From a Google Image Search - Esri
Work
How fast can change be imposed on a nation of 340 million souls without destabilizing it? The Industrial Age employed workers in factories and America's fortunes rose and fell, but manufacturing seemed to be a stable part of our society, providing a living that offered prosperity and security. America became addicted to progress.
China opened to capitalism, Russia opened to capitalism, Southeast Asia beckoned with cheap labor. Japan and South Korea were already invested in capitalism. So, we gained computers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s and lost factories at almost the same moment. No one had to announce a New World Order; it happened organically. Dictators saw that they could be businessmen and compete financially on the world stage. China and Russia caught the progress bug, no unions allowed.
With the advent of the computer age and the tech bros (and girls) who fell in love with creating computers that matched their visions, the speed of progress accelerated. Until COVID hit, until imports piled up in ports, global trade worked, although Trump talked continuously about "bringing our factories home." Now in Trump's second term, this is proving to be difficult.
But the truly stark contrast appears in the strange nexus of Republican politics and AI technology. As Republicans go on and on about small government, as they cut programs that provide good jobs, education, benefits like unemployment, as they pass "right to work" laws to kill labor unions, it seems they want us all to work from birth to death. Billionaires claim that "work is life", but their jobs involve travel and extravagant homes, meals at elegant restaurants, yachts and planes that mean they never have to use public transportation. How would they do on the main line in a factory or as a farm worker?
And yet, we find AI coming alive in the tech sector. "AI is coming for your jobs" we are told. So here we are, American workers, caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. If there are no jobs and no support system, how does this not lead to another Great Depression? Of course, there will be some jobs, and young people may be able to do physical labor in job markets like farming, home construction and renovation, plumbing, HVAC, law and medicine. What jobs will seniors be able to fill (until they die)?
As Republican wishes are fulfilled by Donald Trump, the outlook for our once-affluent society looks bleaker and bleaker. Watch Blade Runner, watch Rollerball (the original), watch The Postman. Sometimes fiction carries kernels of truth. Perhaps you have noticed that recent massive protests go practically unnoticed. There is no "we the people" in America anymore. There is only one man, who can do anything he wants. He knows nothing about AI. He governs as if this is the 1950s or perhaps the age of the robber barons, before personal computers existed. I'm sure some brave soul tries to explain to him the changes AI will bring. It doesn't compute in that brain; stuck in a past he understands how to control. Perhaps he is waiting for demonstrations to take on a more violent tone so he can exercise his control over the military, using the Insurrection Act of 1807 to use our troops domestically against "we the people".
The collision of ideology and technology might be entertaining to see, if we were Greek gods on Mt. Olympus. Sadly, we're not. We will be (we already are) being thrust amid these two forces ("work is life", and "AI will put people out of work"), trying to eke out a sufficient living as costs rise and rise. The vision that is killing American affluence and democracy is such a mystery that we are simply left asking why this is happening, and if it will produce the Republican nirvana and line the pockets of the oligarchs as planned? A dreary gray life for almost all of us seems a far more likely outcome.
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Great piece. Sharing.