Techno-Nationalism Part 3: Efficiency & Humanity
In this series we explore Techno-Nationalism - an ideology that could underpin the next stage of Western Civilisation.
In Part 2 of this series we introduced a moral framework for technological innovation, and answered the following question: What are examples of good and bad technologies?
We now proceed to our third question: To what end greater efficiency?
This might sound like an amorphous or even boring question, but don’t judge it at face value. The drive for ever greater efficiency (as well as for higher productivity) is one of the most anti-human forces of all.
Let’s unpack this.
As humans, we have limits to what we can do. We are limited by our biology, by the function of our brains, by our limbs, by our need for sleep, food, shelter, and more. We are prone to making mistakes, to lapses in judgment, to unhelpful biases, and the list goes on and on. In short, we aren’t perfect and we aren’t optimised for peak performance 24/7 - particularly in a work setting.
Corporations on the other hand, who are the work setting for many, have an unlimited appetite for profit. By their very nature this appetite can never be satiated: there is never enough of it, and they can always make more. Indeed the goal of every sizeable business is to grow their revenues and profit quarter over quarter and year over year - anything less is considered stagnation and/or failure.
So how does this relate to the drive for greater efficiency? Well, let’s answer this by asking a different question: how do corporations generate profit?
The answer is by using their resources to produce products or services, which they sell to their customers (be they consumers, businesses, or government, etc). The resources involved in producing these products and services might include: financial capital, raw materials, energy, equipment and machinery, technology, intellectual property, and people (aka employees).
Now all of these resources have a cost associated with them, for example, the cost of acquiring or developing technology, maintaining machinery, paying for energy, compensating and managing employees, and more. Each resource can also be utilised with varying degrees of efficiency, for example, if you wanted to improve efficiency, you could borrow capital at a lower interest rate, or buy or develop machinery that requires less maintenance, or strike a long term contract with an energy provider at a reduced kilowatt hour rate, or use technology to streamline operations and cut down on the number of employees you need, etc. By doing these things you’ll be using less resources, or more efficient resources, to deliver the same or better results, which in the end should equal lower costs and higher profits. Greater efficiency then is the path to higher profits. This is how they’re related.
The drive for greater efficiency is also aided by the drive for higher productivity. This is where a business maximises the output of the resources they have, for example, by getting their machinery to produce 120 widgets per hour instead of 80.
Efficiency and productivity work hand in hand. Human factory workers, for example, can be replaced by robots, which will prove a more efficient resource due to their requiring less downtime, demanding zero compensation or benefits, and needing less oversight or management, etc. They will also work more productively by operating at a faster pace and with greater precision. Overall then, this efficiency/productivity duo is a win-win for most businesses.
What should be clear however is that this continuous and unlimited drive for greater efficiency, productivity, and ultimately, profit, is not a human centric system. Humans are just a replaceable cog in the machine. They are a resource - on par with any other resource. Indeed, corporations have a name for a department that administers this resource: it is Human Resources. This unimaginative, amoral, capitalistic name makes no effort to hide the true nature of the system.
To belabour the point then, since we are just resources, we can be cut at anytime without a second thought. Just like a company might get rid of old or inefficient machinery, they might fire 50, or 500, or 5,000 people who just aren’t needed anymore, because the company wants to streamline operations or change strategy in order to preserve or grow their profits. Ok, that’s fine, you might think, businesses need to adapt and change to survive, but in our technological age - at the dawn of an AI and robotics revolution - so called human ‘resources’ can and will be increasingly replaced by non-human resources, as it will be the only way for businesses to remain competitive and thus profitable.
We may have fooled ourselves into believing we humans were the centrepiece in this system - that it all revolved around us - but we will soon find out that we are not. It was never about us, but about the holy of holies, the sacred mission, the magical north star that is.... profit. We have up till now been a mere resource used to help generate profit. If we appeared important, it’s because profit seeking entities lacked alternatives. They now have them.
Enter Robots and AI, which will be coming for every job function and profession they can. Factory workers, service industry workers, security staff, and more will increasingly be replaced by robots, whilst accountants, lawyers, researchers, marketeers, developers, and the list goes on and on, will be replaced by AI. Search online for AI and an industry or profession of your choice, and you will see companies being funded and technologies being developed whose aim is to automate away the work of humans. Why? Because they will be able to do the work cheaper, quicker, and better, so what’s not to like? Especially in a system that values these outcomes above all else.
