(00:00:00) Then for the Twin Cities few flurries this afternoon and again late tonight highs today in the low 20s lows tonight zero to eight above then tomorrow few flurries possible again conditions will turn blustery and colder in the afternoon with some drifting of snow in the open areas these temperatures and conditions reported around the region at 11 o'clock 17 degrees. Mostly sunny in Duluth. Some light snow showing up in both Rochester and International Falls 18 degrees in Rochester 6 in International Falls, mostly sunny skies in st. Cloud at this hour where it's 16 degrees now in Fargo the Fargo Moorhead area some light snow reported 11° their temperature in the Sioux Falls Area, mostly sunny and 10 degrees currently in the Twin Cities Northwest winds at 23 gusting to 30 some flurries reported and it's 20 degrees 15 minutes after eleven o'clock. You're listening to weekend. Well, we have finally finished off with all of Year-end activities now that the new year has begun it's time to begin looking forward which is exactly what we're going to do for the rest of the hour. Bob Potter. Yes, Mark, we're going to look forward not necessarily just confining ourselves to 1986 but maybe a little bit beyond that to to some of the changes that are going on in our society. A lot of these changes brought about by the information age that we are in and the guests that we have with us. Today is Arthur Harkins professor at the University of Minnesota private consultant who's company is called social Technology Incorporated. Our Harkins has been thinking and writing about the future for a long time and he has some interesting ideas about how the information age is changing our personal commitments to all kinds of things and we'll find out more about that and let you talk to him about that as the our progresses Art. Thank you for coming in. Nice to have you let's before we get into the business of commitments and change in how all this is is affecting people. Let's talk just a little bit about the Asian age itself how far along are we in that process of that Revolution? Well, I think the hardware is is just developing. It's very slow in some respects as we were saying a moment ago on the computer is not made of visible impact in the way that many of us thought that it would by 1986 but I think this the structuralist social and personality structural changes associated with the new information Technologies are the most important changes people are now looking at jobs as temporary more than they used to they're looking at the training they get in graduate school or vocational school as of limited use as opposed to Preparing them for a lifetime and I think in relationships and in even in commitment to religion people are taking a conditional kind of approach a much more. Well, I wouldn't call it skeptical so much as cautious and careful approach people's loyalty is a very important component of being of being a Fully living person and where loyalty before was demanded and you simply gave it there were no options now loyalty is a commodity and politicians seek. It religious leaders seek it and one seeks it in oneself in limited quantity and then has to make decisions about where to put it and this is amazing change. I guess the connection between the information age and the change in loyalty is not self-evident to me complain why that yes, I think the growth of options of choices, which the rich have always been relatively more familiar with than the rest of us is now creeping into the working and other classes of the major industrial States. Now when these choices are simply shall I buy a Sony versus a Panasonic they may not be important and I think often we see our choices to shallowly in those terms. We are being given religious options political economic lifestyle sexual educational and other options as a matter of a kind of supermarket. Option that we've never had before and the lower middle class and working class American today has choices that were available only to the rich 30 40 years ago and this forces moral ethical and related kinds of considerations. And I think it's going to continue back to the information age itself how much farther how much more time do you think will elapse before we can say that we have really seen this whole process take place. Are we talking like five years or 20 or 50 or what? Okay. Well my rule of thumb is that once, you know, you're in an age you are already in another one the subsequent one and the only reason you know that you're in that aged called the information age is because you've already left it and you're now looking back at it really you're already have a historical perspective. I think of the information age as about one hundred thirty or forty years old. It started to me when the first telegraphy systems went online back in the middle of the 19th century the first electronic systems for communication now, we're finally You know using in the last 10 or 20 years the information age. I think we're in a new age. It was that is that I was hoping you were mad. I don't know. I think it's probably the age of The Sovereign or the what I'll call the Proto sovereign individual the individual as growingly the equivalent of the nation-state the so unique individual that in many respects the individual becomes unreproducible and what we call in some places and be reproducible system. So unique that that person becomes a micro University Micro Data Bank a micro archive and and someone truly to be reckoned with this is this I think is what's happening an age of growth in diversity in personalities that will require the invention of whole new institutions so that we can take advantage of these wonderful people Arthur Hawkins is our guest today, and if some of the things that he comments on tantalize you and Intrigue you, bye. Means give us a call asking the question about it in Minneapolis. And st. Paul. The telephone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand for Minneapolis. St. Paul area listeners. In other parts of Minnesota. Our toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440. And those of you in the surrounding states can certainly participate by calling us directly at area code six. One two, two two seven six thousand let Dorothy answer a couple of phones here and ask you art about the changes in commitments that you see coming and that you see people experiencing right now. You mentioned that loyalty is a commodity well individuals realize increasingly how valuable they are a Peter Drucker noted several years ago and has noted many times since that employers are going to have to seek out and entice. The commitment of employees they're going to have to work to retain quality people and it's not simply that these quality people may lead to another form of employment for higher wages. What people are seeking more is a kind of employment style which is comfortable with their moral and ethical Styles or their Lifestyles and you can see in some physical ways the change of the workplace to accommodate this in the form of offices looking more like living rooms and you know plants being converted from high noise High danger environments to quieter and almost almost laboratory like environments and I think this is simply a these are simply ways of showing that people's expectations of Life arising not just in one place, but across the board. Well, we can pursue this more but let's get some listeners and sure with questions from you. Go ahead, please you're on the air with our (00:07:49) Harkins right and regard to the information age Carolina World War Two. I got into the army. They wanted to teach me to be a computer programmer. And I said well, I've had a year of med school. I'm going back to med school. So after graduating in 35 years of practice then what I'm looking for is something that I can do from home and what set