[kj] FW: jaz date change 4 spoken word

[GREG SLAWSON]

I agree that machines can and will do more and more. The bad side is that the companies are doing this to eliminate jobs and make quicker profit (bad for us). Under a worker-run, moneyless society (you know where I'm going here) machines could be used to make life better, b/c the people whose jobs are eliminated could then do other useful work (more nurses, people fixing infrastructure, more education, etc etc) instead of just becoming unemployed
 


From: bq at soundgardener.co.nz
To: gathering at misera.net
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:35:28 +1100
Subject: Re: [kj] FW: jaz date change 4 spoken word









The more people there were, the more effort was needed to keep things running.
 
I disagree, it’s only a question of scale. Our productivity has been increasing for a long time and I believe is still increasing (broadband, computers, advanced machinery, automation, unified communications etc). More people require more support infrastructure only in terms of numbers, not necessarily in terms of that % of the population required to support the rest…I believe the opposite is true.
 
Some history:
 
Back approx 10 000 years ago we invented / discovered agriculture. While this required at least twice the effort of work as compared to hunting / gathering, in order to sustain life, it resulted in a population explosion because of increased surety of food production and storage of grains etc. This increase in reliability and storage of food, and the fact that people were less nomadic (and irrigation played a part too I believe) resulted in the arrival of cities and city-states…(Jericho and Ur being a couple of the earliest examples). The critical mass of people in a city and the relative surplus of, and storability of food, despite the increased labour cost of producing it, enabled division of labour and specialisation. So all of a sudden you could afford people whose only ‘job’ it was to create written records, tend the sick, track the movements of the planets etc etc (and probably ticket hawkers and parking wardens and the like but I digress…) Science and technical craft progressed, and productivity has been going up ever since. Even in 1950 the average office user was far less efficient, without the widely available use of computers, email, photocopiers, fax, broadband, video conferencing, cellphones etc. And my point IS – while the population increases, with commensurate increases in productivity and automation, there is a decrease in the amount of people required to accomplish any given task. I suppose you have to account for increased regulation, complexity etc, but I believe that productivity and automation has outstripped that by far. My conclusion being…a crapload of the jobs we do now are POINTLESS. 
 
The manufacturing industry has been hugely automated, from its labour intensive origins, so has agriculture (something like 2-3% of the population in many western countries is all that’s needed to run farms, down drastically since early last century), and statistically, if it wasn’t for the explosion in growth of the service industry, unemployment levels would be way high, or unions would have forced companies to use human vs machine labour or something. I work in the service industry in a technical field, but I believe there’s people vastly smarter than me who will one day create machines that are capable of doing what I do. Or machines that will create machines that are capable of doing what I do. I mean, I started in IT on a helpdesk helping users connect with dial-up modems. That job, all the millions of people who do it (now a lot of it has moved to broadband routers but similar task), will be evaporated as soon as someone solves the technical problem(s) of creating a modem / router that you can plug in and actually works without Joe user needing to do more than make one phone call, once. And everything on up the chain…systems administrators will be cut in half when most servers are simply a process running on a virtualised box in a data centre and your average 10-user company doesn’t feel the need to run their own email server etc, they just plug all their PCs in to the net, log in to their domain and off they go…ubiquitous super-high-speed broadband, cloud computing, virtualisation, unified communications, voice over IP…it all spells automation to me. A lot of the rest of the jobs will be shipped out to India, Manilla etc. 
 
Re the weight thing, I stick to my guns….I’ve been training for over 20 years and have a fair amount of technical and practical knowledge about health and the body’s adaptation to exercise, you’re preaching to the choir in terms of the benefits of exercise. I guarantee you though if you took two groups of overweight, unfit individuals with unhealthy lifestyles, and you exercised one lot yet had no ability to influence their diet, and I controlled the diets of the others with no ability to influence their exercise, that I’d lose them more weight. And if you gave them to me for 12 weeks and allowed me to train and control their diets that I’d lose them more fat & gain more muscle AND increase their athletic performance more. And enjoy the whole process more too, with less injuries. 
 
