Finding Stability in Change

People look for stability in the labels we give ourselves. Our job, our title, our salary, the associations we join. But the only thing truly constant in life is its ever-changing nature.
Those labels we take comfort in are in constant flux, getting reshaped and redefined by a changing economy, and the technologies that drive it. In this episode I argue that instead of looking for stability in the not-so-stable categories we create for ourselves, we can find greater security, peace and contentment by embracing the dynamics of life.

Suggested Reading Related to Intro Example
The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era by Jeremy Rifkin

Episode Music for Intro Example
Anton Kornienko

Transcript

1:06

In terms of bringing us the ability to increase production, improve manufacturing, improve efficiency across all kinds of organizations, for all kinds of products that lend themselves to. The quality of our lives, hopefully the improvement of the quality of our life. But technology also has a way of fueling unemployment. Automation increases production, but because of that, it makes organizations more efficient, and they tend to need less people to build what they build. You take manufacturing as an example. You've seen a lot of unemployment as a result of the automation that has been brought to the manufacturing sector. When you increase production, how much you're able to produce per unit time and the efficiency goes up, you can use a smaller workforce. The pool of labor that you need to do something is nowhere near as big as it was before when you introduce new levels of automation. And over decades, we've seen millions of jobs erased because of technology, because of automation that essentially automates what people would do otherwise. And this makes sense in manufacturing. If you're manufacturing, you need many different people to do many different things, working at a bench, working on the assembly line, and they're going to be maneuvering tools and using tools and wielding tools to assemble and manufacture the different components. And when all that is brought together. Holistically, you get the full product at the end of that. But in many ways, that's kind of unskilled or low skilled labor, as per the label. Not that that's a great name for it, but in the sense that it's not the white collar work, it's not the elite strategy, creative, coming up with new ideas. It's, if you just follow this routine, then you're going to be able to replicate this product that we're building. And because it's work like that, you can imagine that there are ways to automate that procedure, because it is kind of a mundane work, it is routine, it's always the same. It's mechanical movement. And so in manufacturing, automation Technology has erased millions of jobs because it's able to take a look at what the person is doing. It realizes it can get a machine to handle that level of dexterity and whatever level of thinking is needed and decision making is needed in order to piece together the pieces. And so jobs get erased. Companies want to be efficient. They want to produce more for less money, and they can't have a bunch of workers that they have to pay. So they'd rather have smaller teams overlooking automated technology in order to produce what they need to produce. And so in the push for capitalism, in the push for profit, in the push for being efficient, automation is just something that ever since the industrial revolution, companies have looked towards, and they continue to do this today. And so it kind of raises the question, are we moving towards maybe kind. Of a workerless society? Right. Technology has always brought us the promise of freeing up time. We should have more free time on our hands. But for the people that do have. Jobs, that hasn't really been the case. When you have smaller teams who do more, then those people end up working longer hours. And if you actually look at the trends, then the hours worked has actually increased over time. It hasn't decreased. So automation and technology have not given people who are working more free time. And the people that do get more free time are the ones that don't have the job. So they get a bunch of free, so called leisure time because they're looking for work and they don't have jobs to occupy that time, but they can't spend that time on leisure because they're not making money. So you are increasing production through technology, but you don't have the demand to meet it in a lot of cases. Right? And of course, this goes up and down and the economy goes through its different shifts. Sometimes the unemployment numbers are a little bit better, and sometimes they're worse. And sometimes there seems to be demand, sometimes there isn't. And of course, there's all kinds of government stimulation that might try to kind of backtrack what was done through, in this case, technology automation, where people are losing jobs and maybe there's not enough buying power to meet the increased manufacturing. You got all these products on the market. The demand isn't there. So maybe you need to stimulate the economy. But from a technological perspective, this is the trend is that companies will seek better automation to improve their efficiency. They want to employ less people, have smaller teams, and so that ends up fueling unemployment. And you have a lot of people with a lot of free time but no money to spend with that free time. Right? Because they're not making money and they don't have the jobs. The unskilled or the partially skilled labor are often the ones who are displaced, at least historically, through technology, because, again, technology