I am cautiously optimistic that something will appear to engage the bodies and minds of those thrown out of work by any future waves of automation.
The solution will probably be something that I think is silly today.
An example. I was a fairly early adopter of the Internet. By the time I got around to reading Ender's Game, the leading search engine was Archie, and the web had not been invented. But I recognized Usenet (or something like it) in Card's description of discussion boards.
I thought the idea that anyone might achieve anything practical in the real world based on the strength of electronically published rhetoric was not just silly, but slap-my-knee hilarious.
Just look, I thought, at the laughable impotence of all these "letters to the editor" in newspapers. Surely electronic journalism will be cheaper, easier and much more accessible, therefore much more popular, and therefore of exponentially less value.
I kept chuckling for years, even as blogging gained popularity and influence.
Even though I was quite interested in an outcome like Card predicted, and had even been involved in getting the machinery in place to support a future like he imagined, I still reached a conclusion that was completely unsound.
The solution will probably be something that I think is silly today.
An example. I was a fairly early adopter of the Internet. By the time I got around to reading Ender's Game, the leading search engine was Archie, and the web had not been invented. But I recognized Usenet (or something like it) in Card's description of discussion boards.
I thought the idea that anyone might achieve anything practical in the real world based on the strength of electronically published rhetoric was not just silly, but slap-my-knee hilarious.
Just look, I thought, at the laughable impotence of all these "letters to the editor" in newspapers. Surely electronic journalism will be cheaper, easier and much more accessible, therefore much more popular, and therefore of exponentially less value.
I kept chuckling for years, even as blogging gained popularity and influence.
Even though I was quite interested in an outcome like Card predicted, and had even been involved in getting the machinery in place to support a future like he imagined, I still reached a conclusion that was completely unsound.
We will probably be fine.