Idle Talk
The book "Survivors of the Future World" is not long. I started reading it yesterday and finished it this morning. I read it using the WeChat Reading app and made annotations on some interesting parts. I just found out that I can copy all the book excerpts with one click on the WeChat Reading webpage, so I decided to copy and share it here.
"Survivors of the Future World"
Author: Ruan Yifeng
◆ Preface
Except for high technology, almost all industries will not have the same high growth rate as before.
This is the author's perception, which also aligns with some of my views. Due to the automation and artificial intelligence replacing many traditional industries, the income of workers in these fields cannot increase. Whenever people demand higher wages, employers turn to using machines. As there is currently no more efficient method than automation, the development of these industries has encountered a bottleneck. The high-tech industry, on the other hand, still has room for growth as it is in the exploration stage, but not everyone can work in the high-tech industry.
◆ Reality
This series of events marks a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, and humans no longer have the possibility of defeating computers in any thinking game.
More and more workers are realizing that they can get a job not because employers need their labor skills, but because humans are cheaper than machines.
As a worker, you cannot control the fate of the company you work for. You should be prepared that the company you serve may close at any time.
Only the underlying technology has some stability. The closer it is to the application layer, the faster the technology upgrades. Learning a technology and using it for 30 years is becoming increasingly rare.
The "lifelong learning" required to maintain competitiveness is not simply reading books or attending lectures in your spare time. It requires your full-time dedication and exhaustive learning.
If lifelong learning is the only way to employment, then for most people, there is no way out.
In the future, humanity may be divided into two main classes: a new and more advanced elite class, intelligent, wealthy, with better genes and longer lifespans; and a new useless proletariat class, becoming increasingly poor, waiting for death, possibly becoming a crowd without work, goals, wearing VR headsets to pass the time.
The situation described here is relatively better compared to the author's hypothetical scenario later. Although the elite class seems perfect, the poor still have a way out, even if they become a crowd waiting to die.
The future "working poor" will not only include low-skilled workers, but also many highly educated white-collar workers working in office buildings.
Modern technology is so advanced, human life expectancy is increasing, but work cannot accumulate wealth. Therefore, "poor youth, mediocre middle age, and destitute old age" have become the inevitable fate of most people.
In April 2016, Udacity entered China and launched the Chinese version of "Udacity", which immediately caught my interest. Because it did something unprecedented: awarding online diplomas.
Contemporary universities originated from the European monastery model. Students had to undergo years of hard study and assessment to graduate. If they wanted to become senior monks, they had to endure a few more years. In addition, there were mentors as supervisors to prevent them from learning heretical teachings.
Four years is enough for a person to become a senior professional or even an expert in any field. However, our university students, after four years of undergraduate studies, are not even domain experts, let alone highly capable students.
Times have changed, and diplomas are becoming less important. Those things associated with diplomas are gradually being detached.
University courses are designed for those who don't know what to study. Don't let these courses "trap" you just because you can't find a direction for yourself.
◆ Career
We should not take the current employment system for granted. It is not the only model for human society to operate, and it was not in the past, nor will it necessarily be in the future.
The employment system is a biased system: it benefits capital and disadvantages labor.
The real problem with the employment system is the unequal status of labor and capital. Decision-making is always in the hands of capital, and labor can only passively accept the decisions made by capital.
After a company announces layoffs, the stock price actually rises because the market believes it is beneficial to the company's development. Losing your job is painful, but shareholders are happy because their stocks become more valuable.
The employment system, and even the overall contemporary social system, leans towards capital. For labor, life is completely passive under this system: they cannot fully enjoy the benefits and instead bear all the costs.
The ultimate role of management is to make it irrelevant who leaves, and the company can still operate normally.
What I think more about is how to leave this system and still be able to survive.
True breakthroughs rely on self-improvement in your spare time.
Only interests, and only interests, will make you have an inexhaustible passion, and you will delve into it and become better.
The donkey doesn't know why it has to carry such a heavy iron pipe to the mountaintop, but it does it because its master demands it. Even if it has a moment of resistance or doubt, once the master applies pressure, it no longer questions and returns to its normal state, silently obeying.
The donkeys are involved in all these creation processes, but who will remember them? Their fate is to move on to the next project carrying iron pipes.
Many current executives are actually far from the business. If they are asked to do something that a grassroots employee does, they cannot do it. They don't even do anything grand or strategic, they just have meetings all day and assign tasks. Most of them seem busy, having meetings until late at night every day, but how much help does it really provide to the business? Everyone has their own judgment!
