Job Automation

I've been called a Luddite before, about 20 years ago when I saw this coming. Instead of planning for what's coming, almost everyone is about to be blindsided by automation. The machines and the algorithms and the apps are coming for most of us, and the disruption that is coming is difficult to express in words. No one is safe, and the skills required to survive in the 21st century are vastly different than the previous century.

We can continue to ignore things and hope Adam Smith's invisible hand will come to the rescue somehow. Or we can declare the workweek at 20 hours per week and eliminate the hourly and part-time job classifications. We also provide a form of universal basic income (UBI) as a safety net, based on needs and taxes, and cut the salaries of elected officials while linking them to the same UBI system of needs and taxes. Families having children with autism will get more than those without, people living in big houses with accumulated generational wealth might pay more if they can afford it.

Everyone must do their part during a period of transition, and it is coming, and it can take about ten to twenty years if we plan it right. Current employers will have to do their part, industries will vanish causing unemployment and rise in UBI, and some people will be jealous of others. Some will envy those who still work, feeling like they are getting some handout from the government. Others will envy those on UBI, asking why they are still working instead of quitting and collecting free money.

But if we don't plan it right, embrace automation to force efficiency into the system, we will suffer. There will be economic problems, production problems, mental and physical health problems, and humanity will not survive as it is for long.