4ir – this
is our
future?
EVERYONE is talking these days about 4ir. Open any newspaper and some honcho is telling us 4ir means a constant learning process.
In the near future, you won't just go to school, then to varsity or trade school or whatever to qualify as something. You'll have to keep on working your butt off, studying to keep up with the digital gismos, to keep ahead of the robots and keep your job.
Lots of jobs will go to the robots. Human beings will themselves become almost robotic as they work in the digital world. It doesn't sound much fun.
4ir? You don't know what that is? Why, it's the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the digital age, artificial intelligence and the rise of the robot. Where have you been?
Most of us have heard of the First Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. The Second and Third are slightly more obscure. Maybe the Second was when they put in the Nkandla party line. The Third? Could it have been strobe lights and go-go dancing?
Anyway, here we are with 4ir, and we need to be careful. They must not leave behind those of us who don't know what an app is and don't intend finding out; who think Bluetooth is a guy who's been eating Roquefort cheese.
These benighted individuals must not be abandoned, to become the equivalent of the Luddites of Victorian England, who went about breaking machines. They must somehow be kept in the mainstream of society, otherwise they could indeed drift off as latter-day Luddites, declaiming in bars subversive passages of Shakespeare or - worse – distracting people with lewd tales in Chaucerian accents of misdirected kisses at dark windowsills.
What I'm saying is that 4ir must not be allowed to become as boring as it sounds. There has to be room for humanity. Our heritage cannot be ignored.
Tehee quod she and clapte the window to.
INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener addresses the question of paternity leave in his latest grumpy newsletter.
"It is indeed all very civilised and modern to suggest that fathers need time off work to bond with their new-borns and apparently legislation now obliges employers to grant fathers at least 10 days of paternity leave.
"In a country where around half the mothers don't know the whereabouts or even the identity of their infant's father this is going to be interesting. At least two consequences come to mind.
"Unless the law insists on the leave claimant proving monogamy, those active and virile chaps (like our ex-president) are going to be permanently on paternity leave.
"The good news though is that this might provide a method for abandoned single mothers to put in a child-support claim on the salary of the new-found dad. So maybe there's a natural limit that will come into play.
"But equally it might provide an incentive for the timeous registration of new births which is another area where we as a nation are failing to keep up. It's just about this time of year when we read of schools having to cope with many more new pupils than the Home Affairs records suggest would pitch up."
Tailpiece
CRUISE ship passenger: "I wish to complain. I went to my cabin and a common seaman was using my shower."
Purser: "Well what do you expect in second class? The captain?"
Last word
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
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