Technological unemployment: Difference between revisions

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One of the great modern {{t|dogma}}s.
One of the great modern {{t|dogma}}s.


As articulated by Keynes: “unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”<ref>Keynes: ''Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren''</ref>. You would think that this can only ever be a temporary effect: the entrepreneurial possibilities created by freeing labour up from one occupation to do anything else must mean in the long run ''there can be no technological unemployment''. History definitely tells us that. But — just try telling that to {{author|Daniel Susskind}}. [[This time is different]].<ref>We say to him what we [[The Singularity is Near - Book Review|said a decade]] ago to {{author|Ray Kurzweil}}: “... it’s easy to be smug as I type on my decidedly physical computer, showing no signs of being superseded with VR Goggles just yet and we’re only six months from the new decade, [''note: that was the '''last''' decade.''] but, being as path-dependent as it is the evolutionary process is notoriously bad at making predictions — until the results are in.”</ref>
As articulated by Keynes: “unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”<ref>Keynes: ''Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren''</ref>  
 
You would think that this could only ever be a temporary effect: the entrepreneurial possibilities created by freeing labour from one occupation to do something else must mean, in the long run, ''there can be no technological unemployment''. History tells us that. But it couldn’t persuade {{author|Daniel Susskind}}. [[This time is different]].<ref>We say to him what we [[The Singularity is Near - Book Review|said a decade]] ago to {{author|Ray Kurzweil}}: “... it’s easy to be smug as I type on my decidedly physical computer, showing no signs of being superseded with VR Goggles just yet and we’re only six months from the new decade, [''note: that was the '''last''' decade.''] but, being as [[path-dependent]] as it is, the [[evolution|evolutionary process]] is notoriously bad at making predictions — until the results are in.” ''Then'' it’s awesome.</ref>


To the [[JC]]s’ simplistic way of looking at it, to believe the contrary is to be afflicted by, at least, a lack of imagination — and really, a lack of ''wisdom'' — the kind you can only get from the school of ''life''. And, in any case, the whole edifice of technological development is founded on a different premise: that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and the history of technology is the accidental discovery of whole new ways of not just skinning old cats, but then figuring out what to do with the skins, and the cats.  
To the [[JC]]s’ simplistic way of looking at it, to believe the contrary is to be afflicted by, at least, a lack of imagination — and really, a lack of ''wisdom'' — the kind you can only get from the school of ''life''. And, in any case, the whole edifice of technological development is founded on a different premise: that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and the history of technology is the accidental discovery of whole new ways of not just skinning old cats, but then figuring out what to do with the skins, and the cats.  
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