Technology moving too fast?

[Larro Darro]

Here is how I remember it from my school days. I may be wrong, though.

Technology- tools and the knowledge to use them.

 

[Lsbcal]

...(snip)...
The questions were posted, because most of the events that were mentioned, had already happened before most of our citizens even had a clue as to how or why they happened. The "TECHNOLOGY" that allowed them to happen occurred within the government, or private companies... long before they cme to the attention of the general public. The general public learned about them after the fact.
After the fact means after the events had already cost the public when they became aware. The horse was out of the barn.

I agree that in modern times it does feel like tech is moving too fast. I worked in the electronics industry for 30 years and always felt like it was a bit too much. I lived in Silicon Valley and people from all over the world came there to live and work. These people were (are) very smart indeed. You never knew enough, even in your narrow area of expertise -- there was always a race and I wasn't an elite runner, good but not in front of the whole pack.

Should we expect the public to be in front on tech, let alone on public policy and foreign affairs? Let's face it, most of us are followers.

Thank you all for your interesting input... Made me feel good about being here. After some 22 years of posting on forums, the folks here are by far,
#1!

Should I take a bow now?

 

[ER Eddie]

I hate to break up a loverly discussion about sexism, but I'd kinda like to go back to the beginning of the discussion and retry the original question, with what I had hoped was the original intent....

Thanks for getting things back on track, my man.

[...] but thought it might be well to point out that as "On Top of Tech" as many feel... there are challenges in the works, that you and I don't even know about... even as we speak.

Absotively. Cybersecurity issues, for instance...

 

[Amethyst]

One of my favorite phrases, said after struggling or watching others struggle with a balky application: "ah, yes, Man in the service of Technology!"

 

[timwalsh300]

So... although some perceive my opinion to be that of some old fart, sitting in his room alone and wishing back the "olden days"... I am well aware of the benefits of technology...

But you've stated or implied multiple times that earlier generations "knew more" than people do today. While there are some potentially negative consequences of today's technological advancement, I just don't think that any of them involve people becoming less informed or less aware of the world around them. On the contrary, I think the most obvious benefit has been a global, free flow of information.

Governments and corporations have always done shady things. Today we might learn about them after the fact, but I think we learn about them and engage in heated public discourse much quicker than we used to. Technology has made attempts at secrecy and censorship increasingly futile, even for groups like the NSA that exist at the pinnacle of technological expertise. And I suspect that a fear of being found guilty in the court of public opinion now prevents a lot of bad behavior by otherwise powerful organizations.

I guess I've beaten that horse to death.

The consequence that I most often worry about is this: Traditional economic theory says that automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates new ones (e.g. automobiles displace people in the horse business, but allow for those people to begin building or repairing cars instead). At some point, however, I wonder if the new jobs require more sophisticated skills than displaced workers are capable of developing. That time may already be upon us as highly-paid jobs for STEM workers go unfilled while the unemployment rate is 7-8% and people struggle. I'm afraid that not everyone has the intellectual horsepower to be an engineer, so how do they earn a living wage going forward?

Tim

 

[donheff]

Just to jump back on the sex terminology generational digression for a second. My 30 something daughter in law from NYC has referred to my son as "my man" for the ten years she has known him. The terminology grates on my ears but I noticed her sister and some of her NYC girl friends use it too. Maybe it is an upper east side thing rather than a generational thing.

 

[ER Eddie]

Yeah, it's a subculture thing, not a generational thing. Certain subcultures use it. Others don't.

Okay, back to our debate about whether robots are going to take over the earth.

 

[Arifriekinel]

The consequence that I most often worry about is this: Traditional economic theory says that automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates new ones (e.g. automobiles displace people in the horse business, but allow for those people to begin building or repairing cars instead). At some point, however, I wonder if the new jobs require more sophisticated skills than displaced workers are capable of developing. That time may already be upon us as highly-paid jobs for STEM workers go unfilled while the unemployment rate is 7-8% and people struggle. I'm afraid that not everyone has the intellectual horsepower to be an engineer, so how do they earn a living wage going forward?

Tim

I am very interested in this development too, it's something I've really enjoyed watching over the course of my life. I'm lucky enough to be born to programmers, raised in a programming world, put into gifted programs as a child, and consistently engage with friends and groups innovating in technology. A different friend has a successful tech Kickstarter every week lately. So I have no issues understanding tech, but I'm also very aware that plenty of people aren't of the skill level to work in those jobs.

On a much more personal level, I see it as a chance to develop a new economic system, obviously over the course of the coming decades and centuries. Technology has shaped societies in unimaginable ways over the years, and I only see it doing even moreso. Bitcoin mining is an interesting study of microevolution I've thought.

I don't quite know how things may change, but as humans, we have had relatively limited material off which we could base our economy, and I am excited to see how that changes in the coming sink-or-swim years.

Yeah, it's a subculture thing, not a generational thing. Certain subcultures use it. Others don't.

Okay, back to our debate about whether robots are going to take over the earth.

My parents are in their 30s, from Tennessee and Georgia, and they find it as creepy as I do, so yeah, I'd definitely imagine it's subculture-based, like everything else Generalizations are another thing I wish were left in the past, but they like to hold on with all the other colloquialisms, guess I gotta live with it

 

[bUU]

Traditional economic theory says that automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates new ones

Though it doesn't say specifically where those new jobs will be created. The concerns I hear people losing jobs today talking about have an undercurrent of concern about the prospect of the prosperity of the developed world being spread thinner and thinner as the population of the developed world becomes bigger.

