Tag Archives: unemployment

More Overnight Musings

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Just today, I read an article on CNN.com that it’s forecasted by the World Economic Forum over 14 million jobs worldwide could be lost to automation by 2027. While I am glad that even traditional news outlets like CNN and 60 Minutes (when they interviewed the CEO of Google about AI and automation a few weeks ago) are starting to report this, I am disappointed that it seems like none of our elected officials (at least not here in USA) are discussing this. Back in the 2020 election, the only candidate that even addressed this is Andrew Yang. I highly recommend watching his interview with Joe Rogan on youtube even if it is a few years old. I also recommend Rogan’s interviews with Elon Musk.

I am convinced that mass technological unemployment is coming by the early 2030s, at least in developed countries. I’ve been convinced of this since 2013. As much as I love economics as a subject, I haven’t seen many economists discuss even the possible problems this could cause. Traditionally, automation has created more jobs than it destroyed and lead to enough resources and revenue being produced that social safety nets like unemployment insurance, public education, social security pensions, disability insurance, and Medicare could be funded. But, will this always be the case? If not, how do we adapt our society and cultural norms if it comes to where we have a society where less than half the working age citizens can even find employment that pays livable wages? Seems like a lot of people are at least 20 years behind on what the tech is already doing, let alone what it can do in the near future. Politicians are even worse, at least in my country. Then again, I don’t look to politicians to solve problems related to tech and science. Most simply can’t as most are lawyers by trade, they aren’t trained to solve problems related to tech or psychological problems associated with a loss of meaning and purpose.

Yes, tech has made it easier to communicate and learn new skills. Yet, has it made us happier and more hopeful overall? Probably not. Physically, our lives are far less taxing than even our grandparents. Yet, they are also more mentally stressful. Maybe that is why we are seeing more cases of mental illness, mass shootings, extremist politics, doomsday preppers becoming normal, and conspiracy theories becoming mainstream. Our Stone Age hunter brains are simply not adapted to dealing with issues like loneliness, information overload, abundance of resources yet lack of meaning and purpose. The human mind reacts to things like getting cut off in traffic or dealing with internet bullies the same way our Stone Age ancestors dealt with tigers and bears. Fight or flight may have been great survival strategies for most of our history, but it’s now causing us needless anguish and pain. I think one of the main reasons most people I know are nostalgic for past decades is that the world is changing technologically and culturally faster than most human minds can process and adapt to.

I don’t know how many of my readers have heard of the concept of Technological Singularity. But it’s a term for a hypothetical time in the future when our science and technology advance to the point where the changes are too fast for the human mind to comprehend and civilization is changed in ways that can’t be reversed. Some futurists, like Ray Kurzweil (chief AI engineer at Google) are convinced it will happen by mid century. Others, like Michio Kaku, think it won’t happen until the 22nd century. Others are convinced it won’t happen until centuries from now. Others are convinced it’s not going to happen ever. I imagine if our great grandparents could see the world of 2023, they would think “Aren’t y’all already there?” While I’m not necessarily worried about a Terminator or Matrix scenario, I am worried that most people simply won’t be able to mentally and emotionally keep up with changing skills and careers every few years. Being obsolete (at least in terms of job skills) is more likely than war against the machines I think, which will cause lots of problems on it’s own. Even I can barely keep up with just the news of changes in tech, culture, and geopolitics and I have the time to research these because my disability pension takes care of my basic needs. I think mainstream media is doing the public a disservice by not devoting more time to science and tech advancements. That’s why I haven’t watched 24 hour cable news since 2007.

Some people I know can’t do a proper Google search, get frustrated with automated customer service, and hate self check out at the Wal Mart. Yet I know children as young as five years old who can already use computers and smartphones, I know children who can already write computer programs and games, I know teenagers whose knowledge of internet, 3D printing, and robotics I probably will never be able to match. I worry about the widening knowledge gap even more than the widening wealth gap. Personally, I don’t bother with self check outs because I get everything delivered to my house. I even had Amazon delivery when I lived in the long term care facility. I guess my opinion on self check outs taking away jobs, well, people said the same things about self service gas stations in the 1970s and gasoline powered automobiles taking away jobs from horse stable workers in the early 1900s. Besides, delivery drivers and warehouse workers will probably eventually get automated too. As much as I love my parents and have known some really cool elderly people over the years, I fear the cynics may have been right when they said ‘science advances only one funeral at a time.’ I think the same could be said about cultural norms and social attitudes.

