Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

weforum.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 267 posts

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

#191

Post by xapata »

godelski wrote: post #181
xapata wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most pet cats, no. In my own experience with a pet cat, if he really wanted to run away, he could have. The opposite would happen. He'd sneak out when we weren't paying attention and then we'd accidentally lock him outside. We'd eventually hear the meowing and let him back in.

I find this odd, because despite my cat wanting to live inside, I find it very clear that she is a pet living in captivity. The fact she wants to live inside seems something more akin to stockholm syndrome or apathy. I think the difference is when it is humans we consider this kind of thing to be more Hukley-esk. My cat doesn't really have free will if I make her think she can go outside but I just give her that impr…

I have a dog right now. He enjoys my company. I don't think he's a captive. I love him, he loves me. I let him off leash and he generally stays nearby. Am I a captive of my wife? I don't think so.

Are children captives of their parents? I wouldn't use that word to describe the relationship.

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

#192

Post by Nasrudith »

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.

Well of course - his underlying thesis was weak and failed to show how it would be worse off than the status quo. No wonder it caught on when what was mocked is a better idea than the current system! The downsides again failed to be worse than a fixed caste system and relied upon bad extrapolations.

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

#193

Post by Nasrudith »

globular-toast wrote: post #47
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…

What's wrong with something sitting there and not being used? It's not causing any extra consumption. It's using space, but I don't wish for a future where I don't even have enough space to keep a personal car. As for sharing everything, it's a good theory but would never work in practice. Have you ever lived with people outside of your family or bubble? Some people are filthy and don't even take care of things they…

Opportunity cost is still a cost and many still decay even unused - it does cause extra consumption by proxy. A renting/sharing everything model would have issues and it is better to have a choice in the matter essentially. Imagine the outrage if some snobby place decided to ban cars with leases or rentals on them from their parking lots or from any renting in a city.

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

#194

Post by legends2k »

godelski wrote: post #167
john_moscow wrote: post #155

A bigger, much bigger problem, is that having a family and raising kids is effectively being outsourced to cheaper countries. Come to think of it, about 50 years ago you could afford a mortgage on a detached house from a single salary, where the other parent would dedicate their time to raising/teaching the kids. That would also make people need each other more, and care more about alignment of values, since that's s…

I think part of the problem is that people see criticism as blame and bad actors. Really criticism is about improving and is an essential aspect of any democracy. It's also fair to say that many that complain blame, but some take advantage and deserve blame. But a big problem is that any criticism is considered a bad thing. I actually run into this problem a lot when I tell people it's more important to criticize the…

Never saw criticism quite in that light. Makes sense. Thanks.

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

#195

Post by anoncake »

raelmiu wrote: post #98

Yet another communist utopia idea... As usual they're missing: - Who does all that work, and why? Someone must be incentivised to clear that living room between his lounging and the business meetings. - Who decides what stuff you get to use? Oh there's no shopping huh. Great. Everything you rent is just perfect for you? Well who makes sure of that? The AI? So your will is what? A calculation? - The fallacious idea of…

That would be a very confused communist who doesn't understand that there is a difference between private and personal property.

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

#196

Post by jhbadger »

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.

But it would be a great idea if it were real. The problem isn't in the theoretical idea of a meritocracy. It's that the real world isn't nearly as meritocratic as assumed and a lot of people in high places got there by connections, being from wealthy families, and so on and not due to their own merits.

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

#197

Post by godelski »

legends2k wrote: post #194
godelski wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the problem is that people see criticism as blame and bad actors. Really criticism is about improving and is an essential aspect of any democracy. It's also fair to say that many that complain blame, but some take advantage and deserve blame. But a big problem is that any criticism is considered a bad thing. I actually run into this problem a lot when I tell people it's more important to criticize the…

Never saw criticism quite in that light. Makes sense. Thanks.

To be honest it is a difficult thing to think about it this way. We are psychologically primed to think we've got it figured out (takes more energy to improve than continue what we're doing and animals are about minimal energy usage). But you have to come at it from the mentality of "Everything I do is wrong, but I can make it less wrong." There's also different levels of wrong[0] and that's key. It is about converging on the correct answer (perfection is unobtainable). Being wrong doesn't mean 100% wrong, but when someone tells us we're doing something wrong we treat it like a discrete binary condition instead of a spectral one. So when someone says you're wrong, reframe it in your head as "this is how I can improve." And help others out by instead of calling them wrong, say that they can improve by x,y,z. I've found that this is a constant challenge though and while I've been trying to convince myself to think like this for a decade now, I'm far from being there. But hey, I think I'm stepping in the gradient direction, so that's converging to the solution, right? :)

[0] Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov: https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.ht...

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

#198

Post by godelski »

xapata wrote: post #191
godelski wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this odd, because despite my cat wanting to live inside, I find it very clear that she is a pet living in captivity. The fact she wants to live inside seems something more akin to stockholm syndrome or apathy. I think the difference is when it is humans we consider this kind of thing to be more Hukley-esk. My cat doesn't really have free will if I make her think she can go outside but I just give her that impr…

I have a dog right now. He enjoys my company. I don't think he's a captive. I love him, he loves me. I let him off leash and he generally stays nearby. Am I a captive of my wife? I don't think so. Are children captives of their parents? I wouldn't use that word to describe the relationship.

I think it is fuzzy. How do we define this line? Cults will often confine people to a location until they have been sufficiently brainwashed. At which point they will let them loose, often used to gain more followers. Are these people captive?

But maybe using captive in only a pejorative sense is the problem. I don't think my cat hates me (quite the opposite!), rather she follows me around like a puppy dog and is clearly excited when I get home. But it is difficult for me to conclude that she is free.

I really think the term is fuzzy and the boundaries are not clearly defined. If that is true, then hyperbole can be useful for us to question and refine that boundary. Questioning if we ourselves are captive when we don't realize it. After all, that's what Huxley portrayed. I don't think people in his story would consider themselves captive, but outsiders would. We could say the same about cults or certain followings. To one faith may be shackles and to another it may be liberating. The boundary isn't clear.

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

#199

Post by caeril »

john_moscow wrote: post #155

A bigger, much bigger problem, is that having a family and raising kids is effectively being outsourced to cheaper countries. Come to think of it, about 50 years ago you could afford a mortgage on a detached house from a single salary, where the other parent would dedicate their time to raising/teaching the kids. That would also make people need each other more, and care more about alignment of values, since that's s…

You're not entirely wrong, but there are significant lifestyle changes that contribute to this. Versus the golden years of single-income households, we:

1. Go out to eat and for entertainment MUCH, MUCH more often. 2. Take more frequent, more distant, and much more lavish vacations. 3. Live in homes that are approximately 40% larger. 4. Purchase many more electronics and other semi-durable consumer goods. 5. Purchase much more clothing. 6. Drive more, and newer vehicles. 7. Eat many more calories (obesity necessitates higher health care costs)

For most people in the US: if you downsized your home, traveled on a modest vacation once every two years, limited eating out to special occasions only, wore the same set of clothing for years on end, owned a single, used but dependable car for the entire household, watched two movies per year, etc, you'd probably be able to run a single-income household in 2020.

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

#200

Post by jhbadger »

_ah wrote: post #135
ragnese wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And in the sense of formal wear, it has for decades. Other than James Bond, I don't think most people have any need to own a tuxedo and rent one in the handful of times in their life when they need it.
Post reply on HN