A world of work

Much hand-wringing continues to be done about the future of work in a world in which more and more tasks and roles are automated, and it is not all bullshit. There are sound arguments around universal basic income flowing out from them.

Then again, there is much in them that is fluff, because people need to feel a sense of purpose, which means they need to feel that the things they do between lifting their head from their pillow (should they be so fortunate as to have one) and laying it back down to sleep at night are aligned with some greater mission. Or, at least, that's how things work best.

This sense of purpose, then, is the ultimate requirement for work, not the production of economic value, which is instead an ancillary function which flows from the former. And, as I have written before, there's a lot of stuff that needs doing on this planet.

One key intermediate challenge is matching supply (of labor) and demand (for the same), which is what markets are supposed to be so good at. But it is so hard to bend our brains around the possibility of change that people get all caught up in maintaining the status quo and preserving the jobs we see people doing today. The cashiers, the truck drivers, the factory workers, what will they do when their jobs are automated? Oh no. And what's worse, the radiologists, the sportswriters, the entry-level lawyers, what about them?

Here's an idea: we'll figure it out. We just need to stay aligned in our goals, the things we believe in, the things we want. Which is -- as I have said before -- a problem of a deficit of leadership. And I don't just mean the Trumps and the Phil Bergers, it's all of our fault if we go running after the swankest SUV or the most lavish outdoor grill instead of focusing on more important things. We ourselves lead poorly.

One over-riding narrative around the disappearance of work is that everything will be automated, therefore everybody needs to be a programmer -- but however could a burger-flipper or truck driver become a programmer or entrepreneur? Easy. They just need to be educated, to have adequate support, incentive and encouragement to do so. Public schools won't do it all, but they are an important place to start. The gig economy, for all of the meanness inherent in its regulatory arbitraging of the employee/independent contractor distinction, nudges people towards getting out on their own and trying things, and thereby helps them build new muscles. The main thing is, people can learn things. There are no inherently stupid or incapable people, just a system that tells them that they are that, that they are useless, and demoralizes them.

Lordy lordy, give the boy a keyboard and he can ramble. This all started from my reading a daunting survey of the role of viruses in evolution and biology in The Economist, in which a proposed $4 billion 10-year Global Virome project was mentioned, and I got to thinking about all the different types of jobs that could come out of that, and how they're not all for PhDs, but there are a variety of different roles in labs, in infrastructure maintenance (HVAC for lab buildings, for one thing) that are necessary to support it. How different people can staff those roles and learn things incrementally over the course of their lives and convey their learnings to their kids.... The world is infinitely complex, there is so much work to do, we just need for more of it to point in the right direction, which means finding a way to build and maintain consensus about what that is.