French Revolution and Vilification and Trump
March 10, 2017I’ve been listening to the Revolutions podcast the past few months. I’m binging it during my commute.
Quick fun (or not-so-fun) aside: the day of Trump’s inauguration was the day I hit the supplemental where Mike Duncan read the Bill of Rights. That was appropriate listening material against the backdrop of protestors in Boston.
I’ve recently finished up the Reign of Terror episodes from the French Revolution. They made me think about how the vilification of certain groups could spill over into other groups.
At the same time, I’ve been thinking often about un/underemployment. 45 promised to bring jobs back. Then there is the bad PR Uber is getting right now. How much more will people hate them once they get going with self-driving cars?
These unrelated things clicked for me. They made me realize a dark path we could go down where we have vilification or even purges of tech people.
This is not to be insensitive about the people who are actually the targets of horrific rhetoric. It’s not to forget about the people who already are and/or will start to suffer under this administration. Potential cuts to health insurance and government protections will make that worse. None of this is to detract or distract from that. It was a sudden premonition of mine that illustrated how that could spill outward.
45 has promised to bring jobs back from other countries as though they moved elsewhere. He never mentions that efficiency improvements or automation removed many of those jobs. They’re gone and won’t come back in any significant form.
Being a driver is the most common job in 29 states. Uber is testing self-driving cars and acquired a self-driving shipping truck company. Driving is only one example of how we’ll see unemployment increase as we automate jobs away. Coupled with a lack of bringing jobs back, you’ll have a large group of people demanding answers.
Since answers can’t include the phrase, “I was wrong,” the next best thing is to blame someone else. Trump has already proven that’s a go-to move for him.
He can quickly blame the tech elite. I’m reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano at this moment.
We’ve seen “go back to your country” assaults and killings. When does it become “stop taking our jobs?” The connection between the two is already evident.
Automation will remove jobs and there’s little to be done to stop that. How we respond will make all the difference. In this case, I suddenly saw how blaming the tech workers for a lack of jobs could lead to random violence or worse.
Will this happen? No. Will it be a French Revolution Reign of Terror? No. Or a Pol Pot massacre of the educated? No.
It was a sudden thought and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up thinking about it even now.
