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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)

#131

Post by nyxtom »

Free transportation is actually something accessible already in a few places around the world. I could feasibly see this increasing over time as it gains popularity. Considering the savings on actually handling fares, efficiency gains in boarding, possible economic models around more commerce, then you add in more automation in the years ahead..etc

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/free-public-transit.ht...

It might not happen everywhere but I do suspect that a number of cities (like the ones already listed here https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/free-public-transportation-i...) will continue to push that direction.

Not sure about the other things in the OP, but it's worth considering one aspect of daily life that seems more and more likely as time goes on.

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

#132

Post by _28jh »

I've seen this article reach the front page many times and I laugh every single time. There's too many golden lines.

> First communication became digitized and free to everyone. Then, when clean energy became free, things started to move quickly.

> Transportation dropped dramatically in price. It made no sense for us to own cars anymore, because we could call a driverless vehicle or a flying car for longer journeys within minutes.

> Once in awhile, I will choose to cook for myself. It is easy - the necessary kitchen equipment is delivered at my door within minutes.

> Shopping? I can't really remember what that is. For most of us, it has been turned into choosing things to use. Sometimes I find this fun, and sometimes I just want the algorithm to do it for me. It knows my taste better than I do by now.

> Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.

I can't tell if it's written by a normal person, some buzzword-spouting AI, or someone from the 80's who's never interacted with modern technology.

EDIT: And of course, how could I forget, "In our city we don't pay any rent, because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it. My living room is used for business meetings when I am not there."

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

#133

Post by Agebor »

nonford150 wrote: post #123

My first thought - who owns your living quarters, the machines which show up, the clothes, etc? These are the people who are really living well as the rest of the ruled are indebted to them forever. IF the answer is government, please just stop. A central ruling class? This has always ended badly. If the answer is private enterprise, ask why accept the role you have chosen and instead work to accumulate the goods you…

Why not corporations? They would be owned by the market and compete against each other to offer best quality machinery.

Of course you still have the leadership class of people that could be corrupt, but that can be solved e.g. by sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

+ you need anti-monopoly laws and some solutions preventing competition-to-the-bottom (e.g. if marginal cost of service becomes 0, it may no longer make sense to compete for it, so it needs to enter some sort of maintenance mode to keep quality in check)

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

#134

Post by collyw »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #72
chmod775 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? That paragraph is already close to reality in some places in Europe, where public transport is ticket-less and free and the government provides housing and food at no cost to those who need it. Expand on that and you're at what the author is describing. I personally wouldn't bet money on "this will never happen", would you?

I am in Europe and I do not see anything close to what the author is describing. Nothing is really at no cost. It is paid for with tax money or directly. The author is not specifying "for those who could not otherwise afford it", but describing it as at no cost for everyone. Most universities cost money to enrole and attend. Does your baker give out buns at no cost? Is the grocery store giving away all the food at no…

Try to find the BBC documentary Inside the Bruderhof (it was on youtube, but seems to have gone). It's a religious commune and it's the best example I have seen of a form of communism that works. Not my idea of how to live my life though. I'll take the evils of free market capitalism over that.

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

#135

Post by _ah »

ragnese wrote: post #53
kyrers wrote: post #12

I don't understand this. As said in other comments, I believe most people wouldn't want most of the things the author describes. If I want to cook at home and have to order everything, I assume it won't just be there in 5 minutes. And then what? If everything is shared does someone come pick it up when someone else needs it? Do I take it somewhere? Also, are people delivering these things? Or robots? And how can this…

The article is definitely not the "best" version of this vision of the future I've read... Not that I'm advocating for this future in any way, but I assume that a more realistic version of this (especially for as near as 2030) is that many people still have jobs that have an actual schedule. Maybe we can be optimistic and dream that people get to work less than 40 hours a week to have a reasonable quality of life. Bu…

Clothing rental already exists.

https://www.express.com/exp/style-trial-how-it-works

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

#136

Post by pmontra »

Kronmonker wrote: post #120

What an unintentionally horrifying dystopia. In our city we don't pay any rent, because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it. My living room is used for business meetings when I am not there. If you don't pay the rent, it's not your living room. You are camping out in somone's office.

Of course this was pre-Covid. A similar view of 2030 now would be about distance between people, not strangers reusing other strangers' quarters.

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

#137

Post by throwaway2048 »

LandR wrote: post #91
Cloudef wrote: post #4

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

Yet, they can afford $9 for avocado on toast, mac laptops and over priced beats headphones. Kidding, but only sort of.

I'm gonna not eat so much avocado toast that one day i can afford a 2 million dollar house

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

#138

Post by TheUndead96 »

This is compounded by the fact that consumer electronics are becoming less useful as general computing devices. Increasingly people "rent" their primary devices. You pay a monthly plan, or a fee upfront, to use a gated smartphone that does very little in comparison to its ability on paper. So in summary:

- You do not own media (music, movies, books to some extent).

- You do not own the device (in the sense that you can readily program it).

- You may not repair the devices you use.

- They are all listening to you.

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

#139

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #111
TT3351 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meritocracy set out from birth, no? Are not all people in that book test tube children with specific selected genomes? I fail to see how creating a class of genetic garbage men, relegated to working with trash for their entire lives is "meritocratic," since advocates of the meritocracy concept generally rely on the system's alleged mobility.

Reminder that "meritocracy" came to prominence in a satirical essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy Unfortunately a bunch of folks read that and thought it was a great idea.

From what I recall from reading it, the meritocracy part actually worked incredibly well, yielding tremendous technological advances. It was the secondary effects of pushing meritocracy to extremes that were the problem.

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

#140

Post by Invictus0 »

cnity wrote: post #62
lbrito wrote: post #51

>Why keep a pasta-maker and a crepe cooker crammed into our cupboards? We can just order them when we need them. The main point of owning things is that you get to use them when you want to use them. People keep those things in cupboards because when they decide on a whim to make pasta they do just that. The same goes for all the rest - having cars, houses and so on. Unless there's some kind of Philip K Dick-style ma…

For the most part, I agree. Some things really do work better in a "borrow" type system. For instance, I'm fixing up my old bike and the sheer number of tools necessary for basic tasks is astounding. I wish there were some local "bike maintenance tools" library where like-minded folks could go to fix up their bikes and use tools. You could probably serve an entire city with a handful of chain tools, and yet it's inte…

I used to be a member at a community makerspace in Nashua, NH which had stuff like that. Lasercutters, woodworking area, auto bay, machine shop, 3d printing, etc. It was awesome, and sustainably non-profit!

http://www.makeitlabs.com/

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