twowaway

That's not "back in the fields" though (metaphorical or literal).

You were useful in the fields to the degree that was necessary for food production (sustain and grow population) and for wars (using said population to expand and extract more resources).

Once machines automate material comforts and exertion of violence (already have, to a large degree), humans become a pure loss center. Why bother with "fields" lol.

…except the machine will be better at these aspects too :D

I find it funny when people suggest "just re-orient from knowledge work X to knowledge work Y, doh!". Not realizing all knowledge work is on the chopping blocks.

https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch08.html

And Herbert explores this larger theme even beyond his Dune series:

"Surprise me, Holy Void!" (says the Ship once freed)

Or, to bring it closer to home, in the words of the God Emperor of Dune:

> "The favorite poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly abandoned."

> "What did I take from them? The right to participate in history."

…where the Tyrant violently suppresses all of these, because such art is politically dangerous as it reminds people of the agency they've lost.

As AI marches through various institutions, fundamentally shorting their utility, and as these crumble and morph (including law-enforcement & military), I suspect many people will be surprised how little they actually "own".

That includes much of the "capital ownership" class.

Good luck with your squirrelled bank accounts and brokerage accounts!

Bar "clothing", I guess.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahdowty/5150806818/in/photos... http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahdowty/4698425505/in/photos... http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahdowty/4371698700/in/photos...

(Just a few self-photos from Beth's public Flickr stream; all pics are work-safe. This is an extremely cool hacking article, btw, regardless of the author's gender history.)