San Francisco protests

You've read of the protests against Google buses and of the tipping of smart cars. Assume the second is related to the first, though maybe vandals just noticed how easy it was to do and the idea caught on.

At first blush it looks like an ugly case of envy and an unwarranted sense of entitlement.

At second blush, it still does.

But set aside the nonsense. I think they have reason to be angry. What is there for people who aren't that bright to do? We honor work that makes someone rich, work that makes someone famous, work that makes someone powerful. But when was the last time you heard of a business section feature highlighting a freelance handyman? We boast of automating away any work that isn't intellectual (and even some of that). Sci-fi has dreamed for years of humanity evolving into pure minds--those who aren't so bright weren't on the horizon at all. Brave New World is one obvious exception.

So if many of the simple jobs are automated, and cheap foreign labor is imported to do most of the rest, what kind of work is left? We're made to work and serve, and bread and lolcat circuses don't satisfy. Google isn't a villain for treating its employees well, nor is it to blame for what we as a culture have decided to do. The prejudice against manual labor is decades older than google. We've systematically reduced opportunities for whole classes of people. I don't think it was deliberate, mostly.

If that's the real problem, what's the real solution--or better, an improvement, there being no perfect solutions?

I know, I know--it takes a little chutzpah to think I might know their problems better than they do, and disregard what they actually say. I don't like it much when people explain to me how my consciousness hasn't been adequately raised to make me fully understand and bewail my "white privilege." Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander--see how they like it.