In memory of memory

The future of jobs

2012-01-03T14:05:00.001-08:00

I'm purposefully avoiding a "thoughts about 2012 post", not because I don't like them, but because I can't think of anything to say which hasn't already been said elsewhere. What I do hope we can look forward in the future is the growing understanding that world we live in cannot be understood by the rules of the world from which we have come.

One area where I think we need to really re-evaluate how we understand things is when it comes to jobs. Before his flame out from the Presidential campaign (surprisingly due to having an affair, rather than being too stupid to have an opinion on Libya) he had these pearls of wisdom to share about the world of work:

Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!

Now, I know what he was trying to say, but frankly, he's an idiot. Everyone, no matter how limited their understanding of the world, thinks everyone can be rich. Even in the best economic times there will always be the rich and the poor, if only because the definitions of those terms will change to reflect the new reality.

However, on a more fundamental level, how much longer can we go on pretending that there will always be enough jobs for everyone. Amazon has around 33,700 and a revenue of $43.59bn according to the most recent figures I could track down. Of course it also creates thousands of jobs by providing a service through which third parties can retail their products, in a way which would have been impossible without Amazon. However, there is no way of cutting it to suggest that Amazon is, or ever will, create the vast numbers of jobs a company this successful would have done 50 years ago.

The norm, increasingly, is that companies are going to drive towards more knowledge based systems. This is true even of manufacturing, where robotics will continue to improve until humans are essentially unnecessary, apart from in the event of some catastrophic failure, although possibly not even then. Even my job, a market research position, will one day be a job I share with sophisticated AI programs, who will do the lions share of the boring things, while I (hopefully) am retained to do the "story" part of the job.

With that in mind, it will eventually become the case that there is simply no way of pretending any more that there are going to be enough jobs for everyone. What will society look like when politicians have to face up the reality that there is one less job than the total number of people, let along a deficit of a few million jobs? That's the world we're heading for, without a shadow of a doubt, and there is nothing that can change that.

The present day welfare state is nothing compared to what is to come. When hundreds of thousands of people will live their entire lives without any real chance of employment for the majority of that time the state will have to radically reform its role.

My prediction, corporation tax will go up, and income tax will go way down. The state will need to provide the benefits required to prevent civil unrest, and the money won't be coming from the legions of the unemployed, and the state will have a vested interest in making sure that those who do have jobs are spending as possible supporting the high revenue, low employing, companies which support the economy.

However, there will also be much larger numbers of people creating small companies, which will exist at the periphery of the larger entities, much as Amazon works with third party retailers today. This will provide many people a small income, which will help ensure the state isnt completely crushed by the weight of organising the welfare for its citizens.

Anyway, that's my predication for the day, but the most important part of this is that we need to start moving away faster than we are from the assumptions which governed the world as it existed previously. The emphasis of Government cannot be to recreate the world of yesterday, but it must instead work to build the world as it will exist and create institutions which are resilient enough to survive change.

The New Year

2009-01-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

Its the New Year, and has been now for several days and in an attempt to find some new purpose to infuse into this year I have been wracking my brains and largely coming up empty.

At least until the last few days, when I realised that the fundamental problem with my life is that as of late I don't "do" enough.

Thats not to say I don't socialise, work, eat, sleep, and all the rest, but of late my life has lacked a great deal of the direction which I usually try and ensure is there. This realisation has caused me not a small amount of consernation as I consider myself to be an ambitious and active person.

For reasons which are far too complicated to go into I have found myself retreating from things which are new and might challenge me in ways which I am not usually challenged. Again, something which was, up until recently, anathema to my way of thinking.

This led to a conversation with a friend of mine who is in much the same boat and in a fit of minor inspiration we decided to swap notes on how we might improve the quality of our lives. And over the last few days a few things have been working their way through the fug of things which I would, under no circumstances, want to do.

