That is one of the most driving questions in my everyday life: “will it work?”
I am personally very bad in doing the same – again and again.
I guess, that is human.
I first noticed this as I tried to work in an industrial plant for chemical goods, in summer holidays. Within the second week, I moved to the logistics unit. Otherwise, I had to quit. I cannot stand stupidity.
Following year, I worked at Mercedes Benz (as they called themselves that time). I was one in a group of four in my shift, assembling dashboards for W124 T-Model. That was better. It was well-defined work with enough variant to work with.
Most loved step from my side was choosing the wood in balance and reflection to the overall color concept of the regarding vehicle.
10 Weeks, I did that. Exactly enough to find out, that this kind of work is nothing what I want to do for my whole life. It was the last time, I worked as an employee. Back in 1991.
Since then, I work self-employed, as a contractor or as an employer
Whatever is needed to get work done.
My personal favorite is semi-automated industrial production. This is the step before fully automated production,
Highly industrialized but also highly individual.
The one step beyond existing that extends status quo – in an evolutionary way.
But first things first.
/100:10:1
To make it easy, I orientate on the decimal system with fictive but not so unrealistic values.
Imagine, You need a solution and have no clue where to start, what is relevant and what is to know. Unlimited possibilities.
To make it easier, I assume this by a chance of 100:1 to find a solution that works properly. You need 100 attempts to success once.
99% failure. There are only very few that can stand this, mentally.
Once, You found out what will work properly, You can describe. At least by just telling the story of Your approach. Others can be inspired and adapt for their situation.
I assume to this a chance by 10 attempts to one success. Still 90% failure.
That is hard enough to stand. And to afford.
But, this is a quite normal ratio for startups to survive. Professional investors calculate between 5% and 10% of all investments will succeed in the end (by whatever this “end” may be defined).
Once You found out, what “really” works, You can do this again and again.
You will improve Your approach. This is done by reducing failure-ratio and increasing output.
Nearly 0% failure, except the fact that someone needs to request Your product.
But this is another story.
/automation
Once You found out what really works, You can automate.
Usually, You begin by templates, shapes and action patterns. You will reduce varieties even further and define processes. Once You are sure enough to numerate varieties, You are ready to automate.
In the end, there is only three varieties possible:
- Success
- Failure
- Defect
The increase in output normally is called productivity. Bare efficiency.
You should to be certainty about that what You output is the right thing to gain commercial success.
That is the bet of the Product Owner.
But as I indicated above, effectivity is another story.
/productivity overload
Once You reduced variants to a countable and easy to manage number, You can fully automate.
There is no human interaction needed, anymore.
In my context, this is called “handing over to the line”. It is not full automation in these stages, but fundamentals are already implemented.
After projects gave proof of feasibility, improvements are made in daily productive operations.
The number of involved people is reduced more or less in ratio of 10:1. The processed items will raise up from hundreds and few thousands in test and pilot phases up to several million transactions. 100++ times increase.
These numbers are usually figured out by a “calculation” in advance we call “The Business Case”.
The increase in productivity is needed to release permanent allocation of resources that are of the highest worth in a corporation: human beings.
As long as the corporation is in a stage of growth, re-allocation will take place within the corporation.
Difficulties arise, when markets are saturated.
There will be the time, when BMW, Daimler and VW, when facebook, google and Microsoft will be the coal and steel of the last century.
Then, productivity releases will no longer be absorbed by the company. Resources will be released to the market.
Nowadays You can watch this i.e. at SIEMENS from time to time.
The more automation is done, the more this will take place.
There will be the time, when everybody has everything for their basic needs. Not only in western industrial societies – worldwide.
In this situation, we need a mechanism to compensate. (Unconditional) Basic Income seems to be a really good idea for that.
Once again, it is the attitude that makes the problem.
If You imagine the UBI as an alimentation for laziness, You missed the point.
There is no need for busi-ness, anymore!
Everybody has everything and markets will tend to idleness, operated by robots, shipping is done by drones and self-steering vehicles, balanced by algorithms.
Resources are allocated where they impact most, nearly no loss in practical use, anymore.
Need for improvement: near 0.
