A look at possible futures
I thought some of you might be interested in Glenn Harlan Reynolds' interesting review of a new futurology tome, Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future. (Yes, Reynolds is the right wing Instapundit guy, but he's also a science fiction fan and he does a good job here.)
I thought some of you might be interested in Glenn Harlan Reynolds' interesting review of a new futurology tome, Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future. (Yes, Reynolds is the right wing Instapundit guy, but he's also a science fiction fan and he does a good job here.)
According to Reynolds, Kaku says that "today's unemployment levels may look reasonable once the advance of machines really kicks in." This sounds like a point that Robert Anton Wilson tried to make for years.
1 comment:
I think there is a salient difference between RAW's view of high unemployment and the high unemployment that we are experiencing, though. In the former, machines and technology freed up people, i.e., the unemployed, to "follow their bliss" and to cultivate themselves and their interests, because the money made through increased efficiency and productivity was used for the benefit of the entire society ("cybernetic socialism"). In the latter, unfortunately, increased productivity just means that those of us with jobs get to work that much harder while the gains go into private hands, and the growing ranks of the unemployed serve as a warming to those of us who grow tired of working hard for less and less.
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