NWS Nieuws & Achtergronden
Discussieer hier diepgaander over de actualiteiten.
Basic income versus the robots
An economic all-stars match-up.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the idea of a citizen's income: the state replacing the vast majority of the benefit system with one cash payment made to everyone, regardless of employment or income.
The advantages of such a change are legion. At a stroke, the thorny issues of incentives are done away with, since work always pays; the deadweight loss associated with means testing disappears (albeit replaced with the deadweight loss of giving money to people who don't need it); those most likely to fall through the cracks of a regimented welfare state find the barrier to re-entry done away with; and it allows for a recognition of the value of certain types of non-market labour, like caring or raising children.
The New York Times' Paul Krugman and the Financial Times' Izabella Kaminska now wade into the fray, proposing another advantage of the policy: its redistributive effect.
Now, redistribution is already, prima facie, one of the absolute best things a government can do. Simply put, rich people don't need money, and poor people do. All else being equal, taking some money from rich people and giving it to poor people is therefore the absolute best way to improve worldwide welfare we know of.
The problem is that all else is not equal: the act of taking and giving money changes people's actions in material ways. Giving or taking money from people changes their incentives, and may lead to sub-optimal decisions. So even if, on first assessment, redistribution is great, it may not be quite as effective as it ought to be.
But Krugman and Kaminska argue that there's a strong chance that redistribution will get significantly more important in the near future. That's because, they fear, all our jobs will be taken by robots.
(Well, alright, not robots exactly. Think of "robots" as a short-hand for a huge amount of automation, from factories running with fewer staff, through genuine robots doing work like caring for the elderly, all the way to the replacement of white-collar jobs in journalism or law with algorithms which can write financial stories or legal documents automatically).
For the most part, all our jobs being taken by robots isn't that bad a thing. What that would mean in practice is that we would have the same standard of living that we have now, and wouldn't need to work for it. That's actually pretty great.
The problem comes when the benefits from increased automation accrue, not to society at large, but to one small subset of society: the robot owners. (In other words, the problem comes when automation meets capitalism. But let's not go there)
Krugman writes:
I’ve noted before that the nature of rising inequality in America changed around 2000. Until then, it was all about worker versus worker; the distribution of income between labor and capital — between wages and profits, if you like — had been stable for decades. Since then, however, labor’s share of the pie has fallen sharply. As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. A new report from the International Labor Organization points out that the same thing has been happening in many other countries, which is what you’d expect to see if global technological trends were turning against workers.
And Kaminska adds:
The new inequality we are seeing has little to do with how well educated you are. It’s hard to penetrate beyond the barrier on education alone. The new inequality is about capital owners and non-capital owners.
And increasingly, it’s about technology capital owners. Those who own the robots and the tech are becoming the new landlord rentier types.
If automation does squeeze the labour market – even if it's just temporarily – then a basic income may be a good way to respond to it. That's especially the case if its implemented somewhat pre-emptively, avoiding the massive social upheaval caused during the last time technology disrupted the labour market this way: the industrial revolution. That only shook out fully once half the ruling class had been massacred in the First World War, and the Labour Party nationalised many of the companies owned by the other half.
More than being just an evergreen idea, a basic income is a policy whose time has definitely come.
http://www.newstatesman.c(...)income-versus-robots
An economic all-stars match-up.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the idea of a citizen's income: the state replacing the vast majority of the benefit system with one cash payment made to everyone, regardless of employment or income.
The advantages of such a change are legion. At a stroke, the thorny issues of incentives are done away with, since work always pays; the deadweight loss associated with means testing disappears (albeit replaced with the deadweight loss of giving money to people who don't need it); those most likely to fall through the cracks of a regimented welfare state find the barrier to re-entry done away with; and it allows for a recognition of the value of certain types of non-market labour, like caring or raising children.
The New York Times' Paul Krugman and the Financial Times' Izabella Kaminska now wade into the fray, proposing another advantage of the policy: its redistributive effect.