At some point, however, I wonder if the new jobs require more sophisticated skills than displaced workers are capable of developing.

I believe we can rely on that being a temporary condition, remedied by the vacuum for such skills created by the need for them. However, that doesn't mean the remedy will necessarily be applied to the same people who were displaced. It could just as well be applied to anyone anywhere. See above.

 

[yakers]

Even the smartest have trouble dealing with change:

Change is never fine! - YouTube

 

[scrinch]

The terms wife and girlfriend effectively require a possessive pronoun because they only exist in relation to a second party. It's not very meaningful to say, "I was sitting next to a beautiful wife." So the "my" defines the partner in the relationship rather than actual possession. However you can sit next to a beautiful woman, who can exist outside of a relation to a second party, so if you say she is your woman, that does imply possession.

Sorry. Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...

 

[martyp]

The questions were posted, because most of the events that were mentioned, had already happened before most of our citizens even had a clue as to how or why they happened. The "TECHNOLOGY" that allowed them to happen occurred within the government, or private companies... long before they cme to the attention of the general public. The general public learned about them after the fact.
After the fact means after the events had already cost the public when they became aware. The horse was out of the barn.

Technology always starts someplace and then it gets out. It either takes off or it doesn't. I don't see what has changed.

 

[haha]

I'm afraid that not everyone has the intellectual horsepower to be an engineer, so how do they earn a living wage going forward?

Tim

Do like the Victorians- go into service and live downstairs.

Ha

 

[haha]

The terms wife and girlfriend effectively require a possessive pronoun because they only exist in relation to a second party. It's not very meaningful to say, "I was sitting next to a beautiful wife." So the "my" defines the partner in the relationship rather than actual possession. However you can sit next to a beautiful woman, who can exist outside of a relation to a second party, so if you say she is your woman, that does imply possession.

Sorry. Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...

Except that at all over the world, in many different languages including very sophisticated ones like Spanish and French, my woman often means my wife, in that it implies a woman with whom you cohabit, may support, may have children with and will get seriously annoyed if some other man makes a play for her. If you doubt this, go into any working class bar in the US south and hit on a woman sitting with a guy, or perhaps the guy has gone to the bathroom-when he comes back you could catch a battle in the teeth.

Not everyone in the world is as hung up about pieces of paper as we are in America. There are two levels of knowledge- what we Americans are allowed to think, and what any observant person realizes is true. They overlap less and less every year.

Ha

 

[martyp]

The consequence that I most often worry about is this: Traditional economic theory says that automation doesn't destroy jobs, it creates new ones (e.g. automobiles displace people in the horse business, but allow for those people to begin building or repairing cars instead). At some point, however, I wonder if the new jobs require more sophisticated skills than displaced workers are capable of developing. That time may already be upon us as highly-paid jobs for STEM workers go unfilled while the unemployment rate is 7-8% and people struggle. I'm afraid that not everyone has the intellectual horsepower to be an engineer, so how do they earn a living wage going forward?

Tim

Actually, the last half of my engineering career was doing just that. We automated tasks. Laid off the lower skilled workers. Replaced them with fewer higher skilled workers. When someone else's automation efforts pushed me out of my job it just happened be retirement time for me. My remaining employees all landed on their feet in other parts of the organization.

But to answer your question . . . those displaced workers are being funneled to lower wage jobs. That is what fueled the recent wage protests at fast food restaurants in New York and other cities. Low wage employees are now adults with families rather than kids getting their first jobs.

 

[audreyh1]

I thought technology had moved remarkably fast in the late 20th century. And then I became more knowledgeable about US history in the 19th century and early 20th century and came to realize it was moving very fast then too. Leaps and bounds in transportation - from one-way barges to steamboats to railroads and then cars and planes. What a whirlwind it must have seemed to my grandparents and their parents! For centuries, waterways were the main transportation, then in less than a 100 years several revolutions in transportation. Wow!

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Is technology moving too fast?

On a personal level my answer to this question will have little value to the next person i.e. - Elon Musk or Jaron Lanier will have a different perspective than an Amish individual or say Ted Kaczynski.
Not that we can do anything about it, the question becomes more interesting on the macro level - Is technology moving too fast for the good of mankind?
Do advanced civilizations inevitably reach some future oh sh*t moment? Like - "I assure you, the LHC can not create a self sustaining Black Hole......

 

[heyyou]

Wm Bernstein has written about the historical speed of tech change in Splendid Exchange.

People are not different now than they ever were. Aesop's Fables, the Talmud, Bible, Tao, Buddha, etc. still have valid lessons for modern (higher tech, but not any wiser) day to day living. The perception of currently too much of what used to be rare is enduring in, shall we say, more mature adults. Socrates wrote about young people being too lazy to be productive.

More knowledge, but the same insufficient amount of wisdom as there ever was. We have doubled our lifespan, but with no change in our behaviors, so where is the real impact from tech change?

 

[bUU]

While I agree that there is imperceptible fundamental change between now and a generation ago (and perhaps even slight regression), we have changed with regard to how we treat others over longer periods of consideration. Not everything has changed, and even where things changed the same words could hold (different) meaning despite the differences. But we have changed.