VikingsGuy
Well-known member
While the obvious TwitterX wedge issues are in full burn, we are fighting the last war - building battleships in 1935 at the expense of aircraft carriers so to speak.
Before I start - ask yourself - am I blue collar labor or white collar labor? A simple way to answer that question for the purposes of this discussion is, during covid did I have to leave my home to have employment and/or did I lose employment during lockdown windows? Or, was I able to work from home just fine in front of my laptop? If yes to the first then you are "blue collar" for the purposes of this discussion and if yes to the second, you are "white collar".
With that in mind, the "next war" for our political, social and economic landscape will be gen AI - and I don't mean for its obvious ability to foment chaos through deep fake video and audio. I mean a whole new group of voters that are going to be faced with the same problem skilled labor ("blue collar") faced in the late 80's early 90's. Back in the day our government (both parties) decided that "net good" was to on-board 1 billion Chinese dollar a day laborers into a free-trade environment and create clear economic incentives to off shore our industrial base. Sure jobs would be lost, but look at all the knock on benefits that will raise all boats and secure a large free democratic ally in China. Whoops. And immigration. Rather than fixing a broken system the government (both parties) decided it was better to leave it as a wedge issue than resolve and in the mean time unregulated borders and immigration flooded cheap labor into the building trades and service sector ("blue collar"), etc. Whoops. Both of these decisions gutted our work-class ("blue collar") ability to share in the American dream while enriching the "knowledge worker" ("white collar") who still was in high demand, hard to outsource and now flooded with cheap stuff to buy with their growing incomes.
Now, we sit on the tipping point of genAI - how will we address the front end of the decimation of the day to day "white collar" worker. Sure the very top 1% of white collar won't be replaceable and will likely reap great economic benefits, but when the third of or workforce that benefited from decimation of the "blue collar" dreams over the last 30 years is now in the crosshairs how will this play out? Will they demand government protections? Will they demand better social safety net for themselves that they were so reluctant to provide the blue collar folks? Which party will they flow towards? Will skill labor replace them in the social/economic pecking order, as AI doesn't build roads or skyscrapers? Or will now 90% of our population feel left out? And if so does that lead to real revolution? And would that revolution be won by a right wing strongman to force "order" on the system without fixing it or would it be a leftist revolution that tries to redesign post-AI capitalism/socialism in a way to force the spread of the benefits across the whole?
The amount of disruption looming over the next 30 years will make arguing about the current social wedge issues seem quaint in hindsight, as I believe "white collar" America is about to enter the gauntlet we forced blue collar Americans though in the 90s. Hold on to your hats folks.
Before I start - ask yourself - am I blue collar labor or white collar labor? A simple way to answer that question for the purposes of this discussion is, during covid did I have to leave my home to have employment and/or did I lose employment during lockdown windows? Or, was I able to work from home just fine in front of my laptop? If yes to the first then you are "blue collar" for the purposes of this discussion and if yes to the second, you are "white collar".
With that in mind, the "next war" for our political, social and economic landscape will be gen AI - and I don't mean for its obvious ability to foment chaos through deep fake video and audio. I mean a whole new group of voters that are going to be faced with the same problem skilled labor ("blue collar") faced in the late 80's early 90's. Back in the day our government (both parties) decided that "net good" was to on-board 1 billion Chinese dollar a day laborers into a free-trade environment and create clear economic incentives to off shore our industrial base. Sure jobs would be lost, but look at all the knock on benefits that will raise all boats and secure a large free democratic ally in China. Whoops. And immigration. Rather than fixing a broken system the government (both parties) decided it was better to leave it as a wedge issue than resolve and in the mean time unregulated borders and immigration flooded cheap labor into the building trades and service sector ("blue collar"), etc. Whoops. Both of these decisions gutted our work-class ("blue collar") ability to share in the American dream while enriching the "knowledge worker" ("white collar") who still was in high demand, hard to outsource and now flooded with cheap stuff to buy with their growing incomes.
Now, we sit on the tipping point of genAI - how will we address the front end of the decimation of the day to day "white collar" worker. Sure the very top 1% of white collar won't be replaceable and will likely reap great economic benefits, but when the third of or workforce that benefited from decimation of the "blue collar" dreams over the last 30 years is now in the crosshairs how will this play out? Will they demand government protections? Will they demand better social safety net for themselves that they were so reluctant to provide the blue collar folks? Which party will they flow towards? Will skill labor replace them in the social/economic pecking order, as AI doesn't build roads or skyscrapers? Or will now 90% of our population feel left out? And if so does that lead to real revolution? And would that revolution be won by a right wing strongman to force "order" on the system without fixing it or would it be a leftist revolution that tries to redesign post-AI capitalism/socialism in a way to force the spread of the benefits across the whole?
The amount of disruption looming over the next 30 years will make arguing about the current social wedge issues seem quaint in hindsight, as I believe "white collar" America is about to enter the gauntlet we forced blue collar Americans though in the 90s. Hold on to your hats folks.
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