It's probably apparent to anyone that follows this little blog of mine that I'm a fan of Asimov's work. Of course, his body of work was not exclusive to sci-fi futurism, but it's precisely in those classics that I find myself lost in thought and quite often too.
Funny thing is that recently I've been thinking about it a lot more and it's mostly because there's been a new democratic presidential candidate making his rounds and showing up in almost every corner of the internet you can think of, his name, Andrew Yang.
The unavoidable subject
At times I worry that his candidacy will fail to bring the issues into a brighter light, which to me is the true victory of these conversations, simply because he seems to focus almost exclusively on his UBI proposal. The idea that under his presidency, every adult would receive $1000 a month as a citizen of this country.
As you might imagine, such talks make him somewhat controversial and for good reason. The conversation in our current social conundrum is always a tug of war between balancing evolving concepts of human rights while not undermining the value of merit, work and entrepreneurship. The subject is so complex that there is a collection of books to argue just about any position on the political spectrum on this very subject.
All this to say that the issue, the core problem is already here, we are living it, and it's progressively getting worse, as much as we might deny this to be the case.
In many ways we sit in awe of the advancements of technology while at the same time fail to calculate the downside these advances may have in our mental health. Self driving cars for example, sound amazing, but thinking about the thousands and thousands of people that this technology would effectively render unemployed, sounds dystopian, does it not?
What's more concerning to me is that we are not decades away from the disruption becoming quite painful, but we act as if we are, and it seems not everyone is opening their eyes wide enough these days. It's as if fax machine repair shops are still opening up, yet everyone is enjoying the convenience of emails more and more, but not many are making the connection.
Does Yang stand a chance?
Maybe not, but I'm not sure it matters if I'm to be honest. In other words, what might be valuable out of this whole thing is not that his ideas are implemented today, or more accurately said in 2020, but that we begin to attempt to implement possible solutions to social crisis that automation will bring about as soon as possible.
I know that to some, these words I'm typing are too Armageddonian to hold merit, but that's because they've not taken the time to analyse history and how disruptive technologies have eradicated, because that is the word, traditional ideas of macro economics.
To me, the fact that he's shown up, that he even got invited to the Joe Rogan experience, means that the tides are changing, it means that we are beginning to take this conversation seriously, and it somewhat gives me hope that we will eventually find the right answers, that elusive balance.
In my personal opinion this interview is a must regardless of your political inclinations. Do yourself a favor, give it a good listen, and allocate some mental power to this whole thing. I'm sure it will be time well spent.
