The future for humanity looks a little grim from the continent…
Since I’ve landed in Greece, I’ve been taking the time to listen to what the rest of the world is saying about the global economy. I tend to sift through the same sources at home, but I’ve had some access to some fresh, more European perspectives over here.
My God it’s depressing.
They don’t see their problems as particularly European. It’s more a ‘Capitalism in the 21st century’ type thing. And when you ask people about Australia (No, Lord of the Rings was New Zealand) they just think we’re ten years behind the curve.
That is, the dynamics of global capitalism soured with the dot-com bust. Australia dodged the bullet thanks to high immigration and a China-driven mining boom, but really, we only just bought ourselves a bit of extra time.
In ten years, we’ll be exactly where Europe is – with depressing demographics, failing labour markets, and thin-pickings for investment opportunities.
And that picture isn’t pretty. We all know about the economic bloodbath that Greece has become, but youth unemployment across Europe is truly scary.
And what went wrong?
Robots.
Well, you hear this line a lot – that robots have ruined capitalism, but its really just a way to make the problem sound sexier than it actually is.
Exponential technology is to blame.
That is, technology advances at an exponential rate – faster and faster. Humans advance linearly (if at all!). We’re simply getting left behind.
The dream of technology was that it would make humans more productive. Give a primitive human a club, and he becomes a more efficient hunter. He doesn’t have to rely on his soft, hairy hands. He has hunting technology now.
And so he becomes more productive. He can either kill more things with the same amount of time and effort, or he can kill the same amount of things with less time and effort, and switch the surplus time into leisure, or mating or crafts.
The club is human-augmenting technology. It makes the human more productive.
And for most of history, technology has been human-augmenting. Clubs, wheels, iron, steam engines, word-processors.
The trouble is, we’ve kind of tapped out the human potential (with respect to economic output.) Adding more technology to the average human only makes us marginally more productive.
There’s only so much technology a human can manage and engage with.
And at some point we become overwhelmed and distracted and hang on, I just got a message.
So rather than having human-augmenting technology, we have technology-augmenting technology. Productivity gains now only happen when we marry technologies up together. Design software and 3D printers. Big data algorithms and robo-traders. Computers designing other computers.
Robots improving themselves.
There’s no place for humans in this story. Technology marries up and looks back at us and thinks, “Ugh. I can’t believe we used to go out. What was I thinking? He’s just a dense slab of meat. And what’s that whole ‘sleep’ thing about anyway. Lol. Have some coffee and a Snickers, meat brain.”
So we’ve gone from human-augmenting to human-replacing. We’re being cut out of the dance. More and more jobs are in the robot firing line – even actors have a 40% chance of being replaced by robots in the next 20 years!
(That said, you could probably already replace Matt Damon with a toaster.)
Few jobs are safe. That’s why I’m planning to minister religious sermons to athletics teams.
These things are hard to predict, so I don’t place too much weight on the above probabilities, but the trend is clear. It is getting harder and harder to justify the human’s role in economic output.
Sure, new jobs will open up, but how long until technology swallows them up as well? And that’s the thing about exponential tech. It’s just gets faster and faster. The time lag between a job opening up and being replaced by a robot will get smaller and smaller.
You’ll start a job in the morning and be working on your resume in the afternoon.
But even if we’re not talking about a massive jobs cull, what happens to wages in this story? Wage gains are tied to productivity growth. The more your workers produce, the more fat there is to share around.
And in the human-augmenting phase, you could justify wage gains because each worker was producing more for the company.
But from here on, productivity gains will come from combining technologies. Humans are just getting in the way.
From the firm’s perspective, it’s easy to justify giving the technology a pay rise (investing more in it). It’s much harder to justify paying the humans more.
Wages growth has already fallen to record lows. I just see it going lower (as it’s done in Europe.) Pretty soon, falling wages will be the new normal. Only the pace of decline will be interesting.
But once wages start falling, consumption follows suit, and the whole fabric of growth-driven economics starts to unravel (which is what we’re seeing in Europe.)
But this is where the medium term gets interesting. Until we can totally rethink the way our economies work, we’ve got a massive political problem.
And what do politicians do with political problems?
Throw money at them.
