Who Will Prosper in the New World

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/who-will-prosper-in-the-new-world/?_r=0

by luu • 13 years ago

54 36 13 years ago

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

vukmir• 13 years ago

Summary:

   Winners:

     1. The Conscientious
     2. People who listen to computers
     3. People with a marekting touch
     4. Motivators

   Losers:

     1. People with delicate feelings
     2. People unlucky in health care
     3. People who don't need money
     4. Political radicals

EDIT: Thanks mashmac2

mashmac2• 13 years ago

You missed the switch to negative- 1 through 4 are positive, while 5-8 in your list will be at a disadvantage, according to the article.

larsonf• 13 years ago

Is it just me or does "People who don't need money" seem like it should be in the 'winners' list? If you don't need much money, won't you do well come what may?

JonFish852• 13 years ago

I don't understand "PEOPLE WHO DON’T NEED MONEY.", specifically where the author states "We’ll need a new name for the group of people who have the incomes of the lower middle class and the cultural habits of the wealthy or upper middle class."

Don't we have that already? Comparing the present-day to a generation or two ago, incomes and quality-of-life have changed, but the "middle class" is still the middle class. Two generations ago, having 2 television sets, 2+ cars per household, phones for each person (child or adult), trips overseas, eating foods from all over the world, etc. meant upper class (or quite close to it). Nowadays I'm guessing(!) most families have more than one car, everyone has a cell phone, people travel the world, eat foods from various cultures regularly and go to college more than ever before.

But there's still a notion of "middle class", and always will be. The current "middle class" lives fairly close to the "upper class" of a few generations ago in a lot of ways. Why that is is up for debate (lack of savings? lower wages? Could be a lot of things), but overall I'd say based purely on lifestyle, our current middle class has the cultural habits of the upper class of a few generations ago.

tlb• 13 years ago

He means something different. Normal middle class people always want more money so they can buy a bigger TV or car, or go on better vacations. The author's talking about people who mainly enjoy things that aren't expensive: the Internet, conversation, libraries, art galleries, thrift shop fashions. So with a professional income, their happiness isn't limited by money.

JonFish852• 13 years ago

See I'd argue that it isn't about money. It's a matter of wanting things to make life fun/interesting. "Normal middle-class people", whatever those are, are always going to want things/experiences/what-have-you -- it's part of the human condition. Conversation, libraries, art galleries have been around for thousands of years, so that's not really going to change things at all. The internet certainly has changed the pattern of behavior for humans as a whole, and made access to information much less skewed towards the upper classes, but I don't see how that's going to make the "middle class" disappear.

In a sense, I don't think most people's happiness is limited by money. Surely the lack of money can bring unhappiness, but I think generally the middle class is happy, and has been for the recent past (just for the sake of argument, the last 3-4 generations).

Maybe my definition of "middle class" is wrong? To me, the "middle class" encompasses the people who still have to work a job, but are able to pay all of their bills in a timely fashion, save some money, and generally support themselves and their dependents. Lower class would mean people living paycheck-to-paycheck or maybe slightly below: just existing means going backwards. Upper class would mean essentially people whose wealth means they can choose to work or not work, and can essentially afford any needs & wants regardless of hours-worked.

gaius3• 13 years ago

But some of those things are expensive. They are just paid for by someone else. A subtle but important distinction. The funding for the opera for example, a token amount might be ticket sales, but mostly it's the taxes of people who have zero interest in opera. So that needs to be factored into the definition.

gaius3• 13 years ago

Lower class: will never get a mortgage. Middle class, worry about the mortgage. Upper class, will never need a mortgage.

precisioncoder• 13 years ago

New class: Has no need of a mortgage due to not having interest in owning a house

mmmbeer• 13 years ago

I dont understand who are the PEOPLE WHO DONT NEED MONEY. Should maybe be rephrased: YOUNG PEOPLE WHO DONT THINK THEY WILL NEED MONEY.

w4• 13 years ago

Should really be rephrased, "TRUST FUND BABIES," based on who they described.

nadam• 13 years ago

Maybe I am overly cynical, but if quality education will be commodity probably the following things will determine success: which country you were born into, the culture of the family you were born into, talent, access to education that cannot be teached on the internet (learning to be a doctor?), family connections, natural resources of the country you live in (-> and politics, and strength of army of the country you live in), knowing country specific knowledge (that cannot be outsourced to poor countries), having English as mother language, etc...

