OP-ED: The Foolish Hypocrisy of “What We Had is Good Enough” · 1:33pm Jan 24th, 2020
Hey readers! Taking a moment from Fireteam Freelance to make a quick post. One that, well … Let’s just see how this goes. But first, a heads up that Colony and Jungle have picked up something like six new Five-Star reviews/ratings in the last week! Welcome new readers, and thank you for leaving your thoughts! I’m glad you’re loving Colony and Jungle!
Okay, news over! This post, like some here on Unusual Things, is one of those posts inspired by an actual conversation. In this case said conversation was between myself and an individual who shall remain nameless, but who is an outspoken critic of the “younger generations.”
Note: If you thought “Oh, a boomer!” or “OK boomer” then you’re on the right track here. Anyway, this individual holds that the social difficulties of today aren’t difficulties at all, that they’re simply a byproduct of the younger generations being lazy and incompetent, and that no one has had it harder than their generation (red flag much?).
But … that’s not where I’m going with this. No, I want to use this interaction to show the hypocrisy of a mindset that is, unfortunately, bought into by many. The idea that “Well, we had it good enough, so anything past that we perceive means you’re coddled/weak/less than us.”
Let me give you an example. The individual I was in the conversation with gave their “example” of “you have it so much better than the generation before you who had it so bad, how dare you complain about anything” by bringing up cell phones. Cell phones and smart phones, they argued, were just a sign of a coddled, weakened generation. ‘The younger generation doesn’t have money,’ they argued, ‘because they spend it on cell phones, which they don’t need. If they were really poor, they’d get rid of their cell phones.’
Okay, now despite the holes of logic that one could pilot a star cruiser through (such as even basic, minimum-wage jobs—so you know, banks, retail, medical, etc—requiring their employees have cell phones for scheduling, 24-7 access, etc), this person didn’t stop there. They just had to “drive the point home.”
‘When I was the age of the younger generation, the apartment block I lived in had one phone, at the end of the hall. Most used it only once a week to call someone important like their family.’ And here’s the moment where they messed up. They then finished if ‘If it was good enough for me and my generation, then it’s good enough for you.’
I responded in a way that caught them off-guard. I asked why they felt they needed to use the phone, if a letter worked just as well. They replied that why shouldn’t they use the phone? After all, it was there to be used.
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘But did your parents have access to a phone like that when they were your age?’
‘Of course not,’ they quickly retorted. ‘They sent letters. There was no phone.’
‘Then why didn’t you send letters?’ I asked. ‘After all, if it was good enough for them, shouldn’t it have been good enough for you? You didn’t need to use a phone.’
Instant. Anger. And cue the rant.
I'm not,
Heck, I've seen articles about how there's research on using AI to write sports articles.
Stuff that beginner writers used to do. They cut their teeth on writing these articles and moved up to better positions.
What if Walmart buys greeter robots from Japan?
What happens to the folks that used to do that job?
What happens to the folks displaced by technical advances?
Yes, I get it that we should welcome progress, but I have concerns about the folks left behind.
This has been going on for as long as people existed. The current generation looks down on the new generations.
I bet that when Beethoven was making waves, there were folks bitching about his music.
Al goes overboard, but it sounds like what folks say.
Anyway, kudos on your topic.
i.imgur.com/7Yq6IRJ.jpg
Huh. And here I'd assumed that mankind had always been subject to such venerable curmudgeons. Little did I realize that we'd progressed there, as well.
5191290
I definitely understand those concerns. I'm worried about it as well (see the two-part posts The Shifting Tides of Employment). But as much potential as it has for disaster, it also has potential to make life so much better for billions.
And ultimately, we cannot stop it. The Genie is out of the bottle and already working magic. Job markets are changing rapidly, even disappearing already. We can't escape it now. What we have to do is decide how it's going to impact us, whether we'll all become feudal serfs to those who own the machines, or independent operators in an economy where robots have made things like housing and food more affordable than ever? Or a third option? A fourth?
But we have to decide soon,before there's no longer room to make a decision.