Now, redistribution is already, prima facie, one of the absolute best things a government can do. Simply put, rich people don't need money, and poor people do. All else being equal, taking some money from rich people and giving it to poor people is therefore the absolute best way to improve worldwide welfare we know of.
The problem is that all else is not equal: the act of taking and giving money changes people's actions in material ways. Giving or taking money from people changes their incentives, and may lead to sub-optimal decisions. So even if, on first assessment, redistribution is great, it may not be quite as effective as it ought to be.
But Krugman and Kaminska argue that there's a strong chance that redistribution will get significantly more important in the near future. That's because, they fear, all our jobs will be taken by robots.
(Well, alright, not robots exactly. Think of "robots" as a short-hand for a huge amount of automation, from factories running with fewer staff, through genuine robots doing work like caring for the elderly, all the way to the replacement of white-collar jobs in journalism or law with algorithms which can write financial stories or legal documents automatically).
For the most part, all our jobs being taken by robots isn't that bad a thing. What that would mean in practice is that we would have the same standard of living that we have now, and wouldn't need to work for it. That's actually pretty great.
The problem comes when the benefits from increased automation accrue, not to society at large, but to one small subset of society: the robot owners. (In other words, the problem comes when automation meets capitalism. But let's not go there)
Krugman writes:
I’ve noted before that the nature of rising inequality in America changed around 2000. Until then, it was all about worker versus worker; the distribution of income between labor and capital — between wages and profits, if you like — had been stable for decades. Since then, however, labor’s share of the pie has fallen sharply. As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. A new report from the International Labor Organization points out that the same thing has been happening in many other countries, which is what you’d expect to see if global technological trends were turning against workers.
And Kaminska adds:
The new inequality we are seeing has little to do with how well educated you are. It’s hard to penetrate beyond the barrier on education alone. The new inequality is about capital owners and non-capital owners.
And increasingly, it’s about technology capital owners. Those who own the robots and the tech are becoming the new landlord rentier types.
If automation does squeeze the labour market – even if it's just temporarily – then a basic income may be a good way to respond to it. That's especially the case if its implemented somewhat pre-emptively, avoiding the massive social upheaval caused during the last time technology disrupted the labour market this way: the industrial revolution. That only shook out fully once half the ruling class had been massacred in the First World War, and the Labour Party nationalised many of the companies owned by the other half.
More than being just an evergreen idea, a basic income is a policy whose time has definitely come.
http://www.newstatesman.c(...)income-versus-robots
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Lang maar zeer interessant stuk over de opkomst van robots en het verlies van banen (voor mensen)
https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/487a95a708dd
https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/487a95a708dd
Opgeblazen gevoel of winderigheid? Zo opgelost met Rennie!
Ik ben Ray Kurzeil's "The Singularity Is Near" aan het lezen. Ik ben nogal sceptisch wat betreft de mogelijkheden van AI, maar hij schrijft z'n argumenten wel goed onderbouwd op.
Is het een beetje lekker te lezen? Ben wel benieuwd.quote:Op maandag 24 juni 2013 21:36 schreef Tijn het volgende:
Ik ben Ray Kurzeil's "The Singularity Is Near" aan het lezen. Ik ben nogal sceptisch wat betreft de mogelijkheden van AI, maar hij schrijft z'n argumenten wel goed onderbouwd op.
Opgeblazen gevoel of winderigheid? Zo opgelost met Rennie!
Ja, het is heel duidelijk en niet supertechnisch.quote:Op dinsdag 25 juni 2013 09:54 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:
[..]
Is het een beetje lekker te lezen? Ben wel benieuwd.
Mooie docu waarin de laatste stand van zaken wordt gegeven mbt wat robots kunnen:
De laatste 8 minuten zijn niet te zien in de bovenstaande (die een betere kwaliteit heeft), maar wel in de onderstaande:
De laatste 8 minuten zijn niet te zien in de bovenstaande (die een betere kwaliteit heeft), maar wel in de onderstaande:
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Ben ik ook net in begonnen, tot nu toe vind ik het ook prima te lezen.quote:
Ik ben Ray Kurzeil's "The Singularity Is Near" aan het lezen. Ik ben nogal sceptisch wat betreft de mogelijkheden van AI, maar hij schrijft z'n argumenten wel goed onderbouwd op.
