Transhumanism and Inequality

By |2021-02-20T11:09:04-05:00October 7th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , |

Transhumanist Inequity What Happens When the Wealthy Upgrade Mind and Body? I recently wrote a piece about a not-that-distant future in which the majority of us either don’t need to or can’t work for wages -- a world in which we have leisure and will need to figure out what to do with it. I suggested that we start planning for this likely future now, by instituting universal basic income schemes. We will also need to invest massive sums in improving education and strengthening the voluntary and creative sectors. The goal here [...]

An Employment Shift is Coming

By |2020-10-06T18:01:56-04:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , |

The Coming Employment Shift What Happens When Work is Not Needed? I like to think I have a philosophical temperament. What does that mean? Well, among other things, it implies a capacity for detachment, for viewing the daily hustle and the short-term bustle from a distance, the birds-eye view. The Latin term for this is ‘sub specie aeternitatis,’ which means ‘from the aspect of eternity.’ Now I am not a philosopher. If I were, I would be spending most of my time wrestling with the Big Questions. You know, the questions we [...]

The Future of Work

By |2020-07-23T13:28:36-04:00May 10th, 2020|Categories: Society|Tags: , , , , , , |

The Future of Work - Part 1 Universal Basic Income In 1915 there were 22 million horses in the United States and most of them had jobs.  By 1960, there were 3 million horses in the U.S. bred mostly for the recreational pleasures of their human masters. Are we headed towards a future that sees large segments of the human workforce  permanently displaced like their former equine partners?  A future where workers do not migrate from one dying sector of the economy to a new and upcoming sector that needs the displaced [...]