I have been lucky enough to fall into an opportunity to do some volunteering of late, and really enjoyed it. So I'll be sticking with that for the forseeable future.

Its been a goodly length of time since I took a good stab at my old foe, foreign languages. So, once I have sufficient finance and opportunity I will be giving that another try. Rather than simply going for one of the European languages which I have little or no interest in I will instead be giving Arabic a try. Its a region I'm fascinated by and I hope that this level of interest will give me a different type of impetus to want to learn. We shall see.

I'd like to give salsa a try, or some other type of dance. Thats one which is still being pondered.

I want to write more, hence the appearence of two posts on the same day after a significant hiatus. The main goal is to get something published in my own words in the next few months.

Last year was largely a year stuck in the mud. I'd rather like this year to be different and I fully intend it to be so.

Of Protests and the Protesting

2009-01-17T12:14:00.001-08:00

Firstly I should state for the record that I believe protesting is an excellent form of public demonstration. It can be an outlet for national discontent, bringing an important issue to the fore, if only for a day. I've been on protests, I will go on more protests and I'll continue to encourage other people to go on them if its a cause I believe in.

That said... most of the protests we see most of the time arent protests. They're a group of middle class folk out for an afternoon complaining about something, or they're a group of extremely angry people shouting at the police.

They fail most times to grab the national imagination, or connect with people who were unaware or uninterested in the issues being raised. They simply serve as an outlet for a smallish group to feel like they've done something, so they can go home and feel righteous.

One of the greatest problems with modern protests is that they are organised by committee through the internet. This leaves little or no room for spontenaity or excitement, the sort of things a hungry media crave and might actually land a protest on the front pages once in a while.

Walking past two protests today I was surprised to notice that whilst there were police, none of them looked bothered by what appeared to me to be an angry mobs on the verge of losing it. Instead they were largely standing around chatting and occasionally glancing over as if to check an errant protester hadnt escaped to spread their message to the general public.

The police know full well which protests are likely to get out of hand, they can check the internet pages of the organisers. If its held anywhere near central London they can define where the protest can occur. If they need to they can simply refuse to allow a group to protest.

Surely at some point this turns the whole thing into something resembling a poorly organised dance. With protesters on one side, police on the other, going through the motions until everyone goes home and has a nice cup of tea, job done.

I'm not advocating that protests should be violent or anything else for that matter. It just all seemed a little silly to me.

Of emotional men and the confusion of women

2008-05-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

Feeling as I can the angry gaze of at least one of my feminist friends on the back of my neck I think I should come to the point with rather greater alacrity than I might under other circumstances.

Men should be in touch with their emotions. I've long long since forgotten how many times I've seen or heard some variant of this particular desire, largely stemming from women. Most recently I got into a spirited debate with a pair of young women, one recently single from a relationship with an "emotional" man, the other currently in a relationship (the emotional status of her boyfriend was never determined). During dinner I was once again exposed to the apparent female desire to have relationships with men who knew a bit about their own emotions.

I've always been quite leery of this concept, despite being relativly emotionally enlightened. After another rather vivid conversation with a friend of mine I have finally reached the end of the thought process that began some weeks back.

Women do not want emotional men. They want men who understand their emotions and have confused the two. They believe the more emotionally in touch the man is to his own emotions the more he will understand their emotions.

I hate to break it to you, but if your sitting here thinking that, you are sorely mistaken.

Men who are in touch with their emotions it seems to me, end up so wrapped up in the confusing morass of emotion that they utterly lose track of how their feelings impact on people around them. We (and I speak from personal experience to some degree) do not deal well with the extremes of emotion. I'm not advocating bottling it up, or pretending we dont feel things, we do and thats good, be aware of it, but there are a group of men out there who need to learn that being ruled by your emotions is deeply unhealthy.