is looking at some of these kind of routine manufacturing skills or moves that would need to be made to piece together a product and realizing that those can be automated. And as machines get better and they get better dexterity and better efficiency and better reliability, which, of course, they do, as per the progress of technology, more and more jobs end up getting erased. And the retraining efforts that decades ago was once the dream of well, new technology, it can create new jobs as long as we retrain or train those unskilled workers. Those haven't really proven out for the displaced because it just doesn't keep pace with the rapidly advancing technology and the technology because it gets more advanced. The narrative anyways is that it requires higher and higher skill. So those smaller teams that manage the technology have to have more and more advanced degrees or more and more experience. So this idea that we can retrain the masses, retrain the unskilled or low skilled workers to then go fill those technology jobs just hasn't really proven out, at least not on the large scale. And the reason why this is particularly bad is not just because you have a lot of people without jobs and not making money and you're not meeting the demand that gets created by increased productivity from these companies and then having to force kind of stimulus packages and government intervention and try to backtrack or address what is happening with this automation. That's bad enough, but we know that increased unemployment tends to correlate with social unrest. Of course, this makes sense. If you have many workers who are. Or otherwise workers who are out of. A job and they have nothing left to do, they're going to start blaming the system. In some ways rightfully so, because there are not jobs there for them to take. They want to be contributing members of society. They obviously want to make money so. They can have a quality of life for themselves. And that's just not there. So you're going to get social unrest. And so there is some notion that we could be headed towards a near workerless economy, whatever that means, whatever that looks like, because companies are going to continue to push for increased automation, continue to rely on machines, continue to have smaller and smaller workforces, and they're going to have, what we're going to have is essentially this glut of labor force that has no job is not really a labor force. This glut of people, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions eventually, that just cannot fill the few roles available in these manufacturing, in this case businesses. But of course, it's not just manufacturing. As we look at the new technology coming out, particularly in this last year, artificial intelligence is making absolute leaps and bounds. And there's always been some suspicion that artificial intelligence, as machines were getting better, as software particularly was getting better, that more creative and strategic jobs might end up getting replaced. Slowly but surely, computers have become better and better at making decisions, not just screwing the screw or hammering the hammer, not just doing the kind of lower level manual dexterity jobs, but also the mental jobs. And in this last year, as artificial intelligence has made huge strides, now we're seeing that AI is posed to take over the white collar jobs, not just the so called blue collar jobs. So white collar work is now being replaced, or could be replaced. And I think we're starting to see that transition, and I think we will see that over the next five to ten years. White collar work being replaced by AI. And of course, it makes sense. Just as companies look to increase their efficiency and do better work and produce. More with less, they're going to be. Doing the same thing with strategy and creativity, innovation, coming up with ideas, everything that you would think a white collar worker might do. And this could be true in medicine, this could be true in lawyer. Right, legal work, really anything that requires ingesting information, synthesizing something new out of that information. The proposing strategy, coming up with plans. Things that we thought were only in. The realm of human beings, is poised to be taken over by artificial intelligence. And there's no reason companies won't go for it, because at the end of the day, it's about profit, it's about revenue. You got to be bringing money in, you have shareholders, you have stakeholders, and you have to appease them. There are quarterly revenue targets. And so artificial intelligence, like any other type of machine or automation that has been brought into the fold of capitalism over the last hundred, few hundred years, there's no reason to think that AI is not going to do that as well. And so we're all at risk and we're all kind of in this state where we're wondering, we're not really there yet in terms of AI. We don't know if AI is definitely going to take over a lot of jobs. But if you look at the past and you look at how companies have grabbed onto automation, there's little reason not to believe that AI is going to be extremely disruptive. And what will that mean? Just as manufacturing has seen tens and. Tens of millions of jobs lost to. New technology, now the white collar sector is going to be touched. What does that mean for all of us? And what does it mean for skill? What does skill even mean with AI, automation? And who will get the jobs? Before you could have a small labor. Pool of workers who were looking over. The automated machines, which is already detrimental enough to millions of people who were losing jobs because they couldn't fill that role. But if AI is