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1. Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Thursday, 06-Apr-2017 22:03:45 UTC Bob Mottram

   • hobbsc
   @hobbsc It's difficult not to end up funding the war machine, but the current messed up nature of US politics probably means that there will be a transition to something else before long. The current administration, if you read the tweets, does seem certifiably insane and that's bound to lead to decisions which eventually pull the rug from underneath them.
   
   Also there are general trends going on in the global economy which make business as usual less likely in future. For instance, the decoupling of employment from productivity and the vanishing middle class jobs. Governments are struggling to "control the message" as they did in the last century with broadcast media, and the mass surveillance is their attempt at regaining control but it's far from clear that they'll succeed.
   
   So the kind of world your son will inherit is likely to be turbulent, but out of that there may be opportunities to really push things in a different direction. Freedom is a constant struggle.
   • Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 07-Apr-2017 12:48:55 UTC Bob Mottram

     • hobbsc
     @hobbsc I've been writing software nearly all my lifetime and seen various failed attempts to deskill, commodify or automate the process. So I think there will continue to be a need for humans to write software for the foreseeable future. Also despite the end of Moore's law on silicon it doesn't look like the pace of change in electronics and software is slowing down much.
     
     However, despite the need for programmers the question of whether you can get paid to spend time writing or fixing software is always very debatable. If a basic income is eventually introduced then that might solve a lot of problems in that regard.