Ron McDaniel

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Living Standards Model For The Future

This lifestyle chart illustrated levels of standards of living as we will be looking at them going forward in a world of fewer jobs and more AI and automation.  Instead of trying to estimate standards of living by income levels, this chart looks at characteristics beyond that as well as advancements in technology and society, and defines a baseline standard of living.  In this model, it is very likely wealthier people will be lower on the lifestyle chart than poorer people based on their living habits.

To begin with, let’s explore the overall idea of this chart.  There has been a lot made of Universal Basic Income as a solution to job automation and technical advancements.  The idea is that everyone gets paid a minimum amount of money every month regardless of income to pay for basics like food and shelter.  While this could be a band-aid to help displaced workers, it is not the best long term solution as different people will use the money responsibly or not responsibly.  For example, would giving everyone $1,000 a month eliminate homelessness?  No.  We’d still need shelters and social workers to help these people.  But ensuring every person has the basics each month would eliminate many support needs.

Baseline Living Standard

This area is what I call the Baseline.  It is the minimum living standard (not money) that everyone should have regardless of working.

I like to describe it like this – and please humor my analogy.  Let’s say you (and I) have another child and we love the child.  He or she is precious to us.  However, there is a problem.  The kid is dumb as rocks.  Nothing wrong with them, just not motivated, not bright, not a good decision maker.  Yes, you spend sleepless nights worrying about them and you hope they get better as they get older but it does not look good.

You would not want them to be coddled or have a lavish lifestyle, but no matter how useless they seem, you do want them to be happy and have a minimum baseline of security, education, safety and long term stability.  You do not want them to fear being murdered or raped.  You do not want them to get dysentery. You do not want them to be falsely imprisoned.  You do want them to have access to medical services and food and shelter that are nice.  And you hope with all those things at some point it dawns on them that they can do some work and even have more things with a little effort.

Our wishes for our super dumb but well loved child should be our wishes as a minimum for every person in the world who is not a violent criminal or a hazard to the community.  Regardless of motivation and intelligence, we now have the capacity to provide for all people a minimum level of  fairly happy, if not fancy, existence.   Most people, given the chance to not work and stay home watching Netfllix verses work a bit and go on vacations and go to sporting events would choose the latter.  But the option should be for people to live a safe life at the baseline regardless of contribution.

Next I want to explore the lower red triangle.  The vast majority of the world, including a majority of American citizens, are in this red triangle currently.

Baseline means you can never work and your life will be fine (The lowest level of the green triangle).  I could refer you to a lot of statistics about earnings, how middle class jobs are disappearing, etc.  That info is everywhere and easy to find.  Instead consider this – you are in the stressed category if you cannot stop earning money today and live out the rest of your life in a modest, safe and secure manner.

This is not just about income but also about spending habits.  If you read Mr. Money Mustache (ridiculous name) he is a prime example of someone who worked hard to establish a secure baseline through investing and saving and keeping his costs low to “retire” in his 30’s and now does only work and projects that he enjoys and finds value in.

There are other groups who have the baseline today.  Senior Citizens in some countries get Social Security and Medicare to give them this baseline.

People who retire from public service often have a level of guaranteed income and services giving them a strong baseline, sometimes at a fairly young age.

People having large investment holdings that are invested well and are living off of only the earnings also fall into this category.

Business owners who have viable long term revenue assets.

While all of these can produce stable income without need to work (or work very much) it does come down to the lifestyle as well.  Overspending and accruing debt in any of these means you are in a stressed lifestyle position.  A temporary halt in new money could leave you stranded and losing things.

While you may think Welfare services also falls into this category, it depends on the country.  In the US things like Unemployment and Welfare produce a temporary baseline but do not support you beyond a set period of time.  So these people, while getting assistance, are not living at the baseline level.

Stressed Living Standard

So someone is below the baseline if they do not have the flexibility mentioned above.  Even if they make millions of dollars, if they are spending it they are in a stressed lifestyle position (albeit a lavish one.)  The level of stressed is needing income to survive and having debt that cannot be paid off with current holdings.

The current economy is designed to maintain a high level of stress on people.  This precipitates the need for extreme work conditions to maintain bigger houses, nicer cars and generally more stuff.  A combination of Marketing and peer pressure make people feel they need to keep up and this leads to hire debt and drifting further from the baseline where a person can feel secure.   Living below your means can feel embarrassing when you associate with people of your same education level and this feeling fuels an economy design to keep people working, consuming and borrowing.

Think of it this way.  If the economy cut out 20% of the total GDP one year by simply ending the production of low value or unhealthy things, along with unnecessary services created by overly complex systems, would that be a good thing?  From an economic mindset it would be terrible.  Growth growth growth at all costs.  Keep everyone working – two jobs if we can.  But from a human standpoint, assuming there is a safety net for people who lose their jobs, this is fantastic.  20% reduction in hours worked for everyone now means we work 6 hour days instead of 8 hour days.  We are spending less money on unnecessary things, so the reduction in pay is not bad.

The fact is, the economy as a whole is a bubble where technology is going to reduce work, which will reduce pay, which will reduce demand, which will force the entire thing to contract and eventually the entire model will need to be revamped.

Keeping people in a stressed state of living works as a motivator until the stress gets too high and people start moving into the sever stage because there are too few jobs to support their lifestyle.

