Here is a very interesting article on "Our Biotech Future" by Freeman Dyson.
Many implications for the future of work, and much else. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370 john John Verdon Sr. Strategic HR Analyst Directorate Military Personnel Force Development Department of National Defence Major-General George R. Pearkes Building 101 Colonel By Drive. Ottawa Ontario K1A 0K2 voice: 992-6246 FAX: 995-5785 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Searching for the pattern which connects.... and to know the difference that makes a difference" Sapare Aude -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 03 July, 2007 12:54 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Futurework Digest, Vol 44, Issue 6 Send Futurework mailing list submissions to futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Futurework digest..." Today's Topics: 1. More hope for today! (Ed Weick) 2. Re: This list (Ed Weick) 3. Re: This List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 12:06:28 -0400 From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Futurework] More hope for today! To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From a freind in response to my gloomy posting of yesterday on our miserable >future prospects: One bizarre fact to consider: Canada and the US are at full employment. Apparently, anyone that wants a job can get a job. The fact that manufacturing jobs are disappearing does not seem to be impacting opportunities for employment. I remember when machines were first introduced in the manufacturing process - displacing unskilled workers, and causing the same sort of hand-wringing as outsourcing to third world countries does today. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and George Orwell's 1984 heralded the coming of the end. What happened instead was a huge increase in wealth (and new jobs). Even more bizarre, our citizens are so busy working at full employment that they don't even have the time to manufacture their own replacements. Projections into the near future say there aren't going to be enough people to meet existing requirements for service type jobs - never mind the manufacturing jobs that are steadily being lost. The result: India, China, and Mexico are going to become the defacto manufacturer of new Canadian citizens - because we all just too busy working to do it ourselves. By continuing to buy manufactured products from third world countries, we are pulling up the standard of living of third world countries much more efficiently than other alternatives - such as just handing out money. If we didn't buy products from third world countries, and instead hid behind tariffs, etc., then developing countries wouldn't have money to buy resources, wouldn't attract investment, and wouldn't be buying high-end products and technology from developed countries. If manufacturing wasn't being done in China, Mexico, India, etc., then we would be faced with wage inflation, price inflation, and economic stagnation. As it is, wage inflation and product prices are very stable - and everyone still has a job - very close to the utopian state that Karl Marx envisioned when he invented the concept of socialism. United States does seem to have lost it's way, directing massive amounts of money towards military activities, when the same amount of money spent solving it's energy problem would have quickly resulted in a 10 fold return on it's investment. Oh well, Rome too had it's problems... and we know what happened to them. History does have a habit of repeating itself. One day the Americans will figure this out. If there is one thing you can count on, it's that capitalism is ruthlessly efficient - and it always finds a way. Somehow I think it's all going to work out. Ken If you want to see what Ken does, go to http://www.imgmaker.com/ . -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 09:14 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Your gloom for today Of all of the many things that happened in the rich world during the 20th Century, a couple stand out. One is the shift away from a goods producing economy and toward a services producing economy. The other is the development of technology permitting instantaneous communication and shipment of services from one part of the globe to another. Given the connective technology, it really doesn't matter where services are produced. They can be produced anywhere and instantly delivered to another part of the world. But what is needed to produce them is an appropriately educated and motivated labour force. As another major 20th Century trend, such a labour force has come into being. Approximately 1.5 billion technically and service orientated workers are now available in China, India and other parts of the developing world. And these workers are willing to provide their services and skills at a much lower wage than workers in the rich world. It is not only services that have become internationalized. Goods production can take place anywhere that has an appropriately skilled and organized labour force. In the case of a large variety of cheap consumers goods, the developing world now produces and the rich world buys. But it is not only cheap consumers goods that are at issue. As the developing world becomes more skilled and educated, it will produce many of the more specialized and sophisticated products used by the rich world. Exports listed for China include machinery and equipment, plastics, optical and medical equipment. China is moving up rapidly in automobile and electronic goods production. What might this mean for workers in Canada and the US? In Canada, it would seem to mean a gradual shift out of many lines of manufacturing and services and a greater dependence on the more traditional resource sectors, especially oil and natural gas. This possibility is not as open to the US, and what may happen there is the kind of continuing industrial disintegration typified by the rust belt of the Midwest and the eastern seaboard. Plants producing goods that can be made more cheaply abroad and offices providing communications based services will close and workers will be laid off, losing not only their wages but in many cases also their access to health care and pensions. I could go on and move the prognostication into the longer term when underemployed, debt-ridden America is no longer able to buy from China and India and when Canada begins to find its natural resources less abundant, but I won't do that. I've spread enough gloom for today. Ed -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/private/futurework/attachments/20070703/fd3a3563/attachment-0001.html ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 12:44:56 -0400 From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Futurework] This list To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Hi Lawry, I've recently returned to the list despite the bad state it's in, and have posted about half a dozen on-topic (the future of work) messages to it during the past couple of weeks. I've also sent the messages to my "undisclosed" list, which includes Karen Cole. My intention is to revive and revitalize the list to the extent I can. I've had a few responses both on the list and from my "undisclosed" list. Where someone from the latter list has said something worthwhile, I've posted it to the FW list. I don't know if the list will ever come back as the great list it once was, but I'm not about to give up on it. I hope that you and others who may be lurking in the shadows don't either. Regards, Ed Weick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence de Bivort" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 9:07 PM Subject: [Futurework] This list > Greetings everyone, > > Since Mike posted this message a couple of weeks ago I have been thinking > quite a bit about this list and the state that it is in. > > Mike mentions one problem, and I think