So we’ll see more money-printing and more public spending. Soon, the public sector will dominate the economy, labour market and wages.
(And we’re already seeing that with the rise of the Health sector in Australia).
And who knows what happens after that. Maybe the whole can goes up in flames. Maybe we just shuffle on for a few centuries until the robots enslave us.
But the short-term implications are clear. If the government is going to start throwing money around, we need to get in the way of some of it.
Assets in fixed supply are the natural go-to: gold, silver and of course property.
But in the long run, just think about how you can make yourself useful to the robots.
Are things as grim as the Europeans think?
wow startling revelations…are robots gonna purchase what they make? i mean someone has to be buying for ‘makers’ to profit or even survive. so maybe it is a self defeating ‘progress’. and are us humans gonna stand by (or sit) and get ‘run over’ by technology? that will happen only if you stand in the middle of the road. so let us get off of our collective bottoms and give technology the heave ho. jonno.. .the grecian way of life : growing grapes for vino, dancing, making whoopee and growing one’s own food. and bonking the wife is enough for a life really. then along comes some silly bugger with technology and stuffs it up. yuk!! cheers, ron
No. Consumers are only required because capitalists need their services. When this requirement disappears, there will be no need to sell anything to anyone, unless that person has something you want, which you can’t already produce with your own robot factory.
Of course, people who don’t have a robot factory will be pretty much scr*wed.
Can’t agree, EWorrall! “Consumers” (in reality, *Buyers* of consumables) are required to hand over their money (the ‘point’ of capitalism), and then, to use up or wear out said consumables, so they need to buy more. If they have no money because they have no job, they can’t buy and the process of milking the consumer grinds to a halt. How are you going to create a system where robots pay for the crap (goods) they (or other robots) produce?
good on you jonno!.
still in greece? we are freezing our bots off here in oz. europe, the cradle of industrialisation and its many benefits. so what? it has brought us many diverse goodies and bad things. health care is super good in many ways. but the weaponry department needs to be dismantled i think.
food production is sort of scary these days with monsanto doing their best to poison us. robotics is like any other thing that is new. it will change things like never before then become yesterday’s news as humans learn to take back their sovereignty, go back to basics, like growing your own food, wine etc and having a good life with your wife most of the day..the one you love and your kids. have talk ins and discuss matters of interest. in oz we have the space to look at expanding our horizons. but who is gonna leave the coastal fringe and start with out robots. in europe i don’t know, i have never been there, but i can only assume that space is hard to come by to do things that we can do here.
the younger generation have grown up with modern technology maybe to the detriment of their connection to nature. man has always had problems. and we have leaders who are mostly self serving and the rest follow. history is replete with endless wars and potentates who rule with iron fists. and they grab all of the goodies.
if anybody can answer the malady of humanity and cure the many ills of society he /she will be hailed as a genious or an idiot. you see , you are always dumb now ..but when you succeed you are a genius..boy he wasn’t so dumb after all. lol ahh people! i see enough in my business to see humanity as it is. cheers for today. stay sober. and keep your cash safe. or go and buy some gold or silver coins, they just might come in handy soon. a short reminder that credit cards are only as good as the banks to provide cash at the atm. and grow some veges or plant a few fruit trees. go for a walk in the bush and sit under a tree and think. or just sit there:-)
my first comment disappeared so i wrote another one..cheers, ron
Great post, but I think you left out one crucial part, and that is what this all will mean for real estate! I think technology (at least in the short term) will continue to widen the gap between the haves and the have nots, those who take advantage of technology and those who do not. As you point out the effect of all this will be wage decline, and with wages in decline I can’t see how real estate prices can continue to grow. The interest rate can only be dropped so much as a stimulus and then we will start seeing prices stabilise or drop because people can no longer afford the ever increasing prices.
Agreed. Growth is not sustainable on a finite planet. Not sure how we make the economists and politicians understand that. We need to get used to the idea of a long recession followed by a stabilisation. Growth is so last century!
As a software developer I’m making this happen, more than most people realise. But I’m as helpless as anyone else to stop the process. All I can do is be thankful that my job will be one of the last to disappear.
Prostitution may have been the first profession, but software development will be the last. Because when software developers are no longer required, when computers can develop their own software, the age of employment will be over.
thank you eworrell, i feel better already. but i think prostitution will still thrive and be the last job. to go. men will be men!!
