On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 01:25:50AM -0600, The Fool wrote:

> Within the next twenty or so years, almost all jobs that are done now
> will be done by technology.  The unemployment rate will balloon as we
> approach the singularity.  There will be no service jobs.  Machines
> will do better work cheaper with less errors.  There will be no
> White-Collar jobs.  Technology will be cheaper, faster, better.
>
> The Economy will collapse and their will be two kinds of people: Rich
> people who own everything, and poor people who own nothing.  What
> keeps the rich people from deciding to be rid of the poor people
> altogether?

I suspect you are too optimistic by far on the technology front and too
pessimistic on the social front.

But even if you are right about technology, then why don't you use your
political activism to support programs for upward economic mobility for
the poor and "equitable" redistribution of wealth? Free trade is not the
problem -- it is helping our rapid technological advance, as you alluded
to in your first paragraph. The important problem to solve would appear
to be how to equitably divide the fruits of that progress.



-- 
Erik Reuter   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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