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Ask HN: Is a concept of a dystopian society necessarily negative?
TD;DR // Does technological advancements bring about a higher quality of life offset the negative consequences of the modern concept of a 'dystopian society' brought about by climate change and the replacement of the human workforce with AI?
If one accepts
(1) 'chemical based happiness' arguments, and endorphins are triggered from pleasurable activities, while cortisol levels from suffering
(2) ones 'quality of life' is measured by their happiness level
the question becomes
- are people in-fact 'happier' or otherwise put 'better off' from the advancement technology promises, or will a potentially 'dystopian society' brought about by climate change and the diminishing relevancy of a human labor force leading to a demise of our overall 'well being', leading to an ironic mental health demise?
- there are two arguments for the ancestors 'better off' belief (3) that those who lives before us, at any point in time, were happier. (4) that generally, over the long-term people in the future are happier based on (1)
- advancements in things like universal access to basic nutritional diets has never been more accessible, excluding societal structures and economic status, by observing the advancement of the global supply chain, which is something started to be appreciated during the Industrial Revolution and marginally so with the agrarian age before it, which is a point for (1)
(A) healthcare advancements are a recent development, a person born with something as mild as seasonal allergies and poor eyesight would not be afforded the luxuries of glasses and then later marginally so, laser eye surgery.
(B) a reasonable argument for (3), is that though many may be better off, most are in-fact living worse off in extreme poverty, to a degree in which they have less plentiful access to resources than their ancestors - if this argument is true, then we are arguably already there.
Among other reasons, if one agrees that they are, the question becomes does the advantage of these factors, to an extent that scaled will lead to the ability to regulate (1) completely and be in perfect health, outweigh the suffering from a dystopian society impacted by climate change and if not, will it for a period of time?
It is noted that technological advancement is not perfectly correlated to an environmental decline. Technology may advance at a far greater rate and solve these problems before they occur, or it could be drastically delayed and several generations may be worse off than prior generations - the same may be true for (1) given (A)
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- ParameterOne 5y agoyes its negative. look up the word dystopian
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- digitcatphd 5y agoJust to clarify, did you take the time to read this?
- ParameterOne 5y agoI read it more than once. Need any more clarification or were you just hoping for a longer answer to start a discussion?
- digitcatphd 5y agoI think you're confusing yourself with the terminology, so thank you for bringing this up, I'm referring to a specific likely scenario where the effects brought on by climate change and workforce displacement which I broadly refer to as 'dystopian', not the broadly applied science fiction reference where, in some cases, society itself has collapsed to surreal science fiction like levels.
- notahacker 5y agoYou're referring to an unknown future world, defining it primarily by a label which literally means "hypothetical world which is bad" and asking us what we think of it. I'm not sure that asking us to compare it with reference to other unknowns like past and future cortisol levels makes it any clearer... Ultimately, I guess it is possible to have a society which is construed in today's eyes as as "dystopian" in its form of organization and yet has a lot of technology assisted endorphin rushes and very little stress (Aldous Huxley wrote about one in 1932) but I'm not sure what that has to do with predictions that lots of people might not be able to eat from climate induced crop failures or loss of employment opportunities, neither of which would appear to give them less stress or better objective living conditions. If your argument boils down to "is technological progress bad?" I think the answer is, "it depends on how it progresses"
- gidorah 5y agoSurely, dystopian or utopian depends on who you ask? Brave New World, clearly shows a dystopia from the point of view of John, but Utopia for the Alpha-pluses having soma fuelled sex parties. The meaning of dystopia is negative. Regardless of how you try to solve the problem.
- muzani 5y agoHumans have evolved for problem solving. You're not supposed to chase dopamine. Dopamine is there as a mechanism to encourage problem solving. Synthesized success is the definition of a dystopia. You're not supposed to live in this ideal stage; you're supposed to climb from a lower state to a higher one. It's like picking the apple flavored soda over the apple.