now taking over. The white collar jobs, the people who are looking over the lower level skill. Automation, AI can now make decisions, AI can do strategies, AI can address risk, AI can try to resolve bugs and do triage. And as more and more of that gets automated, the human being is having less and less of a role to play, presumably. We don't know if it's definitely going to go this direction. There are other narratives, there are other. Aspects that could lead to hope. But at this stage, when you look. At technology and you look at automation, we can say that we're all at risk. And so automation constantly, historically and likely going forward, removes people, people from the workforce. And in some sense, nobody has that stability, nobody has that job security going forward. And that's how it has always been with technology and automation. So why am I talking about automation? Why am I talking about this? Well, people look for stability in the labels that we give ourselves, okay, our job, our title, our salary, the associations we join. It gives us a sense of stability. We like the idea that people know what to call know if you meet me. Well, Sean does this, and this is his job and this is his title. It gives us a sense of identity, a sense of value, a sense of meaning in our lives, and that's just part of who we are, right? What people call us, what people know us as. And stability obviously seems to be pretty commensurate with that which does not change, of course, makes sense if I want. To know how to think of myself. I want other people to know how to think of me, if I want that identity. We align that with things that don't change in our lives, or at least change very slowly. This is who I am. And we find comfort in that. We find comfort in that structure. But the reality is, as per the. Example with technology, automation and many other examples, is that the only thing really. Constant in life is the fact that things are always changing, right? Those same labels that we constantly try to find comfort in, the job, the title, the salary, the association that we're joining, those are always changing. And as I looked at that example with technology and automation, we can see. Just how dramatically it can change. Maybe there's a bit of island of. Stability for a while and all of. A sudden something changes overnight, like we're. Seeing with AI and what many people, millions of people have seen in the manufacturing sector, they think their job is stable, it's all going well, they've got good pension, whatever it is, and then. A new technology gets introduced overnight and. All of a sudden their job gets wiped out. And that technology is so pervasive that it's not just at their company, it's in that industry. And so now their resume doesn't have the same strength to it because any company they apply to that technology is being introduced across the board. So the only thing really constant in life is change, right? And those labels that we constantly look. For, for comfort, the job, the title. The salary, the associations, we have to accept that those always are changing. There's no real way around that. There's an inevitability to change. We can argue about it, we can fight about it. We can try to regulate it as much as we want. United States might try to regulate artificial intelligence. That only means China and India are. Going to grab onto it in ways that we don't. And that's going to bring them, and we can't fall behind. Companies are not just going to accept regulation. They're going to have strong lobbying to. Try to get what they need. They need to make revenue, they need. To meet those targets. They need to make profit. There is an inevitability to change, whether it's technology or otherwise. It's very much a part of nature. It's the way things are. And this is not all bad, though. And that's what I want to talk. About in this episode, is I want. To talk about the notion of finding. Stability in that change. Because if the change is inevitable and life is always so dynamic, then it. Doesn'T really make sense to try to. Find stability in that which does not change. But it's not all bad, because I would argue that this is the only way to know change is the only way to know what is more permanent and profound and true. I talk about how the most profound. True things in life are that which is invariant, right? Things that don't change. But that doesn't mean you grab onto things that you think don't change. It means that you keep moving and you accept the uncertainty in life and you take notice of what doesn't change. In other words, there's a very big difference between thinking, you know, what is true and what is proper or profound or stable. There's a big difference between that and embracing the dynamics of life and merely stepping back and noticing what seems to survive. Right? If you take a look at the extreme epistemic uncertainty of reality, the fact that we just don't really know the deep underlying truth behind what we observe or measure or experience because of that. Epistemic uncertainty, the only way to really. Know what is true in life is to be a part of life, is to get busy living and to move. And to take note that as you move. There are certain things that seem to consistently be true. So if it's true that the only thing that's really constant in life is the fact that things always change, it doesn't mean there is no permanence. It doesn't mean there is no stability. But because you can step back and take a look at what seems to survive. But the only way to do that. Is to involve yourself in the dynamics of life. You have to become part of the change. You have to see what does not change when everything