Tech obsolescence? Universal Basic Income? And the Age of Amateurs

Thought provoking for the coming weekend: Stewart Brand’s “Long Now” reflections about which aspects of our world change rapidly... and which more slowly... and how this can help us grapple with vital issues, like education.

One from my own such list: About a century ago, John M. Keynes prophesied that rising industrial production would pour forth so much wealth with such automated efficiency that the forty hour week (just then coming into fashion) would be reduced to thirty hours, then twenty, as jobs were shared and and the working class got more leisure time. 

As it happened, there was a vast world out there that still needed to industrialize, and the West’s appetite for ever-more goods kept factories and mines etc. humming hard for all of those decades. Indeed, the developing world uplifted itself primarily out of the spending by Americans and others, of trillions of dollars on mountains of crap we never needed. A strange - and by far the most successful - kind of foreign assistance. And yet it never threatened the 40 hour week.

But there’s something on the horizon. A century forestalled, the era foreseen by Keynes seems about to dawn, with automation appearing about to render most kinds of human industrial employment wholly or partially obsolete. Indeed, many white collar jobs and even creative tasks seem prone to takeover by AI systems. Local production of goods and food may end the long chains of container ships crossing oceans, an ecological godsend, but perhaps tipping the world economy into convulsions.

Yes, there will be job losses... accompanied by vastly improved ability to produce anything humans want.

If the Keynes era dawns, then we’ll face decisions:

- Who will own the means of production and the cornucopia that pours forth? If it is a classic, feudal pyramid, then exploitation and unfairness are guaranteed, followed by revolution. But it needn’t be that way.

- Will paychecks be replaced by UBI or Universal Basic Income? Or else by giving every citizen a “share” in these urban factories and farms, so they can live off dividends?

- Either way, how will folks spend their time?  We are already in an under-appreciated era of hobbies, pastimes, avocations and amateur sagacities. There are more blacksmiths and sword makers in the U.S. today that in the Wild West or European middle ages.  In my novel Foundation’s Triumph… and separately in EARTH… I posited an Age of Amateurs, and it is already here -- almost completely ignored by pundits, economists and jeremiad-spewing pessimists.

But… will that suffice for all people?

- If all of this happens under the guidance of Artificial Intelligence, will they help us to design better ways for a better era?  And will we agree with those super-minds about what “better” means?

== Getting better all the time...==

A living human may spend a whole life earnestly improving. He or she may become among the wisest of our wise.  Then they die.

The one thing that can improve cumulatively... and after 6000 years of feudalism, we finally did start to do it... is civilization.  We are better, stronger, more perceptive and knowing and -- yes -- wise than all our ancestors. As the best of those ancestors would have wanted!  (Indeed, if they failed to make this happen, then that indicts them as unwise! The best compliment you can pay the "Greatest Generation" is to admit that they made America even greater, and then greater still.)

This rising path is not because of some leftist historical imperative. Nor is it the right's insane teleology of so called "cyclical" history. It is the result of several Enlightenment inventions like reciprocal accountability, that foster positive sum games. Those games mean that a civilization that outlives human members can grow wiser than the sum of its parts.

Fanatics hate this concept! They want the individual human soul to be the only thing that matters.  Zero sum. You get to be a lord or a peasant. You're "saved" or spend eternity in some sadistic hell. But if there are positive sums, then there is something better, greater, more important than one egotist's soul. That more important thing is... us.

I believe that. Hey, let's admit that I have an ego the size of the sun! And yet, I avow that I'm relatively unimportant. There are things worth dying for. And we are building them. Together.

One of you reminded us of a quote  quote from Joan Vinge, in her prize-winning novel "The Snow Queen."

"Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows. And that’s what gives it so much power."

== Miscellaneous items of interest! ==

Your Biases: This site offers a poster of hugely important wisdom about the ways we fool ourselves. These are somewhat different than "logical fallacies."  They overlap, but are separate things. (The same folks offer a logical fallacies poster.)

