’t really have the luxury of time to point any fingers.
The working class
Because all societies are without a doubt complex systems of hierarchy and organization, all roles within that system are important. We choose to use the word job to be pragmatic, but not all work done in society has a salary or a boss that supervises it. So it’s not inaccurate to call it a misnomer.
In the world of politics, sadly, the concept of “the working class” is just an effective way for politicians to pander to the struggling monolith. The idea being that everyone who is suffering from the condition of life, can add this label to their collection and feel as if the promises of better days include them as well, even if they lack pragmatic implementations.
Not to beat a dead horse, but it seems to me that we need to move past the idea that only those who add numbers to the boards, those who make “the economy” look good on paper, are the only ones that truly count. We may hear over and over again about Gross Domestic Product, and how it’s positive trend is a strong sign of a healthy economy, we may be convinced that the stock market is doing fantastic, but how does this reflect on the life of the average Joe or Jane? Maybe that’s a better question to ask.
The speed of technology
On the subject of time, and more accurately on the idea that we lack it. It’s probably a good thing to point out the speed of technology. We may think at times that we are a lifetime away from big change, but a glance in recent history can tell us how wrong we might be.
Not to harp too much on math, since I know not everyone enjoys it. But, an accurate way to measure technological growth is by using exponential equations. This means that the speed of technology is just getting faster and faster. It may have taken us, thousands of years to learn to harness the power of fire, but only took us a couple of decades to go from a computer the size of building, to a supercomputer that fits in our pockets.
It’s precisely for this reason that some of the sci-fi works of authors like Isaac Asimov, seem these days to be more prophetic than works on fiction.
Boiling the Frog
This widely known fable is very relevant to the current conversation regarding automation. You see, some people believe that we will one day wake up to the type of world the movies tell us about, with robots doing our chores, flying cars in the skies, etc. But, that’s never been the way progress happens.
It seems contradictory that I would first talk about the speed of technology, only to later talk about the frog fable, but it’s actually quite compatible. You can think about the cellphone in your pocket as a marvel of technology, and it truly is, but the gradual upgrading of one model to the next desensitized you to technological wonder sporting a lithium battery.
Funnily enough, I remember having a conversation with the owner of a custom cabinetry company, and pointing out this looming problem. And, while we stood not 30 feet away from a CNC cutting all the parts to build a kitchen, he proceeded to tell me how he doubts automation will ever take over. The irony was in full display.
If we are early
To every solution being proposed, we must also calculate the downsides. There is nothing free in this world, and we know this all too well by now. So, to think that we can implement policy whether economic or otherwise, without paying a cost is somewhat naive.
I often ask myself, what could be the biggest risk of being too early to change the way that we build or economies. Which is to say, what happens if we implement UBI, in one of its forms, and the world didn’t need it just yet.
Some would be quick to point out the hyperinflation it would cause on our economies, while at the same time not taking into account where currently most of the money goes to. And yes, in hindsight we may have politicians pretending to be upset about the Bank bailouts in 2008, but alas they would do it all again if they believed it would save our economy.
I’m under no illusion that implementing UBI in one of it’s forms would send shockwaves through an economic system, and that a period of adaptation would take place. But as technology advances into compatibility, the two elements would eventually meet.
If we are late
This is rather worrying, because it means that we’ve moved from living to surviving, and in a society that is struggling to get solid footing, it’s hard to garnish enough political cohesion for painless implementations of solutions.
The social cost of a system in chaos is also one to take into account. The desperation of the less fortunate and the rise of inequality, would surely lead to more violence and crime. A system that is attempting not to collapse, hardly has enough resources to flourish.
In other words, if we are late to implement solutions, to recognize the shifting tides in our economy, we are literally risking it all. And that’s hardly defensible.
But Why UBI?
I can’t say for certain that there is nothing out there that could be better than UBI. Truth is, nobody can. That being said, with the current knowledge we have, and observing the current path of our capitalistic systems, UBI seems to be most reasonable and implementable solution.
We can talk about the value of hard labor, and philosophically agree that it’s important for us humans to work with our hands, to build, to exude effort, and I think nobody would dare to disagree with that observation. But, it’s also important to ask ourselves if a future of working for the sake of working is what we actually want.
In 1922 it may have taken 64000 people to compute by hand weather forecasts, and it’s not because we stopped needing forecasts that human computers don’t exist anymore.
We can only speculate how the world would look in a post hard labor society. Maybe we would pay more attention to transcendental elements of humanity, like music, art and literature. Maybe we will work on solving the biggest of problems, like climate change and pollution with more emphasis, I mean, we don’t really know. But it’s hard to imagine a world that secures necessities even for it’s less fortunate members as a dystopian future.
MenO