Coupland is talking backstage at Konica Minolta's Spotlight Live event on the future of work in Berlin this week where he was a star speaker. He says the collapse of the idea of a job for life means his generation, Generation X, and later ones think very differently about work than those born earlier. "They don't perceive [a job] as being a guarantee of long-term security – that's the profound difference, he says. "There was a point when the idea of the job for life disintegrated. Now no one has any expectation of lifetime employment."
Work as we know it is coming to an end, he told the audience in Berlin, as cloud-based technologies and ever-faster download speeds are making the office obsolete. Our working days are becoming interspersed with leisure and home activities. We will need to learn to adapt to a freeform schedule, which will present a psychological challenge to those who crave structure. But Coupland believes we should not mourn the loss of the traditional office routine.
"The nine to five is barbaric. I really believe that. I think one day we will look back at nine-to-five employment in a similar way to how we see child labour in the 19th century," he says. "The future will not have the nine till five. Instead, the whole day will be interspersed with other parts of your life. Scheduling will become freeform."
Nine-to-five sounds great to people whose employers expect them to work 80-hour weeks...
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Bain consultants' macro trends department have released a report examining trends in demographics, automation and inequality to produce a set of predictions.
This kind of report seems to be all over the place these days, but this one seems more detailed and perhaps a little less optimistic than most.
In the US, a new wave of investment in automation could stimulate as much as $8 trillion in incremental investments and abruptly lift interest rates. By the end of the 2020s, automation may eliminate 20% to 25% of current jobs, hitting middle- to low-income workers the hardest. As investments peak and then decline—probably around the end of the 2020s to the start of the 2030s—anemic demand growth is likely to constrain economic expansion, and global interest rates may again test zero percent. Faced with market imbalances and growth-stifling levels of inequality, many societies may reset the government's role in the marketplace.
They predict that governments will assume a larger role in markets to combat inequality and boost demand, but will our corporate overlords decide that's in their interests, or continue to squeeze the lower and middle classes forever?
Related: Humans Are Underrated
Douglas Coupland: "The Nine to Five is Barbaric"
Survey Says AI Will Exceed Human Performance in Many Occupations Within Decades
More Than 70% of US Fears Robots Taking Over Our Lives, Survey Finds
The Future of Work Is Uncertain, Schools Should Worry Now
The Venus Project and the Quest for a Socially Engineered Future
Skilled Manufacturing Workers in Demand in the U.S.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @01:03PM (12 children)
I'm not a human working. I'm a human being. Fuck you if you think I'm going to be on call 24/7. You get my time 9-5, and that's all you get you fucking cocksucker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @01:36PM (8 children)
Our "civilized" world still doesn't have a cultural appreciation for the sanctity of well-defined contracts.
Indeed, even the "law" of governments is not something upon which you can depend—one year, you can take a stroll down to the local pub to enjoy a pint, but the next year, you've got to slip into a speakeasy to get your jollies on the black market; at this month, you're a productive member of a society you love, but the next month you're being stuffed into an internment camp because of your Japanese heritage; last decade, you built your life around individual health insurance, but Obamacare destroyed that; last year you built your life around Obamacare, but next year that will be torn out. And so on.
The future will be built on agreement, not dictate, and not exploitation; this requires a robust framework for the negotiation and enforcement of well-defined, well-specified contracts even between individuals (in those cases where verbal agreements and culture are not enough).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:23PM (5 children)
I think that you have good ideas.
How long do you think it'll take humans to evolve out of the idea that violence is a legitimate way of negotiating a contract?
My money's on about 100,000 years give or take. Do you think it could happen sooner or am I being wildly optimistic?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Friday April 07 2017, @04:49PM (4 children)
I think that you have good ideas.
How long do you think it'll take humans to evolve out of the idea that violence is a legitimate way of negotiating a contract?
My money's on about 100,000 years give or take. Do you think it could happen sooner or am I being wildly optimistic?
