As Goldberg notes, Applebee’s has installed tablets at each table. Self-driving car technology is coming along nicely (2020?). Drones have lots of applications.
‘The robot future is coming no matter what, and it will require some truly creative responses by policymakers. I don’t know what those are, but I’m pretty sure antiquated ideas that were bad policy 100 years ago aren’t going to be of much use. Maybe the answers will come when artificial intelligence finally comes online and we can replace the policymakers with machines, too.’
Say your HAL9000 State U.S. Representative has indicated that it wouldn’t raise taxes this half-cycle to a probability of 99%, but then you get your tax bill and it nearly killed you! Time to decommission:
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Our politics is way behind many of the changes going in our society on right now, and public opinion of our public officials is at all-time lows. Technology is changing private and public institutions, including bureaucracies, of course, but at obviously differing rates with different technologies, and according to different social and political arrangements (current political promises notwithstanding).
We’ve already seen some of these changes come to Wall Street, our workplaces and to our personal lives. Clay Shirky has been thinking about how the internet is going to change government.
Have you as a citizen ever had so much individual freedom that political philosophies and political parties wishing to control government must compete for your business?
Is all that freedom a good thing in your life?
What are you doing with it?
***Clearly, one solution would be to pay low-skilled workers to sit inside of ATM machines and manually handle money and make beeping noises if necessary. The job will come with a living wage and union membership.
**If you want to fund a good piece of satirical fiction, here’s my pitch: A technotopian playboy flits around the global village with a pack of journalists in tow. Old-world money & politics meet new technology & ideas…with a nihilist twist. Today, he claims to have negotiated a peace-deal with Somali pirates. Tomorrow, he’s off delivering a TED talk in San Francisco.
Next Tuesday, our protagonist turns up at Christie’s buying a Warhol for $100 million in NYC. By next Wednesday, he’s rumored to be at Art Basel in Miami, paying nine nude models to destroy the painting while staring directly into the sun.
A publicity stunt? An international plot…or something much darker?
Find out what happens to this intellectually brilliant but morally undecided man, as he begins hearing the voice of his late father into the night, muttering thick, tactical German which echoes in his ears.
Is anything as it seems?
Related On This Site: You’ve been gerrymandered: Repost-Francis Fukuyama And Walter Russell Mead At The American Interest: ‘None Of The Above’
From The American Interest: Francis Fukuyama Interviews Peter Thiel-’A Conversation With Peter Thiel’
Why Do People Move To Cities? From Falkenblog: ‘The Perennial Urban Allure’…Megan McArdle At The Daily Beast: ‘The Technocratic Dilemma’
Are these the enemies of the future?: Virginia Postrel At Bloomberg: ‘How The Elites Built America’s Economic Wall’…
Can economic freedom and free markets reconcile the moral depth of progressive big-State human freedom?: Milton Friedman Via Youtube: ‘Responsibility To The Poor’…A Few Quotations From F.A. Hayek’s: ‘Why I Am Not A Conservative’…libertarians share a definition of liberty
Kevin Williamson, at the National Review, and his new book: ’The End Is Near, And It’s Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave American Richer, Happier, and More Secure.’
Walter Russell Mead’s theory, in part, posits that liberalism 4.0 needs to become 5.0 and start to creatively solve the problems we’re faced with, including globalization, the decline of manufacturing and industry, and the rise of technology. The ‘blue’ model is behind the times:
Technology has never led to structural unemployment as opposed to sector unemployment. The money saved by technological efficiency has to be invested somewhere and that will be in growth areas creating new employment elsewhere. This does not diminish the human suffering caused when technology displaces workers who are too old or incapable of retraining and find employment elsewhere.
We need to protect those buggy whip makers, Malcolm.