Technology rules the world
weejeanie
In the future, will there be a two class system where the have's and have not's will refer to those who have (not) a grasp of technology? Only those with the latest i-pod-computer-text-free-mental implant will be able to access all of the wi-fi oppos (opportunities) available to them.
Only the enfranchised will be able to understand the new condensed t'knospk (techno-speak) and all those unwilling to pay to jump on the bandwagon will be consigned to serfdom, working as drones in call stations or typing in information to ever expanding data-bases.
It's an image every bit as bleak as Cormac McCarthy's The Road (now filmed with Aragorn - how are the mighty fallen). The only difference between the two possible futures is that one is a bit cleaner.
I'm not normally so cynical - I'm experimenting with being controversial. And, on the theme of technology, I've written this directly into the box - so terrified am I by Peter's warning about importing Word and causing the web page to disintegrate...(maybe a slight exaggeration but if you read his post in the Help section, it is explained so much better).
Litopia is the winner
Synchronicity!
Wrong, we are already there and it didn't happen.
My first home computer was an Atari 1040 ST (back in 1989-sh). It was called a 1040 because because it had a whole 1040 (ish) bytes of memory. Its CPU ran at a blisteringly fast 40Hz. It was awsome!
Today, my bottom of the range Mobile phone has more memory (12 megs internal RAM and on a 512 Mega bytes flash chip card), a more powerful CPU and, actually, the games on it are much better then those I used to play on my Atari ST. It can play music (my Atari ST could manage a few bips from a Midi file). It also makes phone calls and sends texts. That's a phone I got free for staying with the same network operator. I can even surf the interwebs on it... if I really, really want to see it all squished up and wait ages for the page to download. Nokia don't even call their products phones anymore. They call them mobile computing platforms.
In 3rd world countries, they have skipped the normal fixed line telephone infrastructure and gone straight to mobile networks, and with it the interwebs.
My point: Even the poorest people, homeless people even, have a mobile phone, even the cheapest mobile phone has more processing power and connectivity then a top of the range home computer from 30 years ago. And the people who use them are not techno savvy wizards of technology.
The innovation is making it easy to use. MP3 players were around for a good while but they were crap and bewildering to use, only the technical elite (that's nerds to you) bought them and knew how to use them. Then Apple came along and made them 'just work'. Now, even my mother (65, sorry Mum) has one. Case in point, e-books are still at the crap and difficult to use phase.
When I worked for a certain Finnish mobile phone network provider we had a special PC program that was used to help install a GSM Mobile Base Station. It required a '3-banana' engineer to use it (e.g. Tech who could read English and had at least finished the equivalent of high school). For the next generation of base stations that program was re-written to be completely graphical so that anyone could use it, even if they were illiterate. It was so simple that only someone technically literate enought not to electricute themselves could fully install a base station. The reason; 1-banana engineers are a lot cheaper, and easier to find in some places, then 3-banana engineers.
In a capitalist society, locking out potential customers from your market by restricting your products to only those people that can access/find them through expensive/difficult to use technology is a bad idea. Even the poorest people have money to spend.
The defence rests.
The case for the prosecution.
I think your reference to the 3 banana engineer is a useful case for the statement "many of the non programming tasks will become automated".
Your 3 banana engineer has had a job deskilled, he now has the choice to accept nothing or take the 1 banana the job is now worth.
Third world countries have started using mobile phone networks, however I don't think they had a choice since they cannot afford to build the infrastructure, because of their poverty, because they have no choice they get to see the Internet "it all squished up and wait ages for the page to download".
I would bet your 65 your old mother uses a Microsoft Operating system, if she has money she might be able to afford an Apple product, but for most parts if you want a computer and don't have a lot of money to spend it will generally come with a Microsoft Operating system, and for most people if it breaks you either will have to pay someone technical to fix it or buy a new one, and then at some point that machine you spent your hard earned pennies on will have to be thrown away as it becomes obsolete.
In Capatalist societies it is in companies interests to lock potential customers in rather than out, to remove choice, only those with the technical knowledge and financial resources are likely to be able to avoid being locked in (as they are now).
Check!
The 3-banana engineer will always have the skills to find employement elsewhere.
Microsoft is not a Lock-in anymore - Ubuntu and LinuxMint are just as easy to use (if not better) these days and best of all Linux is free! My mum would be using the Penguin but she's happy with XP and won't let me unstall it.
Check!
The 3 banana engineer will be chasing an ever decreasing circle of 3 banana jobs as each company de skills tasks to remain cost effective and competitive, history is littered with skill tradesman who have been forced into poverty after automation has made their skills obsolete.
I like Linux, immune to all know viruses, stable enough to run company websites from and its free, and yet its still rarely used, why well it does require more technical skills to get best use out of Linux, to begin with you have to download and install it and then if you want to run software that is written only for windows (as much is) you need to run it through WINE, I suspect that is why your mother and most other people haven't embrace Linux (which by the way could be considered the antithesis of capitalism, being free).
As third world who are using mobile phones, downloading Linux and installing it on a mobile phone is probably possible but only if you know your stuff.
So basically as stated before, the literate will have more opportunities and more facilities, the illiterate will use what is given to them (as they generally do) .
Why a dystopia?
The future might be full of fluffy bunnies and sunbeams.
Oh, all right, we'll either be eating each other or obese blobs operating by way of avatars. Or both.
In the future, will there be a two class system...
those of us with an allotment, chickens and a shotgun.
And hungry people.
It's one possible future.
I refute the two class system.
I refute the bleak outlook of a two class society. Mostly because there will be people who dislike/mistrust technology, those who engage in juvenille 't'knospk' and the rest of us (a small minority to be sure) who exist (as Harry Harrison once said: as stainless steel rats in the wainscotting of society.)
We like, but are slightly confused by those folks who choose (as is their right) not to learn / keep up with the technology of the day. We see technology as a tool to assist us in understanding the world, expressing ourselves, and endless entertainment of the highest quality. (C'mon who doesn't want to see Hamster Dance again?)
We mock and pity those who engage in enless conversations punctuated with nothing but omg's, lol's, roftl, and horribly lazy corruptions of normal words. To us it is the hallmark of a superficial life. We might be wrong, but maybe we aren't.
We embrace the gift of technology, but work hard to understand it, and we care about human contact, so we know where the 'off' button is. We step away from the machines and go forth out into a world that is in the end, what we make of it.
An idea
Certainly having a computer can make a difference in the quality of your life, I also suspect that the difference between the two classes will be the literate (programmers) and the illiterate (non programmers).
Increasingly as computers are able to perform automated tasks society will depend on people who are able to program them, non programmers will find that they are consumers dependant on the other class to supply the necessary upgrades and enhancements necessary for life, since many of the non programming tasks will become automated the illiterate will have little to trade in return and their for will become impoverished.
In my mind it would be sort of like a Victorian England, with one class schooled and educated with reasonable jobs and the other class living in squalor making money where they can.
Wheew!
Well impressed by all this food for thought. Cath - you catch so much in a short space and yes, I would like to see the hamster dance again - it encapsulates the sheer joy of being alive (in pixels). Two last 'stories'. Make of them what you will.
1. In Rwanda, I saw a child (about ten years old) trudging up a hill with a water container on his head listening to his MP3 player. (I think that's what the earphones were connected to.) Some contrast huh?
2. A friend who recycles everything used his Amstrad for everything (mainly documents relating to work) until 2006. When it stopped working he wasn't able to 'upgrade' it and lost many years' work.
Biotechnology???
Well so far we have discussed technology in terms of computerisation, with the new developments and the decoding of human DNA we could be on the cusp of an entirely different world.