A variety of steep and very sinister job reports has just come out. It appears that the government was deluding itself for several months and when they got things in order, the job situation actually looks really bad. It's somewhat obvious what's happening: AI is taking jobs. Nobody's doing anything about it. It'll only get worse. It's a major crisis for society.
It's ok when the jobless population rises a little; the economy adjusts. When it rises a lot, people complain hard and crime goes up. But when it rises too much it can cause a real crisis. If people can't get jobs what are they supposed to do? There is no safety net anymore; it can only be trouble.
It's a much higher class of people that are getting kicked out in the street this time around. Usually it's a trickle down and the poorer wretches get tossed into the street while the better dressed ones manage by just moving down a level to more doable, poorly-paying jobs. This could happen to some degree to the vast number of middle-managers, bean-counters, analysts, stock nerds, etc., whose jobs require thinking but not creative genius. AI's got their jobs, if not today, tomorrow. Society has to find something for them to do. Nobody is at the helm; nothing is being done.
A universal income is an obvious solution, but would be politically almost impossible, like guaranteed health care. Anything that sounds like socialism, people don't want anything to do with it. Yet the result therefore is that it's rugged individualism for the 80% who have no jobs and no hope of getting them, and government handouts for the ultra-wealthy who mostly want to just put their party in there and keep the tax cuts coming. very quickly we'll have a tinderbox here. It's not sustainable.
Our system doesn't ask, "what changes will this cause and how are we prepared for them?" It asks, "how can I integrate this into my business before the other guy, and make a lot of money?" That's because the system is US. Nobody's at the helm. Nobody has figured out what all these unemployed people are going to do.
I have a plan, actually. I don't want to sound overly dark and cynical and pessimistic even though that's the true me, I think it's big trouble. But here's my plan. Anyone who can ride a bicycle, who is young, has working knees, is in any kind of shape at all, can carry around a portable generator. You stop on a street corner, or even in the woods somewhere, and set it up, and start pedaling and creating power. It would not be too hard to make this machine but more important, to make it portable, durable, and legal. You're unemployed? Go create power so that people can charge their phone, stay warm, or watch the telly when the power's off. If the data centers are going to eat up all the power, what can we do? Make it more democratic, so that even the kids can make money. It doesn't matter if the power you generate from a single workout is only say a buck or two or change. That will be enough for legions of starving people and will be a living for lots of poor people who live from one meal to another. And when the power goes off, there you are.
