It’s Complicated

(T)he humans that computers are replacing are members of the educated classes....

From The Fear Index by Robert Harris

I've had this theory for a while that mankind will be saved by the sex industry.

Well, maybe not the sex industry alone, but what we'll need are jobs that machines and computers can't do for us better and more cheaply.

Forms of personal entertainment are about the only things that come to mind.

Complain all you want about the greedy one percent and/or corruption, but you have to admit there would be a lot more jobs to go around - and probably a better economy - if we needed skilled people to make cars instead of skilled automatons.

And eventually, if robots and computers continue advancing, there won't be a whole lot for any of us to do.

I'm going to be out of business as soon as someone comes up with joke software.

So I take heart when I read about an imaginative and productive new enterprise that only humans - at least so far - can create.

One such new enterprise, described (naturally) in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles last week, is surrogacy.

I know this is a thriving new industry because one surrogacy company sued another one. That means business must be good.

And it turns out that surrogacy is an area where Americans have a competitive advantage. At least that's what the suit, filed on behalf of Center for Surrogate Parenting, Inc. and Growing Generations, LLC, said.

"Surrogacy is illegal in most foreign countries," the complaint said. So foreigners bringing their child creation business to America create "approximately 35% of the surrogacy industry."

The U. S. has become a breeding ground for breeding.

Soon most of the world's population will consist of U. S. citizens. We're taking over the world!

SAVING THE ECONOMY. Unfortunately, not all of us are qualified for the sex trade.

Come on. Look at yourself. Would you hire yourself?

Fortunately, there is a way to make certain that most of us are gainfully employed even though machines are doing all the necessary work: waste and inefficiency.

We're good at it and we need more of it.

I've never understood politicians who claim they want to reform and streamline government. It doesn't make economic sense.

Just think of all the jobs that would be lost if, say, the tax code was easy to understand.

H &R Block and Turbo Tax would be history. Gangs of unemployed accountants would be roaming the streets brandishing calculators.

And IRS agents would have to turn in their badges.

It would be an economic disaster.

And that's just one small industry created by our far-sighted leaders.

Think of real estate. Does a house sale have to be that complicated?

Well yeah, if we don't want millions of real estate agents to go hungry.

And did you think environmental regulation was created to protect the environment?

Environmental lawyers and testers and lobbyists need work.

Now think about all the time and money - and, yes, labor - spent on drafting Securities and Exchange Commission filings that no one reads and are carefully crafted to hide useful information.

This is time and money well-spent.

What this country and, yes, the world needs is a renewed and determined effort to create complexity and opacity for the benefit of us all.

The legal profession needs to get behind this (but not until it's discussed by commissions and committees for a decade or so).

So get out there and obfuscate and complicate. It's our only hope.

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