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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 5, 2017 - 06:10pm PT
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I don't think I've ever started a thread that can be considered political, unless you want to put what climbing "best style is" as an example... but that was at least a controversial climbing thread.
Perhaps I can blame Eric Beck for formulating the wickedly insightful quote: "on both ends of the socio-economic spectrum there is a leisure class," Eric probably never thought that that spectrum would become bifurcated into the two ends, at the time we all saw it as a continuous spectrum.
So my mind was startled to see a bit of news that got me in geek-mode, in the NYTimes this Sunday, reporting on the commercialization of blockchains by IBM. A sort of vanilla tech story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/business/dealbook/blockchain-ibm-bitcoin.html
The popular instantiation of a blockchain is recognized by all as bitcoins... and most people are perplexed how the seeming total insecurity of the network could possibly support a currency. It can't be possible, can it?
The ideas are not new, they've been kicking around since the 1990s when the US Gov essentially loosened up restrictions on the treatment of research in cryptography, a topic they held very closely for a very long time. Academic mathematicians were exploring many topics relevant to cryptography, and eventually they won the right to share that research, publicly.
You can read about blockchains on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database);
and the paper on the bitcoin site:
http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
by "Satoshi Nakamoto" but that also has references to the even more arcane
How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document
This gets into the fascinating topic of "trust" which you might think you would learn about in an Ethics chapter of your Philosophy 101 course... but the concepts of "trust" underlay most of our transactions, social, economic, commercial, etc...
Well IBM has a product that allows the idea of blockchains to keep track of all sorts of things, for instance, food... It turns out that tracking just where your food comes from is difficult, and for the most part, incomplete.
Who cares where the food comes from? Well you would if there were contaminated food found, how would you find all the product originating at the same place at the same time? Incorporating the concept of blockchains allows you to track the food, and anything else for that matter, throughout its life.
The most amazing fact was the potential use in shipping, that is, how do you keep the paperwork straight on all those containers at sea, at port, etc...
The "modern" container ship concept originated in the 1950s, and it was an idea that has taken over all of shipping, and made it possible to have a global economy. It costs something like $0.10/lb to ship anywhere in the world. Think about that... what pound of something do you buy for $0.10?
This "modern" innovation, the ability to load a container at a manufacturer, drive it to the rail head, train it to the port, put in on a ship, rail/truck and finally unload it to your local distributor, is a huge savings. In principle, the container is loaded once, and then it is unloaded, once.
But the kicker is, the cost of the paperwork to do the shipping is about the same as the cost to ship the stuff!
And it's not like you can just "deregulate" the industry and get rid of the paperwork, you wouldn't want to do that no matter how much you hated government, only part of the paperwork is required by government... most of the paper work ensures that the product shipped is the product received, it is a guarantor of the provenance of the goods.
if you've made it this far, you're thinking, "Hartouni's off his rocker, this isn't a political thread at all..."
but what are the implications of this technology?
Well first off, there is a hint in one of the images in the article:
it seems like an innocuous image of a loading dock, but what is startling is the amazing lack of workers, of laborers. It wasn't too long ago that men loaded and unloaded those ships
in 1922 the Teamsters won a court case that directed that all goods loaded on and off trucks at the docks had to be handled by Teamsters.
Everything loaded/unloaded on a ship, into trucks, onto trains, everything was loaded by a person, every time it was transferred to some new mode of transportation.
And while it is true that people still do it, they do it at the controls of the container cranes. And not many people are required to do it.... the shipping companies pay for the equipment and the energy to run it, and for the relatively few operators...
...those operators are unionized, and they make good money, but still, $0.10/lb to ship ANYWHERE in the world. There's a lot of stuff shipped, those people can make good money.
Now how many of you can read through those papers on blockchains? Those papers represent the current reality of what was once called "Yankee Ingenuity" and if you can read those papers, you're probably going to get good jobs in this economy. At least for a while.
Think of why reducing the paperwork will reduce the shipping costs. It is because the people required to maintain the current paperwork system will not be necessary once the new technology is in place. The new technology is much better, has much more integrity, and generally outperforms the old ways of moving that paper around. And for a lot less.
So the consumer will enjoy reduced costs for goods, the shippers will profit a bit more, and the governments will have a more trusted way of telling who's shipping what where and whether or not that is a good thing. Buyers will know that they are receiving the things they bought, and sellers will know that their orders are going where they should...
Sounds good, but a lot of people are about to loose their jobs, and what we would usually have thought of as good, white collar jobs.
Reduce the number of people involved in a thing and you will reduce the cost of a thing... people are the most expensive cost in making that thing.
So while we might greatly appreciate the benefits of having blockchains applied to commerce, and to almost everything else in our lives (the applications are very broad) there will be losers to, and jobs lost permanently from the economy.
so how does this all workout?
do we just throw in the towel and go for a basic income?
do we abolish all technological innovation?
maybe we just get a lot more free time to go off and climb. I'm waiting for my computer to inform me that my services are no longer required...