Violence has been declining for millenia. I'm currently reading Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature [wikipedia.org]. He discusses five "historical forces" for this decline in violence:
I recommend this book. It's cogent, well organized and bases its conclusions on actual data, not pseudo-libertarian fantasy [soylentnews.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 07 2017, @07:40PM (1 child)
While that may be technically true, that men can no longer put mouthy women in their place reduces violence at the cost of weakening society. The family unit has been destroyed, and women would rather work than raise kids. This leads to them being miserable, insufferable cunts and provides an excuse for fifth-columnists to import third-world savages to further destabilize society and prop up the Ponzi scheme that is the global economy by turning all except the richest into debt slaves.
We need to bring back the days of "Pow! Right in the kisser!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday April 07 2017, @07:54PM
You're so hard to mod, sometimes...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:21AM (1 child)
This is a rationalization of the status quo, which completely forgets other forms or violence. Let this leviathan rule and you will need therapy just to stay alive, and forget about procreating naturally. Not that you will be able to complain about it without repercussions.
Look at it from a coder perspective. Current system is intentional spaghetti code, and getting worse. Sane systems employ localism, modularity (independent cells can solve problems without needing the rest) protocols et al, and do not pollute their environment forcing units to acquire therapy just to stay on, which is gonna happen here. We are byzantine and we will probably end up in the same way, people will care less and less until the system dissolves. The difference is that the new system could employ robots who do not have de-motivation. Which means that the system will be dead but its zombie could be eternal.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday April 08 2017, @04:40PM
This is a rationalization of the status quo, which completely forgets other forms or violence.
To which other forms of violence are you referring?
Let this leviathan rule and you will need therapy just to stay alive, and forget about procreating naturally. Not that you will be able to complain about it without repercussions.
Therapy to stay alive? Are you referring to talk therapy [merriam-webster.com], medical therapy [merriam-webster.com], or something else?
Natural procreation? Is that being restricted? What exactly do you mean by that?
Given that PIV is always rape [wordpress.com], perhaps you're correct. (this is snark, for those of you who are vulnerable to Poe's Law)
It's unclear (at least to me) what you're going on about. Perhaps you (or someone else who can decipher your incoherent blathering) could explain it to me?
Look at it from a coder perspective.
I'd prefer a car analogy.
Current system is intentional spaghetti code, and getting worse. Sane systems employ localism, modularity (independent cells can solve problems without needing the rest) protocols et al, and do not pollute their environment forcing units to acquire therapy just to stay on, which is gonna happen here.
I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that government is bad? Or that bad governance is bad? Or that we shouldn't have government at all?
We are byzantine and we will probably end up in the same way, people will care less and less until the system dissolves. The difference is that the new system could employ robots who do not have de-motivation. Which means that the system will be dead but its zombie could be eternal.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have valid points to make, but are unable to elucidate them in English. Sadly, I am unable to identify those points. Perhaps that's a reading comprehension issue on my part?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
*clap clap clap*
I'm not being sarcastic, I'm glad to see a little more writing and not a short manifesto. However, I do see a problem. What happens to people who can't afford a contract enforcement specialist? I'm sure they get paid by the hour, so if someone reneges on their contract and you don't have extra money how will this system not devolve into what we have today?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @09:08PM
Well, CLEARLY there won't be any bad or expensive contract enforcers around because all the bad/expensive ones will be driven out of the market.
When you do hire one, remember that you'll need to hire another contract enforcer specialist to make sure your contract with the first contract enforcer is carried out properly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @01:44PM (1 child)
Jetson!, You're FIRED! There are plenty of golden brown monkey fucks out there who will suck my dick 24 hours a day and make my balls look big. I don't even know what it is you do, and I don't care.