It is best to treat Plan B as an opportunity to escape from Plan A and pursue the job you dream of.
◆ Methods
The word "entrepreneurship" is too formal. "Self-employment" is more accurate, which means working for yourself.
Entrepreneurship does not necessarily have to be associated with capital or technology. As long as you work for yourself, survive on profits instead of wages, it is entrepreneurship.
When you start your own company, you may worry about many things, but you will not feel like you are wasting your life. On the other hand, when working in a large company, you often have this feeling.
For those changes that are bound to happen, a recession in the macro economy is the best opportunity.
Some people think, "The macroeconomic situation is not good, so I better avoid starting a business at this time." This kind of thinking is as misleading as the thinking of some people during an economic bubble, "If I start a business at this time, I can get rich."
If you are not rejected every day, it means your life goals are not ambitious enough.
He has several entrepreneurial suggestions that I find inspiring and can be considered as our principles.
First, the core issue of entrepreneurship is what you can do for your customers.
Second, you need to create something different.
Third, don't aim too high. The first thing is to ensure survival today, then survive for a month, then a quarter, then a whole year, and then worry about the next year.
Fourth, pay attention to details, which is a characteristic of all successful people.
Fifth, if your company cannot generate profits, don't borrow money.
Sixth, you need to maintain enthusiasm.
Don't think that you can invent a completely new business model. In fact, there are only a few ways to make money in the world. It is difficult to invent a completely new way to make money. What you should do is make full use of proven business models.
It is difficult to keep a product simple and easy to use while also having a lot of new features.
Creating a competitive new product should not focus on having more features than others, but on having a completely different market positioning.
When managing a business, you have two strategies.
Strategy one: a single strategy.
Strategy two: a diversified strategy.
Most people only have a small shovel, and they have to rely on themselves for everything else. In this case, it is best not to adopt the second strategy because the shallowly buried gold has already been dug up by big shovels or lucky ones, and they won't leave any for you. In fact, your only chance is to keep digging in one direction. Of course, this can be quite tiring, and even if you dig your whole life, you may not find gold.
It's not just you looking for gold, everyone is looking for gold. The gold that is easy to find is almost certainly already picked up by someone else.
The second strategy is actually ineffective. Even if you dig a thousand small pits, you won't find gold.
If you want to leave a mark in life, dig a big pit. People will remember you. This is the trace you leave behind.
For ordinary people, we can only stick to our own direction, go deep and be meticulous, in order to surpass those who were born with a silver spoon. To go deep and be meticulous in any field, you must first endure hardships, and then use your brain and hands diligently. This level of awareness is necessary.
The employment system, the core system of capitalism, is very unfavorable to labor and has no future.
Your career revolves around your assets, not your income.
All the surveyed elite figures, without exception, invest a lot of time and practice diligently. The more successful they are, the more diligent they seem to be, and the longer they spend studying the business.
Don't do what others tell you to do. Young man, don't be a chef who takes orders from others. Don't accept a job where others command you what to do and how to do it. You should go to a place where people appreciate your ideas about the product, believe in your abilities, and let you do it freely.
From then on, he understood that it was not enough to just realize a product; you must also participate in deciding how to realize it.
Don't waste time studying philosophy, meditation, or psychoanalysis. You should systematically collect your biostatistical data, allow algorithms to analyze this data, and tell you who you are and what you should do.
Intelligence can exist independently without consciousness.
The separation of consciousness and intelligence is most welcomed by companies because what they need is intelligence, not consciousness.
Western democracy may no longer be necessary because the premise of one person, one vote in citizen voting is that everyone knows what they want.
Contemporary society is like a prison made up of machines. Learning technology can break free from the prison.
Sometimes I wonder if when I reach my mother's age, I will also be confused by new technologies at that time, like reading hieroglyphics, not knowing how to use them.
A technology-dependent high-tech and highly automated society is also a very fragile society.
Crises will only further accelerate technological development, not slow it down.
I now believe that the factors that dominate history are politics in the short term (one to several years), the economy in the medium term (several years to several decades), and technology in the long term (several decades to several centuries).
Only technology can create new things.
Once a major new technology appears, political and economic systems - actively or passively - will ultimately be reconstructed to maximize the power of this technology. This is why technology is the ultimate determining factor that shapes the evolution of human society.
"Industrial Society and Its Future".
Throw this decaying system into the garbage dump and bravely bear the consequences.