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Not long ago, schoolchildren chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.
Now, by my estimates, the half-life of a career is about 10 years. I [Vivek Wadhwa] expect that it will decrease, within a decade, to five years. Advancing technologies will cause so much disruption to almost every industry that entire professions will disappear. And then, in about 15–20 years from now, we will be facing a jobless future, in which most jobs are done by machines and the cost of basic necessities such as food, energy and health care is negligible — just as the costs of cellphone communications and information are today. We will be entering an era of abundance in which we no longer have to work to have our basic needs met. And we will gain the freedom to pursue creative endeavors and do the things that we really like.
I am not kidding. Change is happening so fast that our children may not even need to learn how to drive. By the late 2020s, self-driving cars will have proven to be so much safer than human-driven ones that we will be debating whether humans should be banned from public roads; and clean energies such as solar and wind will be able to provide for 100 percent of the planet's energy needs and cost a fraction of what fossil fuel– and nuclear-based generation does today.
In other words, every industry is disruptible by technology. Presumably, banking and punditry are forever?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:54PM
The "inputs" (energy, raw material, and in some sense land) aren't really an issue. Land is the only one that really is intractable until Standard Western Culture kicks in everywhere and women start having babies at below replacement rates. Once populations stabilize and then start to decline, as they inevitably do, the intrinsic aspects of the land shortage problems start going away. What we are left with are problems directly related to how our society has chosen to allow purchasing power (money) be distributed. Since those are choices we make, we can simply choose to make different choices--if we find the will. People really have no idea just how bad things have gotten in the last 60 years. It's something you have to visualize because most humans can't intuitively grasp raw numbers at that scale. Thankfully there's an excellent visualization on Youtube. [youtube.com]
When I say "how we have chosen" to allocate purchasing power, I mean exactly that. We've decided through complacency, willful ignorance, and credulity, that hoarding wealth is permissible in our society. This isn't just carrying a decent bank balance or having a nest egg for retirement; it's truly staggering, obscene, pointless, harmful, levels of wealth aggregation.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is that this won't go on forever, it can't because once someone has nothing you can't take anything away from them anymore. You can drive them into debt but that's only useful as a tool to keep taking from them what little they have left. Once they're in debt, can't pay, have nothing else to take, and no income, the game is over. Once you do that to enough people, they come and kill you. We either find a way to slow down this train peacefully, or stomp the accelerator until we run out of track.
That's the bad news: the latter looks more likely.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @12:20AM
Do you really believe that people who literally have nothing will be able to lead your revolution for you? Because that's what you're talking about here, wishful thinker. You want a revolution, but you want to sit on your stupid lazy ass while someone else starts it for you. You really, really need to read about the history of revolutions and learn to understand that every successful revolution has been funded by very rich people.
Go die in a fucking hole, you armchair revolutionary moron.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @12:52AM
There was one guy, his name is practically synonymous with violent revolution that ended up spurring several rounds of just what you say never happened. His name: Karl Marx.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @02:14PM
While I understand what your going for, just wanted to point out that Karl Marx was actually quite rich. Not top 1% rich or super wealthy like the GP; but rich none the less. That doesn't invalidate your point about the revolutions his mindwork started as he was long dead before those happened :).
(Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Wednesday July 29 2015, @12:55AM
I think you completely mis-parsed that sentence, friend. I'm at least going to charitably interpret your rage as thus misplaced and try to make my point more clearly.
When millions of people become impoverished and begin to starve, they will riot and break things. Some of that violence will be directed at rich people. If I'm part of that unlucky class known as the "not rich" I'll be out in the streets throwing bottles of gasoline at banks with everyone else. It's my hope that things don't have to come to that. I don't want a violent revolution because everyone loses. Just having a great big potlatch might reset the board but it leaves everyone worse off.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:44PM
Congratulations, you just put yourself on The List which will - ironically - prevent you from doing what you would be attempting to do.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Wednesday July 29 2015, @03:47AM
People really have no idea just how bad things have gotten in the last 60 years. It's something you have to visualize because most humans can't intuitively grasp raw numbers at that scale.
Let us keep in mind that 95% of the world's population doesn't live in the US and two thirds of the world's population has seen a considerable increase [voxeu.org] in their wealth (with a decline in global wealth inequality as a direct result). We should be asking why the US isn't fully sharing in this boon rather than hand-wringing over a modest stagnation that didn't happen outside of the US and a few other developed world countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @03:51PM
You mean to say there are things outside of the US? I was told there were dragons there...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @04:02PM
Please provide citations not backed by a think tank.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 30 2015, @10:40PM
Please provide citations not backed by a think tank.
I don't feel like it. The flimsy basis of your rejection doesn't indicate to me that there's much to be gained from searching for more evidence.