BTW Do you even have 10 years of experience in this stuff that has been around for 3 years? They all say they do, and I believe them!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @02:13PM
If you can have your dick sucked at whim, then you've arrived—or should I say, you've come.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linkdude64 on Friday April 07 2017, @05:41PM
There needs to be a special +10 ceiling allowed for comments like these.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @01:21PM (8 children)
A fucking writer is telling us how barbaric nine-to-five is?? No shit. In the civilized and not-too-distant-future, we'll all sit in Starbucks with our iWhatever making a grand display of ourselves working on our jobs and feeling good about ourselves. All the manufacturing will be done by robots in the cloud. Construction workers will come and go to the job as they please. This guy finds it barbaric because he hates to have to have a meeting with his editor.
This is all fine and good, but if you're working any job that requires more than one person working it, you absolutely need time to get in the same room and look at each other in the eye. No unproductive telecoms or ducking emails. You need to be able to have the other person across the table look you in the eye and tell you why they can or cannot do something. This is why dealing with outsourcing companies in India or China is a disaster.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @02:01PM (5 children)
A 9 to 5 job will not give you an 80 hour week. I don't care how you slice it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @02:23PM
Shitty employers will and they will exploit as much as they can. Ie if they can't they won't.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 07 2017, @03:50PM (1 child)
That was my comment, not the author's. I have never worked for a company that didn't go on and on about work-life-balance and 10-6pm schedule, but in reality expected you to be on call 24/7. Even the Clinton Foundation; That fucker Doug Band, Bill Clinton's butt-boy, sent me text messages asking for digital trivia at midnight while I was dealing with a recently born infant.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @08:08AM
Chill brah, he asks everyone for that. Just send him a link to xhamster next time.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:08AM
A 9 to 5 job will not give you an 80 hour week. I don't care how you slice it.
It's easy. You get paid for working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. You get to keep your job by working 7 to 7 Monday to Friday and 8 to 6 Saturday and Sunday.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by sonamchauhan on Saturday April 08 2017, @11:57AM
Problem is, some employers expect you to work full time 9-5, then work part time 5-9.
Mine doesn't; not with me, not yet. But that's the way the wind is blowing for plenty of people. Unless you push back -- tell 'em work's not free; that you intend clawing back time spent outside hours. (Yes, use those phrases - they're intentionally colourful without being impolite).
Just don't expect to rise; not fast, not at all. Make your peace, make your plans, sharpen your tools, diversify your income; make life anti-fragile [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @02:48PM (1 child)
This is why dealing with outsourcing companies in India or China is a disaster.
No, it's disaster because the people doing the hiring are incompetent and/or have little control over who actually gets hired. If you target specific skilled individuals, remote work is just fine.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @02:51PM
Hmm.. so even if the idiot is one feet away, it won't help? ;-) Guess remote work isn't the problem, but intelligent lifeform is. ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday April 07 2017, @01:22PM (7 children)
There are just so many things in TFA that just make you say, "Uh... really?"
We will need to learn to adapt to a freeform schedule, which will present a psychological challenge to those who crave structure.
This isn't just for people who "crave structure." Standard work hours often exist for productivity reasons (both personal and corporate). Anyone who has tried a "work from home" situation for a little while rapidly realizes the problems that creates. Even if you don't "crave" structure, imposing it on yourself is often the only way to ever get anything done. Flexible work hours are one thing; doing away with standard work hours completely can create serious issues for a lot of people and businesses.
“In the future, every day of the week is going to be a Wednesday. There will be no more weekends, it’ll be one smooth flow. I wish I could say that in the future there will be no meetings, but there will always be meetings.”
You say the "nine to five is barbaric"?!? What you just said sounds BARBARIC!! "Free time" isn't actually "free" if you're continuously in a "Wednesday" 24 hours/7 days each week! I know that it already has happened for a lot of people, but this sounds like a nightmare scenario.
“Do people want to be in a job-job? God, no! But while most people like the notion of free time, actually having to deal with it is horrible. It’s a deal with the devil. At least when they’re employed they don’t have to do deal with the freefall; the nothingness of free time.”
The "nothingness of free time"?? Only for people who are so bereft of personal motivation and intellectual curiosity that they can't figure out what to do with themselves. If I didn't have to work, there are dozens of fun intellectual projects I'd be doing. As it is, I have to relegate them to a few hours on the weekends or whatever. But I take his point that a lot of people will just default to sitting on the couch, watching TV, while playing on their phone these days... which is very sad.