As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked,
"Why do you push us around?"
And she remembered him saying,
"I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."
"Why do you push us around?"
And she remembered him saying,
"I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."
As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked,
"Why do you push us around?"
And she remembered him saying,
"I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."
"Why do you push us around?"
And she remembered him saying,
"I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest."
Stuk efficiëntere manier van werken.quote:Op woensdag 31 juli 2013 18:34 schreef heiden6 het volgende:
McDonald's hires 7,000 touch-screen cashiers
Volkorenbrood: "Geen quotes meer in jullie sigs gaarne."
Het is natuurlijk wachten totdat er een fastfood concurrent bijkomt die hetzelfde doet met robotarmen en software en zo een goedkopere hamburger kan leveren, evt. met zonne energie om het nog goedkoper te maken. Gehele logistiek vanaf de leverancier alles op lopende banden met alleen wat onderhoud medewerkers. En zo kunnen er al veel werkzaamheden vervangen worden, ook geautomatiseerde kassa systemen waarbij de klant zelf scant zijn er al maar hoe men al die arbeidsplekken gaat opvullen zie ik zo gauw nog niet in.quote:
Op Het zou leuk zijn als regeringen een geheim plan hadden waarbij binnen 10 jaar alles wordt vervangen en de gehele mensheid op permanente vakantie kan maar men toch eten krijgt en onderdak door leegstaande huizen weg te geven, de rijkeren die dan alle robots kopen en het eten aan het volk geven. Het zal wel eerder zo worden dat de rijkeren hoogwaardig technologische kolonieen stichten en de armeren achterblijven in een samenleving in verval.
Goed artikel:
Are jobs obsolete?
The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology's slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That's 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms.
We can blame a right wing attempting to undermine labor, or a left wing trying to preserve unions in the face of government and corporate cutbacks. But the real culprit -- at least in this case -- is e-mail. People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps.
New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures -- from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs.
We like to believe that the appropriate response is to train humans for higher level work. Instead of collecting tolls, the trained worker will fix and program toll-collecting robots. But it never really works out that way, since not as many people are needed to make the robots as the robots replace.
And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned.
I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks -- or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?
We're living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That's because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.
According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, there is enough food produced to provide everyone in the world with 2,720 kilocalories per person per day. And that's even after America disposes of thousands of tons of crop and dairy just to keep market prices high. Meanwhile, American banks overloaded with foreclosed properties are demolishing vacant dwellings Video to get the empty houses off their books.
Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.
Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services. By the late Middle Ages, most of Europe was thriving under this arrangement.
The only ones losing wealth were the aristocracy, who depended on their titles to extract money from those who worked. And so they invented the chartered monopoly. By law, small businesses in most major industries were shut down and people had to work for officially sanctioned corporations instead. From then on, for most of us, working came to mean getting a "job."
The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.
While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?
Instead, we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.
The communist answer to this question was just to distribute everything evenly. But that sapped motivation and never quite worked as advertised. The opposite, libertarian answer (and the way we seem to be going right now) would be to let those who can't capitalize on the bounty simply suffer. Cut social services along with their jobs, and hope they fade into the distance.
But there might still be another possibility -- something we couldn't really imagine for ourselves until the digital era. As a pioneer of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier, recently pointed out, we no longer need to make stuff in order to make money. We can instead exchange information-based products.
We start by accepting that food and shelter are basic human rights. The work we do -- the value we create -- is for the rest of what we want: the stuff that makes life fun, meaningful, and purposeful.
This sort of work isn't so much employment as it is creative activity. Unlike Industrial Age employment, digital production can be done from the home, independently, and even in a peer-to-peer fashion without going through big corporations. We can make games for each other, write books, solve problems, educate and inspire one another -- all through bits instead of stuff. And we can pay one another using the same money we use to buy real stuff.
