Speaking of Borders fall to the on-line retailers it begs the question; if everything goes on line and is automated where will most people work and where will the money come from to buy the things on sale on line? When I was younger (in my teens) I ran a kind of thought experiment in my head as to the possible effects of the mass automation of most industry. I concluded that the likely end result of an entirely automated society would be a socialist society, because in such a society the government would have to create jobs in order for people to have the incomes necessary for them to purchase the goods produced by these very factories. This in turn would lead to huge rates of corporation tax, to fund the jobs, which in effect would mean that the state effectively owned the means of production. So rather than through a deliberate act of political will on the part of the electorate socialism would emerge as the default way of dealing with automation. In other words Communism would be achieved via the back door. Whether I would have been proved to have been correct is moot but my projected outcome seems far less likely when one is dealing with transnational entities, who do not even necessarily have a physical presence in a territory, as is most often the case with e-commerce. With Governments around the industrialised world, strapped for cash, thank you near sighted bankers (didn't you play pass the parcel and musical chairs when you were kids?), and more and more jobs vulnerable to being replaced by on-line services that are substantially less labour intensive we may have real problems avoiding a situation of massive under(if not un)employment.
As if the current World economic situation wasn't bad enough there appears to be yet one more hurdle to be cleared. I hate to think it, especially as I have two young kids and can't be a dispassionate observer, but I'm more and more convinced that the Human Race is walking blindly into the perfect storm, Global warming, Over Population, Resource Scarcity and Under-Employment. Welcome to the wars of the 21st Century, first OIL then WATER then FOOD.
The potential blood letting of this century may well make the major wars of the 20th Century pale into insignificance. Imagine when the glaciers are gone (and make no mistake they are going) and the rivers Ganges and Yangtze and the other great rivers of Asia start to dry up:
India v China – Total Pop 2.5 Billion and rising.
In addition to the foregoing, we have half the population of the USA excitedly looking forward to nuclear Armageddon in the middle-east in order to usher in the Rapture so that they can sanctimoniously go live with a “beardy man on a cloud”, Islamic zealots who want to return the world to the middle ages and sundry other loonies. All in all it's not looking good for “God's” greatest creation!
Well, given that I was only intending to write about Borders that went a bit off topic, I'd probably be flamed in a chat room for that one. At least I think I would; I've never actually been in a chat room, I suppose that's why I haven't got any cyber friends
On a lighter note, Nat was supposed to be going to Brandon's new home after school with some friends to plat Warhammer 40,000. Then Brandon's Mum said no to four so Nat arranged for them to play here instead. It turned out that messages got mixed (my Son will one day learn to get peoples mobile numbers) and in the end it was just Brandon and him playing after all. I tried, honestly, to understand what they were doing but in the end I gave up and watched the 1920's episode of Andrew Marr's recent series on the history of Modern Britain. What a superb series and it ties in nicely with his previous series on post war Britain.
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