Wages and High Tech

High Tech is changing the world. The recent Brexit and US election votes show that many voters are unhappy because the think their jobs are or have been taken away, usually going out of country or by some “cheap” labor.
Well, those of us in software/tech are in part to blame and the trend will get worse. Robots, automation, software doing more, etc are taking many jobs away and have for several decades now. This trend will continue.
100 years ago, people worked on farms or product lines as crafts people. The work week was 60 hours (standard) or more. This changed companies like Ford and others that slowly went to better pay, more benefits, and 40 hours (standard).
I believe we need to think about a similar change in the next few years. Maybe we should have 20 or 30 hour work weeks. We should pay “more” for various “service industry” jobs where people want to interface with people and not machines.
This will be a slow change. People will need to be retrained. Countries will need to make sure all workers and voters feel valued (compensated fairly)
On the people side, we will all need to learn what to do with our “free” time. People will need to learn things like art, music, sports, travel, and how to have “fun” when they are not providing value to society.
Some may see this as the “StarTrek” society. It would be exactly like a TV show. There will be issues and change. However, humans are good at dealing change.

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