What Happens When "Producers" Don't Need "Consumers"?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

How many citizens remember the definition of a tangent, from high school geometry?

Much has been written recently about automation disintermediating currently "secure" human jobs, and the supposedly dire threat that any and all newly invented tools now pose to human culture and humans themselves. Few stop to ponder the fact that we've been inventing labor-saving tools since the first twig was poked into a termite nest, long before the first flint chopper was knapped. New tools have always posed a transient challenge, followed by the freedom to turn our attention to other things.

Now, however, supposedly modern humans seem to be having problems TURNING THEIR ATTENTION to bigger and better things.

Uh, ... maybe OCD* is the problem, not tools or automation?

Consider (but please don't get overly side tracked on the specifics of) just one of many, many examples, hat tip to Shai Schechter ‏

"Truck driving most common job in 29/50 US states. What will happen when trucks don't need drivers.

Oh, I don't know. What did our ancestral primates (and their teeth) do, when gnawing raw meat from bones was replaced by cooked meat sliced with flint knives?

Can we please NOT descend into discussion of the trivia related to each & every such "what happens" question, and instead ponder what things will be like 2, 3 & 7 or more generations out? My persistent point is that our smorgasboard of new options worth exploring swamp each and every negative associated with population growth and our new inventions. I call this the Traveling Entrepreneur's Task, but it's also the Context Nomad's Task or the "SOCIAL-SPECIES DILEMMA," and it's at the heart of the utility & purpose of fiat currency, or denomination of ongoing (& expanding) Public Initiative. We've been doing that for ~3.5 billion years on planet Earth. Let's not lose track of that.

3 seconds of stopping to think produced this response.

I'd worry more about invention of the auto-consuming robot. What happens when "producers" don't need "consumers"? :(

Pun intended. But seriously, take our aversion to thinking .... PLEASE!

Is it too much to ask fellow citizens for, say, 60 seconds of silent, actual thought? What might THEY come up with, if asked to respond to this question?

Years ago, when visiting elementary schools for the NIH, to help reconsider science education, I used to ask this type of questions of kids. Up to 5th grade, kids everywhere had no problem demonstrating truly astounding imagination! You couldn't contain it! Sadly, you could palpably see the intellectual repression kicking in somewhere in 6th grade, in the form of repressed imagination regarding the future, replaced with too much slavery to "efficient performance" in the transient present. Much of the original imagination of student humans had - unimaginably - been contained and destroyed, reminiscent of the destruction of the once limitless Bison and cod fisheries of the Grand Banks.

NeoClassical Ideology & Collapse Of Human Imagination ... will that be our epithet?

For now, let's leave these dangling options for readers to explore on their own, unimpeded by any restrictions. The rising ranks of unemployed should have plenty of time to think, instead of just mindlessly watch tv.

Please notify me if any NeoClassical mouth-breathers re-discover the concept of infinite tangents, and then apply it to reconsideration of our instantaneous position on the evolutionary path of homo sapiens. Where do we go from here? Off on some random tangent?  Or do we THINK about the continuous, strenuous thinking required to keep within striking distance of our unpredictable survival path?  Well?

The murky images in my crystal ball imply submergence of a new sub-species of humans, destined for rapid extinction. Dumbo NeoClassicoSenseless, or the "DNCi" - disappearing from reality faster than a receding hairline, warbling their erble logic all the way. 

The sad part is how many passive homo sapiens may needlessly follow them off on some fixed tangent, & over the nominal cliffs the DNCi invent.

What's in YOUR crystal ball? Just the present view imposed by the DNCi, or endless new options worth exploring?

* Really, I'm surprised that adhering to NeoClassical Economics isn't on this list. 

    Or maybe it is, and we just don't notice? 

    Here's another thought:

     If variant wiring of many neurons within one central nervous system can produce OCD behavior in one individual, can variant policy wiring in public discourse produce OCD behavior in a nation's government? Since we're in charge of constantly rewiring both examples .... can't we fix or at least significantly mitigate both, with careful, persistent management, training and practice?  Say, isn't that called Democracy, and acting like a co-owner?