utonesm's soup

“ 私が子供のころ、大正末年から昭和初年にかけては、子供に新聞を読むことを禁じる家庭がまだ沢山あった。新聞はうそを書く、誇張する、好んで醜聞を掲げる、大人はそれがうそまたは誇張だと察することができるが、子供はできない。故に大きくなるまでは読ませない、記事は選んで家長が読んでやる、という家があった。これは明治時代からの名残で、昭和十年代まで子供だった友に聞いたら、自分も読むことを禁じられていたと答えたから、そのころまでそんな家があったと分かる。

戦後新聞が読まれなくなったのは、小学校の先生が読め読めと強いたからである。ことに社説を読めと読ませ、果ては「天声人語」を写させ感想を書かせたから、それで日本中の子供は新聞嫌いになった。読むなと禁じればかくれてでも読む。読めと命じれば読まなくなるのが人間の常で、なぜ読めと言ったかというと、新聞は常に進歩的で日教組や国労の主張を支持してくれたからで、毎日それを子供に読ませれば、いずれ天下がとれると思ったのである。だから新聞を読ませたければもう一度読むことを禁じるのがいいのだが、今となっては、あの社説では読むものはあるまいと思われる。

山本夏彦「私の岩波物語」文春文庫より ”

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それより関心があるのは、これが新しいOSSの開発スタイルとなるか？ という点です。

　何か問題を持つ人が一定数いて、それを解決するコードを書く人に対して対価を支払うというのは、とても健全なソフトウェアビジネスのあり方に思えます。これまでOSSそのもの、あるいはOSSを使ったソリューションを提供する企業が、受益者とOSS開発者をバルクで結びつける中間的なブローカーの役割を果たしていたのだと考えれば、インターネットによる直接的でミクロな契約が可能となった今、実は新しいOSSの開発スタイルとしてTokaidoモデルも、相対的な数は少なくても成立し得るのではないかと思えるからです。

　十数年前、フリーソフトウェア財団のリチャード・M・ストールマンにインタビューしたときに、まさにこうした開発モデルを説明されて、私は面食らった覚えがあります。例えば、テレビ録画機能を持つセットトップボックスに新しい機能がほしい人たちが数百人いたら、この人たちは開発者を雇えばいいというのです。このとき、セットトップボックスのソフトウェアも、追加ソフトウェアもGNUでいうところのフリーであって何の不都合もないだろう、と。理屈はそうかもしれないけれども、私にはそんな世界がやってくるようにはとても思えなかったことを思い出します。いま、YehudaがRails.appでやろうとしていることは、開発者向けツールというニッチなものですが、まさしくストールマンが言っていた開発モデルではないか、と私には思えるのです。

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I recently attended a Career’s Evening at my 16 year old daughter’s school. The idea was that parents representing typical middle class professions, such as banking, military, accounting, medicine, law and marketing stood around answering questions from the kids, who ranged in age between 15 and 18.

Apart from the odd mobile phone, the scene may well have taken place at any time in the last 60 years or so.

And yet, things are no longer what they were and every one of those professions are going to be fundamentally disrupted by the time the children will be a few years into their career, after finishing their schooling and studying for more years at University. Those well-meaning parents probably haven’t a clue about what’s about to hit them and as a result, would be totally incapable of describing what it’s going to be like to be Doctor, Soldier or Banker. In fact, those kids couldn’t have been more misled if we’d conspired to systematically lie to them.

Here’s just a few thoughts on how these venerable professions will change as a result of exponentially increasing technology:

Military – Technology takes over. As an example, the Pentagon already has 19,000 drones and Obama has authorised over 3000 strikes, five times as many as Bush. Good article here.

Accounting – realtime reporting and specialist software will reduce most accounting functions to mere oversight, a little like the role of today’s aircraft pilots. Unfortunately, you don’t need that many people to oversee things in case they go wrong.

Medicine – the combination of realtime monitoring via the mobile (or specialist devices) and personalised treatment based on genomics is set to make today’s medicine look like 19th century butchery.

Law – when is some kind soul going to screw up this cartel? Endless duplication of contracts and paperwork and disputes that could be settled instantly based on a dispassionate examination of the facts by software. Like all these examples, there will be some edge cases where real people might be required – certainly in the short term – but a hell of a lot can be eliminated.

Marketing – one of my catch phrases recently has been that marketing has turned from a dark art into a transparent science. Probably the best preparation for marketing these days would be a maths or statistics degree.

Banking – Again, an industry that’s going to be decimated through technology. Already most trading is automated and other jobs are going to follow.

Obviously, I could delve into each of these areas in more detail and the fact that I haven’t doesn’t mean that the case is superficial. I just don’t want to write reams and reams on each argument here. If you disagree, feel free to write a comment after doing some of your own research and thinking about it. Lots of people in these jobs will be in denial, but from my perspective, it’s going to happen unless some other disaster (war, disease, climate change) hits us first.

There’s a few consequences of all this though. Firstly, the middle classes are going to be decimated in the next 20 years. The traditional professions that have maintained such a comfortable way of life for so long are going to largely disappear. Be prepared.

Secondly, what advice should we be giving those kids? I’d say that they should be thinking of a career that can’t be done by a very smart robot. And that’s probably a largely manual job like a waiter or chef on the one hand, or an entrepreneur/wealth creator on the other. These types of jobs will represent the pinnacle of earnings in society and that’s what they should be aiming for.

This might all seem very radical, scary and for many, impossible to believe. But we live in exponential times and the results are going to be change at an increasingly faster rate. The future belongs to the people who understand and embrace that change and that’s the message we should be telling our kids.

(via futuresagency)

Disturbing and possibly depressing, it’s important for people to know this. In particular, kids and young adults. It’s going to become increasingly difficult to get a decent job without a good education or possibly a niche field that might hold out longer than most. This is a coming jobs revolution similar to the industrial revolution… except that instead of offering boring, low-paying jobs, it’ll pretty much decimate all these traditional jobs. The next 20 years are going to be very difficult - and I could well imagine Luddite sentiments being revived.

On the plus side, it means that jobs will (eventually) become more about what humans can do better than machines: creativity, interaction, etc. In other words, jobs will become a more human experience.

Well, at least until the next jobs revolution. Who knows, maybe work itself will one day become voluntary and unnecessary.

(Source: mobhappy.com, via futuramb)

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