Women seem to have found a good middle ground, being emotional creatures, but not having to express every little thing like its a shakespearean tragedy. Watching the tragic flailings of those few "emotional" male friends who I have failed to lose track of or utterly disown I am increasingly convinced that this quote applies:

"Men are allowed to cry at their mothers funeral, and possibly a sporting event, the rest of the time they need to shut the [expletive deleted] up"

I paraphrase, but the person quoted will, I'm sure, recognise herself.

What women in fact want is a man who understands their emotions, they want empathy, they do not want expression by and large. Except perhaps at mothers funerals.

Men the world over need to learn the moods of women, and learn them well, because in learning "the moods" you will reap the rewards. If your 90% sure shes had a crap day, buy some flowers, if your 100% sure those flowers should come from a florist and perhaps have chocolates attached in some way. Worst case in the 90% scenario you turned up with flowers, best case you made her damn day and you will, I absolutely promise, not regret that.

Because heres the thing, women remember everything. I'm not talking most things, they seem to have an uncanny ability to carry around a notebook in their heads within which are two lists, "good things" and "bad things" and a score is being taken.

So learn. Learn to empathise, its not hard. Women are relativly good at expressing themselves and if you engage your brain you'll probably figure out quite a lot for yourself. Feel free to express yourself too, but do it in the right way at the right time. If your a bit down feel free to share, but check the timing is right, dont be a jackass, she wouldnt be and she probably expects the same from you.

Men need to understand the emotion is a good thing, but we are too easily ruled by it. So when your "feeling" something you need to do what most women seem to do, stay on top of it. Women dont want you sobbing and out of control. Its not sexist to say that a lot of women want some reliability from the man they are with, they dont need him freaking out over the smallest slight, or a jibe at the other end of the telephone.

So emotional guys, next time you decide to have a hissy fit because your pain is so very very unique and needs to be expressed RIGHT NOW! Take a breath, step back and ponder, is your pain really so special, or do you need to shut up, man up, and express yourself with the non-committal grunt that has served our half of the species so well for millenia.

A distinct absense of myself

2008-05-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

It transpired that I did indeed get the job and hence the last two weeks have been rather consumed by ensuring that everything is up togeather for me to escape two jobs and prepare myself for a new one.

A heavy dose of the flu didnt help with the process of getting myself in any sort of fit state.

Anyway I have returned and will soon be following up on this blog with an entry about my desire to re-institute Victorian models of judging people on their appearence.

I am humbled

2008-04-08T04:59:00.001-07:00

I think its fair to say that I am by no means a people person. Even on a good day I treat my friends and family with a certain amount of casual contempt and have generally been surprised they stick with me all the same. However I've today realised why this is, they have a keen sense of proportion and have heard of the guys who are going to run the worlds largest supercollider.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

A lawsuit is currently underway to try and prevent the use of the new Large Hadron Collider, located on the border of France and Switzerland, on the basis that the scientists involved have dramatically underestimated the chances of annhiliating the entire planet.

Now these are people who really have no real regard for human life, on a level which I personally cant comprehend. To be willing to take the risk of exterminating the planet in order to prove some theories about the conditions at the start of the universe is pretty goddamn impressive in my opinion.

The scientists have declared the chances of them accidentally creating a black hole large enough to consume the earth, or even producing a so called "strangelet" a particle capable of converting all matter it touches into similar particles are "very small." Personally I would prefer they were "extremely small" perhaps even "miniscule" but then I'm extremely fussy.

It should be kept in mind that scientists have actually already probably created a black hole or two in other supercolliders but so far they have remained small enough that they have collapsed after microseconds of existance. Since they existed below the critical Planck mass required to sustain black hole growth.

I like how much science is like religion sometimes. Guys in funny costumes tell us things are beyond our understanding and that only they can tell us the truth. Often they ask for large sums of cash (in the case of science usually from the government, so indirectly from the public) in return for unspecified returns. We are told to take it as a matter of faith that the activities of scientists are "for our own good" and to pipe down while they throw the big switch.

