First things first, Kevin Keatts got the job as State's next basketball coach. He was the guy I wanted, and I think he'll do well. Let's hope so. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the fanbase needs some sustained success. I've been a diehard fan my whole life, and it's starting to feel like getting kicked between the legs might not be the best thing for peace and joy. Just win, baby.
In matters not involving sports, the world is changing. It always is. Duh. But for whatever reason, it's got me thinking this afternoon. Before I go any further, let me just say that I fall on the libertarian side of the political spectrum. For the most part, I'm a staunch capitalist. I think Ron Paul would have made a great president, and I'm generally against government involvement in most things.
You probably noticed a number of caveats above. I left myself room to breathe, and I did so for a reason. Despite my general beliefs that may or may not approach the level of Ron Swanson's love for the free market, I have to wonder what we're all doing. I have to think about the path we're on, and I have to ask myself if it's the best one. We're all rational beings, and that means we ought to think on these things. Thus, this post.
Let's frame what we're talking about first of all. In essence, our technological advancements are becoming quite extraordinary. Just to name a few, self-driving cars and automated factories are going to change the world in the coming decades. Self-service machines are already everywhere, and they're only going to become more prevalent. Technology is advancing, and as I'm sure you've heard, it's taking away jobs.
And that's fine. New jobs will take their place. New careers will be formed. The Industrial Revolution transferred millions of people from the farms, where the vast majority of the human population had been needed for millennia, to cities and towns and factories. New opportunities arose as fewer workers were needed to create the necessary food, and our species took a giant step forward. We've been doing so ever since.
Now, we've got cars and laptops and the Internet and smartphones. We can talk to people across the world in the blink of an eye and can send people into outer space. We've come a long way, and the quality of our lives has increased exponentially. And I'm left wondering how many more steps we should take in this same direction.
Then again, maybe it would be better for me to say that I'm left wondering if there isn't a better path to be on. We're heading in the right direction, I think, but I also think there might be a better road running parallel to the one we're on. So, let me explain rather quickly what I mean. Better yet, let me give you a quote.
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
That was said in 1970 by R. Buckminster Fuller. Now, do I think the ideals embodied in that paragraph were doable in 1970? No. Do I think they're doable today? No. Does every fiber of my being want to rail against the whole notion of there ever being such a thing as a "free lunch"? Yes. Absolutely, 100% yes. It goes fully against who I've always been and what I've always believed (since I started thinking on these things at all), but it also makes perfect sense to me. I find myself contradicting myself.
I firmly believe that the free market, with only a limited amount of interference, will result in an astounding future full of marvels you and I can't even imagine. But I also believe that maybe we can sacrifice some of those marvels, delay a few others, and start moving toward the ideals put forth by Mr. Fuller almost fifty years ago. Instead of finding new ways to employ the maximum number of full-time workers with each change that takes away a significant number of those workers' positions, maybe we should be scaling things back at some point. Maybe we should start focusing a bit more on the leisure time for an individual and a bit less on that individual's productivity.
Again, I don't think we're there yet, and I don't think we'll get there for a long time. But I do think it's all something to keep in mind. Advancement is a wonderful thing, and I'm sure it will bring about true wonders in the decades and centuries to come. But I also think we need to start transitioning ourselves onto the path that strives for something resembling a paradise. At some point, technology is going to make that dream possible, and the notion of everyone having to work extraneous jobs will cease to make any sense at all.
Of course, that awesome paradise could also result in a mass existential crisis as people sit around and think about the sudden pointlessness of their lives and yearn for the order of having work to do, but that's okay. None of this is going to happen in the lifetime of anyone alive today anyway. Let our grandchildren's grandchildren worry about finding the true meaning of life. We've got jobs to do and entertainment to distract us. Come to think of it, they probably will too.
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