I am becoming convinced that America is schizophrenic. The majority of people think that public assistance breeds laziness and systems that provide it are rife with fraudulent claims. Then, there is a major earthquake, tsunami, famine or hurricane and Americans donate millions of dollars to help those affected. In essence, this is public assistance, with no real concern about how well those funds are utilized or if foreign leaders are skimming from the top.
We subsidize industries, like big oil, never concerning ourselves with how that welfare system may be manipulating our political system. Our politicians receive welfare checks (donations to their campaigns) while reviling the poorest members of our society about their dependence on assistance.
Many non-EV drivers will state they feel they should own a portion of our electric vehicles, due to the tax incentive created to grow the adoption of this new technology, but never consider that their fellow citizens should therefore own a portion of their home, due to the tax exemption on mortgage interest. In this frame of thought, their fellow citizens should also own a portion of their income, since it was made possible, in a majority of cases, by a publicly funded education system. It’s pretty hard to make a living if you cannot read or calculate your remuneration…
We only take tentative steps toward new, beneficial industries, due to a fear of jobs lost in existing industries that will be negatively impacted. We never seem, as a people, to consider the new jobs that may be created. This year, more people were employed in the renewable energy industry than were mining for coal. More people were erecting wind turbines, installing solar panels or geothermal systems than were required to work below ground in dangerous coal mines or at ground level devastating the environment by strip mining. The workers who can make the transition to new industries benefit from a better quality of life. Who mourns for the former typewriter assemblers? The child laborers? The blacksmiths?
Think Star Trek, or Back to the Future.
The first step toward a better future is to imagine it. If we consider the logical conclusion to our development of energy sources, we have to realize that each home will have its own power source. Perhaps even a Mr. Fusion Home Energy System will become commonplace! One day, the idea of running thousands of miles of wire will seem so old-fashioned and antiquated, that people will wonder what it was like, seeing miles of power lines along the roadways (assuming we’ll still have roadways by then). “Roads? We don’t need roads.” They’ll marvel that people used to have huge towers and power lines running near their homes. What eyesores!
Do we owe a debt of gratitude to the industries that powered our existence before we can power our own? Of course! These companies built power plants, miles of transmission lines and monitored them to assure we could watch SpongeBob SquarePants or the Playboy Channel in comfort. Is this debt unlimited in price or duration? Of course not.
Corporations are groups of people, each wondering how they’re going to pay their mortgages or feed their families, if their jobs are eliminated. This is a natural concern and is not evil. Consequently, we should think of corporations as living entities, primarily interested in their own survival. They will use whatever tools are necessary to continue to live and thrive, tools such as lobbyists, politicians and advertising (those first two are real tools, in my opinion…). There’s nothing wrong with that. However, we as a people should be concerned about our own survival. We should be thinking about the cost of pollution, of working long hours to make ends meet, of a better future.
And we should act on those concerns. Not only are corporations living entities, so are the societies that support corporations. Forty years ago, very few people could envision what the Internet would become, how it would change our society, our information sources, and in many instances, our careers. Now it is one of the foundations of our way of life. Self-publishing has become commonplace. Heck, you’re reading a self-published blog right now. There was a time, when the only way to get your ideas published was to convince a publishing company that your ideas would be compelling enough that they could make money helping spread those ideas. They were the gatekeepers of ideas. The reason they existed was that most individuals could not afford printing presses or the paper with which to feed those presses.
Extrapolate this change into the future.
Cost of publication has dropped considerably. Eventually large publishing houses will die, with the loss of many jobs. There will be so many self-published items that it will become difficult to find items worth reading. Eventually, groups of readers or writers will band together, using quality of ideas or a similar viewpoint as a basis of membership, making it easier for readers (consumers of their products) to find them. In the long run, publishers will rise in a new form or their function, separating the chaff from the wheat, will be replaced by technology which will make it easier for readers to find quality works. There will be dangers along the way. Demagogues will find their way into mass media (think Mein Kampf multiplied a millionfold) and we all will have to read with a more discerning eye and voices will have to be raised to oppose those who publish lies or twist facts to support dangerous ideologies. (personally, I hope we each become more responsible and test our preconceived ideas regularly)
As we consider our future, we have to reevaluate how our society invests for that future. Industries that have been subsidized (like oil, renewable energy and electric vehicles) should not be subsidized forever. We must realize that there is a life to each company/industry, just like that experienced by a person. In their infancy, we should support their development for the betterment of us all. In their adulthood, we should stop paying them an allowance and let them fend for themselves. In their old age, we should realize that as helpful as they’ve been, there comes an end to all things, eventually. Supporting a new industry, at the expense of an older dying one, is not cruel, it’s just the way of life.
