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(CNN) -- The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology's slow but steady replacement of working humans...the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures -- from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs. I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks -- or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs? Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?
Don't be afraid to ask that question, my friend. You, Douglas Rushkoff, are an absolute hero. You represent everything I want this blog to be about, I will follow you to the ends of the earth on this quest.
So, are jobs obsolete? God I wish they were, I mean I don’t care what you tell me to do, just tell me I don’t have to work for my survival anymore, please. Like if you told me I could have my current apartment, survive on purdue frozen chicken patty’s, keep my internet connection as well as my same cable lineup, I’d be happy as a pig in shit. I’d join the peace corps or green peace or some other organization that only rich kids full of self loathing over their silver spoon upbringing currently sign up for because those organizations don’t pay shit. Just anything else but actually working for a living. If that means I believe in communism or socialism, then so be it.
Look, I still think there is a place for jobs, someone’s gotta keep pressing us forward, I just don’t think it has to be me, I think the author’s right here, that we’ve advanced technology so far, I’m pretty sure we’d only need like a dozen or so smart and motivated individuals to run all aspects of life. The rest of us could just toil with useful endeavors, researching fantasy football stats, contributing to Wikipedia, and occasionally pitching in a hand when one of the chosen 12 needs some kind of manual labor. Whatever the hell it takes, just make it happen. Because this having to pretend to give a shit about my job 40-45 hours a week thing is for the birds and getting old real fast.