this up was a triple whammy of having a whiplash all bladder and gout now those things are getting resolved. And is there anything written down about what the next stage is that? You just described that follows the information age. (00:08:36) That's a good Demand on me and I hope I can meet it adequately by saying this we're going to invent that age. There's very little literature on the individual who who is not well born who does not have a lucky experience and become elected president of the United States as a singularity as someone. It's very existence is sufficient entitlement for the fullest consideration that we would give say any institution in society as our religion or our Educational Systems. I think what one must look at here is in physics terms one's personality one style once history as significantly unique enough to be worthy of the energy the developmental energy that you would put on anything else the mortgage payment a living a good life for one's children or being a good professional which is saying sir that that you alone will Define how important your life is in which directions that will go and I think that if you can combine intellectual intelligence with emotional intelligence in that development, then your Singularity will be all the more Market. It's not I'm not speaking about the equivalent of British eccentricity here either. I'm talking about the kind of diversity that can add to our And add to the quality of our lives without simply being parasitic. We have a couple of callers on the line. We also have a couple of lines open to to 76 thousand in Minneapolis. And st. Paul if you'd like to join this conversation today with Arthur Hawkins a professor who thinks and writes a lot about the future to 276 thousand. We do have some lines available and you're on the air. Go ahead, please. (00:10:18) Thank you Arthur. You talked a little bit about how the new person that was coming about. Would you talk a little bit more about that? And would you also address some of the changes that you see that are going to happen in our society as a result of this new person? Thank you. (00:10:34) Well, I think the most significant change in our society to start backwards with you. So your pointer your question is that we're going to have to start looking at children as very very valuable entities not simply as in some cases Wards of the state or in other cases as as things to be owned by oh Dear people until they come of age. I'm one who would like to see intrauterine education given a much more careful kind of research and development. I'd like to see children have the rights of the most important adults in the society. Now if you can see that for children, if you can see children's rights is important. Then I think you can see the kinds of institutional changes that would have to come about playground violence. For example would have to be subject to the same kinds of constraints as barroom violence or violence in the middle of a parliamentarian meeting. I think that that looking at the institutional change that would be required for The growth of individuals a singularities would be looking at the same kind of change that came about over the past several hundred years and European development of Law and in the especially in the development of French and American cultures with their constitutions and and especially the American amendments to the Constitution. Hmm. You're not talking about a little Amendment to the law here in are you talking about rather wide scale wholesale changes, aren't you? Yes, I think that the idea of destroying a human being through war or even through preventable accident May in in the future become as reprehensible to us as anything else that we could ever possibly imagine and perhaps more than anything else the idea of not feeding people adequately of driving in a reduced state. So that one threatens ones passengers and other people that sort of thing is these things are becoming part of our Consciousness and We can build no computer. That's even the equivalent of a cricket let alone a human being we're dealing with most remarkable entities. And I think our institutions will begin our jobs are changing in that direction more listeners are waiting with questions for art Harkins your next go ahead, (00:12:55) please hello. Mr. Harkins. I was listening and very interested in new things are just saying I guess of the same opinion in a lot of ways as you are in reference and not to detract from the conversation of gentleman who was retiring from being a doctor talked about. What do you think the next new trend or phase is going to be and and on the Tails of this information glut that we are suffering from or taking advantage of however, you want to look at it. Don't you think that because our industrial capacity is become a little top-heavy or overpriced that the service industry is going to be where the United States will fit in next as a Power. (00:13:39) Oh, yes. Yes. Well that that's well documented statistically, but one must never forget that it takes Hardware to make a modern society and part of that Hardware of course is automobiles television sets computers and so on another part of the hardware is good strong human bodies and we're aware of that too. But I think the glut of information that is there one minute for an individual becomes a cornucopia the next if their perspectives change or the needs that they feel the wants that they feel change so one one can suffer a bit under information overload. But but the very next moment of the very next year one finds that one needs that information or a large part of it for a significant new project or a new challenge in one's life. So it has to be there. I think even if at times it becomes just a little bit frightening. Okay, we'll move on to another listener with a question. Go ahead please (00:14:28) hi. Hello. I've been interested in sometime in the transition between what we might think of as ages, for example, the transition between the Renaissance and manner as period the scientific and cultural events that caused that change to occur and I've noticed looking back on history that a lot of times it seems that people who are experiencing that change see it is a revolution And yet when we look back on that change, we can view it more as an evolutionary process because we can see a lot of a lot of factors occur or that are present they would logically cause such change for example, the simultaneous development of calculus independently, and I'm wondering if you in general see changes revolutionary process that's affected largely by random events or as an evolutionary process. Do you think in terms of the Industrial Revolution or the industrial Evolution? (00:15:28) Well, I do think in terms of the industrial Evolution when I look at history the way you do and I looking at the history of capitalism one can see the role of the gills and the families and and a variety of factors that brought about what we call the Industrial Age. But but I think when you're living existentially in all of us do then things that to the historian and even to ourselves and reflective moments that look evolutionary can be damned revolutionary and you have to say could figure out what you're gonna do. Somebody brings a pink slip in and says, we've just automated your job that's revolutionary moment for you and you have to figure out what the heck you're going to do and I think more and more and more in All Phases of our lives, especially if we're sort of Highly involved. We find these revolutions micro revolutions going on and knees all revolutions and so on and we become as we become more involved we ask ourselves seriously. Okay, what should we do about Syria and Libya and the airport airport events and people Now taking these things very sorry that well as if they were States persons and I think that's part