And if you think these technologies are nowhere near being able to deliver on their promises, then you haven’t been paying close enough attention. We’re at the beginning of an exponential development curve in AI and robotics, and at some point it will go parabolic - and then we cross the point of no return. Moreover, it’s not about the humble origins of a technology, but about its potential. Compare the first functioning airplane in 1903, which flew for 12 seconds above some sand dunes, to what we have now: supersonic jets traversing the globe at thousands of miles per hour and spacecraft flying to other planets. If man was able to achieve these giant leaps in such a short space of time, then there’s no reason why he can’t do the same with AI and robots - and indeed much quicker, because of how far ahead we are today, technologically speaking, compared to 120 years ago.
So what of humans then? Since we’re not efficient or productive enough - at least in comparison to our artificial counterparts - then the pool of work open to us will shrink dramatically, until eventually perhaps even the robotics and AI engineers put themselves out of work.
What is the point of all this then? Doesn’t it seem ludicrous to invent and uphold a system that’s designed, in the end, to replace us and make us redundant?
Who is this really serving? We’re feeding a beast whose hunger for ever greater efficiency and productivity can never be satisfied. Is this really what our society should be focused on and centred around? Are we really unwilling to back ourselves as humans?
Or is it right that we step aside, so that the forces of efficiency and productivity can continue their cold, relentless, empty, amoral, godless march to whatever lifeless, pointless destination they’re heading to? And if we did do this, would we be de facto admitting that we’re not what it’s about? That we are but temporary bit players on a tiny speck in space, and that our time to leave the stage has come? That’s really what this is about: who we are, and what our mission is on earth and in the universe.
If it truly is about us - if we, imperfect as we are, were chosen by God or some universal force to fulfil a grander purpose, then it is obvious we must change course. Or even if this isn’t the case, we should do so purely out of self-interest - out of favouring our kind.
We need to realise that the drive for ever greater efficiency and productivity is anti-human. It’s accelerating us toward a fork in the road for our species. The choice will be whether to re-orient our society and our systems to serve us in a positive way, or else to go extinct.
What is it to be?
Of course we shouldn’t be so blind that we cannot see other possibilities too. Going down the automation path could ironically bring the entire system down, for a) it would make redundant all the fake keyboard jobs that exist today (ending the careers of millions upon millions of people who slaved away for years in those jobs) triggering major social upheaval, b) it could eliminate competition in the marketplace - because power and market share might concentrate in the hands of a few super powerful AI run companies, which would become prime targets for any pro-human revolutionary movements; or c) it might be the opposite, and it could spur potentially millions of largely AI operated companies that compete with or sell to one another - which would not only be a convoluted mess, but be blatantly ridiculous. We would get a front row view of how pointless, and to put it bluntly, stupid, the amoral drive for ever greater efficiency and productivity was. At that point, the people, who by then will have seen enough, might just opt to blow up all the servers and start over.
The result would possibly be a return to more traditional ways of life, and to using technology in more helpful ways, i.e. to aid human endeavour, rather than to corrupt or replace it.
Or perhaps instead of tradition, we get barbarism. Maybe Mad Max becomes a documentary rather than a fantasy film, and it portrays our post-technological and digital world.
Or maybe the servers aren’t destroyed. Maybe humans are so mentally, emotionally, and spiritually defeated by this unnatural system, that they just give up. Legions of bug men and bug women live out their days pacified by virtual reality and drugs. Humans exit the universal stage not with a bang, but a whimper.
So to what end greater efficiency? The answer is: to our end. To humanity’s end.
Closing Words
We weren’t designed to be hyper efficient machines. That isn’t our purpose here. We have hard limits on what we can do with our bodies and minds, and whilst we have been ingenious in developing ways to get around this - namely through technology - we are now moving beyond the point of it being helpful, to it becoming destructive and suicidal.
We have truly forgotten the point of it all. If we’re willing, or rather those with the technical know how are willing to work towards ending human endeavour, ingenuity, and agency, then they have crossed the line to becoming enemies of humanity. Moreover, if you believe we are God’s children, they have become enemies of God too. This is thus no longer just business speak - of ‘driving efficiency and productivity’ and ‘growing profits’ - it is Holy War.
Of course if we’re content to see ourselves replaced, then perhaps we deserve what we get. But if we’re not, then we must not just resist this, but put forth a vision for a better way. A way in which we can co-exist with technology, not just today, but in the centuries to come.
And so in Part 4 of this series we will answer the question: What is the way forward?
Written by Arcadius Strauss.
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