RICHARD FLORIDA'S COMPUTER'S BLOG
March 13, 2050
Hi, I'm Richard Florida. And I just thought I'd say I'm sorry.
Remember back in the early 2000's when I yammered on and on and on about "the Creative Class?" And how "knowledge-based workers" were going to inherit the earth and make lots of money "manipulating symbols?" And how if your city could only attract enough of the Creative Class, it was going to be a really awesome and cool and successful place to live?
Well, I want to say sorry to all of you who listened to me when I said the blue-collar trades and manufacturing jobs would all disappear. I want to apologize to all of you who took my advice and went on to train as lawyers, stockbrokers, investment bankers, doctors, software engineers, animators, artists, architects, etc.
I want to say sorry to all of you who thought you were going to buy really awesome downtown lofts in New York and London and L.A. and Toronto and decorate them with really awesome art. All of you who thought you were going to spend all your spare time sipping lattes at really cool cafes, and at concerts and art gallery openings. All of you who thought you were going to meet other hot, young creative professionals and settle down and have lots of little creative professional kids and live long, rich happy creative professional lives in great creative cities built just for you by other creative professionals.
Yes, I'm sorry. Because it all turned out to be a bunch of crap. Yes, all of it. All of you living in the mid-21st Century are now out of work, and on the streets, and couldn't afford a latte if your lives depended on it. And it's all my fault.
What led to this sorry state of affairs? Why did I get it all so wrong? Well, it could have been prevented if I had just read this one article: http://nyti.ms/gmpSCK
And if you go even further back to the turn of the century - so many decades ago now - to 2003, you see the whole fallacy exposed in this study: http://bit.ly/f5hPGz
Yes, I thought your jobs couldn't be automated. I thought your jobs couldn't be "offshored." But I was wrong.
Way back in the early 21st Century, computers started putting you all on the unemployment lines by doing the work of lawyers, and of medical diagnosticians. As time went on, computers started putting together business deals and designing buildings, and writing software, and finally they started designing better and more efficient computers than humans could. And any of your jobs computers and robots couldn't do were sent offshore to cheaper countries where the work could be done more cheaply.
But there were jobs computers and robots couldn't do. Nobody could come up with a decent robot housekeeper or plumber or crane operator or janitor or even a robot escort. And now, it's those professionals who are buying the lofts, and attending the wine and cheese soirees, and living the high life in downtown London, New York, L.A. and Toronto.
You may be asking how I, Richard Florida, avoided the wreckage and am doing so well, unlike all you other poor professionals. Well, always being one to spot a cool trend, around 2020 I impressed my considerable intellect and personality onto a computer software program.
And now, I'm no longer the fallible human Richard Florida, but the all-knowing, very prescient computer Richard Florida. Read my next book entitled The Coming of the Plumber Class, coming to an e-reader near you.
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