This is an interesting quick read about different philosophical approaches to the introduction of automation to traditional labor environments. Its brevity is both a strength and a weakness though. In our busy times a quick read is always appreciated but much is left undiscussed.
I agree with the general premise that it is leadership's role in driving the strategic direction of how we approach such a controversial topic as automation that can determine the difference between success and failure, but Manna is too simplistic as presented. It treats the positive scenario as an easily attainable possibility; the reality will be much harsher even if somehow our leaders and countries could miraculously put aside differences and chose the altruistic approach. For example, in the "happy path" scenario presented in Manna, there is the assumption of resources being unlimited; this is made possible through efficiency and recycling, but look around you and it's pretty obvious humans of all types (regardless of race, religion, and economic stratification) are much better at wasting than saving, so this is a huge leap not only in culture but human nature. Manna too casually assumes humans will find a way to do the right thing, when it's obvious a fair number of us can't even find our butts with both hands.
That is not to say humans are hopeless; in the negative scenario Manna presents we see that humans have largely become mindless and complacent, living off the bare minimum. But humans are good at rebellion even in a world of seeming contentedness, and I suspect would be even more so in a world of false contentedness. Consider the Jews forced to work in weapons factories in WWII for the Germans. It was peaceful, as you'd expect it would be at gunpoint, but even then they cleverly found ways to sabotage the products they were building. So I think Manna has also oversimplified the dreariness of the negative scenario (isn't there is an entire series of popular action films about humans fighting machines?).
And yet I'd fully recommend reading Manna. I've criticized it for being shallow as a book but consider it more like a magazine article and it's a nice introduction to the fundamental differences in the way we approach automation; do we treat machines as something to augment humans or something to replace them?
Brain's story also mentions another controversial subject, that of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Automation and UBI are often debated together and for good reason; it's automation that will potentially make UBI both necessary and possible. How we approach this socio-economic challenge is a discussion worth having and Manna is an entertaining way to start. Proponents feel UBI is the way you keep a large, displaced, and angry population at peace, by giving each person "free" subsistence pay. People can live off it and are still free to augment it with voluntary work (assuming any is available), and the truly enterprising are also free to invest their time in innovation. Manna has an interesting take on UBI, which sort of exists in both the positive and negative scenarios but with key differences. In the negative one it's a minimal thing and exists much as you'd expect, as a form of allowance but as it's controlled by corporate interests it's something that is always being pressured to be as low as possible so the few that own the corporations can keep more for themselves. In the positive one it's less about cash and more defined in terms of resources; everyone gets an allotment of resources but because resources are treated as unlimited in this world (again, an assumption I consider a flaw) no one ever wants for necessities and everyone has some excess and it's really about how they want to utilize these excess resources (or not, for those that just want to sit around and watch Netfl...er, I mean, Amazon Prime Video all day). In this scenario Brain is certain there will be plenty of innovators and creatives to keep making the world better. I hope he's right.
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