else does. Rather than assume that we know the label for what is important and what we call things with our labels, our jobs, our salaries, our religions, or whatever it is, we have labels for everything. Whatever we attach, whenever we attach labels to things, that's just a facet of the truth. We never have the full truth. So there's no point in trying to find stability in the labels that we use, because it's going to change. Things get reinterpreted. New technologies, new people in our lives, new situations, political unrest, the economy changes, the dynamics of life, society, of nature, of technology, of everything. It's always there. The only thing truly constant in life is the fact that things always change. And so we should try to find stability in the change again, knowing that. There are parts that don't change, that we can observe. But the only way to observe those is to fully immerse yourself in life. So what I really want to argue with this episode is that rather than looking for stability in the things that don't change, like the labels that we. Think we have or the labels that we use because we think we know what's true, we think we know what's. Right, we think we know who we. Are, we think we know our identity. What we belong to, how people are supposed to perceive us, our titles, the things we believe in, the places we go to, whatever it is, rather than looking for stability in those things that. We think are not going to change. But end up changing, I'd argue that we can find greater stability knowing that things always do change. Find stability in the dynamics of life. Rest your peace of mind on the fact that things always do change. That in itself is a kind of stability. It's a kind of acceptance. You're kind of just giving in to the fact that nature is a dynamic thing and that it does always change. And that we can find peace and. Contentment by embracing that uncertainty. Embracing that uncertainty as the constant. Now, just as uncertainty can bring downsides, it can also bring unforeseen upsides. There is great hope in the fact that things always change because new things come our way. We can be going through life and we can think we're in a certain predicament, and then things can change. Sometimes it goes to the down, but it can also go for the up. When we put things in specific categories, our jobs, our titles, our life, then we tend to think that this is just the way it is. And if things aren't going well, then. Maybe we just kind of blame the. System and there's nothing else you can do about it. Maybe you want to purchase a home in the future, but where you are. Now, with your salary and your life. And the market that you're trying to buy a house in just doesn't make that possible. But it doesn't make sense to just walk away and say, well, I guess I'm never going to own a home. Maybe you're not, but there's also the hope that you will, because things are always changing. The market can change, your job can change, your outlook can change. The people you meet can change. It's just one example where we tend to think something is maybe unchangeable. We kind of place our lives into a category, and then we assume that's that this is the type of person I am, this is the situation I'm in. But that isn't true, because uncertainty, even. Though it can bring some bad surprises. Can bring all kinds of unforeseen upsides. Good surprises. And that's strongly related to the notion of hope. It makes sense, it's rational to have hope in your life because things are always changing. There's also a great creative force inside uncertainty. Scientifically speaking. Uncertainty is quite literally where information lives, right? You need surprisal. Uncertainty brings you ideas, it brings you connections, it brings you a ton of opportunity. And the dynamics of life has that uncertainty baked into it and will bring. You the information, the opportunity, the connections. You need to take the next step. Meeting other people, getting different jobs, finding new opportunities, having business ideas. There's a great creative force inside the uncertainty that lies before us. We tend to think of uncertainty just in terms of risk. We need to avoid the risk. We need to avoid the risk. But there is huge potential inside that uncertainty. And you're not going to have a. Stable life by just viewing uncertainty as something that is risky and then trying. To just avoid it. There is a certain embracing of uncertainty that has to happen, and that itself is stable. That itself is a type of contentment we can see when we do this. An even bigger thing is that our. Lives are part of a much bigger picture. You think about today's kind of modern view. It's a bit narcissistic, right? We tend to think about our own lives, our own importance and what's so big. How is my life going? But of course, in the cosmic time span, we're just absolute blip of time, which is a very small piece. And when you accept that life is. Always moving and always dynamic, we can. See our lives as much of a bigger picture. I mean, quite literally in terms of life and death. I'm alive now, I will be dead someday, but hopefully I will pass on. A legacy and I will pass on information. And it's not that I need to be well known, but I'm part of the dynamic system. And on a smaller scale, even just within your own life, you see yourself as part of a community. It's not all about your ideas and their ideas and your brand and whatever. It's all kind of narcissistic and egotistical. When you see it as a moving influx, dynamic system, you realize that your life is just part of a much bigger picture. So rather than looking for stability in the things that don't change, we can