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RE: Swan song 2018

in #philosophy7 years ago

I'm inclined to agree with pretty much all your "swans," although the timing of the singing I'm not so sure about.

On "inherited wealth" I'm inclined to think there will be a distinction between those who simply pass on "gross" amounts of wealth, and those work for a lifetime in service of passing a family business from generation to generation as a legacy. Maybe they are close to the same thing, but I think it may be a while before parents who "want to leave something better for their kids" abandon that mindset.

Fiat currency? Every fiat currency has gone to zero... and been replaced by another iteration of fiat currency. How much retraining will it truly take to untrain people from their attachments to a medium of exchange they have been familiar with for millennia? Is that swan singing? Maybe so... but right now, it's just humming a few bars...

Centralization ►decentralization... that one's an interesting beast. It may happen first through an unexpected avenue: The labor market. A few weeks back @lukestokes and I had an interesting exchange about the future of "work" and the possibility that "jobs" (as we know them) will cease to exist. Instead, we will all be purveyors of knowledge/skills/wisdom.

"Companies" (to the degree they exist) will no longer have "employees;" and any one of us can do a "task" for any one organization in need of it, in exchange for (ta-da!) something like a cryptocurrency. None of us have "jobs," we simply "do things" or provide services where they are needed. Most "mechanical" and physical labor jobs will be replaced by robotics, so we will be trading parts of our brain power.

In its purest form, Steemit is — in essence — a very early prototype of this model (if you peel off the immediate layer of self-serving "money strippers"), in which we individually "value" certain contributions more than others.

Again, I am possibly overly idealistic and hopeful here, but the "swan song" of the traditional job is one I would like to see.

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"I think it may be a while before parents who "want to leave something better for their kids" abandon that mindset."

We will not need them to abandon a mindset. It will be abandoned on to them :-) What I mean is that it is going to take work, in the form of service to others, to maintain the value of any legacy. I personally will be ruthless in separating parasites from any value that might be in their so-called "wealth".

I doubt that robots, or AI, will ever duplicate "empathy", so I suspect that is one avenue of possible "service" to others. Some forms of creativity will also probably not be duplicated by AI (although I am less sure about that).

Yes, steemit has freed me from a "traditional" job - but I sure have to put in long hours :-)