of the growing sense of not what we call necessarily networking. It's bit vulgar but the growth of ego spheres so to speak that can Encompass more and more of what used to be left to other people or about which we knew nothing because there was an adequate information are we as you mentioned before it's going to be necessary for people to think of retraining as part of their regular process of living as opposed to just going on at the same occupation for years on end. Are we set up to do that kind of thing for vast numbers of people know we are not we need Revolution now. Yes, we need a revolution in education. I think in training that's an analog to the very idea of mass education in the late 19th century in the United States what we can look at China for a modern very modern example of how a large nation state can approach this. Here's a here's a country. That's third world that recently you managed to free itself from ISM and and from the clutches as some would have it of very narrow Marxist philosophy and now it's becoming a capitalist marxist-leninist and something else a conglomerate kind of state and it's approaching its education on a mass basis through the Public's structures and it's encouraging a development of massive private educational Alternatives. And I think that this kind of development is is the is the sort of odd daysius and and outrageous kind of inventiveness that that America and other societies are going to be called upon to to engage in talking with art Harkins University of Minnesota Professor private consultant a theorize ER and writer on the future. We have some listeners with questions. We also still have a couple of lines available 2276 thousand our Twin Cities area number in other parts of Minnesota. The toll-free number is Zero zero your next go ahead please art Harkins is listening. (00:18:28) Yes art. I'm a computer programmer and I can like to look in the crystal ball and kind of like your opinion. Maybe you can look in your crystal ball and kind of give me an idea of what you might see as far as near term and Fletcher future above computer interfaces and make them easier perhaps better uses for people and the to use computers. I know that we've seen a lot of disappointment in the home computer area everybody expected that to be a Panacea Everybody by a computer and things we great and Jesus you buy one of these and can't think of much more to do with it than play games and balance your checkbook seems kind of not a real good use for some of these very high-powered pieces of Hardware that that are available today and like I say, I'm just wondering what what Changes would you see necessary to make that more of a useful technology rather than just simply a toy or maybe using for example, you might compare it to balance your checkbook. You're using a V8 to go to your mailbox. (00:19:43) Very good. Well, I think as long as the computer is seen as a glorified electronic sighs typewriter with a keyboard. We're in trouble. I've also don't want any computer computer files or whatever to take this wrong, but I think we've really missed the boat by following the typewriter metaphor of the typewriter icon for the development of computers. We can get information into and out of computers in a variety of other ways motion voice variety of ways that aren't Associated directly with the human body sensors and so on the home computer to make it properly peripheral eyes to handle the things of the household the temperature maintenance and the rest of it. A very expensive piece of equipment and and the interfacing of all these pieces peripherals to that that one piece of equipment often is very difficult and their radio frequency interference problems and on and on and on and on we just don't have and I'm hoping that some of the people who used to be with apple will help deal with this and approach to computers that recognizes the the core of the Computing industry as the service it can provide the people rather than the equipment it can design and sell and this is this is an approach that the Auto industry is beginning to learn they're not just building cars anymore. They're building motion Comfort Systems. You see what I'm saying? And and computer people going to start thinking that way and software people in particular, but I think the software people are to a considerable extent Locked In by some of the the hardwired Nature's of Home computers. And those hardwired Nature's need to alter. Do you see that changing a little bit with the computer industry because you've been a couple of new models come out with Past couple of years that seemed descriptions to be going more in the direction. Oh sure was sure. I have have a Macintosh and and I also use an IBM PC and there's no question. The mouse isn't is a mouse that moves about the cursor on the screen and so on and allows you to do other things is an advantage now, we need things for the feet and we need things for perhaps for the sensing of the sub vocalizations that come from the brain to the vocal cords and perhaps we need direct speech input capability and we need a lot of things but I think ultimately we're looking at the development of the computer as a domestic kind of organism not necessarily an organism in the strictly physiological sense, although that's coming but an organism that responds to you in the same way that a person does and yet where we can maintain a distinction between ourselves and that system. We're talking under the broad General heading today of what's happening with the future of personal relationships and commitments as a result of the information age and the other new age that are at Arkansas talking about today and we have more listeners with questions. You're on the your next. Go ahead, (00:22:35) please. Yes, dr. Harkness what suggestions might you have? For generating support for a well-developed and well endorsed project that could be described as audacious Etc. As you have just done in an earlier comment one that is directed at transforming education. As a means for initiating The evolutionary transformation of society itself. (00:23:11) Well, that's good. I I'm in the business and I could tell you that I think we have to do that. I think you and I would probably agree on that sir, and maybe some other listeners that to the extent that education enables us to create and adapt to and reshape and so on the environment around us it is useful education. We've come upon now, however, such great environmental change that many Educational Services are more Museum like our custodial then they are laboratory like or Rd like and I think this is this is true of many of our institutions. I don't want to label one as a bit retarded or atavistic. I think that that the the major chore of the information age is soft system redesign or if you like social institutional and personality system redesign and part of this. Pushed by the hardware. No doubt. But remember all Hardware developments came from somebody's imagination. Somebody's venture capital or somebody's Government taxes in R&D and its software before it comes heart becomes Hardware. So in essence then to back to your question to make education really useful is to link it with zero time loss to link it curricular lie to the Leading Edge of new ideas and to teach the old ideas as history and see it that way and even though it's very very unsettling to see it that way. You see that being done by our education system. No at there's no reward structure for that right now there will I think become reward structures for Education systems like that and some will be in the public sectors of funding and many will not be in the public sectors moving along to another caller. Now with the question. Go ahead you're on the (00:25:01) air. Yes. My question is are is about the you when you were talking earlier about retraining people when