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It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

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Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#31

Post by ragnese »

at_a_remove wrote: post #20
LandR wrote: post #3

This reads like a description of a pretty awful dystopia. Or at least one where everything might seem great, until it isn't. And when it turns, turning it back is HARD / near impossible. Do people read this and think that is the sort of life they would want in the future?

My going rule of thumb is that any "good" fictive dystopia always starts off as being someone else's utopia, only it becomes compulsory. This in turn leads to any deficiencies or problems in the utopia needing to be papered over, ignored, and so forth because it is compulsory. This causes yet more distortions and away we go. It's like all of those breathless journo articles about insect protein: they sound fine until…

I like the Brave New World approach to distopia. It's kind of hard to argue with the world as presented because the people in it are happy/content, it seems sustainable, safe, etc. Yet, as a present-day reader with a present-day moral lens, it seems horrific and unjust.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#33

Post by ryaniscool »

Personally, I think a future where AI can do most jobs is frightening.

It will be run by a group of relatively few elites that are involved in power struggles for control of the AI and the rest of us that do stuff like pick fruit (assuming it's cheaper than having an AI do it) and serve as cannon fodder in the AI armies.

I find people who believe that it will lead to some kind of Utopia horribly naive and they have no understanding of human nature.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#34

Post by globular-toast »

LandR wrote: post #3

This reads like a description of a pretty awful dystopia. Or at least one where everything might seem great, until it isn't. And when it turns, turning it back is HARD / near impossible. Do people read this and think that is the sort of life they would want in the future?

That might be because you are used to the common trope of the future that seems too good to be true and turns out to have sinister underpinnings. It's used in a lot of dystopian fiction.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#35

Post by cryptica »

LandR wrote: post #3

This reads like a description of a pretty awful dystopia. Or at least one where everything might seem great, until it isn't. And when it turns, turning it back is HARD / near impossible. Do people read this and think that is the sort of life they would want in the future?

Of course it's a scam. "You will own nothing and be happy". That is BS of the highest order. There will always be someone who owns and controls everything. It's just not going to be you.

You will own nothing, you will be worthless. You won't even be able to have a girlfriend/boyfriend or friends for that matter; real human relationships are reserved for the elites. You will get as many VR friends as you want though.

Already it's kind of happening. Look at how many friends rich people have; a lot. Look at how many friends poor people have; very few.

Of course, they're not real friends, but still more real than light projected into your eyeballs.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#36

Post by stilley2 »

robbrown451 wrote: post #8

I am unclear as to the author's intent. I expect most people here would find such ideas offensive. And yet so many things seem on the right track. It's the polar opposite of the outrageously inefficient model where everything you use, you own, and for 99.9% of the time, the thing just sits there depreciating or taking up space. Regarding cars, as a city liver who needs a car (but has no driveway or garage), I certain…

The author states their intent at the bottom

> Author's note: Some people have read this blog as my utopia or dream of the future. It is not. It is a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse. I wrote this piece to start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#37

Post by Frost1x »

jpttsn wrote: post #19
robbrown451 wrote: post #8

I am unclear as to the author's intent. I expect most people here would find such ideas offensive. And yet so many things seem on the right track. It's the polar opposite of the outrageously inefficient model where everything you use, you own, and for 99.9% of the time, the thing just sits there depreciating or taking up space. Regarding cars, as a city liver who needs a car (but has no driveway or garage), I certain…

The very cynical counter argument is rarely spoken: Owning my things provides value even when I’m not using them, because I benefit from excluding other people (my competition) from using them. Example: The sports car locked in my garage helps keep sports cars away from other people, which maintains their benefit of conferring status. It provides utility even if I basically never drive it. This side of human nature i…

This is critical. As long as we operate in a highly competitive climate, private ownership and rights associated with it become a necessity. Ownership not only legally guarantees your rights but denies others rights (your competition).

Even with a well optimized sharing economy inside a highly competitive environment, you'll look for ways to break the optimization process favorable to yourself. If everything schedules at my whim I'll be sure and use the most scarce and difficult to obtain resources to lock them down and trade that time to others for something else I want. Short of living in a post scarcity economy, it would never be feasible.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#38

Post by eli_gottlieb »

robbrown451 wrote: post #8

I am unclear as to the author's intent. I expect most people here would find such ideas offensive. And yet so many things seem on the right track. It's the polar opposite of the outrageously inefficient model where everything you use, you own, and for 99.9% of the time, the thing just sits there depreciating or taking up space. Regarding cars, as a city liver who needs a car (but has no driveway or garage), I certain…

>It's the polar opposite of the outrageously inefficient model where everything you use, you own, and for 99.9% of the time, the thing just sits there depreciating or taking up space.

Truly amazing how it's apparently inefficient for ordinary working people to own things that we actually use and enjoy sometimes, but it's perfectly efficient for the investor class to own the fruit of our labors.

Honestly, a complete reversal of any real notion of efficiency.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#39

Post by cabaalis »

Cloudef wrote: post #4

It's not like young generations could afford to own anything anyways anymore.

Don't let the ridiculous prices of an urban center deter you. I assume you live in a very large country. Especially don't let the ridiculous prices of an urban center drive you to change the pricing and ownership system of said rest of the country.

Growing wealth is a simple formula: [amount spent] < [amount earned]. Rinse and repeat for a given length of time, and you will have more wealth than you started with.

Re: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

#40

Post by ZephyrBlu »

LandR wrote: post #3

This reads like a description of a pretty awful dystopia. Or at least one where everything might seem great, until it isn't. And when it turns, turning it back is HARD / near impossible. Do people read this and think that is the sort of life they would want in the future?

> Do people read this and think that is the sort of life they would want in the future?

Mostly, yes.

Most items people own seem like clutter to me. I would much rather own the absolute minimum and then get anything else as I need it, rather than have to own a lot of stuff.

More stuff = more problems.

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