“We no longer need to remember long strings of phone numbers or directions from the airport. Why bother to remember anything? Our brains are liberated from these things.
"Liberated"? Here's a pro-tip: Knowing stuff is still actually important. If you have stuff in your head, it's available to help you think. You literally can't think unless there's something in your brain to think about. People who know more stuff have a better chance of thinking more efficiently. Yes, it may be great that we don't have to memorize phone numbers or whatever, but acting like we're just "liberated" from knowledge is nonsense.
I think it’s one of the most profound neurological changes in human history,” he says. “We’ve all turned into millennials.”
God help us all.
(And to be clear, I'm not actually criticizing actual "millennials," but rather what his description of them implies...)
This constant influx of news and data means we’ve come to perceive time differently. The future used to be a far-off thing, but now we experience it at the same time as the present, he contends.
What the hell is this guy smoking, and where can I get some?
“We have the present and the future all at the same time,” he says. “I think it’s one of the most profound neurological changes in human history.”
What does that even mean?!?
According to Coupland, people with internet brains are capable of doing huge amounts of work, quickly and from anywhere.
"Internet brains" as in they don't actually know anything anymore? And they're in a completely unstructured environment that encourages distraction all the time? Really?
In such a rapidly evolving society, possessing actual skills – including those which have nothing to do with the internet – is vital, says Coupland.
Wait -- I thought you just told us that the internet means we don't need to know anything? SKILLS are knowing something -- they take practice, while your brain learns stuff. Often (depending on the skill), they depend on having a lot of, you know, basic information in your brain that you can use to solve problems in that area or whatever.
“The winners in this labour force will be the people who have an actual skill,” he says. “Always have an actual skill as a back-up, that’s very good advice.”
Are you SERIOUS?! This is meant as some sort of grand revelation? We're supposed to listen to this guy? Alright, I'm done with this BS...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fnord666 on Friday April 07 2017, @01:27PM (1 child)
What the hell is this guy smoking, and where can I get some?
If it makes you think like Coupland, I don't want anything to do with it.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday April 07 2017, @01:28PM
Yeah, on second thought, you're absolutely right... :)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @02:07PM
Must be the trump effect.
Everyone is more stupid now.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday April 07 2017, @03:40PM
Thank you SO MUCH for reading TFA so I don't have to. Looks like it's about as trashy as I expected.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 07 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)
The sad thing is the need to know something real and the opportunity do use it professionally has been so deeply abstracted away from American society (and perhaps others--can't speak to that) that more and more people like Coupland are drifting away into the fairy ether, thinking that shit automagically happens at the tap of an app. They don't witness the hard work of faceless thousands to fulfill their wishes, therefore those people don't exist and their labor and skills mean nothing. And this proceeds in a hermeneutic cycle until the chief product of people like Coupland is whine.
It ties into the discussion we had a few days ago about the value of an MBA. It's bad for everyone except the holder of the MBA because they have no idea how to do anything real. The dramatic shift of global wealth into the hands of such people has stained government, private enterprise, and every other collective endeavor to the point where nobody put in charge or holding decision-making power has any faintest clue how to do anything real, and retreat in ever tighter gyres into a self-reinforcing fantasy-land like Coupland's.
It also ties into the discussion we had yesterday about the 'death of the laptop,' whereby the premise was that people don't need real computers anymore because they have smartphones. Naturally the consensus on Soylent, comprising engineers, scientists, and other techs, who actually know how to do things and do real work, was derisive laughter at that callow assertion. Again, it's reality becoming so divorced from those with power, money, and a platform that they can say stuff like this with a straight face.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @08:13AM
It's called externalization.
Like how Trump personally makes an extra $100k for every club membership at Mar-a-lago for the cheap price of $3.2M every week to the tax payers to fly him there. It's a pure $100k profit from his perspective.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:31AM
What he says makes sense when you consider that the system doesn't need 90% of current workers, and that work is not a mean of independence but of control.