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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the future looks like fewer jobs but cheaper goods and services. not quite net zero -- some individuals are emotionally invested in being employed and feeling productive. those folks will be the losers.
and another thing --
jobs losses are going to creep up the socioeconomic scale. in the past, job losers were blue collar. now it's going to be blue-white and then white. Will be curious to see how the art history professors react when it's them and not just coal miners losing gigs.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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so how does this all workout?
Great post, Ed.
I can't answer the question you posed (above), but I can shed a bit of light on something in the middle of your post. You say:
Think of why reducing the paperwork will reduce the shipping costs. It is because the people required to maintain the current paperwork system will not be necessary once the new technology is in place. The new technology is much better, has much more integrity, and generally outperforms the old ways of moving that paper around. And for a lot less.
The problem here is not only with companies, or unions, or anything in the business world, but rather with... yes, politics.
I work in the world you are talking about, and can point out that much of the paperwork you describe is not devoted to verifying the origin and untampered progress of goods from shipper to consumer, but rather to satisfying government-imposed requirements.
If, when you are elected ruler of the United World, you harmonize customs regulations across the globe, half that paperwork will disappear.
You will, right?
I would, but impending retirement has put keeping the neighbor's rabbits out of my garden higher on my to-do list than harmonizing customs and security regulations for the almost-200 countries in the world.
But change is coming. The entire world of logistics is in the midst of an upheaval far bigger than the introduction of intermodal containers. Blockchain is part of it, but only a part.
Our grandchildren are coming of age expecting that all they have to do to acquire anything -- shoes, mattresses, electronic gizmos, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, blueberries -- is pull their phone out of their back pocket and press a couple of buttons.
But if that grandchild lives in, say, Malaysia, and the shoes she wants to buy are made in Austria, and the website she's ordering them from is based in China, but the company that's actually selling them is in Brazil... Well, it ain't a simple as going to the store and handing a clerk $75 and walking out with a box under your arm.
The computing power required to allow her to do all that in just a few seconds (and to know exactly what the total cost -- including all shipping, taxes, and duties -- will be) has only recently become available.
But the upshot of it all will be the disintermediation of the entire freight forwarding industry. Which, yes, means the loss of a bunch more jobs. And the same applies to many, many other sectors of the economy, not just shipping of goods.
So it isn't just the union hand from the rust belt that will be unemployed in the future. A lot of white-collar types are going to be out of work too.
I could go on for hours about this, but your fundamental point -- that the entire concept of employment is being disrupted -- is far more important than almost anyone realizes.
Again, thanks for a really good post.
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Yes-excellent post. So many implications for current events, especially when it comes to the expectations of those who are struggling to find good jobs. Last Sunday's NYT magazine was devoted to profiling the US job market and also has a good article on guaranteed basic income.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Similar trend in medical delivery?
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Great stuff.
As a graphic artist I have seen most of my work reduced by computers over my career. What once took weeks and thousands of dollars can now be done in a few minutes.
However, creativity and ingenuity have kept me employed and with steadily increasing income.
These tools increase productivity and that is only good. Productivity (of valued goods and services) is the true unit of exchange on which all currency depends.
There will always be grunt jobs even if it is building the modern equivalent of pyramid tombs.
Those who know how learn will thrive.
Change is inevitable.
Those who can't accept it will be unhappy.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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But I"m not seeing elementary school teachers replaced by robots. Or sports coaches.
Well, I'm not sure that elementary school teachers should be replaced by sports coaches. But they should be looking over their shoulders for robots.
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WBraun
climber
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But I"m not seeing elementary school teachers replaced by robots
you'll just get robots for students ......
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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You guys can't see teachers replaced by robots because you can't conceive of what technology will enable before you (or before your kids die). It's just a matter of iterating over problem definitions and solutions until we have something that teaches children with more love and consistency than humans can. But they might wonder what is the point? Why not just train their own in seconds when ours take 2-4 decades to get ready?
No human job is safe if you look over the next two generations. Everything that we believe is an attribute that makes us special, machines will be better at it. There is going to be a reckoning! I'm making light of it, but that is humor masking a sense of futility to change where we are inexorably heading unless there is a civilization melt-down and return to agri-society before then.
I often struggle with the short-term economic and political consequences of automation in more and more fields, because I write software that automates people's jobs to yield a much higher quality and efficient result. If you can train a human to do a job, you can train a machine to do it. Nowadays you don't even need to train the machine- just point it at examples and they can figure out solutions as long as the problem space is somewhat confined/defined. Those boundaries or areas of limitations are rapidly receding.
I saw an interesting discussion panel with a variety of very smart folks thinking about future issues with artificial intelligence. One of the big risks is that we do not democratize access to the advanced capabilities and it becomes yet another mechanism to accelerate the power and knowledge gap between the rich and poor that perpetuates the economic divergence of these classes. Elon musk was proposing (in a perfect elevator pitch for the "picks and shovels" business model of the coming AI gold rush will make him rich all over again) that all people need to have implants to accelerate our ability to output data from our brains, because our typing fingers and talking mouths are the limiting factor. He was trying the positive spin that if we all have access to this power, then it won't be used as a tool for the rich/powerful classes to crush the under-classes. I don't see that the rich/powerful are going to subsidize everyone getting it though. We already have a form of this where the very wealthy can assign computing power to mine more bitcoins, or to make stock trades more rapidly in response to Twitter feeds, etc.
