That’s why there is the sign for “new employees” They’re not going to work from “home” they’re self delivering themselves for their one, forever shift. Thus putting the truck drivers out of work too…
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Literally wearing blinders.
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I only needed to read the first sentence to suspect the paper would contain twaddle. The man is a journalist turned Tory MP. Just like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove - cabinet-level delusional twaddle peddlers, both. Life’s too short to read Tory fantasies/delusions. Someone feel free to tell me he is not cut from the same cloth and may be worth reading, but somehow I doubt it.
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That could work. . . IF they also instituted a universal basic income. But they ain’t gonna do that.
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Somehow I get the feeling that, in the Tory vision, the first will be achieved by giving corporations massive tax breaks and trusting them to plow the money into R&D and that the second will focus on protecting people from invasions of privacy by the tax authorities while allowing the invasions to proceed unfettered if a for-profit business model or the security state requires them.
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When Conservatives talk about environmental friendliness it’s time to duck. They’ve worked out global warming can be fixed by killing off 90% of the population without them having to change their lifestyles.
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Is that construction worker Ronald Reagan?
I had this even more sinister association:
That’s not a construction worker. The pattern on his shirt is an adversarial perturbation to convince the people wearing headsets he’s a piece of furniture so that he can easily carry out the contract killing for the robot he’s shaking hands with (instructions being held in his other hand).
And yes, that’s Ronald Reagan.
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Both parties are equally bad at understanding science and technology. The Tories are handicapped by have pre-Enlightenment views on practically everything, whilst the Labour shadow cabinet member in charge of all things digital is Liam Byrne - formerly a minister at the Home Office in charge of New Labour’s ID card bill.
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Has anyone told him that his plans for future technology practically guarantee massive increases in the transhuman population; just to enjoy his expression when he misunderstands them?
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It’s not an official party or government publication, just a glimpse into the mind of one batshit Tory MP; I’m sure Downing Street and Conservative Central Office find it cringingly embarrassing.
Of course, their larger problem is that you could say the same about everything ever said by any Tory “thinker”. Their eternal struggle is to present themselves as a delicious cake, with only one or two hideous maggots occasionally bursting out of it, because you can’t expect perfection, but anyway definitely not a solid writhing mass of maggots covered in a thin schmear of frosting.
Two people who are – to put this in perspective – regarded as the charming, sophisticated crème of Tory intellectuals. A septic dog hemorrhoid would seem like Oscar Wilde to these people, if it was in favor of liquidating the public sector.
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I think you are mixing up the guy who wrote the forward to the tract with the MP who claims to have written it.
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Pretty good for actually paying $5 on fiverr though. To a graphic…something. Who has listened to the promise of the word of Mormon or maybe a Starlight Express programme. This is the terrible fallout from what seemed like a perfectly fun cheeky tour of the V&A Museum describing everything as either trash picking or improving the environment for native scavenger species.
Got that World of No you spoke of!
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“Pixel-stained technopeasant”, I believe.
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You are absolutely correct, of course. Thanks for pointing that out. Though seeing as I heartily agree with the sentiments expressed by bobtato, I stand by my wider condemnation.
(PS It’s ‘foreword’ - forward is where these people claim to be taking us with every step backwards to Dickensianism they take us.)
While I think UBI becomes a necessity as automation increases, based on my personal experience, I am deeply suspicious about the psychological effect.
Almost everyone I know with a work ethic has its darker companion, the need to justify their existence. This can be done in a non-renumerative way by helping others (often family), or the usual way, by having a job.
But over the years I’ve seen a number of people with the need the contribute in order to maintain psychological health, but without the discipline to do so when performing such help was optional (i.e. they were financially supported).
Eventually they were pushed into getting jobs, and their psychological state rapidly improved.
In an era where there simply aren’t jobs available for most of us, will we magically free ourselves from our psychological need to be of use or develop the discipline to contribute when there’s some carrot and no stick?
Perhaps, but I have my doubts.
For many, if not most, earning $x from a job is going to be psychologically healthier than earning $x from UBI, which is bad news when 98% of us won’t be job-worthy.
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I agree that this is something we’ll have to reckon with, whatever vision of the automated future comes to pass. The Protestant Work Ethic and its all-stick/carrot-crumbs economic offspring so beloved of the Tories have really done a horrible number on the psyches of Westerners, so perhaps an active campaign to undermine it and emphasise the value of time with family and friends, of play, of meditation, and of pure glorious idleness would be a starting point for addressing the issue.
There are, of course, other ways besides employment (especially mind-numbing and repetitive and back-breaking jobs better done by software and hardware bots) for a human to achieve a sense of purpose: study, sport, exploration, inventing, storytelling, caregiving for loved ones, making art, etc. These sorts of activities are usually sparked by self-motivation and in the process inspire self-discipline. If tens of millions of people could be freed up to do these things as much as they want to without having to worry about earning the rent and grocery and utility and transit and insurance money (which is realistically the bulk of what a UBI could cover), unexpectedly great things could happen.
If another tens of millions of people choose to use that freedom to sit around smoking pot and playing video games I’m not going to get my drawers twisted into knots over that, either. It may not justify their existence, but it’ll still beat their being forced to flip burgers or sell things people don’t need in call centres or dig ditches or such in order to exist at all.
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Two thoughts on that. First, this is definitely cultural. I think it could be argued that the drive to make oneself useful is somehow underlying or inherent, but that drive manifests through cultural modes. When you meet a new person, one of the first things they will always ask is, “What do you do?” and by that they mean, “What is your job that pays you money?” A big part of the dark side of not having a job is knowing that you are being judged for not having a job and being ashamed. In a real post-work society, maybe someone would answer, “What do you do?” by saying, “I’m working with some people over the internet to see if we can make a functioning origami turing machine” and that would be okay without the follow up of, “Someone is paying you to do that?”
Second, I don’t think anyone really suggests a basic income that would allow people to have a really great standard of living. The amounts I’ve seen implemented in some trials didn’t seem like enough for even food and rent. Proponents of universal income seem to think that nearly everyone would still have jobs. Maybe as we go into the future that will become less true, but we’ve seen staggering increases in automation of everything over history, and yet here we are still working. I think that drive to work includes a drive to figure out something to do.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with that sentiment, but if we’re discussing a future where there’s no available work, it’s perhaps the only humane option.
The counter argument is that a lot of people currently work jobs that they find soul-crushing and unfulfilling. The vast majority of people who graduate from art school or conservatories end up working desk jobs or menial labor and have to do their art on the side, if at all. A future with a UBI could mean someone finally writes that novel he’s been thinking of for years, but it could also mean an over-saturated art/music market where an open studios weekend means everyone in town is showing off paintings and nobody buys them.
So maybe we’re just debating what level of dystopia is better: a harsh future, or a mundane future.
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