In the real future you will be working at a stint rather than a job. To work at a stint is to become part of a project team for 18 months, followed by joining three friends doing a start-up business that folds after two years, after which you sign on with a multinational which disappears in a merger…and the beat goes on. This requires a reinvention of the social contract around security and benefits.
Sounds like my working life thus far, the future is here. Sadly the "reinvent social contract" part hasn't yet taken place, so I guess I am on my own to work the security and benefits out.
In such a world where fewer people are needed to produce all required goods and services, what will people do? The answer may be surprising – replace technology with a world made by hand. More people, rather than fewer, will be working the land by hand, making things by hand, teaching and entertaining others in person. Many people will work in this way by choice as a counter-weight to an overly technological world. It is even possible that, in one particular economic and energy future where the global economy retracts drastically in the face of energy shortages and climate change catastrophes, work will become more human-centered and less technological by necessity rather than choice.I am going to buy a farm, and get on this plan.
