Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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1. Are Brynjolfsson and McAffee (our authors) wrong about when “the first machine age” occurred?

2. Is innovation something that should be feared because of its adverse impact on the need for human labor?

3. Who famously remarked -- after visiting India and witnessing a construction site featuring human beings with shovels, and inquiring why steam shovels weren’t being employed and being told that human beings with shovels were being used to increase employment -- sarcastically asked: “Then why don’t you give them spoons instead of shovels?”

4. Is it theoretically possible that innovation can eliminate the need for human labor so that we can all enjoy nothing but leisure?

5. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee envision an impending leap in technological innovation?

6. Is the impending leap in technological innovation that Brynjolfsson and McAffee envision based on advances in computer applications?

7. Is one of their examples what we have heard about so often in recent years that cars will be able to drive themselves?

8. Will the new computer applications be subject to hacking? For example, could a hacker commit murder by hacking the computer program of a “driverless car” to go off the highway and crash?

9. And can we now expect a spate of Hollywood movies featuring plots involving murderers hacking the programs of “driverless cars” of complete strangers to cause those cars to veer across the center line and collide head on with the cars of victims that the murderers actually want to kill -- so that the police will be mystified by the lack of motive vis-à-vis the owner of the “driverless car” whose computer program was hacked?

10. Is another example, though barely mentioned by Brynjolfsson and McAffee, linking virtually everything you own (appliances, home-theater components, etc., etc.) to your iPhone so that, for example, from zillions of miles away you can instruct your front door to lock itself, you can instruct your vacuum cleaner to clean the living room, you can instruct your home-theater complex to record an on-air special about which you have just learned, etc., etc.???

11. Is this nothing more than an invitation to burglars by providing them with a menu of items that are worthwhile stealing? Coupled with a list of any alarm systems that will have to be disabled?

12. Do you think you would stand a chance of preventing the burglars from hacking your systems if the U.S. Government and such wealthy corporations as Sony Pictures, with all the money they can lavish on security, are NOT able to prevent their systems from being hacked???

13. What are some of the new computer applications extolled at length by Brynjolfsson and McAffee in addition to driverless cars?

14. What are some of the downsides to these new computer applications, other than their possible adverse impact on employment?

15. What has been the historical relationship between technological advances and employment?

16. What was the attitude of Henry Ford vis-à-vis his workers after inventing the assembly line?

17. How does this compare to the attitude of Robert Moses when he was constructing the extensive network of “parkways” in NYC?

18. Was Eastman Kodak and its massive employment a good example of how a technological advance increased employment?

19. Are there other good examples (other than fads such as Apple products) which involved increases in employment to produce newly-invented products for which there was great demand?

20. Do new computer applications almost of necessity involve reductions in employment?

21. When do Brynjolfsson and McAffee claim that technological advances and employment became de-coupled?

22. Why do Brynjolfsson and McAffee studiously ignore the U.S. government’s policy of exporting American jobs? And the U.S. government’s policy of importing illegal aliens to compete with American workers for jobs that cannot be exported geographically (e.g., agriculture)?

23. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee try to flim-flam their readers by comparing the U.S. experience to Europe?

24. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee try to flim-flam their readers with out-of-context statistics about the relatively-recent decline in the number of Chinese factory workers?

25. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee claim that the adverse impacts on employment and income equality have nothing at all to do with U.S. income tax law? (and, at least impliedly, nothing to do with European tax law?)

26. Are Brynjolfsson and McAffee purposely lying when making this claim?

27. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee appear to believe that there is a God-given right to the free flow of capital?

28. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee appear to believe that there is a God-given right to employ the cheapest “slave labor” available anywhere on the planet? Regardless of even the age and safety of the "slaves"?

29. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee think their readers are idiots who will believe anything Brynjolfsson and McAffee tell them about tax law?

30. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee studiously ignore America’s Permanent Under-Caste living in our Inner-City Ghettos?

31. Are Brynjolfsson and McAffee presumptuous (and perhaps even pompous) in making recommendations about future policy, especially when they purposely ignore America’s policy of exporting jobs and purposely ignore the existence of America’s Permanent Under-Caste?


Some miscellaneous questions --

A. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee have some truly-bizarre notions about Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

B. In other words, if all work in the future could be performed by robots so that humans would enjoy nothing but leisure, what would be the GDP?

C. Do Brynjolfsson and McAffee almost seem to talk as if digital technology is all there is to America’s and the world’s economy?

D. But taking the U.S. as an example, how much of GDP is devoted to government? How much to the basics (food, clothing and shelter)? How much to healthcare? College costs?

E. Isn’t it true that information-technology can make improvements in each of these activities, but it will probably be longer than Brynjolfsson and McAffee think before robots will be able to make as much headway in these sectors as they have in manufacturing?

F. Isn’t it true that digital-technology cheerleaders like Brynjolfsson and McAffee are unrealistic when it comes to on-line education for K-12 students? After all, aren’t Brynjolfsson and McAffee making the implicit and probably-false assumption that K-12 students are motivated, especially children in our inner-city ghettos who believe that they are not eligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives are pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore?

G. Brynjolfsson and McAffee spend a great deal of time talking about winner-take all markets and power-curve (vs. normal or bell-curve) distributions, but aren’t Brynjolfsson and McAffee merely describing the rewards for inventiveness which (both inventions and their skewed rewards) are as old as human history?

H. And aren’t Brynjolfsson and McAffee being overly-dramatic in predicting such distributions for inventiveness as all-pervasive in the future -- unless their robots are able to eliminate employment in government, basics (food, clothing and shelter), healthcare and education?