Onalytica: This site specializes in tracking topics and traffic in order to trace who are the biggest "influencers" in each of several dozen fields.  Imagine my surprise when their influencer chart of Artificial Intelligence (AI) had a familiar face at the very center of the mesh.  Oh, this isn't the first group to reach a similar metric-conclusion about my place in the discussion.  I just find it rather... well... not entirely plausible!

Still, there's a need to rock any set of comfortable assumptions, especially in such an important field. And poking is what I do...  Let's all poke away! 

Poor millennials! Here's a good story on the millennials' challenges and economic changes. More than a bit whiney, but there are legitimate complaints. And yes, the ones I have met are better people than boomers! And yes, that is to the credit of boomers and X-gens! Because we were clearly great parents.

Forget doll houses! This New York exhibition offers miniature landscapes and cityscapes with moving cars and people and a variety of techniques.

The ‘500 mile problem’ is especially acute between LA and San Francisco. It will be a decade before the Super-High Speed Train is completed… or Elon’s alternatives get traction… and the airport hassle is nasty.  So a new company is offering luxury sleeper busses that deliberately slow down to keep the ride smooth and so that you’ll get a full 8 hours.  

This Goop Shaman cleanses your wardrobe of evil spirits. Some people simply have too much money. It's our duty to relieve their burden. The bigger picture? This was “wisdom” in 99% of the societies our ancestors lived in. Enemies of the enlightenment want to bring back this darkness… and not all of them are on the mad-right.  The left has its… (sigh.)

A philanthropy prize award winner Community Warehouse sells high quality, donated construction materials and staffs the operation with ex-offenders. Taking a page from Costco, the organization is members-only and offers low-prices to members, which include landlords in the neighborhood. Through its straight-forward operation, the Warehouse serves ex-offenders, the neighborhood, and repurposes materials from construction sites all while running a business near break-even.

Separated at birth? We all run into or spot humans who look a bit like us. Lots of folks used to comment on my (I think vague) resemblance to Andre Agassi. Now some say I’ve got “a total Peter Gabriel thing going on.”  PG is a hero of transparency who has funded Project Witness for decades, so that’s cool.  I wish I had a voice like his.

Proclamations of doom are perennial flowers which have sprouted in the garden of human imagination since earliest times. Oracles appeared whenever turmoil caused nations and peoples to feel uncertain about the future. From ancient Sumer, to India, to Iceland, astrological portents used to set off recurring waves of public hysteria. In honor of the coming (or not-coming) Rapture event... may I reprint an article of mine from the last century? It seems even more relevant today. Alas.

== And More miscellany of interest! ==

Here's a very tiny sampling of past apocalypse ravings. Maybe 0.0001%.  In case you missed the reason. Here's the latest silliness. There has got to be a way to corner guys like this into making a bet on it! Better yet, go to his followers and offer pet-care contracts... we'll take care of your pets after you rapture. But pay in advance!

Yipe! There actually are “after the rapture pet care” sites! They cover a whole range. This one is hosted by (they assert) rapture believing evangelists whose apparent sincerity is only exceeded by their stunning hypocrisy. They guarantee that their volunteers are unbelievers who won’t be saved… and who will nevertheless sign up to do this – without any vetting or listing of those ‘volunteers’ by location or any guarantee they actually exist. Never mind that. The trusting folks who register (for a $10 fee, kept by the organizers) can then dismiss all worries from their minds, content that some damned-but-generous atheist or Jew will slog across the apocalypse, with blood pouring from his or her eyes, to care for your cat (when there will be vastly more urgent calls for compassion, nearby), and do all that for zero compensation. Never mind that you prayed daily for Armageddon to bring this suffering to anyone not exactly like you. Rest assured that these vetted martyr-saints will handle everything for Fluffy, while dodging seven-eyed scorpions and Beasts and lion-horses…

…as stunningly depicted in this fabulous, terrifying/hilarious web comic by Patrick Farley.   

But… wait… what did I just call those volunteers? Could that mean what it seems to mean?