current jobs are taken over by automation or whatever just simply eliminated the and one of the things that I've read in futuristic kinds of Articles seem to say that there is a growing dichotomy between the Haves and the Have Nots those people who will have education those people who will be the technocrats or whatever. You want to call them of the future and we'll be making good salaries in the rest of us who will simply be Just kind of existing on a level of nothing but existence and I wonder if you could care to comment on things that you see happening that will change that Outlook that rather Bleak outlook for the vast majority of the individuals in this country. (00:25:58) Okay. Well, let me just come right to the point terrorism. There are many forms of terrorism. We've seen some blatantly physical forms of terrorism. People are not going to sit back and let themselves become isolated unproductive poor populations in the same passive ways that they have in history. They're going to rise up and say now wait a minute. I want to be part of this. I want the Education and Training that makes me a part of this. I don't want to be a non-participant but an anticipatory participant and by golly you're going to help me do this or I'm not going to let the service side it Society this developing be an efficient one. I'm going to do things. With my union or with my my political pressure through my congressman or whatever to make this include me. And I think this is a thing we're now beginning to learn that we cannot afford to have non-participants anywhere on this planet in the general development of more and more favorable options for individuals and for cohorts we just can't do it because the individual can do too much to upset the apple cart the single individual with the uzi or the gasoline bomb or the or the hand on the switch proverbially speaking can can mess up a lot of things. So it's we have to include people we've got to find ways to do that futurist and consultant Arthur Hawkins with us today talking about personal commitments and personal relationships and how they are changing as a result of this information age your next go ahead, please. (00:27:31) I'm curious about the service society that you're setting up in your dreams to replace all the production jobs that have been lost are being lost and will be lost. To cheaper labor outside the United States through the multinational corporations in this country and through competing companies from other countries where the cost of Labor is far cheaper who is going to buy the services that you speak of for what purpose they are all aimed toward some useful purpose toward producing something and if we aren't producing something of what use are they to us? Where is that hunk of our society to come from? (00:28:24) Well, I think the way we have to look at is is a conversion of value conceptions away from such a strict focus on Hardware production to a focus upon information driven Services. Now, all human cultures are really is information driven systems. In fact, there are information systems, but when you start looking at What you could do to make money in the entrepreneurial sense in education entertainment and other areas, then very clearly you're talking about a growth of a soft industries that pushed by the computer and Telecommunications and so on can be planetary in scope American movies and television programs go worldwide. I wish we had more BBC here for example, but maybe someday the BBC will put up a satellite and broadcast directly to homes in the United States. I don't know but people are willing to pay for for subscription services to television. They're willing to Fork out a dollar to $4 for a videotape rental. They're willing to put $1,000 into a television set to get the information that these systems offer now, I think we may come to a point in some countries not too long off when virtually as a function of citizenship, you will have a television set and you will have a small car and you will have a Apartment or condominium and you will sort of have these in the same way you have streets and you have roads and parks and it may be in one system strictly communist approach in another system of strictly say a profit-sharing shareholder kind of approach in a new form of capitalism or somewhere in between but the real growth is not in Hardware so much as it is in in the infinitely expandable and and essentially endless potential of human intellectual emotional entertainment and other forms of variety isn't it human nature for the majority of people certainly there are some exceptions, but for the majority of people to resist change to want to keep the status quo look at two industries in Minnesota there in bad shape right now. We got the Iron Range we've got farming for whatever reasons whatever political responsibility. There may be the vast majority of those people are not crying out for retraining and re-education. They want to stay doing what they're doing. Well, you do about that Bob. You're absolutely right. And I think I think you know, it's hard not to empathize in a very emotional way with people who who have who are undergoing trauma like this, but it's very hard not to say at the same time my God, this is going to go on more and more. I mean the next automatable sector of the workforce is the middle white-collar sector. I mean my gosh, you're talking hundreds hundreds of thousands of people in the midwest whose jobs are looking down the barrel of automation who are white collar workers. I don't know if it's responsible to encourage a self-pitying attitude on the part of people whose lifestyles are being disrupted. I don't think so. I think it's more responsible to work with them to transition into into viable alternative ways of making a living and possibly even places to live. All right. We have more listeners with questions for our Harkins. You're on the air. Go ahead, (00:31:45) please. Hello. My question is about Environmental Education some colleges now suggest that we need to reinvent the way our human species operates in the world so that we can be a viable species within our ecosphere and I'm wondering what would be some elements to education of children and adults to help us to live in a more sustainable way within our biosphere. (00:32:12) Well, I think the human species is very viable. I'm not saying that it will always be but certainly we have become the dominant biological force on this on this planet and so far as we know any other planet so far as we know now the critical thing here I think is to look at this whether we win or sustain a biosphere as we as we understand it today or whether we want to evolve a biosphere within the framework of On philosophy or some kind of image of what we want. I'm more I guess I lean in the direction of an evolutionary approach to the biosphere which does not necessarily involve the retention of all existing species. And I know that that involve just gave me quite a look. I know what that means to some people. I work right down the hall from the nature conservative Conservancy. Sierra Club is listening. I think we have to look at the biosphere in the same way. We look at the social sphere the or the ethnosphere we have to look at it as as malleable evolutionary and you know, if we had not come along as a species other species without our influence would have come and gone. Certainly. There's a moral imperative involved in the maintenance of a viable biosphere that exact nature of that biosphere is another question. Well that may prompt some calls. We got a lot of lines fall. And so we'll move on to another listener. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:33:37) Hi, whenever I hear a futurist, I never know whether to put my pants on one leg at a time or not anymore. But my question revolves around seems like the future called upon human beings to adapt to economic change technological change all sorts of procedural change. And I wonder what your comments would be is are you suggesting that human behavior human nature as such will ultimately be evolved to some sort of different response than we traditionally have (00:34:18) known. Well, I don't know what human nature is. I've tried to keep a little bit of rest of the work in in primatology and in the study of the human brain as a massive in Durkin Factory and all the rest of it but I you know statistically when you look at the nature nurture thing cross-culturally you get very confused. At least I get very confused about certainly there are certain facial patterns a certain body language characteristics certain other things that seen the cut across all cultures because we're dealing with a species but the interpretation of these things varies wildly and as long as that wildness and interpretive variety is there we're going to have a heck of a time figuring out what human nature actually is from practical purpose of standpoint. So, you know, I don't know sometimes I think we need artificial intelligence or maybe some alien species, or maybe we need to figure out that yes dolphins are sentient and Sapient and so we have some kind of perspective on ourselves. I had a dream the other night. I don't talk about my dreams often. This is the world in which seven aliens were out in my backyard. And I know they're all different shapes and so on I talk to him said what what how do you regard us on a scale of 0 to 100 and the gentleman it wasn't really jealous sort of like paper mache version of Ed McMahon and he said .025. I don't know that's really less than I thought and I think we are in the business of defining ourselves and the use of these sort of contrived contrivances like dreams of aliens and what others would think of us artificial intelligence devices of the Futures on this is not idle play we need perspective and the more of that the better that perspective gives us a sense of not only our options in a mechanical sense, but our moral imperatives sounds like you've got the germ of the screenplay there anything. Here's another caller. Go ahead. Art Harkins is listening. Hello. (00:36:17) Yes, go ahead. Yeah, I'm wondering if it's a very exciting show this morning is so many questions that have don't develop them and I really know where to start but then the thing that hit me was when you're talking about personal values in people who have these values in wanting to have a work environment that supports those values. I'm wondering if some way there is a dissonance caused by this today in the farm crisis. There are corporate values of bigger and better and there are personal home down on the home values of let's keep the farm in the family and a whole Myriad of other values that are involved there, which really is at the heart of the farm crisis rather than purely economical and I'm wondering if you met kind of comment on that and at the same time look at there are system. Sirs, hierarchical system structure circular system authoritarian versus equality Terrian structures that would either promote or demote or facilitate or hinder people getting at those values and having those values actualized in their work environment as well as the personal (00:37:34) environment. Well, I don't you know, I really feel sorry for Iowa farmers and Minnesota Farmers and the range people whose Lifestyles have been shut down in some cases by change and if that's what happened to me, I would feel sorry. I'm sure I feel sorry for myself too. But but I think that there's nothing that I know about in sociology of the farm family that makes it markedly different from the sociology of a lot of other families exurban Urban, whatever. I I think what we have here is a partly a Nostalgia driven dramatization of Change on the farm and in on the Range that that's really going on everywhere. There are a lot of people losing their job. A lot of people losing their mortgages. A lot of people are figuring out how they can fill up the extra rooms in their houses with renters to pay the mortgage and and Eunice has been there is going to be more economic pressure on the United States United States is going to have to look at the world economy in the world competition structure and decide what it's going to do educationally and what kinds of implications for lifestyle and personal valuations and so on these changes will have and I kind of find it exciting I guess the more we in in some ways build a socialistic substrate in the society or substratum where we're helped out when we get in trouble the better I feel I like to see the mixed system, but I think we need a lot more attention to midlife retraining and re-education a lot more efficiency in the way. We curricular eyes are early educational system so that when people move to a job from high school or college or vocational school they're able to Do that job and so the industry is more inclined to retrain people later on because it didn't have to train them over again after they graduated from school or for them some Vocational School. What do you think about our excuse me? Our callers hypothesis about the difference in personal values Family Values versus Corporate values inevitable. That's the price you pay for diversity for different formatting of potential and of skills and of procedures, there is no way in each of Our Lives. We do not come into conflict conflict with ourselves. Shall I stay home and watch Miami Vice shall I listen to ksjn and read the New York Times? Should I go to a party or should I jog or should I just bloody go to bed? You can get in arguments with yourself Heavens. Okay, five minutes before twelve o'clock and art Harkins is answering your questions about a variety of things related to the Future. Go ahead. You're on the (00:40:07) air very enjoyable to listen to and it's been a joy this morning being an educator. I just pulled this off of my shelf a book called teaching as a subversive activity. I don't know if you're familiar with that Neil Postman Charles wind Gardner. They talk about the problem lying in basically our schools and you understand. I'm sure at your level the college level. It's it's easy to find people in that age group who are open-minded enough to listen. What I'm wondering about is for those of us who are pinned into teaching younger children. How do we go about approaching the powers-that-be those who have a vested interest in having children? Not learn everything which is something that's a bit frightening the status quo does not necessarily want to change in those people in power. Do not necessarily want to be challenged by a newly educated group of children who don't believe in them anymore. How do you feel is the best way for us to go about approaching educating younger children than the college age? And I feel it's fundamental to begin children in the elementary. Is realizing what's going on and your education is to provide you with information to be able to learn on your own and to be able to change and adjust to all sorts of things in this world. Then I'll hang up in wait for your answer here. (00:41:26) Well, I see two things one is we've got to look at the age grading of children very carefully and ask ourselves why we insist on running people through educational factories on an age graded basis because by golly everything we know developmentally or a lot of what we know suggest. It's not a very good way to go. The other thing we have to look at I think is the is the diminishing utility of mass education based upon standardized curricula. I mean, we at one time had an agrarian to early industrial transition going on. We had a lot of immigrants coming in we needed those immigrants for their labor. We set up a system of americanizing numbers or and we could see the utility of that you learn