Productivity is Dead

Cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Wed, 07 Feb 2024
  • 769 reads
12 comments
 

 

Productivity is dead

We should slow the hell down

And enjoy being alive instead

Bill Gates talking about AI

The white collar workforce shrinking away

Staff cost savings, profits increasing

Who does it benefit? So very few

They’re going to need to watch the hell out

Watch their designer clad backs

Dig a hole, lined with gold and hide there

Blue collar workers, part of the team

Mechanisation, robotacisation

No holiday pay, no sick pay 

No workforce left to pay

Increase productivity, nasty pollution

There’s no-one with money to spend anyway

Except for the fine layer at the top

With a long way to fall now

That the cushion in the middle 

Has been eaten by greedy, beady-eyed rats

And those at the bottom have nothing to grip

They gather in numbers, their hunger growing.

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

The beginning of disintegration - but people still vote for men like Trump. I don"t understand it

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks for the cherries. I guess they think he'll be 'tough' on whatever and they feel threatened, desperate. 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Really well said, Jane! Why when this is so obvious do so few see it? Feeling clever if they get a chat bot to swear. Thinking everything will be ok if there is economic growth when it makes no difference if there's no upheaval of the tax system, because the richest at the top won't pay enough to make up for those they have got rid of by increasing productivity. Programs on the radio drivelling on about a future when no one will need to work without asking what people will live on. It's not just Trump, it's everyone demanding tax cuts, everyone saying they don't have time for politics, everyone who votes for the swankiest, slickest campaign designed to stop anyone asking questions. The world is burning, it's the only one we have, perhaps the only one there is, and every achievement we accomplish makes it worse. The news never mentions all the wildlife that must've burned alive in the forest fires, those that die of thirst in droughts. This gorgeous miracle being destroyed through OUR greed and hubris and apathy, not meteors like the dinosaurs but human nature screwing up Nature

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

I couldn't agree more. I can only imagine that they're one thought deep. My partner was watching some YouTube video featuring Bill Gates speaking about increased productivity for blue and white collar workers and it sounded so out of date even though it hasn't even happened yet. I found myself asking but why?The reponse, 'to increase profits and productivity' and in a short space of time, I'd transformed into an annoying child, asking, why on repeat. I agree about the swankiest, slickest campaigns too, very well put, it's to hypnotise you, at best towards short term, ultimately unsatisfying gain, at worst to destroy your health, wealth and environment. I could go on ranting lol. Bill Gates though, eurgh, what a smarm fest.

 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

It's all about not having joined up thinking - if your big thing is being seen by prosperity as a great benefactor who saved millions of lives through malaria vaccines you should also be thinking how these millions of lives are to survive without work because you have increased productivity in order to get profits for you to spend on benefactoring. Everything is so comparmentalised, like since in those early Ford factories, we are losing the ability to see the bigger picture, the end product is a future with no one left to drive in it because there's no breathable air or drinkable water

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Lack of joined up thinking, that's so true. 

 

Submitted by Kris on

with good points/observations......

even though I am a careful, cautiously optimistic soul, there is an upside in the AI revolution... You're right on these points... and .. its a cool rant-poem enlightenedwink

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks for reading, Kris. I hope the upsides to AI trumps the downsides but with much of technology I sometimes think, overall this might not be the case. It's definitely a rant against what I see as the as an increasingly alarming distribution of wealth in favour of an ever-shrinking, top heavy pinnacle at the top.

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

A rant poem for sure and not a word wasted; and I can only agree with my estimable fellow members, that we as a species have not honoured our resonsibilties - both to each other and to the planet. Our only hope - and it is still a slim one - is that the young might awaken, if they  can only break free from their enslvement to their smart phones.

Dougie Moody

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you for your comment, Dougie. I too have hope that the youngsters will push back. I already see evidence that they are shunning new clothes for second hand. They have access to so much information, real and fake, but like you, I think there are so many social distractions via their phones.

 

Submitted by celticman on

there is a hollowing out of the middle-class. the working-class is already fucked. the centre cannolt hold? 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

So true, celticman and what's the point of trying to reach the middle, only to be fully screwed over by taxes, expensive fuel and housing. The rungs have been kicked off the ladder. Thank you for your comment.