Re: [unrev-II] Availability of Knowledge & Consequences of Efficiency

From: Bernard Vatant (bernard.vatant@mondeca.com)
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 01:35:52 PDT

  • Next message: Jack Park: "Warp was Re: [unrev-II] Lucid Thinking"

    Four days ??? Don't tell me !!!

    In fact, the actual situation is that companies have legally to move
    down to 35 hours/week for their employees. But it's an endless
    debate, only big companies have made it so far. Administrations
    have not, and e.g. National Education has passed the length of
    teachers carreer (to get a full retirement pension) from 37.5 years
    up to 40.
    For little business and independent workers, 35 hours/week is a
    joke: till both computer(s) and cell phone(s) are not off, they are at
    work, even at night and at home :))

    And unemployment rate is still huge : was 11% and more some
    years ago, down to 9% lately, and rising again since a few months
    ...

    So much for France "Lazy Paradise" ...

    Bernard

    On 7 Oct 2001, at 18:44, Peter Jones wrote:

    I heard this from my Mum (so it must be true ;-), but I believe in France
    they have cut the working week down to four days.

    Now add job-sharing to the soup: a concept that has been very difficult to
    maintain in all but a few narrow occupations in the past.
    Augmentation could make a success out of that.

    Cheers,
    Peter

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Eric Armstrong" <eric.armstrong@sun.com>
    To: <unrev-II@yahoogroups.com>
    Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 5:55 AM
    Subject: Re: [unrev-II] Availability of Knowledge & Consequences of
    Efficiency

    > David Kankiewicz wrote:
    >
    > > P.S. Some how, you've made me convince myself that it has to be
    > > created,
    > > no matter what the cost... Hmm, I'm still thinking...
    >
    > Super discussion David. I wish we had the kind of collaboration tool
    > we've been
    > envisioning to carry it on, IBIS-style. I feel like we have a common
    > goal -- to
    > arrive at, or predict the arrival of, some kind of system that "works",
    > and we're
    > both struggling with a series of obstacles, alternatives, and
    > implications that we're
    > trying to make sense of.
    >
    > In my contracting, I've found that the majority of weeks, I work 32
    > hours. That
    > gives me enough time to be productive, and leavs time for things I'm
    > interested
    > in. I usually do that in 5 days. (I'd rather work 4 days, but cutting
    > back to 24
    > hour weeks would be financial suicide, and I find I just can't sustain
    > any
    > consistent level of productivity for 8 hours.)
    >
    > I suspect the transition will involve cutting down work weeks like that
    > -- but
    > that transition assumes a big enough wage that its feasible.
    >
    > As a walked away earlier, I was thinking about your major premise --
    > that
    > over time, fewer people will needed to do things we need them for now.
    > I buy that premise. Even though I am less sanguine about how far or fast
    >
    > that trend proceed, I suspect it is inevitable -- barring a comet,
    > running out
    > of energy, running short of food, etc.
    >
    > That thought produces *two* interesting paths for the future:
    > 1) We render lots of people obsolete, by virtue of automation and
    > knowledge-based systems.
    >
    > 2) We press the reset button, and wind up having to rebuild
    > civilization
    > after a long, dark age.
    >
    > Each of those scenarios has a strong probability. The status quo appears
    >
    > to me to be the lowest probablity future in the bunch.
    >
    > However, to return to your point -- what DO we do as we transition from
    > a human-powered civilization to an increasingly machine-driven
    > civilization
    > that takes advantage of automated knowledge systems?
    >
    > How will that transition play out? At first, we'll see increasing
    > unemployment,
    > but it won't be so severe that it causes alarm. Later that number will
    > rise.
    > If we're on the ball, we'll probably enact social legislation to reduce
    > work
    > weeks, etc, so that we can keep consumers in enough coin to keep the
    > economy moving -- otherwise, it could fall down for lack of people to
    > spend money!
    >
    > Eventaully, we may well work our way down to 2 hour days. I hope
    > so. I wonder how much suffering will occur as a result of the lag
    > between our step-wise transition to that level, and the unemployment
    > that precedes each step?
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
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    >
    >
    >

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    ***********************************
    Bernard Vatant - Consultant
    bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
    Mondeca - "Making Sense of Content"
    www.mondeca.com
    ***********************************

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