All Your Menial Labor Jobs Are Belong to Us
What’s the secret to solving the social security crisis and the problem of an aging population? Robots! (At least in Japan anyway.)
Okay, not exactly, but it suggests, however dimly, a potential way forward. This sort of story is why I contend that geeks will always triumph over wonks. Wonks tend to think about the future in terms of managing the resources we currently have, and maybe those we’re expected to have if things stay basically the same. Problem is, though, that solutions (and revolutions) often come in unexpected forms, inventions and innovations that even the brightest, savviest policy nerds simply don’t account for — not through any failure on their part, really, but because it’s impossible for anyone to accurately predict what technologies are right around the corner and how the technologies we’ve already seen could be deployed in unexpected ways to solve current difficulties. (Needless to say, this is why I believe that policy should always err on the side of promoting maximal innovation.)
I certainly agree that technology is difficult to predict, but I’m not really following the geek vs. wonk breakdown. Basically, people are bad at predicting the future.
Goes for both geeks and wonks. Not only are people bad at predicting how technology itself will progress, they’re bad at predicting how society will adopt and conform to new technologies. In other words, geeks are no better at the wonky side of the equation than wonks are at the geeky side of the equation.
The saying goes that people tend to overestimate the rate of change in the short term, and underestimate the rate of progress in the long term. Basically, they have an understandable but misguided tendency to extrapolate linearly from current trends.
— Adam · Mar 2, 07:25 PM · #
But, Peter, maximal innovation is Logan’s Run. At least until Radical Life Extension comes along, which is really just Logan’s Run in reverse.
— James · Mar 2, 08:45 PM · #
Mmm. Can I modify that to maximal innovation plus sanctity of life then?
— Peter Suderman · Mar 3, 12:19 AM · #