The workers in those old industries should understand when their industry is waning. They should be allowed (and perhaps assisted) to retrain, to learn new, marketable skills so the disruption to their live is minimized.
But wait it gets worse (or better):
Human knowledge is growing at an ever-increasing rate. Before printing presses, books were copied by hand, a slow and expensive process. Consequently, the sharing of new information happened at a glacial pace. The invention of the movable type printing press increased the rate at which ideas could be shared. Those shared ideas germinated in the minds of many more individuals than before, growing into new ideas. As high-speed offset web presses were developed, ideas and knowledge were spread even more rapidly. Today, ideas do not necessarily have to ever be put on paper. They can be shared with literally billions of people electronically.
Knowledge is spread at an ever-increasing rate. Innovation, following the rate of knowledge, is also accelerating. Change is accelerating. One side effect of this is that industries, and also careers, have a much shorter lifespan. Just eighty years ago, a person could spend their entire career working in one industry for one employer. In the 1970’s, it became commonplace for someone to work in the same industry for their entire career, but to change employers several times within that career. Today, people cannot expect to remain employed in the same industry, much less stay at the same company. New tools are needed to deal with this reality. Switching industries often means have to learn new skill sets. How does one acquire these new skill sets while working in their current position? Night school? Taking a second job, in the new field, in order to gain the skills necessary to progress? The options are daunting. People are basically lazy. Many opt to stay at their current skill level until their industry collapses around them.
We need a program to help people update their skills to give them (and our workforce) flexibility. Our ability to lead the creation of new industries depends on this retraining. Think of this flexibility as a strategic asset. People need a way to prepare for change, which is inevitable and beneficial, by enabling their ability to learn new skills while still employed, not just after they’ve lost employment. Perhaps a portion of their income is diverted to an account for use in their reeducation. Those funds could be spent, on a regularly timed basis, to allow a sabbatical from their current employment, allowing them to attend training sessions. As a nation, we can decide which industries/occupations/technologies are waning and which are emerging, and invest in supplying training in those areas. Another benefit to this is that we may come to embrace change rather than resist it. We need workers who have a vested interest in remaining flexible instead of stagnating. This isn’t the world of the last century. Change is here to stay and it’s getting more dramatic daily. We can adapt and lead or we can remain complacent and watch our civilization crumble around us.
You may be asking yourself, “What the hell got into Buzz today?” My train of thought started with this article in the EcoWatch business section about Arizona imposing a fee on solar energy users. The fee was promoted by the Arizona Public Service Company, the energy provider in Arizona. Arizona has net metering, requiring APS to purchase electricity generated by homes with solar panels. The reason for this, is that most homes with solar panels do not store the electricity they generate. They sell it to the utility company that powers their home. It’s not that it’s impossible for the homes to store the energy, the problem is it is very expensive to do so. Huge batteries are needed and their cost and maintenance would greatly increase the cost of the solar panel installation. This additional cost would slow down or stop solar panel adoption. The “Star Trek” utopia would be pushed further away from us, if not prevented entirely. APS probably feels threatened by the adoption of solar panels by their customers. They see their industry’s death written on the wall. Just like a person seeing their impending death, APS is going through the grieving process in the normal five steps: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. APS’ original goal was to end the requirement for net metering. Fortunately for the nation, this failed. That was probably the “anger” stage. Their fall-back position was to get a fee charged to customers who add solar panels to their home. Their original idea was a charge of $50 per month! If successful, this would effectively kill solar power adoption by homeowners, unless their monthly bill was several times greater than the monthly fee. In my estimation, APS is probably at the “bargaining” stage now. They’ll not fight solar panel adoption (as overtly) if they can get some sort of fee imposed. The fee was set at $4.90 per month. APS is providing the service of storing energy generated by their customers’ solar panels until those customers have a need for it, like at night, when the panels are not generating. This is an important service and should not be without cost to the consumer utilizing it. However, this was not the company’s first reaction. It was to kill net metering entirely, which is like curing a terminal disease for them. In the long run, regardless of this fee, APS (and all other large utility companies) will die and be replaced by something more beneficial to mankind. That may be Mr. Fusion, solar panels with storage capabilities, or something not yet dreamt.
Their fate, like ours as living beings, is set, although the exact timing is not. I would hope that they, or at least their employees, accept this and plan on a better future by determining where they fit into the new paradigm. Corporations are entities that should not ascribe to the writings of Dylan Thomas:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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