Industry 4.0

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Call it the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or the more hip “Industry 4.0” if you like. What matters most is that industry, or the process of making things, is changing in ways that seem fundamental and permanent. The world is moving on to a new era which, difficult as times like this can be to understand, appears to be rather well defined and describable.

If you do a deep dive into Industry 4.0, however, there is still something missing. It’s the “why” of the process which seems to be at least assumed, if not elusive. Not just why it is happening, but why it is being driven now and why it is expected to cast aside Industry 3.0.

What’s missing in the increasing chatter of Industry 4.0 appears to be the fundamental force behind it, which is the decline of what we might call “capitalism” in favor of a purely market centered, low overhead “marketism” approach.

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When a Republic Dies

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For those who find it difficult to process the daily blowtorch of news, it has come down to one fairly obvious event that inflames everything else: this is what it looks like when a republic dies.

There has been warning along the way. The parallels with Rome have been clear and the utter dysfunction of government manifest constantly. Decency died a long time ago, and the vulnerable have suffered as pawns for years before it culminated in the destruction of families for pure political sport.

But the warnings fell on ears deafened by the trumpets of war, incapable of caring the slightest bit for the republic itself. So that brings us to a time when it is obvious that we have one, maybe two last chances to save the centuries old birthright, a republic enshrined for the purpose of protecting freedom.

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Not Correctness, Politeness

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I’m still recovering from a surgery, so one more repeat this week.  This is from 2017.

Has “political correctness” run wild, threatening to destroy our language and culture? Certainly, it’s a pain to have to learn new terms all the time. And no one likes to be scolded for using the wrong ones. But is this all just a way of repressing free speech and making people more pliant and reducing the culture to nothing?

No. We are in the middle of a process of determining just what “polite” is.

That’s not to say it’s every gonna be easy. There is no “process” and no one gets to vote. It’s necessarily messy to clean up the language and make sure it works for everyone. We all have to agree at some point. And in the meantime, the one thing that far too many people seem to agree with is that politeness isn’t necessary at all. That’s the real problem.

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Labor Day 2018

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Because of m recovery from an operation, this Labor Day I need to run a repeat from 2016.  It’s dated, yes, but rather than update it I’d like this to stand as a prediction which we only now see coming true.

Labor Day. For most of us, it’s one last picnic as the seasons change over. It’s one last chance to look back over the hot, lazy summer to reflect on where we’ve been and where we are going.

What it’s really for is Labor. Rather than give workers a May Day holiday, the deep suspicions and fear lingering after the Haymarket Riot made politicians wary enough to put the official day clear on the other side of Summer. The US, and later Canada, decided to go it alone in our celebration. Some things never change.

The two of these facts have a lot in common this year as we look back from what is clearly a turning point in the economy. The glass is indeed half-full for Labor – or, if you’re not so optimistic, half-empty. Jobs are being created, if slowly, layoffs are at an all-time low, and wages are finally beginning to creep up. What’s ahead of us? If this keeps up it may surprise just about everyone that a serious labor shortage is in the works – indeed, there already is one in some industries. That’s worth celebrating even more than the end of Summer.

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