Don't worry about robots taking your job; worry about amateurs

Increasing automation in the workplace has led to a lot of job loss. This story cites one million jobs lost due to automation. (Notice the typo in the headline--I'll get back to this.) I recently listened to a podcast series by Planet Money on how robots were taking on all kinds of jobs.

Things that require any kind of repetitive task are being automated. Farming, logging, manufacturing, all these areas are much less labor intensive than they used to be. But that's not all: ATMs, self-serve gas, self-checkout at the store are also costing jobs. When you call a big business and have to negotiate your way through a maze of telephone options, that's because receptionists who used to direct your call or actually help you are out of work. When you hear a message "We are experiencing a higher than normal volume of calls right now" while you wait for the sole human being left on the switchboard to talk to you, it's because the company let go it's normal staff.

OK, but what I've always believed is that if I had skills and creativity then I would always have work. Not true. There's a cascading effect.

I graduated from university with zero computer skills. I mean zero. My computer experience was limited to playing "Where is Carmen Sandiego" on a Commodore 64. So I took a computer course in desktop publishing. I had an English degree, background in journalism and few job prospects.

Desktop publishing, the use of desktop computers to combine typesetting, graphic design and layout into one convenient program was the thin edge of the wedge that upset huge publishing empires. Previously, a graphic designer would sketch out  a design for a magazine or newspaper page. A typesetter would prepare the type in long sheets called galleys, and a layout artist would paste the galleys and photos (which were specially prepared for printing) on big cardboard flats to be taken to a special camera that was used to produce film, which was in turn used to create plates from which the document was printed.

Today, high end publications use graphic designers. Big print runs use plates. But most of the jobs in between are gone.

In fact, even desktop publishing is obsolete because more and more publishing is simply electronic. Electronic newsletters are emailed. Print is too expensive and it uses physical resources.

But what's this got to do with amateurs? Go back to the link I posted near the beginning of the post. The typo in the headline is because in the middle of that old process was a proofreader. Someone whose job was to be the grammar Nazi and to find and fix every comma splice, every misplaced modifier, and yes, every typo. That guy is gone.

Today things go straight from the writer's head to the world without anyone looking at them. And anyone can publish. Right here on this platform every manner of thought is being pushed out onto the world.

And the problem is that what's important is lost in the sea of what's unimportant. People used to pick up a newspaper to read about what is important. Newspapers were written by people who spent their careers separating the wheat from the chaff. They were dedicated to some form of objective truth, even if they didn't all agree.

But today, it's all about advertising. When I look at the New York Times online, I also see the clickbait headlines from LOLWAT, or Taboola or some such crap telling me about a man who did something and I won't believe what happened next.

Journalists are losing ground to the army of bloggers who contribute every manner of rumor and innuendo to the racket of (mis)information.

Wanna go home? Uber will take you instead of a professional taxi driver.

Looking for a President? Donald Trump, amateur politician running on nothing more than name recognition is in the lead as I write.

What is happening to the world?

I blame it on Martin Luther.

Not Martin Luther King, Jr, pacifist leader of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther, 13th century monk who challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Luther said everyone had the right to know God in their own way, to interpret the Bible for themselves. Thus, he unleashed an army of amateur priests in the Protestant Reformation.

That began the breakdown of authority that shakes our foundations today. Today there is no authority. Scientific authority is defied not only by climate change deniers, but by the anti-vaccine movement, the anti-GMO movement, the alternative medicine movement, the homeschool movement, and more. Everywhere, people shun any process that requires years of study and dedication for one that claims equivalency for something shallow.

We never should have stopped teaching rhetoric in school. Rhetoric is the art of argument. It is the use of logic. It teaches us to recognize false logic and incorrect conclusions.

We sure could use some of that these days.