In a nutshell
-"you are completely expendable now, so we make you stay available 24/7 so everybody will ultimately have to, so everybody will be mobilized like soldiers, so there will be no time for you to organize any resistance, problem guy will just be made to work at impossible hours until dropping dead or out of work"
Propaganda gets published easily.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by cloud.pt on Friday April 07 2017, @01:24PM (4 children)
When I look around people my age (not my peers, those are at my workplace), the ones getting the most out of their time are the ones in one of 2 conditions:
- they either have a semi-fixed hours job with unlimited, yet plausible work-from-home days AND holidays/vacation/days off
- they have very flexible work category. Examples include: real-estate agents; academic researchers in centers without check-in or out machines; teachers (!!!), both basic and college level who only have 2 to 4 hours a day of fixed classes, 3 months out of every semester, and can distribute the rest of their tasks mostly arbitrarily; or the "free-est" example - IT freelance remote workers who make a lot of money with on-demand, well payed individual projects, and accumulate effort on their most productive times of the day, the week, the year, and geographical locations (this one is the real deal-breaker).
Yet I keep yelling at myself internally: "why haven't I yet acquired one of these jobs?", and the answer has become more and more clear over time: I like the comfortable sense of discomfort; I like the stability of fixed schedules and limited free time (not in quantity but quality - restricted to specific non-busy day hours). In sum: I like my bad situation. I'm a masochist.
Now this always comes as a surprise to me when I realize it, especially since I have no other responsibilities: no children, no spouse, no mortgages to keep me attached to job security. Yet I still struggle harshly to either try one of the two groups of jobs, or migrate to a country where the work culture is a lot more beneficial to either my schedule, my salary, or both. What I end up realizing, in the end, is just how comfortably numb I like to be - the comfort zone as some call it. The real reason I don't try something new is actually very simple: I feel I will lose time OR will to do the things I do now, even though in the the end, I'll probably do more of the things I like or I'll even get the time to try new, better things. I conform to mediocrity, and that's what I personally believe is my most human and deepest flaw.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 07 2017, @01:35PM (2 children)
You're not a masochist, you just have Stability weighted heavily as one of your criteria for what qualifies as a Good Job. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. It simply is what you want.
Me, I did the whole self-employed thing during my twenties and thirties. It was a damned fine gig if you didn't mind playing free time by ear and having to seriously hustle to keep food on the table at times. In my forties I prefer something where the bounds of my effort are firmly defined; even at the expense of lower pay, less authority, idiot/asshole bosses, and limited potential for advancement.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
What kind of self-employment did you do? Hourly jobs or weeks-long gigs? I'm curious because I'm in a regular job and thinking of going the self-employment route. Would you say the stability of being employed is better than the freedom of self employment?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 07 2017, @10:40PM
Contracted out as a systems/network admin to SMBs and schools primarily. Depended entirely on the job as to how much work was involved; sometimes it was a month of no days off and sometimes it was a half hour of hand holding over the phone. Quite often it was feast or famine, so you'd better be good at saving your money and budgeting. Also, until you get well established (several years) business will not come knocking at your door, you'll have to go to it; be good at selling yourself or don't go this route.
If you're young to middle-aged, can do it, and it sounds like something you'd enjoy, I highly recommend it. If your idea of a good day at work is not either attempting to hustle up some business or working your butt off, it's probably not for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday April 07 2017, @01:56PM
...teachers (!!!), both basic and college level who only have 2 to 4 hours a day of fixed classes, 3 months out of every semester, and can distribute the rest of their tasks mostly arbitrarily
I'd like to see that sort of job. Without having to overuse class A or B drugs first.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Lester on Friday April 07 2017, @02:13PM (1 child)
May be for you, but for many people "Our underpaid working days are becoming interspersed with anxiety and digging for food & cloths in trash".
