Zack Kass

90% of the respondents or plus said yes.

And one said they were going to continue having children until they had a son so that their son could join the union.

And the last question, what is the most important part of your job?

Rank order question, multiple choice, seven answers, most common stacked answer, community.

ahead of pay.

And that answer, among others, reinforced this idea that it is not an economic issue.

That in fact, they are not fighting for money, they are fighting for purpose.

And one of the questions that really helped me understand this was one that I sort of threw out at the end of every interview, which was, by the way, who benefits economically if we automate the ports?

And their answer reflexively was the capitalists.

They said, these are the people who benefit economically if we automate the ports.

I said, okay, who are the capitalists?

They said, well, the port owners and the shippers and, you know.

I said, well, okay, fine, but who else might benefit if we automate the ports?

Everyone is the answer.

Everyone, including eventually the longshoremen and their kids.

We are all descendants of people whose jobs were automated to our economic benefit, and we never think twice about them.

And actually, not only that, we wander the earth all day, every day, asking when is this good or service going to be better, faster, or cheaper, without realizing what we're asking is, when is a human going to be extricated from the manufacturing of that good or service?

And we don't do that because we're jerks.

We do that because we are rational economic actors conditioned to believe that the world should get better, faster and cheaper.

And it occurs to me, as it should occur to most people, that on the eve of an incredible technological evolution, revolution, where we automate a tremendous amount of our work to exceptional economic benefit, the problem is not going to be, is there more and better food on the table?