Escaping the stressed level and achieving baseline standards is a difficult feat as it requires a complete overhaul of how people think, live and work which is at great odds with their peer group.

Sever Living Standard

The Sever Living Standard stage is when it is no longer simply a matter of struggling to have what you want.  While not ideal, the Stressed Standard can provide for a nice lifestyle, though it lacks freedom, flexibility and long term security.  Once someone enters the Sever level, they begin to make sacrifices because they begin to lose things they have.  Or, in the case of people who have been in this cycle for a long time, they keep juggling things, borrowing money and sacrificing things like their health, education and happiness.

Much of the world’s population in poorer countries have the last 20 years has moved up to this stage from the critical stage, which is a good thing because while it is still a difficult living standard, it does provide some more opportunities.

People in Sever living standards tend to have more children due to a number of factors including lack of adequate healthcare and preventative services and education.  This adds additional stress on the family unite and also increases the number of people starting with this disadvantage.

Just like the stressed level, it is very hard for people to move on from this living standard.  For obvious reasons such as lower education and less access to resources in the first place, to the fact that achieving a higher level living standard often requires leaving family and friends who have been a powerful support and survival group.  Achieving a higher level living standard has been shown to make people feel uncomfortable within their family and friends which can sometimes lead to losing their support system, which makes the desire to leave a difficult decision.

Critical Living Standard

The most dangerous level to live at is the critical stage.  These are people around the world, often due to famine, war or natural disasters who are in danger of dying or their children dying.  Often this level is manmade.  While the percentage of people living in extreme poverty continues to decrease, there will always be individuals in distress as well as temporary conditions that cause this level of living standard.  Escaping this requires outside intervention most of the time.

If we go back to the well loved child from earlier, we need to apply that thinking to people in the critical living standard situations.  We may not agree with them.  Their education level is most likely far below ours.  But they do deserve a chance at the future.  And we currently have the means to eliminate this lifestyle level and a lot of smart people are working on that.

Summary Below the Baseline

So this is a summary of the broad areas below the baseline.  While the lower two will seem obvious to the casual reader, the idea that more affluent people can be below an ideal baseline may come as a big surprise.  This model is based on bringing everyone up to a safe, healthy and educated baseline where they have the freedom to then participate for more rewards or relax and live a safe, stable and simple lifestyle.  This is achievable right now as far as resources go.  The will and vision is what has been missing.

Now you may be wondering if people live at the baseline, won’t everyone stop working?

Not at all.  They may stop working jobs they hate, but they will have the freedom to take chances, innovate and really look at how to make the world a better place.  And in exchange for improving the world people will be rewarded with higher standards of living.

Most jobs people do not like are often low level jobs that could more rapidly be automated by a combination of simplifying and/or standardizing them.

While it takes time to get there, if it were made the priority it would not be a big stretch to think most humans could be raise to the baseline level in 10 years of less.

Now let’s explore those levels above the baseline.

Prosperous Living Standard

This first level of higher living about the baseline would be for people who choose to work some minimum amount regularly in jobs that are needed. Based on a number of factors, these people should have more spacious living and more freedom to travel, vacation, attend live events, and have other luxury items of lesser value.  The jobs to achieve this level would be basic jobs that provide valuable services that cannot be easily automated.  Examples might be personal trainer, guide, councilor, writer, local athlete, etc.  The scope would be local and individual.  As long as someone meets minimal contribution levels they have access to a more prosperous living standard.

Abundance Living Standard

The next living standard would be Abundance.  This level would afford a level of having access to anything you would want (in a shared environment, not a hording environment) because to earn this level people would work in high-impact areas that make a difference in a huge number of people’s lives.  The jobs are varied, but have a big impact, such as robotics, AI development, national or international entertainers or athletes, food producers (managing automated farms), research and development in many fields, etc.  And anyone could achieve this state by picking a meaningful project and joining a team and working on making things better.

The abundance level would be maintained for the time someone works in this field and for a set time off for sabbaticals and vacations.  It is not a permanent state.

Luxury Living Standard

The Luxury Standard level would be the same as the abundance level, with one glaring difference.  It would be awarded to people based on huge, long term contributions that benefit humanity towards a greater good.  And the level would be permanent regardless of further work.  This is reserved for people who cure diseases, make incredible discoveries or developments, or solve major problems.  These people would most likely continue to work as most overachievers do anyway, but they could take time off, try other projects or just do nothing because their contribution is deemed deserving.

Summary Above the Baseline

This entire model is based on the assumption and evidence that we are moving to a more abundant future where more automation and AI will end scarcity of products.  False scarcity for goods and services that people need to live a baseline level of living will be very frowned upon.  Unnecessary complexity will be simplified and streamlined.

As we improve the products and services in the higher levels, things will cascade down to the baseline, enhancing it as well.

Keep in mind this is not a prediction of what will happen.  Actually, if no vision is developed you will end up with enormous poverty and nearly all wealth aggregated in the hands of people who control automation and AI.  With a vision, like this or something better, we can begin building towards a fairer and more secure future for everyone while making the transition acceptable to most people.  Instead of removing businesses, wealth and governments we can simply innovate until some of those things fall away in obscurity.  This is a model that is fair, measured and gives time to fix issues as social processes are changed.

The long term goal is to move everyone to the baseline and have a more fair way to reward all people evenly for wanting to contribute more. While we cannot give everyone the baseline lifestyle today, we can work on it as a vision and goal for the near future.