When has human kind said "I don't need you and I have plenty of money, so I'm going to pay you enough to have a good standard of living anyway"? It's more likely to let them die of famine than to guarantee them a good standard of living. Ask Italian or Russian mafia, warlords, or banks, or corporations whether they take care of people they don't need.
We are going to a hell of homeless people and famine, not to a paradise of leisure.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 07 2017, @04:19PM
I think that's generally true, but the part of me raised by survivors of the Great Depression has come to believe that we would be perfectly happy with a lot less. When their clothes ripped, they patched them. When spring came, they planted crops. In the summer they cut firewood. In the fall they harvested, canned, dried, smoked, pickled what they couldn't eat fresh. They worked on their own machinery. They built their own homes. They knew how to wire a building. They could all do their own accounting. They danced when times were good, cracked jokes when they sucked, and they soldiered on. And they were always looking for a way to make things better and didn't ask permission to try.
In a word, they were self-reliant.
I don't honestly see a whole lot of that in today's world. The dependency culture is epic, and the ceding of total control to People Who Are Up To No Good is nearly complete.
The only bright spot I see is the Maker/DIY movement; the deeper in I get the more it becomes a religion. Corporate output has degenerated to such dross that instantly fails and falls apart, that doing it yourself is the only way to make anything good anymore. As a side bonus, you'll actually have a connection to the things you own and enjoy them instead of feeling empty, surrounded by meaningless piles of half-broken junk from China.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 07 2017, @02:16PM (1 child)
9 to 5 died sometime in the 1980s. At best now it's 8 to 5 (really 7:55 to 5:05, doesn't do to appear to be a clockwatcher), with an hour lunch break that might be interrupted or cut short. Plus another hour, unpaid of course, for the commute in rush hour traffic.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 07 2017, @04:25PM
9 to 5 is a metaphor. It's only partially true in the Midwest. On the east coast it skews to 10 to 6, on the west coast it's 8 to 4. That's why you can still get a meal at a restaurant in New York at 11pm while after 9 you'd be out of luck in LA. The only ones there who cook later than that there are those hordes of lazy Mexicans in food trucks you read so much about.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @03:00PM
The point to take home is that the supply of cookie cutter jobs is shrinking. And we don't need humans to do work machines can do. People that can do something that offers value above this can make a bargain. There's also some confusing about "work", some people needs someone else to tell them what to do. But almost everyone needs a steady supply of money (or bargaining chips if you will).
Everyone's situation will be different so comparisons will be flawed.
And as AthanasiusKircher says, knowing things and being able to think is not to be underestimated even in a world without 9-5 jobs. One still has to ask oneself why someone else should let their robots provide your food..
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday April 07 2017, @04:24PM
"making the office obsolete"
Sorry bub, but the majority of people don't work in an office. They may get their jobs replaced by automation, but it's doubtful they'll be able to telecommute.
Try to telecommute in to make sandwiches at Subway, or fix someones furnace. One of the most common jobs in the US is trucker and they may well be replaced partly by self driving vehicles. But it's a minority of them that are 9 to 5 and they'd chuckle if you talked to them about the "office".
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday April 07 2017, @04:36PM
Douglas Coupland:
Who?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:02PM
Suck it up, you big pussy.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday April 07 2017, @05:07PM
Doug has made a years long career out of being the tumblr account that validates you with a paragraph using whatever word you made up except in a more digestable form to tech people.
Smart Young People of the world bein' too Young and too Smart for these old fogies. We're gonna shift the paradigms and restructure the workplaces.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Friday April 07 2017, @06:58PM
"The nine to five is barbaric. I really believe that. I think one day we will look back at nine-to-five employment in a similar way to how we see child labour in the 19th century," he says.
Whoever the fuck this dude is he needs to spend more time researching the factories and mines of the industrial revolution. They have a lot more in common with the gig economy of today than a nine to five job with pension and benefits. "You take all the risk, you buy your tools from us, and rent access to the resource from us alone."
Reading about things like the working conditions of women and children in the coal mines really, really makes you hate humanity. Doesn't look like the 1% has changed a bit either.