For the time being, as we contend with what appears to be a global economic slowdown by destroying food and demolishing homes, we might want to stop thinking about jobs as the main aspect of our lives that we want to save. They may be a means, but they are not the ends.
http://edition.cnn.com/20(...).obsolete/index.html
Are jobs obsolete?
The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology's slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That's 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms.
We can blame a right wing attempting to undermine labor, or a left wing trying to preserve unions in the face of government and corporate cutbacks. But the real culprit -- at least in this case -- is e-mail. People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps.
New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures -- from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs.
We like to believe that the appropriate response is to train humans for higher level work. Instead of collecting tolls, the trained worker will fix and program toll-collecting robots. But it never really works out that way, since not as many people are needed to make the robots as the robots replace.
And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned.
I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks -- or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?
We're living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That's because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.
According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, there is enough food produced to provide everyone in the world with 2,720 kilocalories per person per day. And that's even after America disposes of thousands of tons of crop and dairy just to keep market prices high. Meanwhile, American banks overloaded with foreclosed properties are demolishing vacant dwellings Video to get the empty houses off their books.
Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.
Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services. By the late Middle Ages, most of Europe was thriving under this arrangement.
The only ones losing wealth were the aristocracy, who depended on their titles to extract money from those who worked. And so they invented the chartered monopoly. By law, small businesses in most major industries were shut down and people had to work for officially sanctioned corporations instead. From then on, for most of us, working came to mean getting a "job."
The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.
While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?
Instead, we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.
The communist answer to this question was just to distribute everything evenly. But that sapped motivation and never quite worked as advertised. The opposite, libertarian answer (and the way we seem to be going right now) would be to let those who can't capitalize on the bounty simply suffer. Cut social services along with their jobs, and hope they fade into the distance.
But there might still be another possibility -- something we couldn't really imagine for ourselves until the digital era. As a pioneer of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier, recently pointed out, we no longer need to make stuff in order to make money. We can instead exchange information-based products.
We start by accepting that food and shelter are basic human rights. The work we do -- the value we create -- is for the rest of what we want: the stuff that makes life fun, meaningful, and purposeful.
This sort of work isn't so much employment as it is creative activity. Unlike Industrial Age employment, digital production can be done from the home, independently, and even in a peer-to-peer fashion without going through big corporations. We can make games for each other, write books, solve problems, educate and inspire one another -- all through bits instead of stuff. And we can pay one another using the same money we use to buy real stuff.
For the time being, as we contend with what appears to be a global economic slowdown by destroying food and demolishing homes, we might want to stop thinking about jobs as the main aspect of our lives that we want to save. They may be a means, but they are not the ends.
http://edition.cnn.com/20(...).obsolete/index.html
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Vooral dit stukje uit bovenstaand artikel vind ik erg treffend:
The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.
While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?
Instead, we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.
The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.
While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?
Instead, we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Voedsel tekorten zijn onzin, met de huidige technieken moet het mogelijk zijn om de hele wereldbevolking van voldoende voedsel te voorzien. We zijn alleen te beroerd om er wat mee te doen.quote:Op woensdag 3 april 2013 00:08 schreef Tijn het volgende:
[..]
Maar hoe gaan we van een tekort naar een overvloed? Energie en voedsel zijn toch juist de resources die momenteel onder druk staan?
Op woensdag 31 januari 2007 19:20 schreef Lord_Vetinari het volgende:
Ik heb veel stomme posts gezien op fora, maar deze zit toch wel in de top 10 (voorzichtig geschat; het kan ook de top 5 zijn). Nou ik sta iig in zijn top 10
Ik heb veel stomme posts gezien op fora, maar deze zit toch wel in de top 10 (voorzichtig geschat; het kan ook de top 5 zijn). Nou ik sta iig in zijn top 10
Dat is makkelijk gezegd, maar is het echt zo? De bevolking groeit hard en de hoeveelheid land dat nodig is voor landbouw en veeteelt is nu al gigantisch. Is er in de toekomst genoeg aardoppervlak beschikbaar om al die miljarden mensen onderdak én voedsel te geven? Ik geloof best dat het kan lukken, maar dit probleem is niet vanzelfsprekend opgelost.quote:Op dinsdag 6 augustus 2013 21:13 schreef vipergts het volgende:
[..]