find greater stability. I would argue knowing that things always do change. Uncertainty is strongly tied to hope, because the fact that things always change means new opportunity can always come your way. Uncertainty has creative force to it. It's where the information lives. It's where the new things can enter your lives that you can use to improve where you are in life. And we can see that our lives are just part of a bigger picture as opposed to our own little isolated, myopic, narcissistic view. It's not bad that things are changing all the time. Doesn't make it easy. But there's a lot of opportunity, hope, information and context in there that you can rest your stability and your contentment on. And so if it's true that rather. Than looking for stability in the things. That don't change, our labels, our titles, our salaries, all the categories that we put life into, rather than looking for stability in that, if we can find greater stability, knowing that things always do change, if that's true, then I think we can rest our peace of mind on the ebb and flow of life. And if you're not doing all this. Already, I think this is something you. Should really think about and try. And ultimately it's because this is how all of nature works. And of course, we are nature, right? Billions of years of evolution, you've got tons of variation, countless rounds of iteration, and selecting the best pieces forward. This is the recipe of nature. It's how all of nature works, and we are part of nature. Dynamics is life. So if you're going to find stability and contentment in something, it has to be in the dynamics of life. It has to be in the hope of the future that can be brought to you because of uncertainty. It has to be in the creative force of the fact that things always change. It has to be the fact that we're part of a larger, holistic, dynamic system, one part of it, and our contribution is for something bigger than ourselves. We are nature. Now, of course, there are deeper systemic problems when it comes to unemployment, going back to that technology unemployment example, and they're not necessarily the fault of automation. For example, I tweeted recently that the problem was never automation displacing unskilled workers. It was quote unquote, skill being defined in a ridiculous, pseudoscientific and privileged fashion. A society based on a faulty scientific and educational paradigm will always be fighting the wrong fight. So what I'm saying here is that, look, a lot of people, if not everybody, could contribute to those currently held elite jobs. They could, for example, all work on sophisticated software development. But unfortunately, the system as it is now, defines merit in this very narrow, myopic, kind of privileged way where you. Need a bunch of education, and supposedly that's going to be a foundation to. Help you build software or whatever that elite job is. And that's just not the case. And anybody that's being honest, intellectually honest about this, knows that anybody has the. Capacity, because any job is extremely multifaceted. And no matter who it is, they. Could always lend their skill to it. So basically, if you look at the. Education system, and you look at the. Way we filter society, I've talked about this before, it's kind of in a. Very dumb, myopic, narrow way, and that's why only so many people get elevated. So that needs to change from a systemic standpoint. But even though there are deeper systemic. Problems too, in this example, unemployment in. Other areas that don't allow people to move the system isn't going to change overnight. I get it. It's not as easy as just, hey. Things change, get over it, right? If your manufacturing job or soon to be white collar job gets removed, that's. Not an easy thing for anybody. And it's not just a matter of shifting your mindset. But look, until the system improves, until it improves its definition of skill and merit, it is us that needs to change. Okay? The world is changing whether we like it or not. Life is dynamic. That will always be the case. And so we need to change with it. Okay? I gave an example of automation constantly. Removing people from the workforce. And in some sense, nobody is safe. And so for all of us, it can be hard to find stability. And that's just one example. Life is just like that. Our health changes, our jobs change, the people we meet. Life is constantly dynamic. It can be very hard to find stability. We tend to look for stability for the label, using the labels and the categories in our life, our job, our title, our salary, the associations, who we. Are, what we want people to know. Us all know us as. But those are constantly changing. And you're not going to find true stability in trying to anchor on to those labels and categories because they're always going to be part of a bigger dynamic system. The only thing that is really constant in life is the fact that things always change. And that's where we need to find stability. Those labels, job title, salary, those are going to change. But there are all kinds of ways. To anchor yourself on the dynamics of life. Because when you look at the dynamics and you look at how things change. There was hope, there was a creative force. There's us being part of a much bigger picture. Get out of that narcissistic view that it's all about you and realize that you're just part of an ever evolving system. We can rest our peace of mind on the ebb and flow of life. That's how all of nature works. The world is changing, whether we like. It or not, and we need to change with it. Find stability in change. Okay, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. Till the next one. Take care, Satan. Think.