The future is pretty hard-core and it is here now.
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WBraun
climber
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machines will be better at it.
Go eat a machine.
You people are insane .....
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Not sure I have the answer, but this is the problem with jobs in this country.
Not immigrants.
Not environmental regs.
Technology.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Werner, I would starve to death if there were no machines. Not many people can claim otherwise.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Werner, I would starve to death if there were no machines. Not many people can claim otherwise.
Including Werner.
It can be great to pop into threads and post seemingly silly comments that actually point to an underlying truth that most people are missing. And Werner does that regularly.
But he's off the mark on this one. Way off.
You have any children Werner? I'm guessing no, because if you did have children, you wouldn't be making smartass jokes about this subject.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Academia will be drug into the future kicking and screaming
The replacement of regular faculty with part-time adjunct faculty has been going on for some time, at least twenty years. Online courses have further reduced the need for instructors. For those who are brilliant in their specialties there will be no employment problem. Tenure will come easily.
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WBraun
climber
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I would starve to death if there were no machines
That's why you modern people are insane.
You're gonna eats nuts and bolts in the future .....
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Thanks for the post Ed. I'm enjoying thinking about this.
In essence, if the block chain is used to track and transparently circulate through the points at which some action (approval of paperwork) is done, it seems to create an opportunity for trust by creating identity between the approver and goods to be approved for transport.
Have you thought about how the block chain is affixed to the goods inside the containers? Or is it not intended to be used down to the unit level? Seems like it could or should be. So if we assume that, there needs to be some kind of 'burned in' unit-identifier to assist in preventing loss in transit. Otherwise, it would be the same has having it affixed only to the outside of the container.
Or maybe this is just about speed of approvals at the ports for the containers?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2017 - 09:22pm PT
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Ghost is probably more expert, but physical security of the containers is a "solved" problem.
If the physical security is violated, it becomes a case for the insurance company...
but say you video your process and time stamp it, then you can send the digital evidence for that physical security to who ever wants it... the time stamped digital file is also "block chained" so it stands up as evidence.
You could have digital tags on the product, record the tags, as the product is loaded and provide that list to as a part of the digital manifest.
The location of the container can also be "tagged." This makes smuggling in containers more difficult, smugglers often intercept the container before it is delivered, put their contraband in the container, then have it removed before arriving at its destination. This happens to a large percentage of "containers"
In all these cases, the manufacturer and the shipper can demonstrate that they we not responsible for a change of content in the container. Now, they have to show paper, and defend against the accusation of altered or forged documents. This can't happen with the blockchains.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 5, 2017 - 09:26pm PT
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It's interesting to ponder how much farming has changed over this time, too...
Technology has been a major contributor to the "green revolution," a necessary innovation because the population is so huge. There are many fewer people working farms today, and producing much much more than in the past.
Some crops still require people to tend them, but far fewer than ever before.
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WBraun
climber
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There are many fewer people working farms today, and producing much much more than in the past.
yeah and it's all sterile cardboard tasting crap.
why do think people are so flocking towards farmers markets and organic farms.
Agribusiness is about money and not about your health and welfare.
keep on eating your nuts and bolts and making robots drinking oil so that you can keep on killing everyone in your stoopid wars
to feed these stupid machines you're creating to eventually kill you ........
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Now, they have to show paper, and defend against the accusation of altered or forged documents
Would we be able to then have an easy way to validate the block chain?
Or do we merely 'trust' that the 'computer' gets it right when the motions or indictments are filed? Or do we have to hire a series of experts to prove out the trusted values really are what they say they are? Wouldn't the system around block chains have be trusted in a sort of 'meta' way? or I guess in a merely 'accepted' way? In other words, I think it would have to go through a process of legitimation before becoming that much more efficient, but eventually yeah, it could displace more 'paper' workers.
To the subject of the thread then, the example of robotics on an assembly line is usually used to show displacement. Where automation comes in though, care of the automation becomes "the" new trade. But I'd offer, with good code and machining, the automation works efficiently. With bad code, the automation may not work at all and thus consultants are hired to fix the older code or robots that has been obsolete for 6 months since the newer version was released 7 months ago in beta and we're no longer supporting the old version says the company PluotSoft...
And to the question of would I just have more climbing time? The answer is probably not. Its in the 'nature' of how societal power is exercised that pressures will be brought to bear to extract labor from docile bodies(minds). So if the question is posed as 'will we be free' from the requirement of work, I don't think so for the part of society that doesn't have the ability to avoid work, or those things in society that propel us toward work (including our own self-described-identities).
Sure if you have the chain blocks already, then you're less likely to be in the situations that a bitcoin can't otherwise get you out of. But for those with fewer bitcoins, is the political economy question the same?
sorry, lots of questions in there, and not a lot of propositional logic tying the ideas together. :)
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