Think about it:Jen Sorensen is a very talented cartoonist and her
website is worth a weekly visit (updates every Monday). One cartoon,
The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, should be seen and contemplated, especially the first two panels. Bottom line: the productivity gains that would have us all leading a more comfortable life have been absorbed by capitalists. None of the gains were shared by labor. For a period of thirty years. That's astounding.
The cartoon will have resonance with those of a particular generation who, in the 1960's, heard about how great things were going to be with the advance of technology. It sounded plausible. It
was realized, but the error was in thinking that the
distribution of productivity gains was going to continue as it had before.
posted by Quiddity at 4/27/2008 07:00:00 PM
We're going through the same thing again with this thing called "the Singularity." Kevin Drum blogs about it hopefully from time to time. I'm a little less optimistic that the payoff will be as great as some claim it will. Here's wiki link if you're curious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
And another...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_is_Near
This post reminds me that it is time again (5th?, 6th?) to reread Kurt Vonnegut's first novel "Player Piano" (late 1950s?) that looked at the future with its technology advancements whereby most of the goods and services we require can be produced by only a few, with the entrepreneurs and engineers doing all the heavy lifting (and of course getting most of the rewards).
