Humans need not apply

Many of today's jobs will disappear. Will they be replaced by newer cushier jobs? "No" says this video. at least not in significant numbers.

I was reminded of this 15-minute documentary (it seems even quicker) by the agriculture analogy in Will Robots Take Your Job? (see my summary of the book). This short film also compares the disappearance of horses from agriculture to the current technological advancements.

Many will worry about this, but it could actually be good news. If we sort out the details then many more of us could have a better work-life balance and enjoy our lives far more. A 4-day or 3-day work week is one option. Of course the government will also have to properly tax these robot-driven companies (to replace the income tax that human workers used to pay).

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Will robots take your job?

The future could be very different. It's one reason I started this blog. What will technology mean for jobs? For incomes? For society? So I was excited to find Will Robots Take Your Job? at my local library. What does the book say? There's always been technological change and we've always found jobs. As the more laborious jobs were taken by machines, we took on higher skilled jobs, moving further up the "skill ladder". The main question is whether this time is different. Will the "skill ladder" continue to have higher rungs for humans to move on to? Will these rungs appear as quickly as the current rungs disappear? Either way we're headed for significant disruption. Either large-scale re-training of our workforce or massive unemployment. The author despairs that our leaders seem not to talk about this - and worse still, not have a plan for it. Farmers or horses? In 1870 about 75% of Americans worked in agriculture and used 25 million hors

Shop less. Live more.

October is Buy Nothing New Month , and that's their slogan: Shop Less. Live More. This quote about consumption is doubly true. There's the hours we spend to earn the money to spend. Then there's the hours bustling around shopping centres and malls searching out the thing we want (or that advertising has told us we want). Of course there's also the issue of where we put all this stuff we buy. Do we just buy a bigger house (with a bigger mortgage) or do we put it in storage? "The Japanese may have tidiness but in America we have storage lockers - our only growth industry." - Marge Simpson . I found these stats about the US storage industry . I find it such a waste that after spending so much to buy all this stuff we then spend another $22 billion to store it. Shocking. Clearly we need to be less addicted to purchasing. Buy Nothing New Month is a great way to start. Are you with me?

Inheriting Clutter

This book stood out on the library shelf. Massive clutter can create anxiety at any time, let alone when it has to be dealt with during one of the toughest points of life. Author Julie Hall deals with estates for a living. Her book covers the nitty-gritty of dealing with all that stuff. It also covers caring for parents while they are here and what to do to make life easier for them, your siblings and you. Parent Logic We may wonder why parents keep so much stuff. Julie explains that our parents (having grown up in a different time) have their reasons. Often they had to 'go without' as kids and so don't want to 'go without' again. Sometimes they think items will become valuable with age. Also there's the thought "the more I leave the kids the more they will have" . This is obviously mathematically true - but whether that's a good thing is questionable. Ironically, this admirable quality of aversion to waste often ends up causing waste. Items get s

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