Often the scientists themselves will admit under pressure they have no goddamn idea what the heck is likely to happen. According to Dr. Arkani-Hamed one of the scientists involved in the CERN experiment "almost anything can happen" due to the nature of quantum theory. Now to me this isnt actually all that reassuring, although I'm sure he intended it to be. But then I've seen a lot of star trek. I know the odds are against creating a bridge in space between here and a sinister "alternate universe" in which we all exist as evil opposites, but even so, its not impossible.

This really isnt a diatribe against science. I love science as a field, both for the advances it gives us, and the collosal screwups that it produces. And in this case I'm in awe of the people at CERN who have declared that at the end of the day the survival of the world is dependant on a maybe.

At the end of the day, if it all does go wrong, at least we can blame the French before we spiral into oblivion.

The News and the children

2008-04-07T02:23:00.000-07:00

It seems I can rarely turn on the news any more without being recalled to the shrill caterwauls of one of the characters in the Simpsons imploring the world with her cries of "Won't someone please thing of the children"

Note: I'm reliably informed by those who are more worthy Simpsons watchers than me that the character in question is Helen Lovejoy, wife of the Reverend Lovejoy.

Recent stories such as those surrounding Shannon Matthews and the extremely obvious Madeline McCann have filled the papers, tabloid, broadsheet and online news sources. These stories run their course, often to destruction and usually without conclusion. More worrying they seem to often lack any real details as to what exactly is going on beyond the lurid suggestions put into the media.

Take the latest story, and the inspiration for todays tirade:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/7333898.stm

This story is wonderful for the news outlets. Its got a big of everything, a sinister uncle, a (we are led to think) abused child, angry police, a criminal mother and a regular carnival procession of other ner-do-wells. The lurid fumblings of the media to find news where in truth nothing exists are never better highlighted than when it comes to dealing with this kind of story.

So much is implied, but so little is ever substantiated.

In fact child kidnappings are something of a myth. The horror of the event and the visceral terror every parent must feel allows for the creation of something which is fundamentally untrue. An article which demonstrates the point with rather more clarity than I am likely to achieve can be found here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/mick_hume/article409237.ece

The media does love its fads undeniably. Which is why we live in an age where no child is safe, the world is running out of air, and terrorists lurk behind every door.

In reality children are by and large safer than they have ever been. Modern security and police forces ensure that even when the worst happens the response is usually effective. The sky seems unlikely to fall just yet, despite the best efforts of ranting Green activists to say otherwise. And terrorism is no more a risk than it has ever been.

With so much more to report why does the media focus on the things it does?

Because they are undeniably easy to report and because people can connect to them without engaging any of the gray matter evolution has been kind enough to gift us with.

It horrifies me that supposedly intelligent people are able to engage so readily with the material which is spoon fed to them by the media yet here we are, when i can barely turn on the news or open a paper without being told my (hypothetical) children are constantly in danger of death and kidnap.

Why oh why can we not have real news?

The interview

2008-04-04T03:26:00.000-07:00

Interviews are strange creatures, I'd love to say that I enjoy them but in truth I find them to be boring at best, vaguely irritating at worst.

To sit opposite someone you dont know and try and ingratiate yourself to them is something which runs counter to almost everything I stand for in my personal life. I'm very bad at making friends at the best of times, although I pride myself on the quality of the people who i choose to surround myself with. Thus to try and make acquaintences with someone purely for my own benefit is extremely uncomfortable.

In order to deal with this I end up running through a mental checklist of things, how should I sit, when should I smile and all the other things that apparently make a good interviewee.

It concerns me that this apparently is what people who are interviewing you want. Heaven forbid that one display character, or some independance of thought. Those things seem anathema, although most people conducting interviews will always tell you they want to see your personality.

Interestingly in the interview I had to day there was a refreshing degree of honesty. The people conducing it were clearly of very different personality types (to my right the "public school conservative" and to the left the "young semi-conservative") so I get the feeling they'll focus at least in part on creating a team of people which wont clash any worse than they probably already do.