Possibly less of a scam are sites created BY the non-saved, who treat it as a business venture that can be enforced and supervised by the rapture-saved folks' Jewish (and presumably left-behind) lawyers.  

On a lighter note. Some of you may recall that GLORY SEASON featured – along with feminist genetic engineering and other marvels – a rustic version of Conway’s Game of Life. Here’s one more simulator to play with.

Now... rise up and believe again! Lovely. Procul Harum in 2006 doing “Whiter Shade of Pale” with a pops orchestra.

And end on a note of enjoyment. Entertaining…. Best stunts of the year.  And we’re supposedly decadent?   Age of amateurs, indeed. We are beyond amazing. We're amazingly amazing!

-->

This blog "blacklisted"... for demanding we respect the professionals...

One of our beleaguered senior federal professionals - who happens to be a fan - wrote in: "One of my employees tried to check out your blog on his government computer. Red flags went off declaring your site ‘contains inappropriate material.’"

Who... me?

I admit there’s an occasional "dang" or "golly". And, amid word tsunamis from many commenters, the rare #!$*#! That sort of thing makes a tiny fraction of "Contrary Brin," compared to masses of cutting-edge-interesting stuff about astronomy, high-technology, SETI, political theory, popular culture and ruminations about human destiny.

Anyway, I know the reason orders came down, banning government employees from access to any of this.

Mea culpa... I have called upon the professionals of the civil service, the intelligence services, the many agencies of law and accountability, the scientific community and the U.S. military officer corps, to remember their oaths -- to protect the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That’s it, really. My “inappropriate” sin. Pointing out that our professionals - both in and out of government - have been the top victims of the neoconservative putsch. I have praised the skilled men and women who dedicate their lives to public service, and made it clear - in bold but meticulously legal terms - that they do not have to put up with being bullied by incompetent, dogmatic hacks, who have oppressed them in a concerted campaign of intimidation, ever since the Bush Administration began.

All right, I did more than that. I also called upon Democrats - and decent conservatives who remember true patriotism - to make this a centerpiece issue, not only because it is just and right, but because no other accusation (backed by proof) could damage the current GOP ruling cabal more than this one.

-------

IS IT IRONIC for the fellow who coined the term “Age of Amateurs” -- suggesting that educated and assertive citizens will play a bigger role in the 21st Century -- to also be so up-front and aggressive in demanding respect for the professionals? I see no contradiction. We are in this civilization together. And when the pros aren’t harassed by fanatics and thieves from above, they may gain enough calm and perspective to realize how badly they need help from the rest of us. From the great mass of citizens, during the decades ahead.

We can start this process, if citizens stand up and help! If we step up to defend the people who we’ve hired to defend us.

-------

A PERFECTLY LEGAL REBELLION

All right, the case has been made - and proved - and proved again and again - that the professionals of the U.S. civil, law, intelligence, science and military communities are the Bushites’ number one target. So, what’s the upshot? Am I asking the professionals to rebel? To break the law? To commit mutiny?

That is what Bill O’Reilly said about me, some months ago, claiming that I was fomenting insurrection and treason! But close examination shows that no such words or meanings were ever written or uttered by me. Not ever. In fact, I accept that the position of our civil servants, professionals and -- especially -- military officers is difficult and not without ambiguities. Their response to neocon bullying will call for great care. Indeed, there are many ways that the present political leadership of the US Executive Branch must continue to be treated with deference, as if it were still legitimate. To do otherwise might do far more harm than good.

Certainly, I am in no place to prescribe the manner by which these professionals choose to resist an infamous kleptocrat-putsch, though one method comes to mind -- for the pros simply to do their jobs, in strict accordance to law. And for them to remember that the protections of law, that were erected by great leaders, from Teddy Roosevelt onward, are still on the books.

