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Now if something about this scenario nudges your implausibility hooter, that makes two of us. | Now if something about this scenario nudges your implausibility hooter, that makes two of us. | ||
For one thing, from our [[perspective chauvinism|vantage point]], the last thirty-odd years have been one long [[Cambrian explosion]] of technology (''t’internet! iPhones! SETI@home! Uber! Drones!''), but so far ''no sign'' of any extra leisure time. Maybe it is just me, readers, but for [[JC|this old goat]] it has been quite the opposite experience. Granted, a lot of it is ''crap'' work: [[internal audit]], software [[change manager|change management]], process excellence and operations analysis: hardly the effervescent future we envisaged as wild undergraduate dreamers | For one thing, from our [[perspective chauvinism|vantage point]], the last thirty-odd years have been one long [[Cambrian explosion]] of technology (''t’internet! iPhones! SETI@home! Uber! Drones!''), but so far ''no sign'' of any extra leisure time. Maybe it is just me, readers, but for [[JC|this old goat]] it has been quite the opposite experience. Granted, a lot of it is ''crap'' work: [[internal audit]], software [[change manager|change management]], process excellence and operations analysis: hardly the effervescent future we envisaged as wild undergraduate dreamers — as to that, you do wonder: had our elders known what lay ahead, would they have told us? [[Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?]] | ||
In any case, | In any case, the unknowable ''then'' has coagulated into a crushing ''now'', and the reality is this: ''there is more work to do now than ever.'' Work is here, it is overwhelming, it is debilitating, and it is barricading the way to that chessboard in Στούπα, with no end in sight. | ||
As for that end: | As for that end: the millenarians ask us to believe that a 5,000-year-old asymptote will suddenly invert? But ''how''? ''When''? ''Why''? ''No-one knows what we will be doing in ineffable, co-evolving future'': ''we'' don’t, and the bots ''definitely'' don’t. It might not be [[Change manager|regulatory change programme management]] (though, ahhh, don’t ''bet'' on it) but, if the past is any guide, it ''will'' be something, it ''will'' be [[tedious]], and it sure as hell ''won’t'' be slugging back ''génépi'' over a backgammon board in the ''Haute-Savoie''. | ||
“Ahh,” sayeth the [[digital prophet]]s of our time, “but ''is'' the past any guide? We say it is not. ''[[This time is different]]''. This time the machines will not just be our handmaidens; ''they will replace us altogether''.” | “Ahh,” sayeth the [[digital prophet]]s of our time, “but ''is'' the past any guide? We say it is not. ''[[This time is different]]''. This time the machines will not just be our handmaidens; ''they will replace us altogether''.” |