Anyway, we shall see how it goes. I'll hope to hear back from them in the next week or so potentially for a second interview. Fingers crossed.

The strange life of Harriet Harman

2008-04-03T01:06:00.000-07:00

Before I write this I'd like to point out to those who read this on a semi regular basis that I have updated my first post to include the name of the soldier. Since this information is now in the public sector I think its appropriate. I hope you will all take a moment of your time to read it again.

But now the main course of this morning's symposium.

I dont think anyone with an ounce of knowledge of current events can have missed the recent political flailings of Harriet Harman as she tries to fight her way clear of what seems to be an all emcompassing attempt to create a story out of nothing.

For those who havnt had a chance to read around this topic, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3658775.ece

The rather visceral treatement of the MP in question seems to have consumed the media in the last few days for reasons which, for the life of me, I cant understand.

She wore a standard piece of police equiptment while out with police, engaging in police activity. I'm not sure that if she had been pictured wearing a police helmet, or for that matter police trousers anyone would have cared. It seems to be the stab jacket that has got everyone excited.

The article I have cited above highlights the fact that this is "the second senior Labour woman to seem to imply that London is dangerous for women." Well now that to me seems to be the most ridiculous overstatement I've read in quite some time. London, like any other large city in the world, is dangerous to all people who live their lives within it. Dangers can of course be limited by being aware of them and acting accordingly, however there is always the chance for all of us that we will end up in danger through no fault of our own, sometimes at the hands of others.

Personally I'm unsure as to why we need to make the distinction that London is "dangerous for women" however I'm not going to address the feminist part of this debate since I have a slight suspicion that a friend of mine will pick that up in her blog.

The police obviously have to operate in such an envrionment on a daily basis and as such wear appropriate equiptment to deal with the situations that might arise. Sadly we live in a world where the sight of a policeman's uniform is not sufficient detterent to to prevent an attack.

I think sadly this is one more case where the media has found a fun chew toy and will run around in circles with it for as long as they are given attention for their antics.

I quite honestly despair for the quality of media in this country when a story about an MP wearing a stab vest is more important than people being stabbed.

The Daily Show and how it stole my brain

2008-04-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

I think one of the most frustrating things that can happen to anyone with any sort of pride in their own imagination is to realise that when it comes to it, your ideas are either silly, or have been done before.

You spend a little time inside your own head constructing your idea, perhaps on the train, or your mind wanders while reading a book. Your pleased with yourself, you store the idea away for later use.

At this point the inevitable happens, you turn on the TV or someone sends you a youTube clip in which someone with greater wit than you has already had the idea, polished it to perfection and released it unto the masses. This serves a double blow, it makes you realise that you've probably never had an original thought in your life, and it means if you talk about your idea to any group of people someone is bound to go "hey, didnt that guy say that, and wasnt his version better"

John Stewart has an almost uncanny ability for this when it comes to my ideas. I can barely turn on an episode of The Daily Show without hearing one of my own thoughts regurgitated back to me, albeit in a funnier and more coherent way that I would be able to. I probably wouldnt have started watching the show if it wasnt for the fact that on one of my first viewings i heard almost verbatim one of my own personal bugbears repeated back to me from across the screen.

I dont resent them for this, John Stewart is and remains one of my heroes. I'm of the opinion hes probably one of the best commentators on the American media of our generation. He seems to recognise the hypocrasy of the media, and uses it to create a show. I recommend anyone and everyone watch his interview on Crossfire, probably one of the most to the point interviews I've ever seen.

Its unusual for me to like a show of this type, mostly I find these styles of comedy shows hacknied and annoying. Their presenters loud and abrupt, seeking the cheers of the audience above all other things.

Maybe I overromantise the show, but then I'm allowed to, thats my point of view. I honestly find it to be one of the best, and funniest programs current affairs programs available to the viewing public.