Hi Jon
There are books available which are written by g**gle leaders which pretty much say that they will turn you into a robot. Not a joke.
This will be done with nanotechnology which will be introduced into your blood.
Some nano bots will latch onto your brain cells and connect you by thoughts to the internet. The downside is someone will know what you are thinking all the time. You will become a super computer.
Some nano bots will allow you to hold your breath for an hour by replacing blood cells with more efficient carriers. Also because these are self propelled then your heart will no longer be required and can be removed.
Nanotechnology will allow Your skin to be able to photosynthesise food so you won’t need a mouth or digestive system. Though g**gle recommends keeping the mouth for aesthetic purposes.
These improvements supposedly will produce radical life extension to 300+ years.
Also if you you become a robot logically you will not be replaced by a robot.
All this is not my cup of tea but the plans are in the public domain.
Cheers
Stamatis
Do you want to be a robot?
Biotechnology may be an employer, how about nanotechnology?
Have you worked out the salty spring yet?
Men will be men?! How did your standards get so low? Don’t you know prostitution is just another form of slavery? If bad things are happening, perhaps you should be asking yourself the question why.
“Don’t you know prostitution is just another form of slavery?”
And working 9 to 5 to pay a mortgage isn’t? Of course it is. It’s much more arduous, takes a lot longer to earn the same amount, but usually, it’s “cleaner”.
At least prostitution is superior to a 9 to 5 job, since it’s clearly a form of self-employment. Deciding when and where to work, who you service and who you don’t, and how much you charge. Isn’t that what makes it a profession? Ok, so there are risks. Same for scaffolders and truck drivers, and … … multitudes of other manual workers – almost all men.
Who wants a 9 to 5 Just. On. Broke?
Anyway, here in NZ (and I guess in Oz, the UK, Canada and lots of other places) the law now ensures that many ordinary housewives and mothers are also prostitutes.
Any woman who enters a marriage with nothing, stays for two or three years and leaves with the kids, the car and half a house is a prostitute too. One on a much, much better hourly rate than the poor dumb hooker out on the street.
Just depends on your perspective!
Great work Jon!
Definitely one of your best. Sad, but true.
And, I believe a necessary part of human progress. I mean, look at us. We are barbaric, inhumane creatures. It’s the 21st century, and we are still shooting, maiming and blowing each other up with ever more sophisticated, longer range weapons – so we don’t have to risk our own lives to take those of many others.
The planetary environment is being polluted, plundered, raped and pillaged towards devastation / destruction. That must never happen to this beautiful blue/white oasis at the far end of the Universe. So, the time for the Great Human Cull is fast approaching.
And look at how we are being set up for it. I don’t know why, but the UN seems to be behind it. It’s clearly a front for something. God Help Us if Herr Helen Clark gets the top job. She did enough damage to New Zealand in 9 years to last a lifetime. I always thought she was evil. But maybe that’s what needs to happen. Near annihilation.
Just look at what they (the UN) are promoting. Stirring up of every kind of inter-human conflict. Immigration being an obvious one. Here in NZ, I’m sick of the way these immigrants behave. They are so glad to escape their native countries, rife with whatever they dislike; corruption, warfare, crime, injustice, religious or racial conflict… So they move to Oz or NZ, and bring all their original beliefs, habits, behaviours etc with them, making these countries just like the ones they left, or worse, because each different culture has conflicting habits and beliefs, values and ideas.
Next, it will be food and water wars. Resource wars. Don’t worry about a few robots, much worse is going to happen before that.
Yep, it’s turning into an even more dangerous, unbalanced, violent world. Yep, look at Europe and the waves of “refugees” – really, the unwanted, rejected wannabe immigrants who are prepared to force their way into other countries. The last people anyone really wants, but, because someone says it’s not PC to send them back, they get their forced entries.
So, we are all going to be fighting and killing one another for years to come. Not sure what it’s all meant to prove, but I guess it’s inevitable, since we don’t have the balls to implement any kind of self-control over “humanity”. So many of us really ought to be eliminated from the gene pool, but no one is willing to do it – except maybe China!
Bring it on!