Speaking of funerals, there are now doctors and scientists who are researching longevity treatments and even age reversal medications. They’ve already been able to double the life span of lab mice and even reverse some aging in mice already. But this tech creeps me more than even book banning and cancel culture. Part of me hopes they fail, like everyone who has ever looked for the Fountain of Youth. I just fear that if we are successful in finding longevity medications that we will have a stagnation in culture and science. We already have wage and economic stagnation. Also, the gaps between the generations and the socioeconomic classes will become impossible to navigate. OK Boomer and Triggered Snowflake could just be a warm up for what’s to come in the next few generations. I mean, we already have 80 year old politicians and businessmen who obviously don’t need the money and past their prime who refuse to retire. I guess that power and prestige are just that addictive. I wouldn’t know. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Altered Carbon and Black Mirror. But even the Bible and ancient folklore talks about elders who lived for over 900 years. Maybe that really is possible with the right treatments. We are only in the beginnings of a new industrial and scientific revolution. Our institutions like politics, education, organized religions, legal, etc. have lost the confidence of the public at large. I think it’s because we haven’t figured out how to adapt to this new world, at least not yet. We’re just figuring this out as we go like with every other revolution. It could get real bumpy before we adapt. Buckle up.

These are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had in recent weeks even though I’ve been studying these topics for years. I am convinced that many people are not prepared for the advances coming within the next several years. We weren’t even ready for the covid pandemic even though pandemics have happened many times over the centuries. I don’t think we as citizens, our politics, or our institutions are ready for what could happen in terms of science and tech that we are already researching. There’s a Chinese saying that goes something like ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Could be both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

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Optimism for The Future in the Face of Constant Pessimism

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I haven’t posted regularly on my facebook or twitter accounts since September.  I just got tired of all the fighting and negativity.  But the thing that bothers me the most about social media is how much of what I try to communicate gets lost in just text.  Most times I don’t wish to come across as snarky or combative, but that’s how so many people interpret what I write.  Maybe facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. wouldn’t be so negative if people had to post video and audio rather than just text.  Put a voice and face to the comments and let the world know they aren’t talking to a machine or subhuman entity.

I gave up on using social media for anything than shamelessly promoting my blog three months ago when I came to the painful conclusion that most people were never going to share my optimism or joyful outlook.  And the weird thing is I am more optimistic than ever even though I almost never convince anyone of reasons to be optimistic.  I am definitely not an optimist by nature or upbringing.  I almost never heard anything positive about the world or the future from my parents, teachers, bosses, or elders while growing up in the 1980s and 1990s.  For quite sometime I was wondering why if most people were so pessimist about the future, then why were they having kids.  I could never figure those kinds of contradictions out.  I know very few people even in December 2017 who don’t have kids because they are worried about the kind of future these kids would have.  Most people that don’t have kids that I know can’t biologically have kids.

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Like I said, I am not an optimist by nature.  I had to make myself into one.  And I did it with little help from mass media, popular culture, or my elders.  Most of what I learned about what was going right in modern civilization I had to actively seek out through secondary sources and rigorous research.  I learned more science, technology, psychology, history, philosophy, literature, and economics on my own with an internet connection and five years of daily youtube viewing than I ever thought possible after spending eighteen years in traditional education.  Then again, it should be noted that is simply impossible for any kind of formal education system to teach everything a person needs to know for living just within the system itself.  With life expectancies going into the eighties in some countries (and even the sixties in some of the poorer developing nations), it is simply impossible to be able to say “You know what you need to know for the next fifty to sixty years once you’re turned out into the world at age eighteen.”  No, the best thing an education system can do in this day and age of long life span and ever changing tech and social norms is to foster the never stop learning attitudes and mentalities.

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In the mid to late 2000s when I was struggling to adapt to my mental illness and working low wage remedial jobs I could have done as a high school dropout, I was quite angry about my time in formal education.  For several years I was convinced that doing well in high school and college was wasted effort if all I was going to do with my life was push a mop in a courthouse or sell carpet for a billion dollar company.  After a few more years of maturity and seasoning, I found out to my pleasant surprise that my years of working hard in school and loving learning weren’t misspent.  The biggest thing my years in formal education did was awaken in me a love for learning and a desire to continue doing so.