Those biggest loser shows are fucking daft, on so many levels. That amount of exercise and calorie restriction is excessive, you’re more likely to maintain a healthy lifestyle if it doesn’t feel like living in a concentration camp (!)…1500 calories a day diets for men and 1200 for the women. That’d drive me bonkers. I lose weight regularly, slowly, but consistently, on 2500 calories a day. I wonder how many injuries those people sustain going from no exercise to what they have them do, on joints that aren’t used to even 10 mins of walking, carrying 300lbs plus. It doesn’t send a healthy message at all.




From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On Behalf Of The Exorcist
Sent: Friday, 20 March 2009 11:32
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] FW: jaz date change 4 spoken word
 
Re: Soulful job

While there are people that do work in fields they enjoy. Many do not.
In order to obtain something you generally need effort and input. In the earlier times
we all hunted and farmed. As our families/tribes/clans/states/countries/nations expanded
there was a need for more room, food, shelter and other basic necessities. The more people
there were, the more effort was needed to keep things running. As humans evolved there was
need for better ideas and technologies to help us keep up to pace with our burdens. Some had it
easier, some had it harder. Some were able to work in the political/scientific/cultural fields other
worked in the manual labor field. (White collar/ Blue collar)

Our inherent nature is one of survival and we do what we can in order for us (as individuals) 
and our families to survive to he best of our capabilities. 
(Well most. And some unfortunately become psychotic/raving lunatics)
A poor man/woman had to go beg for food and money no matter how demeaning he/she might find 
it in order to provide. Is it something they looked forward to? I doubt it. Is it worse then having a shitass job?
In my mind, yes. Nevertheless, it was done.

Re: Automation/Technology
Let's take a writer for example (without going to far back). The writer used to spend time writing
on pen and paper. It took him quite a while to finish his publication. We then had the advent of the typewriter.
Suddenly, the amount of time it took took him to write was cut in half (if not more). A while after we had the
word processor/PC and the time to write was yet once again shortened.

Would one say to the writer. "Hey You! Stop writing. You've done enough! You used to publish one book a
year and now you need to do 3? You have more free time now, why are you doing this?" 

With the advent of computer technology, (bigger, faster) work tasks can be done much faster.
On the other side however we found more uses and applications for the PC and ventured out
into more fields. The fact that something can be done in a shorter amount of time does not mean
(as I see it) that someone just needs to stop doing things. Life is a pursuit, a quest, a goal, an achievement.
Humans are not automatons (well, not yet, though society seems to be pulling that way) and constantly
search for something (whatever that maybe). Singers write new songs, Writers write new books, Inventors
invent new inventions (that one sounded weird).

Re: Obesity
There is big, fat, overweight and obese. Obese is already far past the borderline of unhealthy.
There are of course MANY factors to Obesity. It does not change the fact that it is unhealthy.
Nor does it change the fact that exercise helps. 

Exercise has been shown and is recommended to people who suffer from stress,
depression, anxiety.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression-and-exercise/MH00043

People deal with stress in many ways and it has many side effects.
(I always have had a hard time sleeping. Mind is always active and 
I've been told to try and relax a bit. Though I definitely don't have the over-eating issue)

Exercise is also important for people with health issues. For example - Diabetees.
http://www.cdc.gov/DIABETES/faq/exercise.htm

Look at the little kids today that outweigh average teens and plenty of adults.
There are many reasons for it, be it anxiety, depression, not coping with school work, peer abuse,
physical ailments, a shitty diet of only fast food because the parents are to lazy to cook
or can only afford Mcdonalds/Wendys/BK.

Exercise is beneficial there as well. Whatever the cause, Exercise has it's purposes and
DOES help with weight issues and many other physical and mental aspects of an individual as well.

BTW.... Before you reply, kindly let me finish the reply to the previous letter so we can keep it in one thread. :)




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