“In The Atlantic Tom Nichols writes that Trump is not a manly president. I don’t particularly care for that approach, I think honor and modesty are traits that should apply regardless of gender. We have the president we deserve. We’re the country that went to war without a draft, whose citizens got tax cuts while at war, whose citizens expect more of that, to us it’s never enough. We expect to be able to inflict chaos around the world and somehow never to be touched by it ourselves. That’s why people are out partying with abandon this weekend. They can’t imagine they can pay a price. There’s a reason Vietnam is responding to the virus so incredibly well and we’re responding so poorly. They remember fighting for their independence. To us, independence is a birth right. A distant memory that’s become perverted. We have to fight for it again. The virus is giving us that chance. We can’t get out of the pandemic until we grow up as individuals and collectively. Trump is the right
president for who we are. We won’t get a better one until we deserve a better one.”
“I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something. How careful you have to be about checking your experiments. How easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something.”
A vacationing American businessman standing on the pier of a quaint coastal fishing village in southern Mexico watched as a small boat with just one young Mexican fisherman pulled into the dock. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. Enjoying the warmth of the early afternoon sun, the American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American casually asked.
“Oh, a few hours,” the fisherman replied.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American businessman then asked.
The fisherman warmly replied, “With this I have more than enough to meet my family’s needs.”
The businessman then became serious, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
Responding with a smile, the fisherman answered, “I sleep late, play with my children, watch ball games, and take siesta with my wife. Sometimes in the evenings I take a stroll into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, sing a few songs…”
The American businessman impatiently interrupted, “Look, I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you to be more profitable. You can start by fishing several hours longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat. With the additional income that larger boat will bring, before long you can buy a second boat, then a third one, and so on, until you have an entire fleet of fishing boats.”
Proud of his own sharp thinking, he excitedly elaborated a grand scheme which could bring even bigger profits, “Then, instead of selling your catch to a middleman you’ll be able to sell your fish directly to the processor, or even open your own cannery. Eventually, you could control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this tiny coastal village and move to Mexico City, or possibly even Los Angeles or New York City, where you could even further expand your enterprise.”
Having never thought of such things, the fisherman asked, “But how long will all this take?”
After a rapid mental calculation, the Harvard MBA pronounced, “Probably about 15-20 years, maybe less if you work really hard.”
“And then what, señor?” asked the fisherman.
“Why, that’s the best part!” answered the businessman with a laugh. “When the time is right, you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions? Really? What would I do with it all?” asked the fisherman in disbelief.
The businessman boasted, “Then you could happily retire with all the money you’ve made. You could move to a quaint coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your grandchildren, watch ball games, and take siesta with your wife. You could stroll to the village in the evenings where you could play the guitar and sing with your friends all you want.”
Well yes. Couldn’t agree more … but that opening line - that suggests that it is all pre destined. This … is how …. it is … going to work … Surely the Future hasn’t yet been decided?
We have heard all this before. The robots are going to take away the meaningless jobs, the repetitive jobs, the boring jobs and we are going to be free to pursue our happiness …
And Yet?
I took part in a small MeetUP yesterday. A nice friendly group that I seem to have latched onto and they haven’t objected so far .. ?.
At the beginning of the session, a video was played. This video.
After watching Gerd wax lyrical over what we can do to manage ‘VUCA’ - that is that the world is increasingly; Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous .. but don’t worry, we can combat that with our own VUCA … with our Velocity, Unorthodoxy, Creativity and ‘Awesomeness’.
I’ll put aside why a better word than ‘awesomeness’ couldn’t be found and just go with the flow.
The discussion then set out to explore whether we agreed or disagreed with the premise - and what would we add. To summarize what I heard, I think the answer is that the world is 49.9999% Optimists and 49.9999% Pessimists … and then there are the rest of us.
I didn’t discern anything specific about why someone fell one way or the other on the optimist/pessimist scale … although definitely some of us on the ‘older side’ had a certain cynicism.
I made a few notes on what I saw which I talked through with the group - and for posterity reveal them here.
We on this call are a particular slice of humanity - I’d love to hear what construction workers, shop keepers, and janitors think about this video.
There is a corporate narrative - that has always been about ‘managing people’ and setting their expectations to the benefit of corporations. This is one such corporate narrative/
There is no future of work - only a future of income/
Whose technology is he talking about? Where is my personal ‘edge’ AI?
Who is in control? Who’s AI? Where is the data?
Tech companies are only now just realizing the need for ethicists … and even then to ethics - what about them?
He talked of STEM - I talk of STEAM - Arts / Liberal Arts - lose that to STEM and we WILL be lost
Work-Life Balance will never work. I talk of Pay, Purpose, Passion and Play.
Life long learning - people have been doing that forever. The key is to ‘Learn to learn’.
Our Education system has primarily been for to train people - not Educate. Training people does nothing to open their eyes to possibilities.
Our education is actually training to be a cog in the machine
There are close to 8 billion people on this planet. I look forward to them all rising up and following their purpose … but first - how about clothing them. Feeding them. Allowing them access to good healthcare. We don’t really need AI and Robotics to do that now. Why will it change?
My conclusion : All of this is moot, if we don’t do something about the world we live in. If we don’t change our education systems to educate, not train people. While we allow our Governments to drives lower income people into the ground. Our humanity, where we think it is all right for millions of people to be starving and dying from heat. Where our Trust in Government is so low that we can barely be bothered to vote. Where Corporations have been taken to such new lows that it is ok to treat people as cogs in their machine. I could go on - but readers of this blog and associated Newsletter know they don’t want that!
Bottom line - all this talk of AI, Bots, Data and the ’technical future; solves the wrong problem really well. Because ….
What I would like to happen with this post is to document what we talked about. So I am going to stop here and publish and then share it with the group and see if I can get some of the others to weigh in on their thoughts. I was but one voice and I wouldn’t want to bias the conclusions. So … here goes nothing … the comments are open.
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