It is a process.  It is a journey.  It is an adventure all fair-minded people should want to go on.

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How to Remove a Federal Government

There is more than one way to remove a government.  Here are the most common methods and ideas on removing future federal governments that do not keep up with social and technical changes.

Federal Governments around the world, no matter what form of government they are, still exist at the pleasure of their population.  Often times many people do not like these governments but the cost of an uprising is too high and the planning in other forms of removal seem to long and arduous.

But in today’s societies, very few federal governments are changing and adapting to the 21st century fast enough to prevent catastrophic problems for their populations.  This makes it important for people in every country to think about how to pressure faster progress and a clearer vision from their leaders or to plan for the replacement of their governments with new, modern systems of governance.

Consider that in democracies we still vote for people.  This made sense even 50 years ago, but today people are the last thing we should be voting on.  Instead, we should be voting via our cell phones on individual items much more regularly.  Politicians should be nothing more than project managers in charge of executing a project for which the population has voted.  While you cannot make that switch in a day, you can start building that framework now and reap the rewards of stability and engagement in the near future.

And while some people will argue that voting on a device is subject to fraud and that is true (including forced voting with people witnessing your vote) you can have tiers of voting done different ways.  Public thumbs up or down on smaller issues while larger votes done for contentious items done in without identify and in public locations.  One size does not need to fit all.

But back to removing a federal government.  This article is not a call to arms.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  When people think of replacing a government they think of violent uprisings by the population or being overthrown from the outside.  Coups are also another common way to change a government.  I have assembled this more broad list of things I could think of for removing or radically changing a government.

  • Coup – Governments in many parts of the world are removed by their military.
  • Civil Uprising – Citizens can simply protest until things become chaotic and leaders flee or are arrested.
  • Outside Overthrow – Another government from the outside can overthrow a government.
  • Civil War – One area of a country can attack the federal government to free itself from the federal system.
  • Secession – When a state or providence votes to leave a federal union.
  • Democratic Ouster – Change in government by sweeping voter turnout to change systems and politicians.
  • Social Pressure – The global community can excerpt pressure at times to cause an area governed by one group to get independence or transfer governance to another group.
  • Financial Collapse – Countries can experience such a jarring financial collapse that they must be rebuilt from the ground up.
  • Global Division – If enough countries recognize an area as a new country they change the government structure in the physical area.
  • Natural Death – Authoritarian leaders are often too afraid to have other strong people in their government and this means when they die, it leaves a vacuum and leads to chaotic changes to the government in many cases.
  • Legal Challenges – Through legal challenges pressure can be put on government officials and whole systems on whether they are meeting constitutional obligations.
  • Not Recognized – If other countries fail to recognize the current government they undermine the legitimacy and essentially change the government even if this does not always lead to quick change of power.
  • Weakens Until Obsolete – The one that is least talked about is the slow weakening of a government or world order until it finally becomes obsolete and simply fizzles out. This is the danger many countries today face without knowing it. Technological changes will kill off obsolete systems faster than you think.

Is desiring a governmental overhaul treasonous?  No more than going to the polls and voting for a new candidate.  The fact is, all governments are changing all the time.  New laws.  New politicians.  Even constitutions are able to be updated and changed.

The fall of the Roman Empire did not happen due to one event.  It got sloppy.  It did not take care of people.  It was corrupt and it was constantly under economic duress due to wars and propping up unemployed citizens – trying to maintain a failing system instead of adapting it caused it to become obsolete and finally fizzle out.

The near future could see technology and large corporations become far more important than governments.  Controlling AI and Robotics and Communication Channels will be far more powerful than what current government architectures can do.  Already you see it in positive and negative ways.  The space race?  Privatized.  Car Automation?  Private.  Jails?  Privatized.  War?  Let’s just say a lot of private companies benefit from a good war. Charity?  Donations from private sources far exceed government donations, even before the expected upcoming cuts.

Just take a look at this article to see how corporations are struggling to be good citizens and still make a profit.  https://www.fastcompany.com/40397294/facebook-airbnb-uber-and-the-struggle-to-do-the-right-thing  When Mark Zuckerberg asks, ” Are we building the world we all want?”  he is asking the right question.

When you look at a lot of this, the governments seems more obstructionist than helpful.  But there is a caveat.  In principle, a government should look out for all citizens.  Some corporations have good people doing good things, but they need to make money and answer to shareholders, so the idea that they could essentially replace every aspect of the government is not ideal because at any time they can quickly change their mission or management and hurt  a lot of people.  In fact, if you think about it, it is the moral imperative of business to aggregate wealth away from people and into the business and distribute that wealth to the owners to the business.  That is how the current system is supposed to work.  The fact that some CEO’s are bucking the trend does not make most CEO’s good people wanting to make the world a better place.

There is one consideration I have given a lot of thought to over many years, but now has become for feasible.  Why have we not started developing a new global citizenship system and simply begun to ignore and disassemble current governments over time as portions of them are no longer needed?  Essentially weakening them until they disappear into obscurity.  No one gets hurt in this model.  It is the evolution of a governing system, not a conflict-based change.  We have the communications tools to organize this.  We have new systems that are not controlled by centralized government entities such as Bitcoin, the Internet, social media (some), peer to peer networks and many other things that can be built if this endeavor is pursued.

