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Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

gmalandrakis.com

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Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#531

Post by preg_match »

Ma8ee wrote: post #456
darkwater wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Status is showing your care for the climate by leaving your kids in daycare with a cargo bike. Status is being able to leave work early to be able to spend time in the afternoon with your family, or do so some garden work. No one wants to be the one with an expensive car but not knowing your own kids. Sounds like a poshy neighborhood colonized by expats. I mean, I do share the values but it's definitely a luxury an…

I wouldn't call it poshy, but it is mostly inhabited by academics. And it is not in the US. I genuinely don't understand why you think it is entitled.

People view it as entitled because it’s good. Generally when confronted with people doing better than them people have two choices:

1. View it as an opportunity to question or improve their own situation.

2. Prefer fairness and attempt to tear those people down.

Many Americans prefer 2. It’s fundamentally self destructive, but when they see workers who don’t hate their lives their immediate first thought is “gosh how selfish and entitled, someone has to stop them!” It’s a crab bucket mentality, driven by hyper-individualism in American labor.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#533

Post by hoppp »

dominicrose wrote: post #320

It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…

Just be a genetic machine and do your thing. Our ancestors can evolve into more primitive forms and technically we will live on.

When it stops being evolutionarily beneficial to be intelligent because the machines do the thinking then it will happen. Can't do anything about it

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#534

Post by over_bridge »

Johanx64 wrote: post #285
jameslk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason why the masses should consume is to motivate them to work. The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Everyone wants more > But if you imagine a sci-fi world where machines can build and do everything humans can do, the concept of a human-centric economy would be pointless. There’s a number of obstacles I can think of to get there, in a human governed world, where humans make…

> The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Hell, no. Masses work, because they have to. It's not under threat of violence, it's under threat of sleeping under a bridge and starving. Which, frankly, isn't that far off. People often spend as much as 30-40% of income on rent alone. Plus, once you stack up all the other basic necessities (which have heavily gone up under inflation), you'll…

Agreed with this. The majority would happily stop working but we never hear that message because a small percentage of nutters have tied their whole identity to their job and how hard they work. These people dominate headlines and shift the Overton window. Elon is the poster boy of this but there are plenty of others pushing extreme habits.

Most people I know just want to hit their escape number then they'll never be seen again.

I just regret the loss of the Renaissance values. They believed people should pursue many things to become broad and well adjusted. Nowadays it's just obsession about a single thing to the detriment of all other aspects of life. We've embraced one dimensional people and given them the world.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#535

Post by ben_w »

cm2012 wrote: post #511
devin wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change would like a word.

If you think that you're simply incorrect. For the average person in a Western country, life is dramatically better anytime in the next hundred years, including the worst possible outcomes of climate change. Not to mention that the exponential growth of solar panels is basically stabilized in climate right now.

Mostly agree, but:

> Not to mention that the exponential growth of solar panels is basically stabilized in climate right now.

Sadly, growth of PV can only deal with part of the problem. We're making PV fast enough now that, given panel lifetimes, in 30 years 100% of current electricity demand will be met with specifically PV, and we're also making wind turbines and nuclear reactors and stuff.

The "and also" means we'll probably also be fine electrifying land transport.

Air transport (also fast-and-reliable sea transport) is somewhat harder to make renewable, but theoretically possible. Metal extraction from ore can be done electrolytically.

Concrete's not limited by electricity, it's an independent thing to be solved. So is meat farming. Progress exists on these, yes, but my point is they're not solved just by us being on the home stretch for electricity.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#536

Post by ben_w »

palmotea wrote: post #509
lqet wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, predicting the future was never possible. In fact, for most of the time in human history, the future looked incredibly bleak. Yet I am immensely grateful that my ancestors chose to build homes and marry and have children and live life through the great plague, through middle ages in which most of the population expected the apocalypse to be just around the corner, the 30 years war with up to 70% of the populatio…

> Yes, predicting the future was never possible. True, but... > In fact, for most of the time in human history, the future looked incredibly bleak. No, the rate of change was slow enough that you could probably make a good-enough prediction: your life would be similar to that of your father's or grandfathers'. The problem is that nowadays, some foolish technology-worshiping assholes have pushed the rate of change fas…

> > In fact, for most of the time in human history, the future looked incredibly bleak.

> No, the rate of change was slow enough that you could probably make a good-enough prediction: your life would be similar to that of your father's or grandfathers'.

You are not contradicting the quotation.

You could, as you say, probably make a good-enough prediction: your life would be similar to that of your father's or grandfathers'.

That prediction would be "Just like my parents and grandparents, I live in a cold rotting wooden shack, my entire family have to share a single bed to stay warm, I am only one step up from being my landlord's slave, and this will also be the life of my kids and grandkids".

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#537

Post by tencentshill »

dominicrose wrote: post #320

It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…

When enough people are no longer willing to make the leap, the market cools, and incentives appear to heat it back up. Perfect balance is always achieved. In a libertarian dream world.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#538

Post by holoduke »

dominicrose wrote: post #320

It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…

One should live and enjoy today. Way too many people live in the future. Only to find out it never becomes reality. Today is reality.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#539

Post by oersted »

nmcfarl wrote: post #435
oersted wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, of course, that's not what I meant. I would count you as fully dedicated, what you are describing is not too rare in EU in some professions. And I'd say that getting long vacations is quite a different dynamic than working part-time on a weekly basis. I was referring to the commenters talking about working 2/3 days a week. In the Netherlands 4 days a week is also becoming the norm, which I'm not a big fan of…

I really think this depends on the job. As soon as I read your initial comment, I thought about locums in medicine, people who float for as little as a weekend at a time, and as a little as once a quarter at any particular hospital. And the entire hospital industry has been built around them at least in the western United States. They’re clearly contributing something. I think there are jobs where you need lots of co…

Never heard of that role, good to learn. I suppose the closest analogue I am aware of is substitute teachers.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#540

Post by tennfown »

qsera wrote: post #173
whatever1 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will need electricity, water you will be producing waste etc. in your Tennessee house. Why would someone who owns all of the power and resources share with you? Really I don’t see any playable alternative other than near complete annihilation of human race. It’s very similar to a nuclear apocalypse. Very few get to survive.

>Why would someone who owns all of the power and resources share with you? Ideally governments will see to it. This also assumes that governments have a much larger army of robots than any private individual. Just like how governments makes it illegal to own firearms, it will be illegal to own certain class of robots with combat capability.. Thus governments (the people really/ideally) will see to it that everyone wi…

The “government” is a collection of dementia patients and pedophiles.
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