a little bit of English you learn a little bit of computation and by golly you're employable. Not true anymore. And you know, if you're employable sure your employable at the minimum wage or even less. So now we're looking at is how we can take advantage of the uniqueness of motivation the uniqueness of productivity the uniqueness of intelligence of emotional intelligence also of anybody in this society and get them to work. I mean if they want to work, we it seems to me have a moral imperative and a business imperative. You don't mind to find ways to get these people into the most productive place available for them. And I don't care if this person is five years old or 95 years old and I think this is an extension of the concept of mass education, but it's based upon diversity and not upon how much Unity so much it's about two minutes before noon. Those of you who are listening to the FM network will be listening in just a moment here to a live broadcast in the Metropolitan Opera will continue chatting with art Harkins on ksjn 1330 AM in the Twin Cities for a little while the telephone number if you'd like to ask a question. Is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand those of you outside the Twin Cities area 1 800 600 to 900 700 and if you want to stay on the line until you've had a chance to talk with art way we can let you do that even though your radio station maybe at the very beginning of the Opera shall we slip in one we've got just about one minute for a very brief question-and-answer. Go ahead please you're on. (00:43:39) Yes, good morning Professor hearkening earlier Bob and one or two other callers discuss the change in their effect on the mining industry and agriculture in Minnesota. And I have another winners and losers question of the information age. I'm a professional librarian in the last 10 to 20 years. We were told by people outside of librarianship and also our colleagues within librarianship that we would eventually become dinosaurs and things of the past and that all information would be gained through computers. And now that has not taken place. In fact libraries are being used more. I believe than ever in the past and I'm curious if you have any opinions or comments as to how libraries will change or Willie indeed disappear. (00:44:24) You have just a few seconds. Okay, and then we'll break and you can finish the answer. Okay, very quickly libraries are a concept not not a place and paper is a medium as the computer is a medium. You guys are absolutely necessary and you the more you train the rest of us to be prominent and good at archival work. The better stay tuned for more with art Harkins on ksjn 1330 AM the rest of you have a good time at the Opera, which is next. Okay, anything more to say about Librarians? Yeah, the idea is that that that everybody needs more and more information related skills, and some of these can be loaded into software and some can be loaded in only at this time into very competent practicing people so that we many of us. In fact, all of us have have a major technical problem looking at us and that is how do we get the information we need to do what we want to do and so there will always be a growing need for not just places that we put information but for formats for for storing and pulling out and using that information, so the Librarians growing professional node is to help us develop the paradigms for storage and retrieval and usage of that information. Whatever it may be. I don't know why you can't go to a library today and simply say to the building. Hi, I'm Ari. I need some stuff and have the building said yeah, I'm the building. And so what do you need? Yeah, and of course we do this through individual people who often are overworked and almost always underpaid. I think the librarian is the least respected and and I think one of the least respected professional people in this culture and that's very unfortunate seems to me that the Minneapolis Public Library changed its name a few years ago to reflect the kind of thing you're talking about Minneapolis public library to Minneapolis public library and information system or something like that. And of course I made a mistake so I'll hear about that. But at least it illustrates the point that you were making mamak just another quick point on Earth until Librarians, however, until Librarians turn their their political force and toward the electronic cessation of of information so that we don't have to pay I'm going to buy a book at the bookstore Monday morning, which just came in at $75 and I co-authored when it's more expensive than that that limits access and I'd like to see things made more just stored in morning. Inexpensive ways. Alright more listeners are waiting with questions aren't Harkins is listening. Go ahead. (00:46:57) Please sort of a follow-up to diversity they route to go is to be an author or to join us think back. How can you get published or where do you find a think tank to join? (00:47:16) Well, you are a think tank. I mean you and I are and Bob Potter is and Garrison Keillor obviously is everybody's a think tank and we all publish we disseminate we speak we work with our neighbors. We do our jobs one doesn't have to put things on paper to quote publish or 1 1 is a 1 is a source of of novelty to other people just by being a person so I wouldn't worry too much about you know, I know that there are independent Scholars leagues and all this sort of thing for the emulation of the more chronically refunded forms of scholarship that sort of thing but I think doing what you do in a public way is a form of dissemination or publication three minutes past twelve will move onto another listener High art Harkins is listening. Go ahead, please. (00:48:03) Hello. Mr. Harkins one sentence on background. I work for my family's business which does light manufacturing of small component parts metal Parts decorative functional that is for Industries such as lock Hardware musical instruments office equipment home appliances Etc. And I have the potential of owning it myself one day. So I'm trying to do some planning on that as to which way I would like to go to my question which is basically two fold one in preparing ourselves for this service society, which has evolved through the information age and which will be continually changing through our new current age. Where do you see small manufacturers fitting in especially considering the increasingly competitive foreign competition as well as your perception is individuals be covering more Sovereign entities for instance. Will they even care to continue being Factory workers? The first one what happens to the company secondly if the u.s. Is to lose all of its manufacturing jobs, which tend to pay better than many of those in the service Industries. Where do you see these displaced workers fitting in especially in terms of their perhaps decreasing incomes on our domestic economy. Hmm. (00:49:24) Well, we're probably at somewhat the same juncture as we were in Britain a hundred and hundred fifty years ago at the point when we had to start worrying about the evolution of self concept as a factory worker as opposed to a journeyman or a Tradesman or some other kind of more agricultural agriculture-related worker, you know, I think we're missing or kind of missing the point just a little bit. The point is not so much work as it is the quality of life. It is the overall experience of living of which Work is a part. Certainly one of the legacies. I think not altogether too delightful legacies of the Industrial Revolution has been a compulsivity about work not simply a dutifulness or a focus upon work but a compulsive obsessive kind of of work focus and I think one has to look at play one is look at the Arts one has to look at the the rhythm of one's body and ones ones experiences in one's friends and so