The real question is, if a lot of people got behind an idea for creating a better form of government, would the existing establishments of the world fight to keep their current systems relevant or would they embrace an evolution of governance?  They most likely would try to retain their power.  For this reason, any effort to make change would have to include an effort to get people elected who support and want better systems and programs for people in the future, even at the expense of current systems they serve in.

None of this is simple or fast.  The good thing systems are improving here and there and that would be what a broader framework would do as well.  It would do it with more vision, more purpose and a more integrated way is the big difference.

 

 

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Humans as Widgets

Would putting humans on an assemble line be such a bad thing?

This is not an article about human trafficking or people as “things”. Although that terrible problem would be eliminated if we were to adopt a factory methodology to human lives. I know it sounds nuts but we are all living widgets manufactured in lots of little mom and pop human machine shops around the world. If we actually thought of ourselves this way, the world would be a much better place.

Why?

Humans Know How To Manufacture Great Stuff

The fact is, for the last 100+ years we have been getting very good at manufacturing things. Processes continue to improve. Quality control gets better and better. Automation makes it easier to produce better things cheaper. Why are we not applying these same methodologies to creating the human widget?

To be clear, I am also not talking about test tube babies or genetically engineered super humans either. I suggest that we could create a baseline of what all human lives should look like and apply systems and controls to achieving a higher minimum level across the board as a standard of living and happiness for all human widgets.

We are heading this way anyway, just more by accident and less by planned goals. You can look at these graphs by Peter Diamandis to see the trends are clearly moving in the right direction at an accelerating pace.

But what if we decided to actually manufacture the whole thing? I mean plan it out, measure it and fix the weak spots. What would that look like? What is the possible result of it not being planned out? Watch this video about how we could end up in a Star Trek world of a Mad Max world and it comes down to planning.

The fact is, we can make things happen very quickly at this point if we plan and if we stop obstructing the plan with old ways of thinking.

At minimum, every human widget should have food, shelter, medical care, information, education and safety they can depend on, regardless of work. Anything short of this would be considered a war-like mentality where one can only think in terms of winners and losers. We have the capacity to produce a great baseline product for every human widget if we make that the goal. And while some assume this would lead to laziness, it is quit the opposite. Greater stability, security and better education will lead to people working harder on improving communities and their own lives beyond the baseline, with no fear of taking some chances because they have the proper safety net.

Baseline(s) is Plural

While it makes sense to have a fair and predictable baseline of minimum living standards and human rights, it is also critical that more prosperous countries have a different higher line so that people living in those countries do not feel like all the benefits are going towards poorer places. A big current problem with some of the political and drug issues around the globe have to do with people feeling left out or left behind despite the fact that their standard of living is still much better than a majority of the people in the world. They feel entitled to a certain level of lifestyle because of the country they live in and resentful when those expectations are not met.

Instead of blaming people in other counties or politicians in the county they live, they need to understand it is a problem with the system not manufacturing the baseline standard of living they expect, and they can influence and improve that.

So the solution is to have a global minimum baseline and making it a top priority to bring every human widget up to that minimum while also establishing clear baselines in each country and meeting those needs as well to ensure people are not left behind.

Common Sense But Why Have We Not Done It Then?

My first reaction even when I write this is that it is common sense. But then why has no one done it? “They” are the culprit. Why are’t “they” planning better? Why aren’t “they” doing something. “They” is no one. If you think government is doing it, you are very blind to the fact that most elected officials are just preserving their job and focusing on negative things to bash in order to get reelected. Few are working on a comprehensive plan partially because they know something comprehensive cannot get passed.

  • A comprehensive plan will not be liked by many lobbyists and special interests.
  • Officials are more focused on party fighting and playing the blame and credit game than working together on a common vision.
  • Most officials have limited outside system skills.
  • Most officials still hang onto “patriotic” ideas of things being capitalist, socialist, communist, etc. They have not realized that the United States is currently a very poorly run socialist country. (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Welfare, Public Schools, Tax Breaks for Large Corporations, Federal Projects, etc.)

What Is Needed?

To begin with, why do we not all have one vision that everyone can agree to? Is it too hard for people to agree that everyone should have sufficient food and shelter? We can print a house in 24 hours for about $10,000. 72 billion pounds of food is wasted each year as well.

Education is going online more and more. Combine it with lifelong learning, community learning centers with coaches and mentors (instead of schools) and AI that does not “test” students so much as continuously assess progress, comprehension and ability to use the knowledge to make decisions and do things. This should be free to everyone very soon. And micro degrees can be done in shorter periods of time to gain skill sets that are needed fast.

Medical has both the power to be better with a single payer system as well as focus on AI doing basic diagnostics and wellness assessments to reduce the need. Couple in reward system for fitness and nutrition and you completely change the game. We already know all this stuff — just afraid to implement it.
Safety can also be improved soon. Once traffic accidents are cut by 90%+ and traffic violations are a thing of the past because transportation is autonomous, the police force will shrink and AI will use monitoring and predictive models to intervene before problems arise in many cases. Of course, the continuous education and better safety net will reduce criminal behavior as well so it all trends towards more just and safe communities.

We Can Make Freakin Awesome Widgets

This finally brings me back to the main point. If we simply understand the “human widget” as a product and we define what that looks like at a minimum, we can do awesome things. We need to make it a priority to implement business principles from manufacturing to the social systems and supply chain to ensure this level of product. Anything less is wasteful, just like it would be terrible business to have more than 50% of your manufactured machines not work and need to be thrown away.

