Dr. Future on Tue, 4 Jan 2000 10:12:54 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime> Dead Futures No.2 "The Knowledge Economy"


Hey dudes,


    did anyone catch the "Trial of the 21st Century" on Channel 4 on
Sunday night?

Two sets of speakers had to debate the motion "This century will make
life better, not worse" in front of an audience jury. (Immediately we
are hopelessly trapped - how come no one realised that "How can we make
life better, not worse" would make more sense? But where would be the
fun in that?).

Anyway, the middle part was devoted to work in the C21st and quickly
centred on the impact of the Knowledge Economy. Some professor called
Richard Silva or something took the stand and enthused about how selling
information was going to result in more exciting and flexible work
through plenty of lively exercise for the mind. But Anita Roddick of the
Body Shop was sceptical of its influence. She pointed out that they were
all sitting at tables and drinking from glasses and that we still seemed
to be living in a world that was full of manufactured physical products.
"But they're all made in the Far East now!" replied the prof, "and half
of our toys are made in China!". Well, they say that academics never
make very good politicians don't they?

But it gets better (not worse). Then we had a lady called Pat from a
group that researches employment practices speaking for the other side
about how working in the information economy was very stressful and
frequently offered low pay. She was cross examined by cyber cafe founder
Eva Pascoe (looking very stunning in a lilac dress that perfectly
complemented her long blond hair, etc, etc) who told her that work in
the information industries like at call-centres in Inverness has
provided employment for lots of people who had been made redundant from
old manufacturing jobs. The researcher replied that work in call-centres
was very stressful and that many had a turnover of staff of up to 180%.
"But at least they have a job!" exclaimed Pascoe (her icy blue eyes
glimmering in the studio lights like limpid pools), "that's better than
nothing!" (yes, she said that).

All this reminds me of a time I thought we had left behind when people
believed that a market based on the trading of intellectual skills would
be the logical conclusion of a developing economy. This seemed to be
based on the assumptions that a) Manufacturing would soon be left
entirely to automated factories so that no tedious human labour would be
required, all those dreary service jobs and cleaning chores would be
taken over by some combination of robot butlers and general purpose dish
washing machines, b) There is something intrinsically superior and more
satisfying about work that is carried out through the intellect as
opposed to physical labour. No one seemed to expect that what actually
happened was a redistribution of new kinds of work along similar lines
of social status as before.

At the end of the program the audience voted and came to the conclusion
that in the C21st we would be having great sex, but that work would be
more stressful and society would be more divided than ever.



But we would be having great sex though...








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