Sadly, many people don’t have a love for learning.  Tragically most of those people are going to get left behind in the waves of science, technology, geopolitical, and social changes that have only recently begun to gain momentum.  The old ideas of graduating high school at age eighteen, getting a union membership, getting a job in a factory, getting married at age twenty two to someone from your hometown or college, etc. aren’t feasible anymore.  And sadly, many people can’t or won’t adapt.  But we’ve had changes in the past eras.  I imagine many people didn’t adapt during the Renaissance or Industrial revolutions and got painfully displaced.  Same things are happening now as we move to a more connected, digitalized, fast paced, and informed world.  National borders don’t mean as much now as they did even when I was a child back in the 1980s.

Sure it’s a chaotic time for many people, especially for people and institutions that aren’t adapting to the new realities.  Politicians in my home nation are talking about building walls to keep out illegal immigrants and refugees and bringing back traditional manufacturing jobs to this country.  To which I reply “planes can fly over walls” and “3D printing”.  Sadly, many people want to deny such changes are already here and will resist to the point of being left so far behind they’ll never catch up.  I see it every day just in my own community and circles of friends and family.  I decided that I was going to adapt and welcome the changes regardless of what my friends, family, and neighbors were going to do.  Some cool things are happening and I don’t want to get left behind or wallow in fear and anxiety for the rest of my life.  I deal with fear and anxiety enough in my own mental illness.  I won’t allow external forces to add to these.

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Trying to Understand the Workplace With a Mental Illness

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I will give you a head’s up.  This is going to be a serious rant.  And I am going to, at least for this post, stop holding your hand and give you feel good platitudes about the life of a mentally ill individual.  This is a rant that is long overdue.  So here goes.

As a grown man afflicted with a severe mental illness, I readily admit I do not understand the thinking and actions of normal people.  I never have, even before I became mentally ill.  Seriously, there are things you normals do and complain about that seem insane to me.  But since that is the norm instead of the paranoia, delusions, crippling depression,and hallucinations of schizophrenia, the complaints and senseless actions of the normal are not construed as the manifestations of mental illness.

Today I would like to discuss the world of the workplace.  Ever since I was four years old and old enough to listen in on grown up conversations, I have heard adults complain ceaselessly about their jobs.  I’ve heard you complain about how your boss is an idiot.  I’ve heard you go on without end about how incompetent and lazy your coworkers are.  I’ve heard you complain about how unreasonable and demanding your customers are.  I’ve listened to you gripe about how bad government agencies and regulations are hampering your business and productivity.  Since my parents were health care professionals, OSHA was one of their favorite whipping boys. I have heard you normals complain about how mind numbing and soulless your job is. And I have definitely heard about you normals complain about taxes.

Ah, taxes.  Kind of appropriate so close to tax deadline here in the U.S.  You complain about how you pay too much in taxes, how the rich pay too little in taxes, and I have sure heard you complain about how people on disability and unemployment don’t deserve what they get in tax payer funded programs.  As if throwing these people in jail and asylums would be any cheaper.  And to line the disabled up in ditches and kill them is absolutely unethical and uncivilized.  I have heard you normals complain for thirty  years about how bad your jobs and lives suck. I for one am absolutely sick and tired listening to you normals complain about your jobs.  KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!!! And I have to this very day never once heard even one of you idiot normals formulate a plan as to how you were going to get out debt, start that potential dream business, leave that abusive husband or codependent girlfriend, or how you were going to make sure your kids do better in their adult lives than you.  You are the primary reason your life turned out the way it is.  You are the reason you stayed at that dead end job in that dead end town just like four generations of your forefathers.  For once in your life complain about how bad you suck and actually do something to make sure your life stops sucking.  The facts are your job is lousy and your life is lousy because you settled for lousy.  Stop settling, start making great plans, or shut the hell up.