That will be a world of no “must”. Only “wish” remains.
That will be a world, where initiative acting will not be aggregated at some people (“entrepreneurs”) or corporations (“startup incubators”), anymore.
Even money will not evolve its re-allocation power.
Nobody will be really interested in “money”. The most things will be more or less available priceless. It gains nearly no effect to have money to spend – because of “on what?”.
You do not believe?
Did You ever made butter by hand? If You are really good in that, it takes between 20 minutes and 30 Minutes to beat the milk until it is butter.
Before that, there is a cow that needed to be milked, fed, born, fertilized etc. So, making a piece of butter per hand will take roughly one hour each. My personal salary rate per hour in my youth was worth around 6 packages of butter. Today, it is somewhere vast beyond 50 packages.
What does it mean? The net worth of butter in my life is dropped roughly by 10 times. But, something else happened.
Even if I feel “poor” by momentarily lack of income stream, I do not think in savings at butter. It just does not matter, anymore.
To get the full picture:
what I have done as a scholar can not be done by my kids, nowadays anymore. These jobs are vanished in Germany.
Jobs of comparable need of low qualification will be compensated by the worth of roughly 6 packs of butter.
But, what will my kids do instead?
Maybe they will get sponsored to do LEGO assembly video blogs on youtube. Blogging about what fascinates them (and earn by clicks or sth. like it). Maybe they will automate some processes utilizing programming learned on Raspberry Pis.
All that needs education I once acquired by myself – intrinsic and self-organized. No education system was available to teach me that.
Life taught me. Success and failure. Driven by interest and fascination. Stupid.
/robotax
To finance all this, it needs sponsors. “Wealthy individuals” was the model centuries ago. That’s how museums came to the world.
Some with the power for deep impression are found throughout Europe.
Louvre, British Museum, Berlin, Dresden and so on.
They are all financed by communities. This was the next step of aggregation.
And how do they do?
By taxes. Like the VAT.
Next step: robotax.
The productivity increase arising from utilizing robots (“automated execution”) will be taxed to set free human capacity for invention, improvements in co-operation and research for knowledge – beyond corporation borders.
Not so unrealistic as You might think.
“Education for all” and “health care for all” was even unthinkable for the majority of people, some hundred years ago.
So, lean back, end assuming it will be impossible and start thinking on how it should be realized to develop most effect.
/How could it be done?
The task is too big for corporations. They are focused on their position to the market.
Even consortiums are not capable of this. They focus on a specific commercial aim.
It is even too big for single communities like sovereign states.
It needs interoperation on a global level.
It must be done in several iterations. Otherwise, the imbalance between those who introduced UBI and those who are still struggeling for the cake will lead to a rush that we face these days by refugees entering Europe.
But, we are not so far away here in Germany. We have the conditional basic income not called that way but realized for decades now. If You want to apply, You need to complete the obstacle course through burocracy.
There is still a lot to be improved as long as energy is spent on dividing of the cake …
/conclusion
As long as humans waste their energy on distribution of limited resources (“the cake”), they will prevent themselves from distribution of all the “unbaked cakes”.
Let “it” (machines) work for You.
Open up limitation to what lies outside of the man-made limits to the limits that lie in nature itself (“the sky”)!
Btw., that’s what markets do. Every day, billions of times.
So, what can be done to open up?
The key is: algorithm!
Algorithms are man-made codified rulesets to distribute items of need from providers to consumers for example.
Ideally, they are defined by humans and executed by … machines!
Some of them we call “ROBOTS”.
These robots will work for us. As long as they are wisely programmed, there will be no harm – only advantage.
That’s a lot of work to do in present and future. Some are already working on it.
/etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
http://www.hannovermesse.de/en/supporting-program/awards-competitions/robotics-award/
https://www.iotatoken.com/
https://www.ethereum.org/
https://hbr.org/2017/04/who-controls-the-blockchain
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/hh361572(v=office.14).aspx
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
/famous last words
Life runs in circles. Some are smaller, some are bigger.
In the end, there is no end – only another beginning.
“Enjoy, and share if You like.”
“Feel free to make life great!”
“Likes” are welcome. Comments are appreciated.
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