In fact, there are signs that this process is underway, and has been for some time. Take the growing independence of Defense Secretary Gates -- already called the “adult” in an administration that seems very much like Lord of the Flies. Or the crucial appointment of Admiral Mike Mullen to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. (Any time you see the Navy ascendant, feel a surge of joy. They are the service least despoilt by this decade’s American fever dream.) Or, see a citation I’ll offer below, where it seems that our law agencies are finally starting to gather the goods on corrupt, inept and simply ruinous “inspectors general,” who were appointed to many agencies, strictly for the purpose of allowing or abetting graft.


DO WE EVEN NEED “RESCUE” BY THE DEMOCRATS?

Can the professionals wake up, stand up, and do their jobs? And will it matter?

I have an unconventional theory, that runs counter to the fervent hope that so many millions are placing at the feet of Democratic political candidates. Yes, that wing of our counter-attack to restore civilization is important. Even libertarians and decent conservatives now realize, they must make temporary alliance with liberals, in order to help save America.

And yet, I believe that a rising by our professionals - along strictly legal lines - could, all by itself, be what really turns the tide. If only these skilled men and women do what they are paid to do. What they swore to do.

Of course, these two paths - political and professional - intersect. Because any Democrat (Clinton, Obama, Chris Dodd oreven a yellow dog) who enters the White House, in January 2009, will do one crucial thing. He or she will fire 5,000 Bushite political appointees and take their boot heels off of the pros’ necks. He or she will then replace the petty hacks, to a large extent, by promoting from within the services. (While rooting out the neocon shills who “burrow in” by transferring to the Civil Service.) And that one action -- just enforcing the laws we already have -- may restore America.

Can you see, now, why the political satraps have put my blog and website on an "improper" list, banished from access by government computers? From access by members of the civil service and officer corps?

Again, since very little happens on my websites that is notably rude or markedly offensive -- mostly intellectual ruminations about civilization and science and society -- there can be no other explanation. And, I’ll take it as a compliment. A badge of honor --suggesting that I am (in my small way) fighting with some effectiveness for my country and my civilization.

----------

SOME DETAIL: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE OFFICER CORPS: WORSE THAN EVEN I HAD IMAGINED

Want an example of why I’ve been blacklisted?
Nobody spoke up publicly, about the Bush Administration’s devastation of the U.S. Officer Corps, before I did. Now, at long last, some in the media are catching on. But will anybody have the brains and courage to make this the scandal that it ought to be? Something to rouse every decent “ostrich” conservative in America?

For the latest, see: “Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving the armed services.” And “The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers.”

Read and realize. Saving the US Army should be a top Democratic campaign issue. It would slice the Rove Big Tent wide open and tear their unholy coalition to shreds.

Quoting from the first of these: ”Since the conflict began, around 40 percent of the Army and Marine Corps' large-scale equipment has been used, worn out, or destroyed. Last year, the Army had to grant waivers to nearly one in five recruits because they had criminal records. There are no more combat-ready brigades left on standby should a new conflict flare.”

That, by the way, makes me a cockeyed pollyanna! Because I actually gave today’s Army the benefit of the doubt and counted two brigades in Korea as ready for national-level land war. But even so, even leaning over backward to be fair, I can only point out a stark comparison. Supposedly “wimpy” Bill Clinton managed to utterly transform the continent of Europe, achieving all Balkan War objectives in quicktime, while losing zero US lives and leaving our state of readiness intact. When Clinton left office, we had thirty brigades, ready for almost anything. George W. Bush inherited a force that he could then use - instantly - to topple the entire Taliban regime and then slice through Saddam’s elite armored forces... a feat entirely beyond the ability of the army now, in the state that he has put it.

But this article concentrates on an even deeper problem, attrition of the bright young officers on whom the future depends. ”In the last four years, the exodus of junior officers from the Army has accelerated. In 2003, around 8 percent of junior officers with between four and nine years of experience left for other careers. Last year, the attrition rate leapt to 13 percent. "A five percent change could potentially be a serious problem," said James Hosek, an expert in military retention at the RAND Corporation.” Above all, the losses seem to be top-heavy, among the most gifted and promising.