I admit what I have told you is harsh.  But you know what, I am harsh only because I care and love the human race and want to see us go on and keep doing cool things.  We have done some pretty cool things as a species already.  Cooking meat over fire, writing, the printing press, basic education for the young, fire arms, astronomy, mathematics, the steam engine, space travel, the internet, anti biotic medication, robotics, etc.  We’ve done some pretty cool stuff ever since we parted ways with our monkey relatives.  Having purpose and goals to strive for is what drives our species. Monkeys didn’t develop a cool civilization or make great inventions because they didn’t have any purpose or goals beyond mating, eating, and flinging manure at each other.

Having a goal and a purpose is a complete game changer. It isn’t just the brilliant scientists and engineers that need to have the purpose for their lives.  I often think you normals complain about your “mundane” jobs and your current situations only because you have no goals or purpose.  But your job working in a heated office or working with advanced tools on a construction site are anything but mundane.  Such jobs either did not exist or were much tougher even fifty years ago.  And yet here you are complaining about how bad your job sucks and your coworkers are lazy fools. Oddly, some of your coworkers would have the same complaints about you, especially if they saw you at your worst. You, for whatever reasons, killed your dreams as you tried to settle into something safe and secure.  In the early 21st century, being safe and secure and not rocking the boat is death.

I never got a chance to chase my dream of being a medical research scientist.  The schizophrenia killed all chance of that.  Some consider me a failure or a nonhuman because I can’t work a job for my living.  I hear too much of this outdated Puritanical nonsense about ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat’ or ‘by the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread.’  What an idiotic stance.  We are now to where most of our manufacturing work can be done by machines.  It won’t be the multinational sending thousands of jobs to Asia that will be an issue. Soon most manufacturing jobs (even the ones in Asia) will be done by robots.  And many new technologies will replace many old style business models.  Google ‘3D printing’, ‘robotics’, and ‘automation’ if you don’t believe me.  There are even companies in both the U.S. and China experimenting with building inexpensive housing units entirely with gigantic 3D printers.  Shoot, it won’t be long before most telemarketing and customer service call centers will be handled by computer programs.  So will bookkeeping, accounting, and many insurance and finance jobs.   Did those autoworkers in Detroit or steel mill workers in the Rust Belt suddenly become worthless nonhumans not deserving their daily bread because machines can do their jobs faster and more efficiently? Nope.  Will the armies of customer service reps, tax preparers, bookkeepers, finance workers, and other white collar workers lose their status as human beings because they are unemployed because machines will be able to do their jobs?  No.  Does a man or woman only have value because they make money?  Not a chance. Seriously, there are over one billion people on this planet (mainly in Africa, rural Asia, and Latin America) that live on two dollars a day or less. You couldn’t buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s for that. Are they less worthy of their lives because they don’t have much money?  Certainly not. I think these people are quite resourceful and creative to stay alive on such low wages, especially the ones who don’t have debts.

A job does not give a human value.  Never has and never will.  Neither does the size of a person’s bank account.  I know that flies in the face of generations of protestant work ethic and the mentality most Americans have in identifying themselves by what they do for money.  I cringed every time I was asked ‘what do you do’ when I first meet someone.  What do I do?  I breathe, I sleep, I laugh, I cry, I lust, I love, I play Skyrim, I watch baseball, I hallucinate without drugs, I eat Chinese food, I write, I ask questions, I learn, and I am a great friend.  But I know you want to know how much money I make so you can categorize me and rank me.  But it’s quite tactless in America how much money someone has (which is odd consider how much money is revered in this country).  Maybe the upcoming shakeups our civilization will experience within the next twenty years will force us to reexamine how we identify ourselves.  With so many people most likely being without paying jobs because machines and computers can and will do the jobs better, we will have to stop identifying with our jobs and stop condemning those who don’t have work.  We may have to take drastic actions to keep civilization from descending into chaos.  Desperate hungry and homeless people don’t make rational decisions.  We may even have to completely overhaul or tax and social safety net systems.  We may even have to resort to the whole universal basic income to keep the economy afloat and keep civilization functioning.  I love civilized life and not just because I’m bad at hunting and fishing.  I believe civilization has accomplished some cool things, led to billions of people with billions of talents being born through the ages who wouldn’t have been born had civilization never happened.  I want to see this thing keep going.  And things won’t get better by people believing a person has value only as far as they can earn money by their jobs.