1979 Future Now?

"Computers are designed to eliminate tedium in our lifes. If the computer doesn't do that, the probability is that you really didn't need a computer in the first place; you probably needed more arms and legs. It's going to be very interesting, the future."

_{source: Wikimedia Commons}

"This question of how many jobs are going to be created and how many jobs are going to be totally obsoleted by the computer; a computer has never obsoleted a job that didn't need to be obsoleted. The case is that we are humans and we are much more adaptable to our environment than the computer is to its own. We should be the ones that adapt and let that computer take over the tedium, so that the three day workweek really does become a reality."

These are the closing sentences of a computer store manager from way back in 1979; the video, which I encourage all of you to watch, is linked below this paragraph. Back then this was what we thought progress would look like. So what happened to that three day workweek? Why is it that automation and computerization has been so successful in taking over so much tasks, yet we've only see the workweek grow longer and pension ages grow higher? We work more and are more productive than ever before in human history, yet we're still stuck in the need to work for our daily bread and a workweek that's been decided ages ago?

The ugly truth is that the increased productivity and increased wealth has been going to a small number of people, the same people who now use the technology against us. Computers and the internet could be used for the liberation of humankind, but are instead used for our further imprisonment and the prolonging of a ridiculous status quo. Eventually almost everything will be automated, which should free human hands and minds to explore their own passions and interests. This is not frightening, this is not an open invitation to apathy and laziness; to the contrary, it's an open invitation to even more and faster progress because when you take two minutes to think about it, you realize that the world's most brilliant ideas and inventions came from minds that were abnormally interested in one particular thing, to the point one would call them obsessed.

Minds that are free to follow their own dreams and passions create the best ideas and the best art. Geniality is present where concerns about survival are a distant memory, yet we're forced into a situation where we have to worry about next month's rent. The computer store manager from 1979 saw the future as most saw it back then; at technology fairs everywhere we saw this future utopia in which technology would liberate mankind. It's kind of ironic to now realize that the computer and the internet (user groups on telnet back then) have given us the information to know why this future never happened. We are working more hours per week and more years per life, so the opposite happened, and we all know why. In a word: capitalism.

We've reached a point in history where we produce huge surpluses, which means that we could produce a lot less and still have all we want and need. Profits, greed and markets prevent us from realizing the future visions from just a few decades ago. Now, the below linked video, which is about the successful experiments with a 4 day work week, can be taken as a positive or a negative. The positive interpretation would be that it shows that we can indeed shorten the work week, no problem. The negative interpretation would be that these experiments are only deemed successful because the shorter work week doesn't negatively impact production. You see, the climate and environment are dying, and for real progress we need to stop the gross overproduction, and we need to focus less on profits or growth. Still, it's nice that a first step has been made towards the realization of the future vision from the 1950s through 1970s; let's take those next steps soon!

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