on and see kind of where work fits in there and my gosh there are a lot of kinds of things one can do for a living that robots will be able to do when they get vision and touch better better researched and if a robot can do that stuff doesn't it doesn't mean the human shouldn't do it and certainly offshore humans are doing this but it does lead one to question whether or not once fullest faculties are being employed when a you know, a fourth or fifth generation robot can do the work. One has to sort of look at the place of productivity as a concept. And also how one's life is going to be productive and like it or not. Human beings are just not I suspect they're just not going to get away from heightened expectations of themselves. And as these expectations heightened there is going to be a tendency to get nervous about replacement of one's Labor's by a machine because over there and that sector of the society somebody invented a machine that can do it and this will go on and on I think one has to have fun with all of this at the bottom line and not be terribly crushed by what about her specific concern about the future of small manufacturing. Well, I you know, my basic approach to any form of repetitive activity is to automate it. I don't think that that one should say that the third world countries shouldn't build automobiles and sell them in the United States for five hundred dollars or thirty five hundred dollars. That's not the point. I think US citizens are not the same they have different expectations in some respects than say the In Chinese middle class and if Americans, you know, I think Americans ought to have a little more courage and a little more forthrightness about what they want to do if Americans want to set up a new industries that rely heavily upon imagination and illusion and if they want to go to off to Mars with the Soviets fine, that's great build a spaceship and go to some of the stars that that's fine because these things tend to set standards that are that are not just located in one sector of human activity, but which have Ripple effects throughout the other sectors of humanity space shuttles wonderful icon for this. Okay, we shall move on to more listeners who have questions about the future of personal relationships and commitments and that kind of thing you're on the air are Harkins is listening (00:52:51) one of the results of the information age as I see it is it's been the marketing concept that has come up in companies. How will marketing is we know it fair in your new? (00:53:04) Well, I think increasingly if you follow Drucker and some of the people who are looking at how one entices people's loyalty or once how I want Isis people's interest. We're going to have to look at the assembly line as in a different way than Ford Henry Ford certainly did and even the way it's being looked at today and just see it as a place where you can put the the bear backbone or the skeleton of a product together and then the the appearance and maybe even in some respects the human-like qualities of those products are going to be altered to suit individual buyers. And I think the Cabbage Patch doll is a harbinger of that that kind of thing no to Heart Cabbage Patch dolls are the same. Well, why should any two cars be the same? No, two people are the same. Why should a close be the same my goodness. I buy clothes off the rack that look just like one third of all the mail over 40 College professors close in the world. I think why There's a lot of other ways to dress, you know, and I think Americans have to learn to take success at face value and build on it and not worry too much about it. Nine minutes past 12:00 noon. And you're on the air. Go ahead, please. (00:54:18) Yes Professor Hawkins. Yes, ma'am. I'm curious. I'm very interested in your ideas. But I have spent most of my life in Academia also, and I just I just sent such an inertia to any kind of change in the power structure and I'm wondering I'm thinking it's political and everything else. How can the individual assert himself when there's people in power but don't want the (00:54:41) change. Well, the thing that keeps people in power and keeps them in a position to deny change is the authorization of their powerfulness by other people the legitimacy of a role in short is it's great strength, and if you pull out the legitimacy of a role, there is no strength. So what we need to do is stop asking these people for their help or stop asking him above all for their permission and just do it and if this means some momentary Bob relations in our individual careers. I think those will be seen in the immediate historical future as minor. I didn't I think most people are doing their jobs according to what what they believe in but that doesn't necessarily mean that what they believe in is good for anyone else would you say it's better to beg permission and beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. I think it's better to beg forgiveness. When you have come to a point when you can almost issue it as a as a form of patronage. I mean, you're really saying an after-the-fact effete accompli sense. You did your job quite well, fortunately I didn't take you seriously enough to let you interfere with me that's quite a change in relations between bosses and workers. I think so, I think that's what drucker's saying is going to come and it's not just the horizontal ization of Industry that we're thinking about here. It's the it is the Month of the worker as a full participant and I mean by worker anyone who has a skill of any kind to sell and who is able to conduct the the that skill adequately more callers are waiting. We'll see how many we can get through in the remaining minutes. Go ahead. You're (00:56:30) next Professor Hawkins. Yes. It seems to me one of the new developments in the world culture is there's rapid transportation and and that people can travel in this communication. That's International. I wonder if we can still afford to have a an us then attitude towards the Chinese and towards the third world when when whether or not our expectations might be different. We still must really compete with them and must have sophistication about their cultures and about their capacities and I think we're rather isolation Mystic now, do you think that that's something which we can afford to keep in the (00:57:12) future? No, I don't and I think The fundamental capitalist approach to to the world has to be that the world is a Marketplace. I mean that makes good sense capitalistic lie, and if you don't see the world as a Marketplace for ideas as well as for hard products, then you're in trouble because the the world is gradually shifting to a an informational ecology and certainly feeling uppity about the libyans or the syrians is not going to get anyone anywhere in on the other hand. You you have to control certain expressions of hostility. We're all in this terrible cliche, but we're all on the same Planet together this little tiny two or three miles thick blanket of air above the crust of a still active volcanic planet and we don't have anywhere else to go at the moment. So we might as well get in it together and do it together. I think that the overall success of humanity. However, and he hribal I'm suggesting my own politics the overall success of humanity will depend upon the Go successes of people. All right, here is another caller with a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. (00:58:20) Hi. I hear you coming a lot from a middle-class sort of viewpoint that the future of the middle class and I want to know what you think about what's going to happen with the underclasses and exploitation and it seems that capitalism rests on the reserve Army owes of Labor and that there is a class of people that you know don't have that the choice in that or the opportunity for re-education. What do