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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)

#201

Post by wave_function »

The author seems to sidestep what exactly it means to “own nothing”. Here’s thought experiment home ownership(as an example) that relates to some of these issues. Consider two worlds:

A) All housing is owned by individuals. Some people own the housing they live in, and pay the maintenance for their housing. Some people are landlords who own more housing than they need and collect rent, while other people don’t own their housing and need to pay that rent. To move up the “housing/economic ladder” you need to save up for a downpayment on a house, and then get a giant (for many people, life-defining) mortgage to do it, and many people never will be able to do it. This is roughly the world we (at least America, I know Germany is different).

B) All housing is owned by publicly traded REITs. Some people own an amount of REIT shares equal to the housing they consume (rented from the same RIETs) , such that (Dividends from REITs - Rent To REITs) is equivalent to the maintenance costs they would have paid. The “Landlords” make more from dividends than the rent they pay, and the “renters” own no equity. To move up the “housing/economic ladder” people simply buy shares of the REITs. Building up ‘your fair share’ of equity is a equally life-defining economic task, and many people never will be able to do it.

If the wealth inequality in worlds A,B are the same, is world B actually any worse? What’s the difference between spending 50% of your income to rent a shitty apartment owned by a slumlord vs. spending 50% of your income renting from the REIT, which is in turn owned by the “equity slumlord”? If you rent your car, but own “one cars worth” of shares in Zipcar, are you worse off than if you own your car? Conversely, “The sharing economy” is just a "rent-a-center" economy if only a few people own the things being "shared".

What is the economy of this world? Who owns the apartment that the “Narrator” is living in? The government? The “Generalized REITs” of world (B)? Mysteriously benevolent rich people? They say “our city” but what does The Narrator do(or own) to merit living in he city more than the people “in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages”

Am I missing something here or does the author dodge all of this?

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

#202

Post by nonford150 »

Agebor wrote: post #133
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…

It's possible sortition could be used but unlikely to be successful. Yes, there always is corruption in every institution - part of human nature. It's not going away, no matter what ruling class is in power.

My point is - how can someone express true happiness when they are controlled by others? With all these services, there would be no justification for betterment. It all sounds like an advertisement for centralized authoritatism - "We'll take care of your wants and dreams; you just give us your all".

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

#203

Post by john_moscow »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #189
neatze wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You making great points, I never thought about this way, it is compelling idea. If economics taught me anything is that there is always trade-offs; what are possible trade-offs when there is substantial constrains on monopolies, platforms, and aggregators ?

Certain things are only possible at scale. Take Amazon as an example. Its vast scale and vertical integration means that I can purchase something often much more cheaply than any smaller competitor can offer it, and have it shipped and arrive on the same day for a nominal fee (something totally unthinkable even 10 years ago). So while middle class jobs running mom-and-pop retail stores are lost, we may gain a commens…

Ironically, the "trinkets in exchange for land" thing happened to the American natives 400 years ago. I think, most people would agree that it didn't pan out as a big win for them.

Now a similar thing is happening to the middle class and I don't think enough people will see it this way before it's too late.

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

#204

Post by rvense »

game_the0ry wrote: post #148

This is a part of World Economic Forum marketing the concept of "The Great Reset"[1]. The founder of WEF has wrote a book about this and there is even a podcast. Basically, they are mentally preparing policy makers and their citizen(-slaves) for much a much lower quality of living, with the blame on covid (not the bad policy the WEF attendees have pushed in their respective countries...how convenient). Case in point…

The article is four years old.

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

#205

Post by seangrogg »

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.

What is protection/affection from one perspective can be captivity from another.

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

#206

Post by Yetanfou »

chmod775 wrote: post #190
Yetanfou wrote: post #97

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. Who needs free housing? Who gets to decide who needs free housing? Need I remind you that this often comes down to "the poorest" and "some of the richest"? Here in Sweden the latter category in the guise of…

> No, this is not a vision of the future. It is the preface to yet another dystopic novel where the thing which was supposed to make everybody happy ended up in yet another brave new world. It can be both. I'm not sure what to do with your response if I'm being honest. It reads like a blog post with your thoughts on the original article, not on anything being discussed in this thread specifically.

You can read my response like you read the original article. In my post I state why the premise of the original article is false. What else do you read in my post?

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

#207

Post by rvense »

greggyb wrote: post #141

I only get one coin out of this article, and it's got two sides: 1. Infinity is really, really big . 2. 0 is really, really small . Infinite clean energy with no cost? Nonexistent transaction costs (economics meaning)? Yeah, this is probably a very mild description of what the world might look like with those constraints removed. To me, this is the economic equivalent of a think-piece on what the world would be like…

I think it's just kind of like the economic version of something like "in the future, you will be able to seamlessly communicate with everyone, constantly!" - which is true and can be turned into a really nice, cleanly-looking scifi promotional video. But then the reality of that is you have 12 different ways of sending text to other people and you can never remember which one each person prefers; the apps all spy on you and are owned by different corporations that are held at gunpoint by different governments, not to mention that you're stressed to the gills by all the notifications and absolutely everything is covered in advertisements.

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

#209

Post by Rury »

neatze wrote: post #182
john_moscow wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about that, it's about the power structure. Imagine a hypothetical small town with several owner-operated grocery store, a local power station, owner-operated service companies, etc. Each of the involved actors is knowledgeable about what they are doing. They are hard to replace, their experience is important, so they have more bargaining power and can charge higher for their work. The wealth is more or less…

You making great points, I never thought about this way, it is compelling idea. If economics taught me anything is that there is always trade-offs; what are possible trade-offs when there is substantial constrains on monopolies, platforms, and aggregators ?

>what are possible trade-offs when there is substantial constrains on monopolies, platforms, and aggregators ?

The benefits to centralization/aggregation is that things can be made uniform everywhere, which can make things convenient. (e.g. if language A had a monopoly on languages, it would be easy to communicate with others no matter where you go)

It then follows that - the downsides to limiting centralization (or encouraging decentralization) is that things are not necessarily uniform everywhere. (e.g. might be difficult to communicate when everyone's speaking different languages everywhere; difficult to get brand X in market Y)

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

#210

Post by mindslight »

stilley2 wrote: post #36
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 shoul…

That disclaimer is completely disingenuous though. The piece is written in language that implies positivity and acceptance. You could take the same objective conditions and write a doomsday narrative - 'I am unable to ever truly relax, because at a moment's notice my living room might be commandeered for a business meeting. Technically I could take it off the market, but then I would have no way to make up for prime time real estate usage and would have to leave the city'.

> My biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city. Those we lost on the way. Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology

This is straight out of every sci fi dystopia where those at the privileged productive core are taught to fear and pity the outsiders. Complete with the straw men that the others chose to reject technology, rather than merely rejecting the invisible authoritarianism they're swimming in. Though usually the story is about waking up, rather than how good the dream is.

I don't think this piece helps the discussion at all, but is rather just more fuel for the populist-neoreactionary backlash. If this is the future "the elites" are grooming us to accept, then I can understand the desire to burn it all down.

The sustainable path forward involves making technology work for us as individuals, rather than abdicating our individual autonomy to opaque systems that are undoubtedly controlled by powerful overlords.

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