What is not discussed in the article -- as it was ignored during the US Attorney firings scandal -- is the ghost at the banquet. The question nobody asks. The mirror image question.

What about those left behind?

Regarding the US Attorneys, the picture is simple and chilling. Nine US Attorneys were sacked for being insufficiently political and pliant. But that means more than eighty had been deemed “satisfactory” by an administration dedicated to utter political bias and dogmatism as a basic job requirement. An aspect to this scandal that (to my knowledge) not a single pundit or journalist has raised.

Regarding those young officers who remain in the military, the situation is far less simple. Most are probably dedicated Marshallian citizen soldiers, holding on out of patriotism, duty and tenacity. But, we all know there is an element that has been funneled into the Officer Corps by more than a hundred radical-reactionary Congressmen, and by an administration bent on promoting for reasons other than competence. An element with standards and loyalties that would have made Washington or Marshall shiver. Just watch “Seven Days In May” to grasp what I mean.

Read the article. More important, make your favorite “decent conservative” ostriches read it!

-------------

SOME MORE READINGS... PLEASE LOOK AT THESE!

First the inimitable Arianna Huffington (my second-favorite Ariana). Dang but the Republicans made a mistake when their lemming veer into neofascism drove her out of their party! Read this commentary on how the Huckabelievers are getting the secretive lords of the GOP in a sweat. And make sure it is read by your favorite ostriches

Then see: "How America Lost the War on Drugs” from Rolling Stone. Funny how the hypocrites have let this slip off their radar screen.

Also the QuestionAuthority Project, which has completed a timeline of violations of civil and constitutional rights that have occurred during the Bush Administration.

Enough for now. Go hence. Convert another ostrich over the holidays. Reach out to a civil servant or military person. Forge alliances across party lines. This has got to be a rout.

Today's "centrifugal" net is NOT an "arena" or commons.

There is a lot of fuss going on about Time Magazine's decision to put a mirror (framed by a computer screen) on its latest cover and announcing tat the 2006 Person of the Year is... "you." Which translates as Joe and Jane Public -- millions of us -- who are starting to flex our cyber-empowered wings and express ourselves as never before.

Yes, of course, I believe in all of that. I very early touted the citizen-empowering aspects of this new era, in preference over the solipsistic approach taken by cyberpunk tales, which kept portraying the electronic age as filled with bleating (though wired) sheep. If we are about to enter an era of "smart mobs" and rapidly coalescing, agile communities of ad hoc expertise, it will not be too soon. Both Vernor Vinge and I have relentlessly portrayed this possibility in fiction... as I did in nonfiction (e.g. The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?)

Indeed, my own punditry on this matter goes back to 1985 and as recent as last Monday.

Here's a radio interview I gave on NPR this week, about the coming "Age of Amateurs." And a video interview on The Age of Amateurs, as well.

And yet, I have to tell you (in full blown contrarian mode) that sanguine paeans to the wired age - like those tooted this week by Time - are in many ways no better than the growling-snipings of cynics who dislike everything new. Both groups deeply oversimplify. And the enthusiasts are in some ways more harmful! Because they seem to think (and spread the notion) that all of the pieces for utopian cyber-democracy are already in place!

That the benefits of super-empowered citizenship are already before us, on the table, and the feast is ready to begin.

But the miracle of the Enlightenment has never been like that, and it never will be. We need to look, again and again, at the things that brought about our present day feast of expanded knowledge, freedom and wealth. These things did not arise simply out of human nature, or the sudden arrival of tools like printing.

They emerged from processes like democracy and science and law and commerce, that have been refined with countless fine-tuning regulations, in order to maximize benefits and minimize the unpleasant effects of nasty human habits, like mutual repression and cheating.

We need to remember that nearly all previous human societies actively repressed innovation, freedom and individuality, because these traits will always threaten those who are comfortably ensconced on top. Modernity and the Enlightenment did not just happen. If we want them to continue and thrive, we have to understand what earlier generations of passionate and practical people did, in order to get us here.

