Home
D&D
Music
Banner Archive

Marvel Comics Timeline
Godzilla Timeline


RSS

   

« Heads explode | Main | Election summary »

We can't be a nation of doctors

Following up on my socialistic outburst from yesterday...

Kevin Drum has an incredible chart showing how jobs that can be outsourced to automation simply don't come back when a recession ends. As Drum hints at, when you hear politicians talk about this, they grasp for "education" as the cure. Apparently we're all supposed to become doctors. It's just not possible! Not everyone can be qualified, not everyone can afford the twelve years of school, and not everyone wants to be one. Plus i wouldn't be surprised if within a decade or two this automation starts seriously encroaching on doctors as well.

So what's the solution here? Embrace the vision of our 1960s Utopianists! Let our robots do all our work for us and let us reap the rewards!

I know i'm going further and further down a weird path here, but we really are reaching the point where technology is pushing us beyond the economic model of capitalism. It's the same situation with content providers (software, movies, music, comic books!, etc.). You can get anything for free online. "For free" is only part of the reason why; the other factor is that the internet just makes it so damn easy.

As i mentioned in my previous post, we had a choice to make, and we chose a winner-take-all version of capitalism. As technology continues to improve, we're going to have to make the choice again and this time it's going to be the difference between socialism and serfdom.

Ok, that fulfills my quota of overly dramatic posts for the week.

By fnord12 | November 6, 2012, 4:02 PM | Liberal Outrage