we have several besides this one. > > I've been a member for several years, and I have never seen the list as > dead > as it is now. There is very little that passes for conversation, and very > little genuine exploration or learning going on. > > We have always had a problem straying from the nominal subject of the > list, > the future of work. But we have always had vibrant discussions, until > these > last many months. > > Karen is carrying on valiantly with her Casey Reports, but receives no > feedback and little thanks. > > Harry and Chris doggedly pursue their pseudo-discussions with > argumentative, > unwavering, and repetitive self-righteousness. > > We have obviously lost many valued members in the last couple of years, > and > it is with sadness that I think of their brilliance, energy, bonhomie, > curiosity and knowledge. Some of these have explicitly or privately > referred to Chris and Harry as the cause of their departure. > > The moderators of this list, the list-owners, seem by their silence to > accept the deterioration of the list. > > Who else misses the qualities that we created here some time ago? > > And if I and Mike are not alone in missing them, what should we do to > bring > this list back up. > > The moderators may well tell me that I am overstepping my place with this > email, in which case I will happily follow my friends over the horizon and > disappear. > > If this happens, those of you who know that I enjoy and learn from your > postings, and who may from time to time enjoy mine, please make note of my > email address in the header to this message, and please know that you will > ALWAYS be in my heart and your contacts will always be deeply welcomed by > me. > > To those who are only lurking here, if you too wish for a day in which > vibrant conversations might again prevail, I would love to hear from you > as > well. > > And, finally, a desperate request: if any of you are engaged in > constructive > and convivial discussions in other fora and might welcome my > participation, > please email me.... > > Cheers, > Lawry > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer > Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 3:13 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [Futurework] [META] Re: Bill Gates,Rockefellers & Africa's > biopiracy > > > Hello all -- > > I dropped off the FutureWork list a couple of years ago, not only > because Harry was trolling [1] the list, trying to provoke > opportunities for his condescending barbs and his > free-market-cures-all polemics but as well because all the other > bright folks on the list were politely responding to him as if his > posts were mature and sensible contributions and his jibes and > provocations were unintentional oversights. > > I quite missed the dialog so now I've subscribed again and, oh dear, > oh dear, what do I find? That Harry is still trolling for arguments, > intentionally provoking them and pointlessly prolonging them. It's a > bit reassuring that others are no longer tolerating his provocations > with good grace in the interest of decorum. On the other hand, > allowing the list discourse to degenerate into the kind of shouting > match that makes Harry feel righteous and important is not a big win, > either. > > I would hesitate to suggest that the list owner(s) bar Harry from the > list but perhaps it would be constructive to simply ignore all of his > posts that are devoid of redeeming value or which serve chiefly as a > launching platform for his belligerent rhetoric. Harry's skill is > an ability to be so irritating that one feels compelled to respond. > Suppressing that compulsion might improve the FW conversation. > > > - Mike > > > -------------------------- > /| /| | | > ||__|| | Please | > / O O\__ do not feed | > / \ the troll. | > / \ \ | > / _ \ \ ---------------------- > / |\____\ \ || > / | | | |\____/ || > / \|_|_|/ | __|| > / / \ |____| || > / | | /| | --| > | | |// |____ --| > * _ | |_|_|_| | \-/ > *-- _--\ _ \ // | > / _ \\ _ // | / > * / \_ /- | - | | > * ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________ > > > > > [1] On the off chance that you haven't encountered the term "troll" > in a net context, here's a snippet from Wikipedia : > > In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who intentionally > posts derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about > sensitive topics in an established online community such as an > online discussion forum to bait users into responding. They > may also plant images and data...in order to cause > confrontation. > [...] > The contemporary use of the term first appeared on Usenet > groups in the late 1980s. It is widely thought to be a > truncation of the phrase "trolling for suckers", itself derived > from the sport fishing technique of trolling. > > > -- > Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. > /V\ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] /( )\ > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca > http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca > http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:53:33 +0000 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] This List To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Thank you, Lawry, for your constructive criticism regarding Future of work. Hearing from Charles and Gail today is also encouraging. While I agree that there is too much dissonance, my assessment would be the broader problem is less with the individuals posting, and more with expectations of what we are supposed to be doing. Arthur and Sally were visionary in providing space and context. Today, there are myriad venues online where people can converse, share discoveries and compare work product and ideas. The internet has changed enormously since FW was initiated. And naturally, our communal interests have changed as well. Since this is not a moderated list it depends on the collection the readers bring to share. It is incumbent upon those who want to read about and discuss more narrowly-defined Future of Work items to proffer them. Many times in the past few years I have posted items in the hope that there will be some reaction, spark a conversation or thread, when a vacumn existed, adding to the cafeteria menu, as Gail described. Others have left the list for various reasons. Sometimes it is just time to move on. I've certainly considered it more than once. But if more people were posting, fewer lurking, there would be less [negative] concentration of posts that distract others from the [positive] openness of the list and the online community we have built. I would prefer some structure - along with some friendly boundaries - but a priority should be drawing more voices into the conversation to keep the big tent and variety of input as stimulating as it can be. This does not depend upon a few "star" posters. I am offering this simple outline, hoping for a reaction: Beginning of the week business/economic and work-related posts to share. How about a midweek Book and Scholarly review 'section'. End of the week socio-cultural-political topics related to the world we live and work in. Is that too calendary? The purpose would be to provide readers with a space to share and time to tune in, hoping to add new voices, wider input when some don't want to write an essay but allow for more creative participation. These FW conversations have contributed to my learning and comprehension, for which I am deeply grateful. If we choose, we can address the issues that need updating. I hope we can. Time is a precious commodity for most of us, and we have stayed here because we value the community, not just the input. But we have to maintain both. It's up to us. Regards to all, Karen ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework End of Futurework Digest, Vol 44, Issue 6 ***************************************** _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