Some of you have read my extensive essay: Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competition for Society's Benefit - written for the American Bar Association - about the underlying common traits of markets, science, courts and democracy -- the "accountability arenas" that have empowered free individuals to compete and create without tumbling quickly into repression and outrage.... for the first time, ever. Alas, over the years since, I have found that people have trouble perceiving some of what the paper describes... or why today's internet just does not yet have what it takes to empower us with a "fifth arena."

Here is one of the key difficult concepts. I describe how markets, science, courts and democracy each have "centripetal vs centrifugal" social phases.

I see these opposite trends having much the same effect for accountability arenas that INHALING and EXHALING have in living mammals. You need both for the system to thrive.

In science, markets, courts and democracy, the CENTRIFUGAL PHASE is when each individual participant may disperse, find allies/collaborators, and safely organize with others under some degree of protection, in a zone where product can be refined and readied for competitive testing.

In science, this zone is your tenured professorship or lab etc: in markets the safe zone is the company/corporation: in courts it is attorney-client privilege and the power of coerced deposition; and democracy has parties.

That's the centrifugal phase and it took civilization thousands of years to realize how necessary it is, in order for these four arenas to function.

Note that this is the phase that exists now, copiously, in the nascent "fifth arena" of the internet!

ALL OF THE TRAITS THAT TIME MAGAZINE CELEBRATES IN ITS LATEST ISSUE HAVE TO DO WITH THIS PHASE. What could be more “centrfugal” than the creation of a zillion self-expressing blogs. Not one of which is subject to any process of accountability.

What the cybersphere does NOT have is anything even remotely resembling the CENTRIPETAL phase that also empowers the four older, more mature "arenas."

What is the centripetal phase? This is where in all of the disparate and dispersed participants in an arena are summoned together by a ritual CALL TO COMBAT. What ensues is a battle - competition - that has transformed ancient human bloody-mindedness into something much more like a game. One in which rules have been laid down to ensure that the outcome of competition correlates at least somewhat with quality of product, and much less with power or influence or other means of cheating.

In science the centripetal competition phase compels researchers to publish papers and present them for criticism. In markets the ritual battleground is retail sales - where customers compare goods and services. In democracy the role is filled by elections, and courts have trials. The STYLE of competition varies wildly among these arenas! So much that (I believe) nobody has ever thought to compare their commonalities as explicitly as I have.

(Take courts. Since the "product" is justice - and possibly life or death - courts cannot afford a high error rate, and hence the centripetal arena phase is costly, meticulous, whereas markets can afford huge inefficiencies in exchange for total fecundity and freedom to innovate.)

Indeed, all of this correlates with the Creative Process inside human minds, where the so-called Preconscious boils up a zillion proto-ideas that are then sifted and culled, till only the "good ones" even rise to consciousness... where the culling process continues. Centrifugal idea-generation, followed by competitive culling. Um... doesn't this ALSO describe the titanic creative process of Darwinian evolution?

You can see where I am going with this.

Presently, on the internet, THERE IS NO EQUIVALENT CENTRIPETAL PHASE that allows us to test ideas, opinions, arguments against each other, using competitive processes to cull wheat from the chaff.

Pearls are said to float upward in shit. But so MUCH of the ranting online today is BS, how can anyone hope for good ideas to actually coalesce and for bad ones to finally die, as they eventually deserve?

For decades I have been trying to come up with innovations that might introduce some competitive power to this new arena. Sometimes, it seems hopeless. As when the clueless editors at Time Magazine blithely announce that we are already in the promised age of empowered citizenship... when half -- fully half of the needed tools are absolutely missing.

Oh, our would-be masters want it this way. Those who would return us to a style of feudalism. They would let us wrangle and spume and EXPRESS ourselves, endlessly online...

...without ever finding ways to turn all of that self-expression into the relentless and joyfully innovative mass creation of a new kind product.

 A new kind of sapiency that is based upon a massively empowered us.

===  ==== ===

See: More articles on Creating the Future

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

Twitter                Facebook