The components of this Net are getting more numerous, more ubiquitous, more inexpensive, more powerful, and more intelligent. And, among the many things they are doing, and will continue to do, they are replacing humans in almost all aspects of traditional or industrial life … We simply do not need, and never will ever need again, so many people “working” as we did in the more recent centuries of human history. We must understand that the old economic system is utterly obsolete and dangerously misleading in this respect, and that we must begin to orient human life around something other than “jobs” which are less and less available to more and more people. At the same time, we must find ways to keep people meaningfully and peacefully occupied even though they are not working.
Predictor: Dator, Jim
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 speech for the International Conference on Development, Ethics and the Environment in Kuala Lumpur titled “Coming Ready or Not: The World We Are Leaving Future Generations, and Our Responsibility Toward Them,” futurist Jim Dator says: ”Now, the components of this Net are getting more numerous, more ubiquitous, more inexpensive, more powerful, and more intelligent. And, among the many things they are doing, and will continue to do, they are replacing humans in almost all aspects of traditional or industrial life. Indeed, one of the major causes of the current crisis in jobs in the so-called developed world is that electronic communication technologies have already reduced truly needed human labor, mental as well as manual, to only a fraction of what it was 30, 50, and certainly 100 years ago, and earlier. We simply do not need, and never will ever need again, so many people ‘working’ as we did in the more recent centuries of human history. We must understand that the old economic system is utterly obsolete and dangerously misleading in this respect, and that we must begin to orient human life around something other than ‘jobs’ which are less and less available to more and more people. At the same time, we must find ways to keep people meaningfully and peacefully occupied even though they are not working.”
Biography:Jim Dator was a futurist who is credited with founding the first Future Studies program in 1971. He has been director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies at the University of Hawaii. (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Employment
Name of publication: International Conference on Development, Ethics and the Environment, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, January 13-16, 1995
Title, headline, chapter name: Coming Ready or Not: The World We Are Leaving Future Generations, and Our Responsibility Toward Them
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/dator/other/religion.pdf
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney