Toward the topic: "Automated Economies & Unemployment"

Author's Commentary: "TechJools"

The topic of future economies is one I’ve been interested by for years, but I went in a little different direction than might be the obvious story of the struggling character who loses their job to a robot. I named this story’s main character for my favorite entrepreneur and small business owner, someone who gave me a job once, out on an island, when I really needed it. Love you, CR!

I suppose the idea of trying to write and sell fiction isn’t too different from starting a store with creative beautiful products, like I think many people will opt to do in future economies. I’ve always marveled at people who have the fortitude to open and run a small business. How daunting does that become when competing with an automated economy?

Many already do, I think. Just because Amazon isn’t run by robots yet doesn’t mean it isn’t an appropriate point of comparison. The collective intelligence and force of a supercorporation has put countless small local retail shops out of business. The question for those people, then, probably isn’t what do I do, it’s probably what do I do next now that the business is shut down. Just like it is for folks now, the answer is probably rarely nothing at all.

People will find a way even if it’s not the same way or the preferred way. I suspect, as in this story, there will be a market for human items—things that only we will find meaningful and useful. Culture is such a weird force that it will constantly be in need of reinventing and co-creating with our peers. I’m not sure that’s a force that can ever be replicated or automated but is an emergent element in a civilization. So jewelry this week. I don’t know much about it personally, but it seemed like a good thing for Colette to be into and to sell, and current wearable tech seems more about the tech than the fashion of it. I suspect that will change as soon as it becomes small enough to be the afterthought rather than the main thing.

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This was the second in another story pair. Hopefully they’re both enjoyable!

Rowe