An invisible thread connects David Owen's *The Conundrum* ("Efficiency’s
Promise: Too Good to Be
True"<http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/19/the-siren-song-of-energy-efficiency/efficiencys-promise-is-too-good-to-be-true>)
and Erik Brynjolfsson's and Andrew McAfee's *Race Against the Machine* ("More
Jobs Predicted for Machines, Not
People"<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/technology/economists-see-more-jobs-for-machines-not-people.html>).
Both books address real -- and very important -- problems but they both
arrive at false conclusions.The "conundrum," according to Owen, boils down to a lack of commitment driven by conflicting motives, "Do we honestly care?" he laments at the end, citing George Orwell's observation that, "All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy." Meanwhile, Brynjolfsson and McAfee prescribe the clichéd panaceas of education, "flexibility" and entrepreneurship: "Our skills and institutions will have to improve faster to keep up lest more and more of the labor force faces technological unemployment." continued at: http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.ca/2012/04/efficiencys-promise-too-good-to-be-true.html?spref=fb -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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