Yes, of course, the average poor bastard in some housing projects is living in better conditions than Charlemagne.
The way there, though, is hard and gruesome. Yes, the average industry worker today has a better life than any farm hand before they moved to town. But between that farmhand moving to town and industry workers today are 200 years of poverty we can't even imagine today.
There will have to be a way for at the very least the majority to participate on the society, whatever form it takes, or it will result in civil war that makes 1789 and 1917 look like a garden festival.
10% below the poverty line and starving to death is no problem, if the other 90% are willing to prop your system up. At about 30-40% you get a problem, unless you have the others willing and able to defend your system. No later than at 50%, you're fucked. And it doesn't even matter how many people you can arm. If you need a lesson how it works, take a look at Iran 1979.
There are very, very few project managers that are actually not detrimental to the production process. And a tiny subset of those is actually helpful. I'm blessed with some of this category (and yes, they cost more than minimum wage... quite a bit more).
The best project managers know that their job is to keep the spice flowing and to give their engineers what they need to be productive. They know how to requisition resources at the right time and in the right amount for the right people from the right source.
These people are rare. If you ever run across one, don't let them go!
All former forms of automation and job elimination were not complete. People displaced from farms were required in the emerging production industries, those eliminated there by automation were required by the emerging service industry.
The problem we're facing today is twofold, and it seems Kurzweil ignores that completely. Yes, so far we always gained new jobs replacing the old ones. People who were no longer needed as farmhands went on to become factory workers. Factory workers replaced by automation became service personnel. Every time with a long period of incredible suffering for the people displaced because the new industrial branches took lots of time to develop.
But what should develop this time? We're about to reach the point where anything a human can do, a computer, a robot, a machine can do better, faster, more efficient and without any chance of getting sick or flipping the boss off because it found something better.
Worse yet, people are not fungible products. You can't replace person A with person B. And you can't put someone into a new job and expect him to be able to do it. Every time we went through a "revolution" in our industry, the jobs that the least qualified people could do were eliminated. You could employ someone with an IQ of 70 as a farmhand before the advent of machinery. He was useful. Today? What should someone like this work as?
And what will someone with an average IQ work as in the future? Those jobs are what machines can (almost) do today. What we can easily observe already is that the required qualification to have a job is getting higher and higher. When you look at unemployment statistics, you can easily see that the lower the qualification, the higher the unemployment rate.
If you want to continue the current power situation, yes.
Our current economy depends on people having to work so they can get money so they can survive. If you take this away, money no longer holds power over people, which basically means that the people who do have lots of money (and hence power) today would become powerless overnight.
Well, from what I've seen in the trailers, I can't identify any gay/trans/whatevergenderissue bits. Why? Because it WAS all CGI and explosions.
You have actually seen a trailer that didn't look like Michael Bay was the director? I know, TOS looks campy and all by today's standards, but this looks WAY, WAY too modern to make me buy into the premise that it's set BEFORE TOS. Before TNG, I could buy. Maybe.
The main problem I have with it is that they claim that it's set a decade before TOS but the ships look NOTHING like TOS. Neither interior nor external. Of course, designs are more advanced today, FX are better, no doubt about this. But it doesn't work that way. You think Metropolis would work again if made today? You have a totally different world to work with, with totally different problems, social and otherwise, you cannot put that into the same universe. Let half a century pass, before or after, and the premise could work out. But a show that is basically an immediate precursor to what's "going to" happen in TOS? You can do that 5 or 10 years after the show, not half a century later. Like I said, it could work with TNG, but not TOS.
What made it work, and at the same time what made it a powerful statement, was that they didn't make a statement about it. Spock was the first officer. Uhura was the communications officer. Period. Nobody discussed either. Because that's what you do when something is normal, you don't parade it around like it's something special.
With the new Trek I have this feeling that the whole show is centered around these "special" people being "special". And that actually diminishes the statement. If I have to point out that something is supposed to be a way, I also at the same time acknowledge that it isn't that way and that there is a need to point it out, almost as if I have to apologize for it.
Quite the opposite. But capitalism and free market need the demand side to execute its function, something the supply side would like to (and in our system does) prevent it from doing.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. I can see the protagonists of daytime TV as artists. Well, maybe not of spoken word. Or written...
But be it as it may, in theory it's a nice idea. In practice, though, I'm fairly sure that whoever is inspired and wants to create will do so already.
Because I have to feed and shelter slaves, something that's barely possible on today's minimum wage.
Of course, if I could have a slave at below minimum wage, we could talk.
Yes, of course, the average poor bastard in some housing projects is living in better conditions than Charlemagne.
The way there, though, is hard and gruesome. Yes, the average industry worker today has a better life than any farm hand before they moved to town. But between that farmhand moving to town and industry workers today are 200 years of poverty we can't even imagine today.
There will have to be a way for at the very least the majority to participate on the society, whatever form it takes, or it will result in civil war that makes 1789 and 1917 look like a garden festival.
