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So there for some reason seems to be a melding of the ideas of raising quality of life and eliminating inequality, which don't necessarily have to be the same t

So there for some reason seems to be a melding of the ideas of raising quality of life and eliminating inequality, which don't necessarily have to be the same thing. I do not think it is unreasonable that 100 years from today the lower middle class has access to everything the upper class of America has today (from a material perspective), while there may still exist an upper class that can do even more (travel to Jupiter or something? I dunno.) I'm aware this is not a new idea, just wanting to make sure we restate as much. Separately, while I concede that some of these aspects may very well not scale, there isn't enough attention paid to the idea that some may scale better. First world countries tend to have lower brith rates than third world ones. Perhaps if we raised the quality of life enough across the globe, we'd actually level off the population demands dramatically as a result. Similarly, while some people certainly do want cars, what most people actually want is to get from point A to point B. If we can get to a world of self driving cars, the grid lock problem may disappear and be replaced with a perfectly feasible alternative that's actually safer. So yeah, I think its quite possible that not everyone will be able to do the same "set of things", but I don't see how that has any bearing in trying to make any particular thing more accessible to everyone. I assure you a new "thing" will pop up that will still be only accessible to a few. That's the way its been so far in history anyways, not sure what's special about now.

esotericn 8y ago
I agree with this for the most part. I suppose the main thrust of what I wanted to get at was that the concept of reducing inequality is problematic, there's a hard limit somewhere and we're starting to see the first signs of that. Raising the baseline is certainly possible and a good aim. But as you say, there will always be some 'thing' that some can do and others can't. Maybe there's a state in which the more damaging things aren't desirable and most people can do most things they want. I hope so. I have the sense that a _lot_ of things that people want are basically status markers. And if that's true, then we can't really make everyone happy, because it's inherently hierarchical.

esotericn 8y ago

I agree with this for the most part. I suppose the main thrust of what I wanted to get at was that the concept of reducing inequality is problematic, there's a hard limit somewhere and we're starting to see the first signs of that. Raising the baseline is certainly possible and a good aim. But as you say, there will always be some 'thing' that some can do and others can't. Maybe there's a state in which the more damaging things aren't desirable and most people can do most things they want. I hope so. I have the sense that a _lot_ of things that people want are basically status markers. And if that's true, then we can't really make everyone happy, because it's inherently hierarchical.