5192431
I think what's different now is that before they were disconnected and didn't have a lot of power, but in the modern world modern tools have given them great strength to make these changes. Changes like getting rid of the government offices that studied new tech and advised politicians on how that could change things. "We're good enough, goodbye!" They're interconnected by Facebook, phones, and other tools that let them band together and be, if not unified, then grumpy together. In the past they went to bars and played cards while griping about the world and these "newfangled things" but today they stay at their jobs long past retirement and refuse to let anyone with new ideas or concepts move up. Stagnation.
I'm sure it's happened before in waves, but I'd bet that modern tech has made it uniquely easy to be a luddite.
5192582
How?
It's one thing if you and I were making robots or design software for them, but we're a million miles away.
And we definitely can't do a Terminator two, and kill the guy responsible for Skynet.
Yeah, Judgement Day is coming.
All we have are politicians. Imperfect tools.
Most of them are just tools. Money talks and legit social concerns walk.
In this current time in the US, money beats people.
Beats people black and blue.
Yes, I get that progress will give us good things, but it seems that no one will be around to try to pick up the pieces when tech goes south. We will have to live with more small degrees of failure.
Look at Google Stadia. Basically, the promise was that you can play games from any device. No need for a PC/Mac or a console. Even on your phone. They run the game on their servers and send the results back to you.
The reality is that Stadia has some serious flaws.
1. Depends a lot on your internet service. A lot of people in the US have a lousy internet connection.
2. You pay for a device and for each game. No paying for a subscription and being able to play everything.
There are some other issues too.
And then when they launched, there were a lot of missing features.
No 1080p support.
Google is a large company not two guys in a garage. How could they screw this up?
If you had bought into Stadia and Google decides to pull the plug, you have nothing.
The game was on their server, you can't play it at home. The hardware is dead, probably can't use it for anything else.
Can you imagine other technologies that people come up with that could also crater?
I remember seeing stuff from the 1950's how tech was going to revolutionize work and people would have two hour workdays. The machines would do all of the work, and we would have more time for leisure.
Um, did we get that?
No, in a lot of cases folks work more hours to make ends meet. And even then sometimes that's not enough.
5192749
Conflation does not equal correlation, especially with something like Stadia versus the automation tech that's already causing mass employment drop off in the US. In October of 2019, the US government reported a gain of 8,000 jobs in manufacturing ... versus a loss of 49,000 jobs in manufacturing. Why? Automation (that was actually the reason given).
Here's a pop quiz, from The Shifting Tide of Employment, which you really should read:
On January 1st of this year (2020), Land O' Lakes announced that they were laying off 4000 drivers and replacing them with automated, self-driving trucks. The military already uses an AI therapist to treat trauma cases, and it has a higher success rate than human therapists (and is better received by patients). Accounting jobs, secretary jobs, medical jobs ... Very few jobs are safe from being replaced by automation, and it's already happening. We're losing jobs to AIs at an increasing rate already in the US, from construction to managing, and that pace is accelerating.
It's not "someday." It's already happening. The layoff rate is only increasing as more and more AIs and machines become capable of doing human jobs. Experts put the estimated loss of jobs in the US over the next two decades at 75 million, literally around 75% of all jobs in the US, vanishing.
Actually we were well on track for that until the shift to corporate capitalism in the early 70s. CEOs and board members realized that if they simply absorbed those rising efficiencies into their own pockets and kept people working the same amount for the same pay, they'd become staggeringly rich. That's what happened. The workweek (which was trending toward 20 hours a week by 1980) swiftly reversed and began to climb.
5193004
Thanks for the info.
I even watched the Humans Need Not Apply video.
What I've seen from your article and from the video is that using the scientific term, are hosed.
The folks who are responsible for the shift to corporate capitalism are running the show now.
Are they going to let the govt spend to retrain and or deal with this problem?
Considering what I see in the news on TV and online, I have very little hope that anyone with power can do anything in the US to deal with the millions of people who are going to lose their jobs.
Anytime someone says anything about helping normal people, folks shout about socialism.
"America will not be a socialist country!"
This guy has a good view of things.
Chris Hedges, America, the farewell tour.
Sorry to go into politics, but that's where folks have to go if things are to be changed.
Politicians need to be warned about this.