[ExI] future of proletariat, was: RE: future of slavery

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 10:31:10AM -0700, spike wrote:

> Even before Extropy-chat went public, there was a wearable computers
> internet chat group which I thought was really interesting.  I had some

It's pathetic that we're getting Oculus Rift only now. We could have
had an equivalent system in 1995, in terms of optics, FOV and
screen resolution. Only the price point is novel -- not that 
the dev kit is suitable for any end user.

> ideas way back then which I want to re-introduce and see if it gets any
> traction.
> 
> In our modern world, much more now than about 16-17 yrs ago when the
> wearables group was near its peak, I had a notion that if we had the means

Wearables peaked around 1995 and were effectively over by 2000.

> to carry some kind of head mounted camera and a microphone, along with an
> earpiece of some sort, it would allow an prole to open a uplink-downlink
> which would allow a third party to see and hear what the prole is seeing and
> hearing.  This would allow the third person to instruct her on what to do in
> realtime.

This has been done.
 
> An example from back in those days.  Suzuki built a bike back in the 80s
> called the cavalcade, but it has a design flaw which can cause the rear
> wheel to suddenly lock up at speed.  People have died.  I and several others
> independently discovered this back in the 90s.  I fixed mine, but it is a
> big job, and not one I would recommend to the casual mechanic because if you
> do it wrong, you can increase the risk rather than decrease it. It requires
> the removal and reinstallation of the secondary gear case, and there are
> plenty of ways to screw up.   I have done three of them now (I own three
> running cavalcades) and have gotten the time down to about 6 hrs if I
> hustle.  If someone from far away were to do this job with me watching over
> their shoulder, I could coach them thru the process.  If they had a
> head-mounted camera with an earpiece and microphone, I could do it,
> especially if I had a cursor that went into their eyepiece, so I could point
> to stuff, such as pointing a cursor and telling her "Remove that bolt, don't
> lose the washer underneath it." etc.

One of the showcases for augmented reality.
 
> The way it has all played out has gone far beyond my sketchy vision.  Google
> glass might be just the tool I need.  The point of this whole thing is that

Their FOV is crap. Look at the end user Oculus Rift, it will have front-facing
stereo cams. 

> those 9 to 5s I discussed earlier are getting harder to find, and employers
> are finding it harder to fill them.  The way laws are developing, an
> employer must practically marry the employee; they are responsible for more
> and more all the time.  Look at the last decade's legal developments in the
> US from the perspective of an employer.

The US is weird.
 
> Now, what if we could set up a system which could occasionally employ people
> with some oddball skill, such as the example above, repairing secondary gear
> cases in Suzuki cavalcades?  What if a person had a collection of such
> oddball skills, which they could sell as needed?  Then the employer isn't
> stuck with an employee who has occasionally-critical but seldom needed

Yes, these are called contractors. Unfortunately, job quality has downshifted
towards the precariate, including the bulk of contractors.

> skills.  Another example: I am a classical controls guy, but in the real
> world, control systems are not often designed, and you can't keep a controls
> team on board for those occasions.  But you can have people who are crazy
> good at some obscure part of the process.  In my case, it would be a few

There are portals for that, hereabouts it's Gulp.de. I presume there
are equivalent contractor recruitment portals in the US as well.

> obscure mathematical tools, specific to Fourier transforms, Butterworth
> filters, superposition of probability distribution functions.  Wouldn't it
> be cool if we could have a system in which most proles had their time mostly
> to themselves, but were occasionally called upon to do their magic?

Who's going to pay for the mortgage, energy, food?
 
> The whole business model of a 9 to 5 from 20 to 65 could be dumped,
> knowledge and skills become currency, and most of us could have an actual
> life.  People could work as much or as little as their needs demand.  Then

It would be great, except both unemployment is increasing *and* job
quality is decreasing.

> conservation would be a form of freedom.  Wacky excess consumerism would

I'm not sure there is much wacky consumerism left. Talk to lost generation
guys (post Gen-Xers, especially millenials). Not doing so very great, innit.

> decline and people had a direct negative feedback loop: every goofy thing

A lot of recent minimalism resurge is due to necessity. The US is still 
largely sheltered, with 50% youth unemployment and loss of reserve
currency status I'm sure many people will wake up and smell the Kafka
quite suddenly.

> you buy costs you actual time, rather than money.  Reasoning: now if we hold
> a 9 to 5, we have generally plenty of money, so there is no need to refrain

I'm not following your numbers there, unfortunately.

> from just buying anything we can afford.  But if we work only enough to

I'm definitely not following you there.

> cover our needs, we pay closer attention to what we buy, waste less,
> increase efficiency, the employer wins, the prole wins, the environment
> wins, and this constitutes a very rare example in which I see no losers
> anywhere in that scenario.

We seem to inhabit alternate realities. Do a thorough sampling of just
the US (which is sheltered), not just the people you know. I think you'll
get a surprise coming.