Olga, relax. "Mexican" is the word in English for people from Mexico. It
so happens that in LA and Houston and, I guess from Brian's post, Atlanta,
the most numerous population of recent immigrants who are just starting up
the socio-economic ladder are from Mexico. I'm half Hispanic (I guess I'm
supposed to say "Latino" now, but I can't get used to it), and lots of mi
amigos y mi empleados y mi compadres de ley are Mexicans, Mexican-Americans
or other shades of brown.
Brian's point about having lots of inexpensive labor supplied by a huge pool
of immigrants from El Sud in the US raises an important point: Unlike Japan,
we don't have the same incentives to roboticize a lot of entry-level jobs.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever@sprynet.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: US Science Education Sucks
> From: "Brian Atkins" <brian@posthuman.com>
>
> > Eugene Leitl wrote:
> > >
> > > It is extremely difficult to stick to just pounding nails all your
life
> if
> > > you live in the beginning 21st century. It would have been possible a
> few
> > > decades ago, but barely.
> >
> > Actually where I live, housing construction continues to boom to the
> > point where if we didn't have all those Mexicans moving here we'd be
> > in a real shortage of labor.
>
> Is this 2001, or are we still partying like it's 1899? "All those
> Mexicans" ...? Forgive me, but are you being facetious or supercilious or
> what ...? (Or maybe you're in a "wink-wink" mood - as in: let's ruffle a
> few of those politically correct whiny liberals' feathers?)
>
> A few weeks ago Natasha posted "I explain this by referencing other
> technologies such as the telephone, television, computers and cell phones.
> At first, only those with money or connections had them. Today, in
downtown
> Los Angeles, there are more Mexicans using cell phones than executives."
>
> What are all these insinuations about "Mexicans"?
>
> And -- perhaps this is even more important -- what is the way you talk
about
> a group of people say about you? This does not portend well for the
future
> if you guys are going to be in it, IMHO.
>
> Olga
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Whether people like it, or not, they will be forced to change careers
> > > during their productive lifetime, and they should have the broadness
of
> > > skills and meta skills assisting them in something which is not
> supported
> > > by biology, quite the opposite.
> > >
> >
> > Strangely I don't see a large movement in the US to replace service and
> > labor type jobs with automated methods. So as far as I can tell the
> > realistic viewpoint is that manual nail pounding will continue right up
> > until Singularity. Hell even my local Subway sandwich shop still has a
> > crew of 3 humans making my dinner. Webvan failed here because 80% of
> > people actually prefer wasting an hour or more pushing an old cart
around
> > a store and then lugging the food up their house. Neo-Luddism or just
what
> > consumers really want?
> > --
> > Brian Atkins
> > Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
> > http://www.singinst.org/
>
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