I'll even forgive them for stealing my ideas.

The Human Fertilisation and Embyrology Bill

2008-04-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

If it hadn't been for the sad events of yesterday this might well have been my first post, since it is an issue that I have been following as consistently as possible since it began to receive public attention.

The notable emotion I have experienced when reading material related to the Bill is a certain sense of quiet despair. Watching the swarm of ministers keen to score points, senior church figures who have an agenda all their own and as always a media keen to create the news, fills me with horror.

The ability of the media to focus on a single issue in such a complex Bill too makes me realise how unable they are to actually present a debate to the public. At some point I'm sure a blog entry will follow on this topic since it remains one of my key bugbears.

My purpose here is not to talk about the Bill itself since that issue has been largely settled. Brown's backing down and the compromise reached in the Labour party has served its purpose, allowing for a nominally free vote in key areas.

My personal interest has been in regards to what I believe is an increasingly important debate developing in our society. The definition of humanity.

Our species as a whole is now at the stage where there is a growing potential for technological change to the very fundamentals of life. Genetic science, nanotechnology, cloning and a myriad other scientific disciplines keen to stake their claim as the defining science of the 21st century. The promised improvements to the quality of human life, longevity and every other facet of life are immense, if currently unrealised.

However at what costs will these improvements come?

The major point of dispute regarding the so called "Embryology Bill" appears to be the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos. Cardinal Keith O'Brien described this proposal as "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life", something which struck a cord with me, albeit in a way the Cardinal most likely did not expect.

Where does human life exist?

Human life to me appears to already reside in a myriad of forms, we are undeniably a diverse species. Our diversity is part of our success, allowing us to conquer the world, or at least those parts of it not currently underwater.

If we accept that every currently living human being, regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability and every other possible variation, is human, then we are left with a colossally broad field from which to pick "humanity"

One day, and arguably this day has already come, a human will be born entirely of science. A child who has been modified at their most basic level, to avoid disease perhaps, or to improve a characteristic, or even as a pure experiment to see if such can be done. Will this child be human?

Most likely the child will be born healthy, hearty and hale, barring scientific error or sheer bad luck. They will appear human, walk like a human, talk like a human and all the other things which we associate with humanity.

However this child will not, by the definition of certain figures in the religious community, be human. They will be part of the so called "attack" on human dignity.

We stand on what I personally believe is the greatest debate on life. We are part of a generation which will define finally and fundamentally what it is to be human, and where indeed the soul can reside. The debate on abortion will seem like a petty scuffle compared to what might lie ahead in defining what exactly it is to be human. The potential for abuse, for the infliction of misery on a wholly unprecedented scale is vast, as is the potential for achievements which dwarf everything which has come before.

I am not a scholar, and although I have my own beliefs on where the human spirit can be found I don't want to share them here.

Perhaps its time we all considered exactly what we believe on what it is to be human.

I thought I would edit this to add the details of the first hybrid to be created, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/371378.stm

Behold, the human/cow

Beginnings on a sad note

2008-03-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

I've long resisted getting a new blog, even though I see their utility and value. For various reasons I havnt wanted to share everything I think and feel with the world and by and large I won't be. This little chronicle will largely be for my own benefit in recording some of my own musings on topics as diverse and disperate as day to day life, my political position and occasionally what I had for lunch.

Today though seems like a day to begin, because something else ended.

A number of soldiers died in Afghanistan in the last few days, not something that would usually raise eyebrows, least of all mine. However a friend of our family was killed, a close friend of my sister.

It goes without saying that he will be missed, that he died serving his country and we can only hope he died with at least the certainty he was doing what was right.

My own opinions on the war are irrelevant, my own feelings about it pale in comparison to the pain of those who knew him.

I would like to say more, but at the same time I'm aware that to do so would be to do a disservice to him and those who serve.

His name was John Thornton, lost to enemy action on March 30th 2008.

We should not lose friends like this.