If I needed 100 widgets a day, and my factory is producing products with a 50% rejection rate, I’d need to produce 200 per day to get my 100. And due to all that excess waste, the 100 I could use would be less economical.

These same basic issues are at work in our lives. If we take the baseline goals seriously, we can begin doing Lean Manufacturing of human happiness and wellness. This stuff is not even hard for us any more. We just keep getting in our own way.

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The Sharing Economy is Hiding Among Us

When I wrote my first piece about the Rise of the Sharing Economy it was very well received and very popular.  However, some people commented that they did not want to “have less” and share more.  No doubt the idea of sharing seems un-American to some people.  Which got me thinking.

Since the dawn of humans, even before we’d evolved into humans actually, we can be pretty sure that we were pack animals that shared resources with the rest of the pack.  Sharing is a natural part of us.

Take profits out of the insurance industry and it becomes nothing more than a large group of people agreeing to share risk.

And who wants to have their kid play with another kid who does not want to share?  No one.

Of course this all leads me to think, maybe we are already living in a highly shared economy and we just disguise it with the trappings of the economy to make it more palatable.

What Is The Sharing Economy?

The sharing economy is when people share resources instead of own resources.  And the fact is, we have always shared a lot of things, even though we could own them.  In fact, it is not efficient to own most things that you do not use on a very regular basis.  And soon it will not be efficient to own something like a car, which you need to maintain, instead of having one available when needed (but shared) and always maintained.

Keep in mind, sharing does not mean everything is free.  It means you pay less and share with others.

What Are We Already Sharing?

Public Parks – This is a big and obvious one.  If you want, you can go buy thousands  of acres of land and hire people to upkeep it so you can go on hikes or fish in a river.  Nothing is stopping you.  Then you could keep all that sweet nature all to yourself.

Utilities – People do go off the grid.  You can put up solar panels, get a generator, maybe even tap some natural gas to run to your shed.  People do this stuff, but sharing utilities gives us all more dependable and cheaper access to what we need.

Library – Any avid reader is (or was until recently) an avid library patron.  The fact is, books add up in cost and in space and rarely do you want to read the same book twice.

Sharing jobs – When jobs are exported to another country the country exports (shares) jobs but receives back the benefit of cheaper goods, which raises the standard of living in both countries.

Carpool lane – The carpool lane is a city invention to encourage more ride sharing.  If you do not want to sit in traffic longer, find someone and share a ride with them.

Media -Movies, Music?  Video Games?  We used to loan them to our friends and how with cloud-based services we share huge libraries with almost no cost to us.

Television – Old broadcast TV was totally free and shared with everyone.  As we got more channels, the model got more expensive but still was shared for those who paid.  Now with steaming and YouTube and other services, the move is to a more affordable sharing model again.

Internet – Talk about sharing.  No one owns it or has control over it.  The Internet is free sharing or information and data.  Yes you pay someone for the access, but

Healthcare – people paying for healthcare also share it with people who get it through Medicaid and Medicare and people with no insurance at all.

Essentially everything is already shared unless it is a purchased product you own and horde in your home.  (Like my favorite coffee mug – hands off.)

So when I wrote about the Rise of the Sharing Economy the sharing part is not new.  It is the owning less part that is new.  Why would I not want to share most things in life with other people if it meant that I would have access to more stuff, better quality stuff, less work for the access and, whether I care of not, it is better for the environment?  In fact, why don’t we share more stuff already?

What has happened is two things.  1) Wealth Aggregation and 2) Job Needs.  When you run things based on increasing and not stable wealth generation and you measure government success by employment levels and not happiness, health and quality of life of citizens, you end up distorting what is a natural act of sharing resources and sharing effort.

Let me give you one example.  Let’s think about what would happen if we were not allowed to bring in any new immigrants.  We must just use our existing population.  And let’s say a very strict law is passed that no person may work more than 20 hours per week for money.  What do you think would happen?

100% employment for people who  want to work.  More time to enjoy life.  And many less important businesses would go out of business.  Maybe we do not need a Burger King, Wendy’s and McDonalds all within 2 blocks after all.

Also, we would speed up automation and robotics.

Also, we would have less money and would share more and own less.

Prices would go down as automation takes over and less income increases competition for limited spending.

If you are disagreeing with this, keep in mind I am not proposing it exactly – just a hypothetical example to think about.  Just asking you to imagine what would happen. We’d need to get rid of overly complex systems and unnecessary products and services.  And we would be fine.  Happier.  Healthier.  A little less crap laying around the house.  And we’d up the sharing so our free time would be enjoyable and abundant.

The issue is not a question of whether we should share or not.  We have had a de facto sharing economy since the very beginning.  The question is whether we are going to start taking a hard look at how to make it better for everyone.

 

 

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Is Your Job Value-Adding or Obsolete?

Governments measure their success by employment levels.  It does not question if they jobs add value to people’s lives.  At best, they look at lower wage versus high wage jobs as a way to measure “good” jobs.  This all props up a bubble economy where it is expected that wages can keep going up, profits can keep going up and production continues to find new things to make and sell, even if not needed, just to support jobs and  profits.  It is all a bubble because when this system was developed, automation, technology and robotics were not even thought of yet.