Most of it is already true, as big part of education is already (almost) a commodity. (At least compared to education 100 years ago)

Free education will make the world better. But if we just take the zero sum game of 'who will be successful in society', then there will always be factors. If not education then others, like the ones which I mentioned.

riggins• 13 years ago

but if quality education will be commodity probably the following things will determine success

I'm gonna side with the author on this one. If a quality education is a commodity, the hardworking will inherit the earth.

zanny• 13 years ago

Quality education already is a commodity, if you can learn by self-teaching, example, peer study, or through information transfer. Only if you can only learn through rigored instruction will you find education expensive.

Education isn't expensive, credentials are.

nfoz• 13 years ago

You can tell this is U.S.-centric when it thinks you need to be personally wealthy to receive decent healthcare.

farinasa• 13 years ago

Unless everyone who gets free healthcare are considered PEOPLE WHO DON'T NEED MONEY.

unono7• 13 years ago

There's a lot wrong with that article. If the computer is smart enough to tell you what to do in social situations and can also read, write, and drive cars, the game is pretty much up.

There will be nothing humans can do that computers can't.

The best thing to do will be to plug everyone in to the Matrix, because otherwise millions of wars between people with really smart computers will break out. Wars that will feature weapons designed by smart computers i.e. drones with nuclear/chemical/biological weapons - deadly enough to kill everyone.

The safest route for humans in the coming years is for global scale cooperation to create a basic income, not a stipend, but self-contained self-sufficient virtual reality simulator so that we don't descend into chaos when some of us get access to hyper-intelligent computers.

It's quaint that the good professor thinks we'll just go on seeking jobs after taking coursera courses, and marketing sales letters to each other, but we hackers unfortunately know that that isn't an accurate prediction. The gravitas of the situation is far greater.

edit: Ted Talk by Daniel Suarez (author of Daemon and Freedom) on the drone threat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYYx_im5QI

AJ007• 13 years ago

I think we have two eras, each very different than the other.

The first is the immediate future where computers can not act as independent, autonomous agents. This is the era we are in today, and have been for quite some time. Some of the concepts described in the article could be used to describe years ago, from a different perspective. Free online education? Has existed for over a decade, arguably pushing two decades. And so on.

In today's era it pays to use machines as tools of great leverage. It means not only that you get ahead of other humans, but you get way ahead of them. Your wealthy, in good health, and very happy.

The second is the era where "computers" become independent autonomous agents. In movies they always either enslave or exterminate humans. I would expect a more quiet extinction, not in existence but in relevance. In that case, what a columnist writes in the New York Times just doesn't matter, because it would have zero impact on anything that was doing decision making. Perhaps there is a biological transformation in this period as well, where genetically modified humans split off not in to another species but multiple species. In that respects, homo sapiens could become relics at the zoo.

Its all conjecture, but I think one thing here is a certainty -- that machines become both independent of humans and autonomous, able to act, buy, sell, and build things all on their own.

staccatomeasure6• 13 years ago

People greatly exaggerate the progress and inevitability of AI.

l33tbro• 13 years ago

Hang on, Williamsburg isn't "full of people who are bright, culturally literate, Internet-savvy and far from committed to the idea of hard work directed toward earning a good middle-class living." You kidding, guy? Have you seen the apartment towers rising up down by the water. Must be the Maoists' granola silos.

Also, calling Zuckerberg a "computer genius" shows that this writer is a bit out of his depth. Z'berg isn't a computer genius, his talent is social psychology and game theory if anything.

Makes some good points ... but seems like another out of touch baby boomer trying to convince other baby boomers "where it's at". I wasn't surprised when I googled the author to find out that he wasn't nytimes staff. Yep, seems like just another guy using some big concepts to market his own personal brand (which, of course, is what he is telling us to do in the article). I smell a conference tour.

joe_the_user• 13 years ago

As Unono, mentions, if computers become that smart, "we" (well, the already rich) won't need anyone (you can get educated for free but if computers have taken the jobs, what use is it, etc, etc). But a good new age con-man can convince some portion of people they want his stuff.

TL;DR; Swindlers and the very smart. But mostly swindlers.

Clearly the author is aiming to be one of them.

Who Will Prosper in the New World

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