{"id":76313,"date":"2016-11-13T06:31:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T05:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e52.nl\/?p=76313"},"modified":"2016-11-13T06:31:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T05:31:08","slug":"tomorrow-is-good-carlo-van-de-weijer-middle-class-cornered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/tomorrow-is-good-carlo-van-de-weijer-middle-class-cornered\/","title":{"rendered":"[TOMORROW IS GOOD] Carlo van de Weijer: Middle class cornered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is good.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>In a weekly column, alternately written by Lucien Engelen, Maarten Steinbuch, Carlo van de Weijer and Daan Kersten, E52 tries to find out what the future will look like. All four contributors<\/a> are \u2013 in addition to their \u2018normal\u2019 groundbreaking work \u2013 linked to the SingularityU The\u00a0Netherlands<\/a>, the organization that focuses on spreading knowledge about technologies that can provide solutions to the problems of our time. This Sunday, it\u2019s Carlo van de Weijer\u2018s turn.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Carlo van de Weijer<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SU<\/a><\/p>\n

Job opportunities for the underclass have reduced heavily in the past century due to the big impact of automation. However, this did not lead to a lo<\/span>ng-term increase in unemployment. Due to improved schooling, the average education level has increased enormously over the past 100 years, a tremendous achievement. That is without the average person ‘naturally’ becoming more intelligent, for that to happen smart people should have more children than less smart people, and the opposite seems to be the case. But that\u2019s a different concern.<\/p>\n

If your added value is applying rules, then start worrying.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The current wave of automation is a bigger cause for concern, because firstly it comes a lot faster, and secondly this wave affects especially the middle class. If you used to have 20 men at HR, there are now one or two people working there, supported by an HR software tool. Administration, tax settlement, drafting permits, all typical middle class jobs that turn out to be performed a lot better by a computer. Banks, same story. What are all those people doing? If your added value is applying rules, then start worrying. Out of all white collar jobs, more than half of these are estimated to be done better by a computer and that is only becoming more.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t blame people for following an illusion. That is what once created us.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is what\u2019s cornering the middle class. In the underclass things cannot be automated any further. Paviours, plumbers, hairdressers, hotel and catering staff have no need to worry. The upper class is being formed\u00a0more and more by the creative among us\u00a0and with that competence, you\u2019re also safe for now, creativity is the hardest thing to automate.<\/span> But in between\u2026 That safe middle class the Western world is built on is shrinking a lot faster than expected. And a cornered middle class can do strange things. It likes to support\u00a0empty promises of presidential candidates that revert to a situation from before globalisation and automation. A situation that will never return. The cornered people know they are wrong because they won\u2019t even acknowledge it when they are asked about their voting in a survey, and that is understandable. Moreover, you can\u2019t blame people for following an illusion. That is what once created us. Read the book of, or even better, watch Youtube videos for half an hour about Yuval Harari\u2019s \u201cSapiens\u201d and you will understand that the human race has transcended other species by gossip, backbiting and making up fictional characters and stories. That has been evolutionarily ingrained, and there is no way to get it out. Complete religions, monetary systems and societies were built on that.<\/p>\n