The key to government success is to hid the bubble for as long as possible because the economy cannot go through an instant transition to greater automation and less jobs without messing everything up.  And the idea we can just stop the advancement is silly.  Do we want more work that is meaningless?  Would you like to work 16 hour days doing things no one cares about?  Of course not – so why 8 hours?

The premise of this article is as follows.  A value-adding job is a job that needs to be done to make people’s lives better (beyond the worker and business) and the job cannot be eliminated by automation or by simplifying systems.  Jobs for jobs sake are not acceptable and by reducing non-value-adding employment people can reduce hours worked per week, make a higher wage for value-adding work and spend more effort simplifying systems and improving automation to reduce work even more.  This leads to an abundant life for all people where work is more meaningful and life more pleasurable.  But the transition is not easy and no one wants to talk about it.

To begin to address this issue, I have created the following quadrant graph to help you analyze the value-adding level of jobs.  Keep in mind there will be some human skew as you analyze this, as we all tend to overvalue the jobs we have and undervalue the jobs other people may do.  For this reason I will go through the rankings as well as go through examples of jobs and how to assess value.

Keep in mind this is general.  A high value-adding job done poorly does not have an impact for that particular individual doing the job.  And a lower value-adding job done by someone who adds an element of fun can take a low value job and make it entertaining for people.  Assume this is for judging the job and not judging the people doing the job.

The X Axis – Need For Humans To Do Work

The X Axis is if a job needs to be done by humans.  In other words, it cannot be automated, done by robots, systematized in software and AI.  A 7, the highest value, is a job that requires human creativity, non-linear problem solving and has a high degree of variability based on each given situation.  Improvements in AI will continue to push jobs down this scale as AI improves creativity and critical thinking but it will take the longest.

A 4 on the X scale would represent a job that cannot be eliminated at this time but is on the cusp of elimination in the next few years, such as drivers or cashiers.

Below 4 on the x axis represents jobs that can currently be eliminated if systems were changes or automation that currently exists could do the majority of the job.  These jobs are being maintained for the sake of employment, not out of necessity for the greater good.  Sometimes they simply remain human jobs because humans are cheaper than automation.

The Y Axis – Positive Impact On Population

The other items that defines how much a job is value-adding is the actual value it adds to the population.  This is critical to understand.  The value cannot be to the employees (although being able to support yourself is important) and it cannot be the value that owners and shareholders.  The value must be to the people it serves.

A 7 on this scale is high value services provided to the community.  Clean energy production would be a 7 while older, more harmful forms of energy production would be a 4.  Both important, but the value increases when there is more positive and less negative impact.  For example, producing healthy food at affordable prices is a 7 and selling food that reduces the health of the population (despite brief pleasure from eating the bad food) is in the 2-3 area.

Currently we have many 1’s and 2’s in the form of unnecessary items that are produced.  This includes dangerous or unhealthy things that have a negative impact as well.  Obvious examples are cigarettes, drugs, fast food, many junk foods, sports that are likely to cause long term harm to players, junk mail and many other items that are simply produced as a novelty but have no actual serious value.

Goods and services on the Y axis can also impact a lot of people or few people but impact them deeply.  Hospice care may not impact the broad population but is deeply impactful for those that need the service.  Sports and entertainment may not last a long time as people consume the media or event for pleasure, but it can impact many people by adding enjoyment and quality of life to people’s existence.

Here are some Job Examples and How They Rank (My option)

  1. General Physician – A general physician is a high value job as it impacts the health of the population. No one would dispute this as being a crucial job. However, general physicians often ask a series of questions, do a quick checkup and order a few tests.  They then prescribe medicine or send someone to a specialist.  This can already be done with a high degree of accuracy with AI.  Taking the doctor out of this role would lower costs, increase access to healthcare and could be used in a more preventative way.  Imagine the AI has almost no cost – why not do monthly wellness checkups to catch issues earlier and work with the patient on preventative measures?For this reason, while specialists might be a 7 on the impact scale, we deem a general physician a 5 Impact, 4 Need. The reason for the lower scores is simply we can have better, cheaper services in the near future by eliminating the human in this initial evaluation. This is not  reflective of more specialized healthcare services which may take more detective work.

     

  2. Taxi Driver – This position is the poster child for the disruptive future’s impact on jobs. Not only in the short term have rideshare apps made it possible for people to provide the service without the expense, but in a few years driverless cars will eliminate the position completely. It is a valuable service – but better systems have lowered the cost and improved the service.  For this reason we give it a 3 Impact, 4 Need and we deem it on the cusp of becoming extinct.

     

  3. Federal Politician – Federal politicians often spend their time blaming others and fighting. Rarely do we see them having a common cause and a clear vision of a better future for the people they serve. While there are exceptions to this, we need to rank the baby with the dirty bath water.  Archaic voting and government management practices are only maintained in order to keep the job holders in power. For this reason, we rank 3 Impact, 4 Need (same as a taxi driver) as the value-adding aspect of federal elected officials.  Better systems, clear vision and removal of special interests can reduce or eliminate the need for federal elected officials. Automated systems and AI with clear goals can greatly improve the workings of the government.   The toxic nature of the current group along with their inability to have a common cause and vision would make it a 1 in need if not for the fact that some people do try to do good work and make a difference.

