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by petercooper
5439 days ago
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Ok, cool, seems like we're thinking along similar lines :-) The problem I see, however, is perhaps different to the one you pose. As distasteful as this sounds, I suggest that perhaps the "average" person is ill equipped to deal with those more interesting and rewarding jobs, given that they're likely to require significant technical or creative skills. Can we bring "the masses", as it were, up to the levels of talent and expertise we'll require in the future, or is there a limit to how good our education and training can be? Will we reach a point where a small number of people are, effectively, supporting the majority? A mini version of this seems to be happening in some Western countries with people who've lived their entire lives on welfare. Perhaps the future is just one where more of us end up on welfare and the government keeps us going on the spoils of the extremely smart and/or powerful. |
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I think that's essentially correct. The non-singularity non-fiscal-collapse endgame is that everything we need and almost everything we want can be produced by a small fraction of the population, and most people don't have sufficient skills and knowledge to be economically productive. When you're trying to cure cancer or build self-driving cars, 10 brilliant PhDs beat 1000 average high school graduates.
Prediction: the idea of a universal guaranteed income (e.g. Milton Friedman's negative income tax) will steadily become more popular.