Very pneumatic. 620-555-1234 ask for Yuri
Posted on 05/28/2015 7:46:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Haven’t seen that movie, but such a world isn’t impossible.
The Amish have a solution that works for them. There will be a boom in copycat communities at some point. It might be fun to start one. It could be argued the global warming cult is an Amish start up. Its early leaders are living large.
That is indeed the attraction of Marxism for so many intellectuals. But it doesn't offer many prospects for the 99.9 percent who are not fitted to be artists and philosophers. Life without purpose is hard. Life in which one has no opportunity for achievement and distinction breeds resentment. And resentment is the glue that holds the left together.
I think you and I are on the same page.
This is THE problem of this century and nobody is talking about it.
The difference being that in the automated world the wealth will be available for most to live far above what we would now consider “a modest life.”
Yet there is no guarantee that this will lead to a happier life for most. In fact, limited evidence to date indicates quite the opposite.
And you hit the nail squarely on the head.
I may be slightly less pessimistic than you. I think the percentage of the population that could lead happy and useful lives if relieved of the need for productive labor is considerably higher.
Somewhere between 5% and 25%, perhaps.
But of course that still leaves 75% to 95% of the population screwed.
My other concern is that it seems to me this is the natural end point of the free market economy. The market commits suicide and puts itself out of business.
So is there any way to stop or slow this process other than massive government intervention, a cure perhaps worse than the disease?
The best part about the destruction of humanity by relentless and cruel robotic overlords, is that there will no longer be, anywhere in existence, histrionic, panicked, foolish blog entries.
There will always be work to do, but fewer and fewer people will need be engaged in it. Increasing numbers of people will be put on the dole, with just enough to subsist. They will spend their days medicated (high), playing video games, using social media, or otherwise entertaining themselves (as that will be cheap). There will probably be lots of educational options too, but only a few will take advantage as doing nothing is the path of least resistance. So, only the top 20% of motivated people will work. Everyone else will fritter their lives away.
There you have it.
In another Sci-Fi franchise (the Dune series of novels), the intelligent machines were overthrown. Who knows how this will unfold; I freely admit that I do not. If I could foresee the future that clearly, I would be in Las Vegas right now betting on sports.
There’ll be an App for that. :-)
That is another question: who can afford to actually buy the products and services in this scenario? Or does the Government just pay companies to provide it in order to keep the idle masses from rioting?
Kurt Vonnegut wrote an interesting book back in the early 1950s that predicted this problem. It is called “Player Piano” and in many ways is surprisingly prescient.
That is certainly one possibility.
But the Amish live as they do because they believe it’s God’s will.
Probably more difficult to live in a similar way just as a lifestyle statement. But I assume quite a few people would do so.
John Ringo has written a series of novels (Looking Glass) in which a beneficient Skynet type computer runs the world and gives every human what we’d considered godlike power and wealth.
Then the system breaks out into civil war and everybody is back to middle ages type tech.
The writing isn’t all that great, but he extrapolates some interesting ideas about how people would live in a world where there are very few restraints, material or cultural, on anybody. One of those ways is for people to ostentatiously pick a period of history and pretend to live in it. Problem is they always know it’s a pretense.
“Who knows how this will unfold”
By genetic engineering.
Are you bucking for the position of Kwisatz Haderach?
We have had ten people apply for that position since eight o’clock this morning.
Get the DMV involved in the process. That’ll grind things down to glacial speed.
Hey, the machines could always become unionized...
Read some history. That is the historical reality for the region since at least 670 or so. Arabs slaughter each other and whomever else they chance upon. So do Moslems generally. It's in their blood. It's in their Book, the Mohammedan Operating Manual called, in transliterated Arabic, the Quran.
There are jobs that people will want other people to do:
The Great Shift Toward Automation and the Future of Employment
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/The-Great-Shift-and-the-Future-of-Employment
Very pneumatic. 620-555-1234 ask for Yuri
By the standards of a 10th Century peasant, we are in an "economy of abundance".
If you accept a standard of living of a 10th Century peasant, living in a hut in the woods, then even working a minimum wage job would allow you to retire in just a few years of work, and have your investments supply you with enough wheat to survive.
What people who talk about "economy of abundance" fail to realize, is that human desires are limitless. Once somebody has a smartphone, everybody wants one. Likewise large-screen HDTV, game console, excellent food, etc.
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