     

  4. City Politician – Unlike federal elected officials, local politicians are more hands on when it comes to making an impact on the people they serve. Sure there is still fighting and problems, but they are able to serve people as a local project manager for a wide array of issues. Federal is systematized and does not need people once cleaned up.  Local will always have more of a human aspect, assessing ways to improve the community and prioritizing projects based on happiness of local people, not monolithic systems.  For this reason, I rate 7 Impact, 6 Need.

     

  5. Garbage Collector – While not a glamorous job, the importance cannot be underestimated. However, we have already seen portions of the job automated with robotic arms.  The job is not going to go away but humans doing the job will disappear once trucks can safely self drive and collect and they have an external cleanup apparatus can take care of spills.  For this reason, we rank 7 Impact, 4 Need.

     

  6. Tax Accountant – This job exists because of systems that are complex and maintained so in order to justify an industry. The fact is, a simple flat tax on all money transfers would eliminate most accounting jobs and those that are not eliminated would be automates in a simpler system. For this reason, we rank 2 Impact, 2 Need.  While necessary in the current system, preserving the system for the sake of employment and uneven financial benefits to the wealthy do not add value to the population.

     

  7. Comedian – This of course depends on if she is funny or not. But let’s take an average comedian as an example. While AI will be able to entertain us, there is always going to be the more unpredictable aspect of watching a human try to entertain us.  The fact that they might fall flat on their face is half the fun.  And as we eliminate more non-value adding jobs, everyone will have more free time and need more projects and entertainment.  For this reason, I rank a (funny) comedian a 6 Impact, 7 Need as they cannot be replaced by the very fact that we want to see live humans doing things.

     

  8. Psychologist – I have read where people predict psychology will be one key area that is not automated or influenced by AI. However, considering we are currently able to monitor engagement and emotions as people learn, an AI that can know what we are thinking and feeling better than a person is certainly possible eventually. With that in mind, I rank Impact a 7 because it is critical to the patient and also can help the greater community by having happier, more grounded members.  And I rank 5 for need as it is needed for the foreseeable future but down the road AI and big data will augment and eventually overtake a human psychologist in many interactions.

     

  9. Trail Guide – While the future will continue to be more high tech, there will also be more people who want to unplug and have an experience away from tech. This will make jobs like trail guides, river guides, Sherpas and similar jobs in demand in the future.  Sure an app can help guide you on the trail, but part of the unplugging experience is having a real human do it.  For this reason, we rank this type of job a 6 Impact, 6 Need because experiential events helping people get back to nature will be in high demand.

     

This entire grid and article is just a general reference.  Technology is changing fast and things that may be a 6 today might turn to a 3 overnight with a new advancement.

This article also does not discuss the jobs of the future.  However, it does provide a basic framework to think about what may be in more high demand later on.  The real key is to get beyond the idea of creating jobs for jobs sake and looking at how much a job provides social value to the recipients of the products and services and begin the process of migrating people from non-value-adding jobs to higher-value-adding jobs.  If we do not need as many people working, that is fine.  We can cut what is full time hours and provide basic income for people to be sure no one is left behind.  With the lack of jobs and basic income providing minimal support, it will be up to that local, city politician to keep people busy and involved in the local community.  Maybe they should be a 7,7.

This is not just the future.  This is the past as well.  It has been happening for many years as industries go from valuable to obsolete.  The only difference now is we are seeing exponential change in many industries and that is why the jobs bubble will break soon if we do not begin to plan for an entirely different model of employment and social values.

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Planning Past You & Me

I fully expect that the things I write about will create a lot of anger, trepidation and fury.  People will snarl in the comments, rage against the ideas that their industry is meaningless or their work is a false prophet meant to keep them busy and derive profits from them while keeping them compliant.

Don’t worry, mine too.  What a drag.

I want to publish this summary for everyone who wants to argues about today’s economy.  About today’s human nature.  About how things work.

“We cannot do x because of y” I hear a lot.  Seriously, we can never get better based on past facts?  Has technology not made new things possible?  We are all permanently etched in a set pattern? I do not believe so, which is why I am thinking beyond today’s limitations.

The reality of yesterday is going to change.  I am not writing for you.  I am planning past you and me.  We are the casualties of not having a better vision for ourselves.  Maybe you lived a great life, but a better human vision would have made it that much more great.  You and I have lost as we did not execute a clear vision sooner and create a better place.  It was possible but we chose to settle for an apartment in St. Louis instead of a resort in Maui. (No offense St. Louis, you are just not Maui.)

The simple fact is many of our achievements could have been achieved sooner if we did not have such a cluster-fuck of a process.  A complete lack of vision as a group.  Infighting.  Jealousy.  It is sad.  We lost because we could not even agree on what a good future looks like.   Instead governments of the world lurch around from one focus to another complaining a lot and blaming others for their problems.  Those few that do have a consistent vision are drowned out by a noisy, ignorant larger group.

Look at government, economics or education – systems that are hundreds of years old and do not address modern technology or issues at all.  These systems are responsible for how we live and influence how we think yet are not meeting the needs of people in the last 30+ years.

People will respond to my writing and reference human nature as being one way, or economics being another.  Go talk to a millennials.  They think all the bull shit is outdated and it is not how they want to live.  They can’t always articulate it perfectly, but they feel unrightness of how things are. Like Neo in the Matrix they are getting by and waiting to wake up.  They know it can be much better.  As long as current leaders hold onto the idea that they are right and the younger people are wrong they will remain in the dark to the real possibilities.  Accept we can make things better.  Accept we were not perfectly right.  Accept human nature of the past is not human nature of the future.  Better is good.  But if you are more comfortable making excuses and citing past examples to justify a  lack of effort, I respect your decision and the rest of us are planning past you.