Voedsel tekorten zijn onzin, met de huidige technieken moet het mogelijk zijn om de hele wereldbevolking van voldoende voedsel te voorzien.
We hebben nu al genoeg om de gehele wereldbevolking te voeden en dat anderhalf keer. Het probleem zit hem in de verdeling van dat voedsel.quote:
[..]
Dat is makkelijk gezegd, maar is het echt zo? De bevolking groeit hard en de hoeveelheid land dat nodig is voor landbouw en veeteelt is nu al gigantisch. Is er in de toekomst genoeg aardoppervlak beschikbaar om al die miljarden mensen onderdak én voedsel te geven? Ik geloof best dat het kan lukken, maar dit probleem is niet vanzelfsprekend opgelost.
Het gaat pas echt goed mis als men zich letterlijk dood werkt in die bullshit jobsquote:
Goed artikel:
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
http://nos.nl/op3/artikel(...)kkende-werkweek.htmlquote:Stagiair dood na duizeling-wekkende werkweek
Opstaan, het is 7 uur 's ochtends. Werken, heel hard werken. Niet tot een uurtje of 5 's middags, maar tot de volgende ochtend, om 6 uur. Klinkt niet te doen, en dat is het blijkbaar ook niet. Deze week werd bekend dat een Duitse stagiair van de zakenbank Bank of America Merrill Lynch is overleden na een hele zware werkweek.
Huisgenoten van de 21-jarige Moritz Erhardt vonden hem 's ochtends in de douche van zijn appartement, waar hij net was aangekomen na een werkdag van 21 uur. En dat was geen uitzondering, eerder die week had hij al twee keer eerder het klokje rond gewerkt.
Het is niet bewezen dat Erhardt is overleden vanwege het harde werken. De politie denkt ook niet aan drugsgebruik. Maar de Duitser had wel epilepsie, en ging duidelijk tot het gaatje. Dit soort werkweken klinken onmenselijk, maar zijn in de City, het financiële hart van Londen, helemaal geen uitzondering. Hoe gaat het er daar in de City eigenlijk aan toe?
Nee zeggen bestaat niet
We spraken met Anne Saenen, NOS-correspondent in Londen, die veel met bankiers in de City is omgegaan. "Het is een keiharde, competitieve wereld met een ontzettend hoge werkdruk. Nee zeggen bestaat niet. In bepaalde kringen blijven mensen wakker met coke."
De stagiairs werken vaak volgens de 'magic roundabout': de hele nacht doorwerken, snel met de taxi naar huis, douchen en met de taxi weer terug naar de bank. Dat is heel normaal, vertellen andere stagiairs in Britse media. "Mensen klagen niet omdat er veel te winnen valt. We dingen straks mee naar erg goedbetaalde banen." Hier vind je meer reacties van andere stagiairs uit de City.
"Niet alle stagiairs en bankiers doen dit", vertelt Anne. "Maar deze jongen was heel gedreven, en excelleerde ook in allerlei sporten." Op Seelio.com, waarhij een profiel had, schrijft Erhardt dat hij uit een familie komt waar alleen het beste goed genoeg was. "Ik ben van jongs af aan heel competitief en ambitieus geweest. Soms wilde ik zoveel, dat ik blessures opliep bij het sporten.
Vrouwen zijn een accessoire
Anne vertelt dat het wereld van de City bijzonder is. "Ik heb een paar van dit type topbankiers gekend. Ze kunnen heel aardig zijn, maar als je iets verkeerd zegt of ze vinden je niet meer interessant, dan kan de sfeer zo omslaan. Dan draaien ze zich om en lopen weg. Vrouwen zijn accessoires die goed bij de auto moeten passen."
