"If you really think about the things you need to make yourself happy -- housing, security, opportunity for your kids ... it's not that hard for us to provide those things," Page said. "The idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet peoples' needs is not true."
Work expands to fill time. Period. You will not see a standard six-hour work day for the average plebe anytime soon.
Page said the world should be living in a "time of abundance" in which robots and machines could help meet everyone's basic needs much more easily.
Most people have enough trouble managing their e-mails, let alone programming a DVR, or something more complex.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I agree with them on principal, but you are more correct in reality evading them.
I think the ST:TNG reality is the goal, and someday we might get there, but I'm sure nobody will feel less stressed. There will still be people working 80 hour work week, and yada yada yada.
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
I saw that article. These dolts are just one good idea above trust fund kids. And at least trust fund kids might be low enough in wealth that they actually know people that from time to time have some financial challenges.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
I think the ST:TNG reality is the goal, and someday we might get there...
Goal? The more toys you get, the more ways you think to use them. Think of the transporter. Imagine how much work would be eliminated if we could beam whatever wherever. Now think of all the other uses we could get out of variation on that tech and all the time and effort needed to bring them to fruition. Some dude from the Dark Ages would be shocked we aren't riding horses anymore. He'd probably wonder what we did with all that spare time we saved from travel.
Edited By Malcolm on 1404754338
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I think the ST:TNG reality is the goal, and someday we might get there...
Goal? The more toys you get, the more ways you think to use them. Think of the transporter. Imagine how much work would be eliminated if we could beam whatever wherever. Now think of all the other uses we could get out of variation on that tech and all the time and effort needed to bring them to fruition. Some dude from the Dark Ages would be shocked we aren't riding horses anymore. He'd probably wonder what we did with all that spare time we saved from travel.
Well, don't ignore the fact that I said we'd still be stressed and working long weeks.
The travel analogy is funny. Theoretically, there is almost no reason for the majority of business travel these days, yet we still do it. Hell, all but 1-2 office workers at my company could do their jobs almost exclusively from home, yet we don't.
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
Theoretically, there is almost no reason for the majority of business travel these days, yet we still do it.
Because teleconferences are unreliable and slow.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
A better response would have been:
Because it's hard to grease palms long distance.
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
I was talking about this stuff recently with a friend, and I generally agree with the google guys on this point. Although they've glossed over some major obstacles here.
In the beginning were the hunters & gatherers, and 100% of their time was spent finding or following food. Then agriculture came along which could support some small number of extra people that weren't spending their lives growing food. The the industrial revolution meant that very few people spent time growing food but everyone else spent time supporting the industries that made that possible. And now we're in a new transition with automation and advanced process technologies that means almost no one will need to work to make the food and the things. In theory most people could take most of their time off and all the food and things would still be made.
But how to distribute those food and things to the people that need them in a way that is fair and equitable and still rewards those producing the food and things? The old paradigm of trading time for money is going to need to be replaced and soon. With what I don't yet know. But that's the nature of these complete shifts in the socioeconomic structure of humanity; it's almost completely impossible to predict what the other side will look like until you are there. Whatever life looks like in 20 years, it will be something as incomprehensible to our parents as the factory age would have been to a middle-ages beet farmer.
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
A better response would have been:
Because it's hard to grease palms long distance.
We use a lot of video conferencing. But at times they fly down to Mexico. it is difficult to measure the mood and attitude of a remote office without being there.
I think for the day to day meeting stuff the conferencing is fine. But it IS more difficult to manage across one.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
I get that, but that's not a society problem. That's your company's fault.
I mean, if a car is available, but your company still uses horses and buggies, whose fault is that?
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
My company sucks so hard at large scale, corporate IT technologies, it's unbelievable.
Teleconferencing sucks at my company because they randomly boot people from RDP connections. I've tried to find a pattern but the only consistent one is that the will disconnect you sometime in the first hour, and probably at least once every hour thereafter. That's one problem. I won't even go into the rest since "arbitrarily slashes your connection" tends to trump everything else. If someone in your meeting blacked out for a couple minutes, it'd be annoying to wait for him to come back to life.
Edited By Malcolm on 1404766935
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
TPRJones wrote:I can't think of any meeting I am likely to be in that wouldn't be vastly improved by some of the participants randomly and frequently blacking out.
That made me laugh. I think that may be a constant in the Universe.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
TPRJones wrote:I can't think of any meeting I am likely to be in that wouldn't be vastly improved by some of the participants randomly and frequently blacking out.
That made me laugh. I think that may be a constant in the Universe.
Fine. Replace that with "the dude who's required at the meeting because he's doing all the talking and you wait two to five minutes every time it happens." I also should mention that my internet comes from that awesome Comcast place, so my connection sucks randomly even without the VPN reaper picking my name in the lottery.
Edited By Malcolm on 1404771386
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
TPRJones wrote:I get paid by the hour. Still sounds good to me.
FTE -> !OT. Not that I got a lot of OT as a contractor, mind you. The FTE benefits outweigh any OT I did get.
Edited By Malcolm on 1404791541
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."