In fact, I am planning past current systems of all types.  Old stuff fades as better ways are created.  My goal is to get people together and start really building the new systems for tomorrow.  Writing is just laying the initial groundwork.  I want to find a group of united people who want to plan and build the systems of the future where there is less meaningless work, more prosperity, greater freedom and less consumption and ownership just for the sake of having.  It is possible to feel good about having less, because having less stuff is having more freedom.

Some things will be right and others off.  But arguing in the comment section is a waste of time because if you are using examples from the past and the present to dictate what is possible in the future, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Benjamin Franklin is cited as the person who said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”  With the sheer power of technology being developed today to control and transform our lives, time is running out to develop a tenable plan and create a better, fairer, happier community.  It can be done but we need to get away from old talking points and start a new dialog.

Join me and deeply consider what is possible tomorrow.  It is not going to look like today but it can look better.

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The End of Insurance

Value-Adding Work is work that adds value to the happiness and well-being of humans.  It does not exist for the aggregation of wealth for wealth’s sake nor does it exist to promote more jobs for the sake of having more jobs.  For this reason, we deem insurance a non-value adding industry that should be eliminated.

Of course, it cannot be eliminated today.  But with some planning it can be quickly phased out and many parts will be phased out whether we plan for it or not.  Let’s take a closer look.

In 2015 the Insurance Industry consisted of slightly over $2 Trillion dollars and employed an estimated 3 Million workers.  This data combines major forms of insurance such as Life/Health and Property/Casualty combined with Healthcare which is treated separately by the insurance industry.  We have aggregated the numbers from The Insurance Industry Institute and IBIS World to come up with these approximate numbers.

But trends are changing fast and many of these insurance products will be obsolete in 10 years or less, and others are being propped up solely for the aggregation of wealth and power.  Let’s take a look at each broad category and how new technologies and social changes will necessitate the elimination of the industry as a whole.

1) Auto Insurance – This one is easy.  Once cars are self-driving and once we stop owning cars and simply subscribe to a car service, the need for us to carry car insurance is gone.  However, you may think that the companies that provide the car sharing service will need it, right?  Maybe at first, but the simple fact is there will be many less accidents.  And when there are accidents, they will not be due to carelessness or drunk driving or poor judgment.  It will be an “act of god” not planned for in the software.  And when these arise, the automation code writers will jump on correcting the rare case that occurred.  We will not be able to sue the company because it is all one driver, one system and any payout would be standardized.

2) Life Insurance – The primary reason to buy life insurance is to take care of your spouse and children if you are earning income and providing for them.  A failure to buy life insurance could result in your family losing their house, being unable to afford college or living in poverty.  Consider that in the near future education will be free at all levels.  Also, a shared economy with a guaranteed basic income will mean they would not lose the house or want for basic necessities.  At best, insurance could make sure they get better vacations, which they could also do by working just a little bit.  Life insurance becomes a relic of the past.

3) Property Insurance – Similar to automotive insurance, property insurance will have no relevance when we have more fully adopted a shared economy and a new home can be printed and set up in 24 hours.  Already basic homes are being printed in under 24 hours and with an approach to sharing more and owing less, as I talked about in Austerity & Luxury you would own very few things that would need to be replaced.

As you watch the video above, remember that this is early in the technology.  The cost will come down.  the price will come down.  Soon housing shortages will be a thing of the past.

4) Disability Insurance – If you look back at #2 the same arguments can be made about disability insurance.  First, healthcare is going to be much better, reducing the long term issues around disability.  Also, with basic income you are not going to be left in need as you recover from an injury or disability.  Simply no need for this.

5) Health Insurance – Already one payer systems around the world are providing better care at far lower costs by eliminating health insurance companies.  Since we know a big part of that $2 Trillion dollar annual revenue is profits for these companies, and get paid to politicians in the form of campaign donations and super packs, we know why the change has not already been made.  Everything you know about why a single payer system is bad is all carefully crafted “education” by health care companies and political entities who want to maintain the status quo.

6) Commercial Insurance – As we move away from profit centers and to value centers with a clear emphasis on efficiency, happiness and collaboration as an indicator of a company’s success, the need for “insurance” will decline and eventually be made obsolete.  First consider that people will only work for value adding companies.  There will be no need to work in programs that are redundant or gimmicky.  With an emphasis on working less and consuming less, the only companies that will survive will be innovative centers of good will having a positive impact on people’s lives.  If something happens, such as a fire or accident, the community that is aided by the company will rally together to make sure things are repaired.

This is just a summary of the way things will evolve over the coming years with insurance and is not a recommendation to not buy insurance today.

What we do not want to let happen is to have industries and government prop up non-value industries just for the sake of wealth aggregation and keeping people employed.  This creates community inefficiencies and false costs that hurt real progress and people everywhere.

By reducing and eventually eliminating insurance, we can reduce the workforce by 3 million+ people and reduce social income needs by over $2 Trillion dollars per year in the US alone.  This is not the only industry that will be eliminated in the near future as things progress.  The future is very disruptive.  Join us at The Disruptive Future to find out more.