Are We Witnessing the Death of the Specialist?

Nothing true is popular and nothing popular is true.
~Ken Wheeler

Just a thought that I had today while on the FB doing some digital ego watching.

People's Digital Egos are really wrestling with this, displaying many signs of struggle. I'm wondering how this is shaking out in the real world though. I had a digital conversation with a real put together, professional guy. I like him. He's got great things to say on the FB and is probably a real nice guy in real life.

He was really struggling with conspiracy theories around this virus. That it was released by China, that it could have been released by the USA against China, and the idea that this came from anything other than a natural source or culturally backwards practices, was simply too far out to be believed. (OK, so I embellished a bit, he didn't actually go through that gamut of possibilities, and was sticking to the biowarfare angle... but I'm zooming out into the bigger picture to people's digital egos vs meat suit egos, and leaping off from there...)

While defending my ability to entertain the idea that some of the nutters could be right, and asking him to open up a bit and accept that maybe some of the dominoes the nutters laid out could have fallen on eachother, I came to the realization that his jig might be up.

The Specialist might have just become an endangered species.

Take Doctors for instance. If the current situation plays out the way I think it is going to, the days of medical specialization could be over. I read somewhere that pathologists were given a piece of paper with a brief outline and sent in to the fray to work on COVID victims. Let's say that becomes the norm.

What happens to the specializations in medicine? Everyone might have to become a general practitioner.

Let's say this situation we are currently in drags on for months and months, which I think it will, and is replaced by food shortages and civil strife, which I also find likely... What happens to all the specialists? Do they even make it?

The generalists and the nimble specialist able to adapt seem the best suited to successfully navigate the next few months and be well placed in our Brave New future.

Are we going to see a seismic shift in power dynamics and leadership from the currently powerful and successful specialist towards the put upon and ostracized generalist?

Love to have your thoughts on this...

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earthling1's picture

are heavily invested in the stock market, where else would they keep their millions?
They have priced themselves out of the future marketplace which will require general practioners more than specialists.
It may even get down to trading chickens for medical services from the town doctor, a la Sue Lowden R Nevada.
The professional class is going to take it in the shorts when Wall St collapses.
The poor, the working class, and many in the lower middle class haven't anything to lose.
IMHO

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

CB's picture

Humans will be used to collect data to feed the machine. The machine in turn will tell the human what additional data it requires. Then the machine will get feedback to check it's decision making and adjust itself automatically. All this will be done in real time remotely using 5G.

China is now using AI to read CT scans to check for various anomalies in the lungs. They have had good success with determining if lesions are caused by the ordinary flu or COVID-19.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EMsoR4lXw]

The quickness and agility by which the Chinese have confronted the COVID-19 outbreak is mind boggling.

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ggersh's picture

@CB that the guy Kudlow speaking at the 5:50 mark and later states all that is important is that the markit remains supported, fuck the people

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DQBG8D4X4]

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

earthling1's picture

@ggersh
hoping Wall St. plunges to zero

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12 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

shaharazade's picture

I swing wildly from nutter (conspiracy theorist) to it's a result of abusing the earth and nature by 'specialist's'. They disregard the whole and focus on the minutiae. First off I think AI is an oxymoron. I also don't like and distrust western pathological only medicine/healthcare. It's great for triage, and 'diagnosis' but has no idea how to heal people, critters or even address the environment we are all forced to live in. Cause and effect? Fear based, punitive, and stat driven. I see a world in stress on every level, physical, spiritual and mental. Perhaps globalized disaster capitalism is a breeding ground for all kinds of viruses and diseases. Be it plants, people or any system, animal, mineral,water that sustains life on earth.

Healthcare for profit is another oxymoron. What ever happened to 'do no harm'? The last people on earth who should be dealing with the symptoms on every level nature wise are the so called specialists or highly paid corporate medicine 'experts'. Wash your hands. Yeah right. Spare us all from the specialists and the geeks who refuse to look at life on earth as a miraculous balancing act that's stressed to the max by endless war, pollution, chemicals and centralized crap food production and grease extraction. Anyway we're reaping what humanity has sowed.

Maybe we ought to look at the whole of what's going down in these dark days. I mean who really gives a shit about Wall Street, mad geeks or 'specialists'? What is health or well being about? Not IMO more drugs, more tests, more FEAR or cooked up and real threats your brain can't assimilate. Too much monkey business. Personally I would welcome general practitioners who we're into healing people. Not only is the medical insurance industry fucked up but so is the state of the so called healthcare industry. Sorry to go on here this this is to me just another symptom of how screwed we humans and the planet are. Why? Money honey. Power, money,madness and a disregard for the earth's well being which includes us as we are part of the whole.

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Science and history are the 2 areas that just keep getting bigger. There was talk about changing the Biology and History AP exams because it was too much to study for one test.

If you're not well paid you're already a generalist. You repair things, make them last, and juggle everything. I always wondered what it would be like to just buy a new car, or take a vacation and not worry about the cost.

A lot of specialists are pretty savvy already, it's just they can afford to hire people to make their lives work.

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6 users have voted.