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

spike spike at rainier66.com
Tue Apr 9 17:31:10 UTC 2013



... spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
...
>...In modern times, proles have truly been set free.  If we don't care what
kind of home we live in and we are not too picky about what we eat or how
much, an American can live his (if her, it's even easier) entire life
without ever taking up a 9 to 5...spike

_______________________________________________

Hmmm, I read it over and realized I can do better than that.

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

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.

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
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.

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
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
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?

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
conservation would be a form of freedom.  Wacky excess consumerism would
decline and people had a direct negative feedback loop: every goofy thing
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
from just buying anything we can afford.  But if we work only enough to
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.

spike




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