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> We will stop being obsessed with money and status and spend much more time with family and friends. Entertainment will be insanely good and so will healthcare

by rurp 4y ago

> We will stop being obsessed with money and status and spend much more time with family and friends. Entertainment will be insanely good and so will healthcare. As nice as this would be, I think there's roughly 0% chance of it happening. Over the past few millenia humans have doubled productivity per capita a ridiculous number of times. None of those leaps led to an end of status seeking or a transition towards mostly leasure time for the masses. Instead I expect more of the opposite from these developments. Power will get increasingly concentrated with people who have very little interest in the needs and wants of the plebs.

weatherlite 4y ago
> Power will get increasingly concentrated with people who have very little interest in the needs and wants of the plebs. At least in OpenAI's case I think they take this thing very seriously (Sam Altman doesn't strike me as evil one bit, quite the opposite in fact https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEvbDq6BOVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEvbDq6BOVM). In fact most of the tech elites don't seem evil to me, if they only cared about money Zuckerberg and Gates wouldn't have pledged away all their wealth. Some of them are as you describe but I think most of them are actually somewhere in the progressive axis.
- eulers_secret 4y ago
  Your argument is that the philanthropy of the ruling class will fulfill the required redistribution of wealth? So far it hasn't worked out too well...
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    Not quite. The argument is that our tech elites aren't so evil to try to violently take over and that us masses can simply vote a more (much more) socialist system. It's up to us. Indeed easier said than done in the current dysfunctional and polarized politics of ours but we can still do it.
- rurp 4y ago
  We have pretty different views on tech elites. I don't think they are evil per se, but most are greedy and generally lack empathy. It's almost impossible to go from mildly wealthy to multi-billionaire status without some aggressive wealth accumulation. For the philanthropy, I'll just note that these pledges don't involve literally transferring 99% of wealth out of their control. The vast majority of the pledged money goes to a trust the person controls, organizations they have some relation to, or just stay completely in their control for years with only vague non-binding commitments to eventually donate it. In return for this largess they get significant reputational and tax compensation.

by rurp 4y ago

weatherlite 4y ago

> Power will get increasingly concentrated with people who have very little interest in the needs and wants of the plebs. At least in OpenAI's case I think they take this thing very seriously (Sam Altman doesn't strike me as evil one bit, quite the opposite in fact https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEvbDq6BOVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEvbDq6BOVM). In fact most of the tech elites don't seem evil to me, if they only cared about money Zuckerberg and Gates wouldn't have pledged away all their wealth. Some of them are as you describe but I think most of them are actually somewhere in the progressive axis.

eulers_secret 4y ago
Your argument is that the philanthropy of the ruling class will fulfill the required redistribution of wealth? So far it hasn't worked out too well...
- weatherlite 4y ago
  Not quite. The argument is that our tech elites aren't so evil to try to violently take over and that us masses can simply vote a more (much more) socialist system. It's up to us. Indeed easier said than done in the current dysfunctional and polarized politics of ours but we can still do it.
rurp 4y ago
We have pretty different views on tech elites. I don't think they are evil per se, but most are greedy and generally lack empathy. It's almost impossible to go from mildly wealthy to multi-billionaire status without some aggressive wealth accumulation. For the philanthropy, I'll just note that these pledges don't involve literally transferring 99% of wealth out of their control. The vast majority of the pledged money goes to a trust the person controls, organizations they have some relation to, or just stay completely in their control for years with only vague non-binding commitments to eventually donate it. In return for this largess they get significant reputational and tax compensation.