you think about exploitation? How's that going to (00:58:51) change? Well, you know in a way all organisms exploit their environments and are exploited by them. No cliche. It is simply the nature of biospheres that they feed off the sectors of the Vias biosphere feed off each other. It's a mutualism at best, but it's awful when you're being consumed. I guess certainly we consume the labor of the poor the no question about it and and in many respects from Global standpoint the content the consumption of third-world labor has a most unfortunate taint about it on the other hand those people seem to want to work. They want the local versions of upward Mobility to fall to them. They want their motorbikes. They want their television sets. They want their calculators and their clothing in the wrist watches and so on. So to deny them their upward mobility in their context as they see it is the practice of form of arrogant neocolonialism and I am not very comfortable with that on the other hand. I to go back to another part of your question. I often feel used and abused. I I don't know why that clerk doesn't wait on me when he or she should and I don't know why that rich person treats me with a certain lip curled contempt or is it just just that I perceive these things. I don't know but I think we're you know, no one is safe from being utilized unfairly by someone else and certainly a rich person is at the mercy of the pilot of his airplane in the same. That I'm at the mercy of a clerk or the reverse 15 minutes past 12:00 o'clock. We have a couple more listeners. Go ahead you're on the (01:00:20) air Professor is more workers are popularized here in the USA by capitalism and other places in the world also by capitalism for that matter. Will they abolish capitalism that is will the workers of Polish capitalism rather than be pauperize do you think (01:00:46) well, I don't, you know, sir. I great respect for any point of view, but the proper ization of the capitalist worker is not just a function of the nature of capitalism or of the ethnic and other forms of or class suppressions of History to a great extent our country's built upon the notion that individuals are responsible for their Futures and we know that being born black and poor in East Louis or some other places not setting you up for a Vassar future and a law school thing or a Wharton School experience in statistical terms. It's up to Black leadership and other people to belie the projections to make these things that are improbable probable in other words to intervene successfully in that the unfortunate Tendencies of history and to convert the energy Jiu-Jitsu like into the success of the future rather than into the multi-generational failure of the future. I don't know I think capitalism's wonderful institution. I think socialism is too. I think you have to use them as you would any other tools. Two more listeners with questions and then we shall then we shall end. Go ahead please you're on the air (01:02:02) Arthur. Thank you for this program. I've enjoyed it. Absolutely. Totally think about a more exciting programs that I've heard. I'm a stockbroker and I have made just a major career move at age 41. How do you view the role of the stockbroker and the financial institutions and their change in the next few years? Thank (01:02:22) you. I'm going to confess to incompetence. I don't know. May I please beg your pardon? I just don't know enough about the world of Finance to make an intelligent comment Alright, and then we will move on to our final caller. Go ahead, please you're (01:02:36) next. Yes. Good morning Professor Harkins. Could you speak a bit about the change and geography as it involves the changes that you were speaking about this morning. We talked about economics and socially and I've read a little bit of the popular reading from mr. Toffler and mr. Nesbitt and by reading the futurist about Cottage industries and people staying at home and not traveling or commuting to work and I've also read where folks predicted that will not happen because people will miss that interaction and contact and I've also read about the big move from the Rust Belt to the Sunbelt. Could you speak something of our someone about the geographical nature of change in the future? (01:03:18) Yeah. I used to think as a proper information age futurist that Electronics would eliminate the need for not only for the travel to the workplace. But for the city I thought well, it was all as three-dimensional on and on holographic, you know, his Banger e that we'd be living across every aspect of the physical geography of the world and so on and so on and in to some extent Yes, we made little movements and so on but people like to get together and this is one thing that John nesbitt's been saying that I can really understand. I think people are primates people like to get together and the shopping All is the icon of the present for that purpose in urban areas. So yeah, we'll have three dimensional television so on and it's theoretically it can get to the point where it's impossible to tell a hologram from an actual event, but we're a long way from that technologically and I even I think we want to get there will want more than the Hologram can offer and I don't know I you know in some inescapable ways. We are the biophysical things that we are and you know, I think that every time we take a glass of water or feel hunger or some some other feeling that we know that and you can overlay upon this and you can even implant within this this experience electronics and so on but the endocrine systems and this marvelous central nervous system are having their ways with us all the time and you know, I think much of what we are as humans is largely pre consciously. Started and even to a great extent pre consciously carried out even though we may be cognitively overlaying a certain rationality upon that so I'm I'm pretty pleased with the idea that that are that our experience is going to be closer together rather than more distant. I like that I didn't used to but I do know the time has gone very quickly aren't Harkins. I'm I'm surprised I always am and how quickly the time goes. Thank you very much for coming in and sharing your thoughts with us today. Thank you. Very interesting views of how things are changing and how things will be changing in the future from art Harkins who is a futurist a professor at the University of Minnesota. Also a private consultant who's company is called social Technology Incorporated Mark. Well, I don't know how to follow all of that. We covered a lot of ground over the last hour or so. Yes, we did and it made me nervous when he talked about the need for constant retraining and and in jobs and so on. I mean what are people like us going to do I can't do Thing and the only thing we can do is talk as long as somebody pays for that were in good shape, but I saw in the paper this morning here that you're launching into a new field according to at least one of the media critics here in town. I don't know if you ran across that or not. So I'm suggesting that you and Garrison Keillor. We're going to get together for a new Hollywood produced spin-off of Prairie Home Companion. Oh that doesn't sound like a prediction. That sounds like a nightmare. Anyway, you'll have to screw you over to your paper and find out what they said about you write all about 21 minutes. Now after 12 you listening to weekend on ksjn Minnesota public radio's coverage of issues related to education Healthcare and Human Services is made possible in part through a grant from 3M. Well in the remainder of this hour of our weekend program, we will hear from a couple of very forward-looking gentlemen, the folks behind the Apple computer company will get a profile of the people who really gave birth. Vegas to what is now the small computer industry will hear from move.