10% below the poverty line and starving to death is no problem, if the other 90% are willing to prop your system up. At about 30-40% you get a problem, unless you have the others willing and able to defend your system. No later than at 50%, you're fucked. And it doesn't even matter how many people you can arm. If you need a lesson how it works, take a look at Iran 1979.
There are very, very few project managers that are actually not detrimental to the production process. And a tiny subset of those is actually helpful. I'm blessed with some of this category (and yes, they cost more than minimum wage... quite a bit more).
The best project managers know that their job is to keep the spice flowing and to give their engineers what they need to be productive. They know how to requisition resources at the right time and in the right amount for the right people from the right source.
These people are rare. If you ever run across one, don't let them go!
And this is what's wrong. Most of those managers could easily be replaced by a Magic-8-ball.
Coordination is required. Cutting the red tape is required. Supervision is not.
Management should finally find out that they're a supporting role to those that produce instead of going on a micromanaging power trip.
That works pretty well to knock someone out and rape them.
You do know the difference between convincing and forcing, right?
"Hold my glass"
Reading a script should be a job that a computer cannot do better than a human?
And if computers can do one thing perfectly, then to ensure that everyone's productivity plummets, so that should take care of middle management, too.
whataboutism doesn't make the original claim invalid.
All former forms of automation and job elimination were not complete. People displaced from farms were required in the emerging production industries, those eliminated there by automation were required by the emerging service industry.
The problem we're facing today is twofold, and it seems Kurzweil ignores that completely. Yes, so far we always gained new jobs replacing the old ones. People who were no longer needed as farmhands went on to become factory workers. Factory workers replaced by automation became service personnel. Every time with a long period of incredible suffering for the people displaced because the new industrial branches took lots of time to develop.
But what should develop this time? We're about to reach the point where anything a human can do, a computer, a robot, a machine can do better, faster, more efficient and without any chance of getting sick or flipping the boss off because it found something better.
Worse yet, people are not fungible products. You can't replace person A with person B. And you can't put someone into a new job and expect him to be able to do it. Every time we went through a "revolution" in our industry, the jobs that the least qualified people could do were eliminated. You could employ someone with an IQ of 70 as a farmhand before the advent of machinery. He was useful. Today? What should someone like this work as?
And what will someone with an average IQ work as in the future? Those jobs are what machines can (almost) do today. What we can easily observe already is that the required qualification to have a job is getting higher and higher. When you look at unemployment statistics, you can easily see that the lower the qualification, the higher the unemployment rate.
Kurzweil does not address that problem.
If you want to continue the current power situation, yes.
Our current economy depends on people having to work so they can get money so they can survive. If you take this away, money no longer holds power over people, which basically means that the people who do have lots of money (and hence power) today would become powerless overnight.
You think they'll simply let that happen?
Nah, so we can report that we actually DO get some that DO have marketable skills.
Star Trek: TOS had 2 pilots. The second one actually sold the show.
Anyone who wants this show to survive the first season should hope for a reboot of that tradition.
Which would probably be the first SENSIBLE reboot in the recent past.
Well, from what I've seen in the trailers, I can't identify any gay/trans/whatevergenderissue bits. Why? Because it WAS all CGI and explosions.
You have actually seen a trailer that didn't look like Michael Bay was the director? I know, TOS looks campy and all by today's standards, but this looks WAY, WAY too modern to make me buy into the premise that it's set BEFORE TOS. Before TNG, I could buy. Maybe.
The main problem I have with it is that they claim that it's set a decade before TOS but the ships look NOTHING like TOS. Neither interior nor external. Of course, designs are more advanced today, FX are better, no doubt about this. But it doesn't work that way. You think Metropolis would work again if made today? You have a totally different world to work with, with totally different problems, social and otherwise, you cannot put that into the same universe. Let half a century pass, before or after, and the premise could work out. But a show that is basically an immediate precursor to what's "going to" happen in TOS? You can do that 5 or 10 years after the show, not half a century later. Like I said, it could work with TNG, but not TOS.
Of all this, I could actually see the flaming gay engineer.
What? You'd be surprised just HOW many engineers are.
Given the overarching theme behind it ... I wouldn't count on those women always having been women...
What made it work, and at the same time what made it a powerful statement, was that they didn't make a statement about it. Spock was the first officer. Uhura was the communications officer. Period. Nobody discussed either. Because that's what you do when something is normal, you don't parade it around like it's something special.
With the new Trek I have this feeling that the whole show is centered around these "special" people being "special". And that actually diminishes the statement. If I have to point out that something is supposed to be a way, I also at the same time acknowledge that it isn't that way and that there is a need to point it out, almost as if I have to apologize for it.
How the fuck do you "recruit" someone for your sexual preference? You are or you are not gay, it's not like there's a way to change that.
Unless you're some religious whackadoodle, of course. Then you think if you pray really hard you can wish the gay away.
I may be old, but ain't that pretty much what those white supremacist idiots have been claiming as well?
So stories changed from "particle of the week saves the day" to "minority of the week saves the day". I fail to see the big difference.
I think nobody would mind if you took them away from us.
Quite the opposite. But capitalism and free market need the demand side to execute its function, something the supply side would like to (and in our system does) prevent it from doing.
Good.