"Daar wordt ook misbruik van gemaakt. Zo is er een trucje waarbij een mooie vrouw aan een bar gaat zitten in een club met een glas goedkope champagne", legt Anne uit. "Dit soort bankiers vragen dan aan de barman wat zo'n vrouw drinkt, waarop die het duurste merk van de kaart roept. Zo wordt die bankier geld afhandig gemaakt.
"Er zijn ook veel zakkenrollers in dat soort clubs, maar als de smartphone van een bankier wordt gestolen koopt hij gewoon een nieuwe - geld zat." Niet alle bankiers zijn hetzelfde, vertelt Anne. "Het gaat hier om de toppers. Er zijn hier ook veel bankiers met een gezin, die wel hard werken, maar niet zo extreem als dit."
Wauw, inderdaad erg goed artikelquote:
Goed artikel:
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
Ik noem kantoorwerk wel eens grappend "ouderdagverblijf" of "ouderopvang" (ipv kinderdagverblijf), maar dat artikel klopt precies. Vooral deze zin slaat de spijker op zn kop, hoe triest eigenlijk.quote:..there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.
Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: this is impossible)
"Stel je drinkt Starbucks koffie maar je vergeet een foto te maken en te delen op Social media. Heb je dan wel koffie gedronken?"
"Stel je drinkt Starbucks koffie maar je vergeet een foto te maken en te delen op Social media. Heb je dan wel koffie gedronken?"
Het oude model van banen en arbeid (eigenlijk een slavensysteem, maar je merkt het niet) zal verdwijnen, er ontstaan door automatisering altijd weer nieuwe dingen door andere inzichten en technologie daaruit. Sinds de industriele revolutie zitten wij in een evolutie ervan, die zal nooit meer stoppen. Mensen zijn bang voor hun baanverlies, komt alleen omdat iedereen afhankelijk van het kapitalistische systeem is geworden over de afgelopen eeuwen. Vele mensen zijn zelfs verslaafd aan geld (vergokken het) Iedereen kan een 'koning' worden doordat alle arbeidsprocessen worden geautomatiseerd, maar een mens wil zowel geen slaaf als koning worden. Een mens wil niet heersen en ook geen slaaf zijn, mensen zijn creatief, dus zullen nieuwe dingen bedenken die hun leven verbetert, en om zich buiten de planeet in de ruimte te ontwikkelen en het koloniseren van planeten. Die geautomatiseerde 'maatschappij' (het is vooral de industrie en land en tuinbouw die van gemechaniseerd naar gerobotiseerd gaat), blijft ongeveer gelijk, maar mensen hoeven niet meer naar hun werk op den duur (ook veel minder zorg nodig), wat zal gebeuren zijn kleine gespecialiseerde ontwikkelbureau's, eigenlijk zie je dit al ontwikkelen op internet (vele kleine webwinkels die gespecialiseerdere artikelen verkopen of iets kunnen doen, de zzper laat dit ook zien, maar ontstaan door de economische situatie) In een film als Bicentennial man zie je al details van waar het heen zou kunnen gaan (niet het thema van de film) Over een eeuw is deze tijd sterk achterhaald (ook de tablet en ipad en al die gadgets), net zoals je nu naar opnames uit 1900 kijkt het er zeer antiek/ouderwets uit ziet t.o.v heden (er blijven altijd dingen over uit oude tijden, de fundamentele dingen, want die gaan eeuwen mee) De economie wordt dus fijnmaziger, meer vrije handel en ruilhandel (want als je wat wilt ontwikkelen heb je materialen en onderdelen nodig) Ook in de Star Wars films zie je handel/markten (ruimtevaartuigonderdelen vooral, want speelt zich af in een ruimteoorlog) Hollywood heeft al dieper nagedacht over hoe de toekomst eruit kan zien, hoe een maatschappij eruit kan zien, maar het zijn details (technologisch en industrieel) uit die films die gaan komen. De mens hoeft geen automaat te worden, en ook is er angst dat robots de banen zullen innemen (komt dus alleen omdat iedereen gewend is aan het huidige systeem, van werken, eten, slapen, dus die herhaling zit in de maatschappij ingewortelt) Je hebt dus een leider/leiders of mensen nodig die met een heel nieuw idee naar voren komt (zonder bezig te zijn met de massa op de hand te krijgen), nieuwe manier van energie opwekken, en de hele oubollige slaafachtige systeem omvormen naar een systeem van meer denken, ontwikkelen en vrije tijd, want de robots ploeteren 24/7 door, al die tijd die de mens niet meer hoeft in te vullen zal de ontwikkeling van technologie in een stroomversnelling brengen.
