3 ms·

Sure. > ...uhm. What? How? Examples? a line of thought? Gimme something here. Electricity, internet, radio, engines, cameras, etc. > JFK helped expedite aero

Sure. > ...uhm. What? How? Examples? a line of thought? Gimme something here. Electricity, internet, radio, engines, cameras, etc. > JFK helped expedite aerospace research, as well as the NASA administrators who didn't do any engineering work but kept the agency running on track? They get no credit in the 'progress'? You're just enforcing my point, this is people who understand that we need technological progress in order for us to move forward as a society. Of course they are part of the progress, they help enable the progress to go faster. > Again, I would be most excited about a future where the _primary_ goal of the progress is the reduction of inequality. It is my belief that this will never happen, at least not untill we have progressed so far that everyones needs are met. Until then, there is no real incentive for people to reduce inequality. Just look at history, we've never been able to do this so far so there is no reason to belive that we suddently change our behavior. I am defining progress as a lot of things, it can be the discovery of something new but it can also be an invention that benefits just a small number of people. In the long run, most new inventions will benefit everyone.

evanlivingston 9y ago
You said in another comment "Just ask the people that have a fulltime job but still cannot afford a place to live if slavery has ended." I agree wholeheartedly with that. Let's consider those people, and lets consider some other, mmm, how about Rwandans as well. Has electricity and the radio, cameras and engines increased the liberties of those people? I many cases a lot of those technologies have been used to remove liberties from those people, and sometimes to even kill them. We have the technology now to meet everyone's need. Right now. We can produce enough food, we can build enough houses and supply everyone with enough calories. What technological things need to happen in order to distribute our resources accordingly? You'll probably say that's not a technological problem, at least not primarily, and I agree. This is the larger point I'm trying to get at and challenge others to address. I don't believe the most exciting future is one that requires enormous technological progress and when we focus on enormous technological progress for the sake of progress, rather than the sake of equality, well then we as a society continue to create a world the mirrors our goals: progress instead of equality. >Until then, there is no real incentive for people to reduce inequality. Sure there is, it's called compassion.

evanlivingston 9y ago

You said in another comment "Just ask the people that have a fulltime job but still cannot afford a place to live if slavery has ended." I agree wholeheartedly with that. Let's consider those people, and lets consider some other, mmm, how about Rwandans as well. Has electricity and the radio, cameras and engines increased the liberties of those people? I many cases a lot of those technologies have been used to remove liberties from those people, and sometimes to even kill them. We have the technology now to meet everyone's need. Right now. We can produce enough food, we can build enough houses and supply everyone with enough calories. What technological things need to happen in order to distribute our resources accordingly? You'll probably say that's not a technological problem, at least not primarily, and I agree. This is the larger point I'm trying to get at and challenge others to address. I don't believe the most exciting future is one that requires enormous technological progress and when we focus on enormous technological progress for the sake of progress, rather than the sake of equality, well then we as a society continue to create a world the mirrors our goals: progress instead of equality. >Until then, there is no real incentive for people to reduce inequality. Sure there is, it's called compassion.