On May 29, 2007, at 12:43 PM, Jonathan H. Hinck wrote:
Thanks for your response (below). To clarify, I wasn't talking about
the need to initiate a public policy (at least not at the front end of
the process). Rather, I was talking about the need for an open dialog
and discussion, such as we now have regarding education, the
environment, etc. Right now automation is not a "public issue" such
as
these, as I think it should be. As mentioned, inhibitors may already
exist (lack of agreement among computer scientists, for one, and the
public disregard of the Sci-Fi "geeks" for another).
But the dialog and discussion is all open now. Automation has been
a "public issue" since the beginning of the Industrial Age.
As for incremental steps, my concern is that any mystery regarding
what
is around the corner might generate more concern than giving
everyone a
picture of the final product.
We have no idea what the final product will look like really. We have
many ideas of what it could be like. Most of those would scare the
bejeezus out of almost everyone. Human beings of this time are quite
used to wondering "what they will think of next".
Incremental, for example, would be like
saying "you're all going to loose your jobs". I would rather have a
discussion (as utopist as it may sound) regarding why "jobs", in the
end, may not be necessary, because then we could, in turn, have a
discussion regarding why humanity should, in that event, at least
think
about constructing a transitional financial system (whatever that
might
be) to take care of the economically displaced.
That is a good idea that I am in support of. However, it is
difficult to play out when the US, for example, is $9 trillion in debt
(more like $35 trillion depending on how you do your bookkeeping) and
many middle class folks are realizing their actual financial well
being is less than that of their parents. Many of the causes of that
have nothing at all to do with advancing technology. You can
certainly expect to be asked why the technology we have today has not
made us economically better off. It isn't a bad question at all.
There should therefore be more "politics" posts and discussions,
such as
we are having now.
Good luck with that. There is a range of political views as to what
is wrong now and how to perhaps fix it where the fixes are strongly
determined by the particular flavor of political views held. From
experience it is very seldom the case that people with different
enough political views really manage to communicate very productively,
at least no in email lists.
- samantha
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