Mensen zijn bang voor de toekomst, mits er een goede komt, en die is mogelijk (als voldoende mensen die voor ogen gaan zien en ermee eens zijn) Alles om die te vormen/creeeren is aanwezig in de natuur en de technolgie die de mens momenteel al heeft ontwikkelt over de afgelopen paar duizend jaar (vooral afgelopen vijfhonderd jaar en vanaf de industriele revolutie)
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Synthercell op 25-08-2013 15:26:37 ]
Mensen zijn bang voor de toekomst, mits er een goede komt, en die is mogelijk (als voldoende mensen die voor ogen gaan zien en ermee eens zijn) Alles om die te vormen/creeeren is aanwezig in de natuur en de technolgie die de mens momenteel al heeft ontwikkelt over de afgelopen paar duizend jaar (vooral afgelopen vijfhonderd jaar en vanaf de industriele revolutie)
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Synthercell op 25-08-2013 15:26:37 ]
Dat vind ik nou mooi. Best futuristisch en een duidelijk begin van een nieuwe ontwikkelingen. Eerst deze gigantische trucks in de mijnbouw, de volgende stap waarschijnlijk tractoren en andere apparaten die het land kunnen bewerken, en zo steeds dieper het dagelijks leven in. En waarschijnlijk zullen veel mensen mensen niets van deze ontwikkelingen merken. Uiteindelijk zal het hele proces van het planten van zaden tot aan het brengen van de gewassen in de supermarkt automatisch zijn. Steeds minder mensen zullen bij dit proces betrokken zijn. Best een vreemd idee...quote:
Giant Robotic Mining Trucks Love the Australian Desert
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/bed4b2b5a70a
Opgeblazen gevoel of winderigheid? Zo opgelost met Rennie!
Ja inderdaad. Er is een soort van regel dat hoe vager het werk is, hoe moeilijker het te begrijpen is en daarom moet men meer betaald krijgen. Op zich begrijpelijke logica, maar als je kijkt naar de praktijk dan is het niet altijd even logisch.quote:
Vooral deze zin slaat de spijker op zn kop, hoe triest eigenlijk.
[..]
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Als je erop let zie je hoe actueel dit onderwerp is. Er was vandaag op 1Vandaag een item over een thuis-dialyse apparaat. Erg handig voor nier- of trombose patiënten maar ziekenhuizen, prikpoli's en verplegend personeel vrezen voor hun bestaansrecht.
1Vandaag -> De strijd om de patiënt
1Vandaag -> De strijd om de patiënt
Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: this is impossible)
"Stel je drinkt Starbucks koffie maar je vergeet een foto te maken en te delen op Social media. Heb je dan wel koffie gedronken?"
"Stel je drinkt Starbucks koffie maar je vergeet een foto te maken en te delen op Social media. Heb je dan wel koffie gedronken?"
Dit geeft wel goed aan hoe belachelijk het huidige socio-economische systeem af en toe is.quote:
Als je erop let zie je hoe actueel dit onderwerp is. Er was vandaag op 1Vandaag een item over een thuis-dialyse apparaat. Erg handig voor nier- of trombose patiënten maar ziekenhuizen, prikpoli's en verplegend personeel vrezen voor hun bestaansrecht.
1Vandaag -> De strijd om de patiënt
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
Lang artikel:
http://www.technologyrevi(...)-is-destroying-jobs/
Grafieken:
Lang artikel:
http://www.technologyrevi(...)-is-destroying-jobs/
Grafieken:
"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
