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I feel the opposite. I've been overwhelmed with a sense of my mortality, that I need to care for my body better, in order to live as long as possible into this

by geor9e 3y ago

I feel the opposite. I've been overwhelmed with a sense of my mortality, that I need to care for my body better, in order to live as long as possible into this age. I feel like I won the lottery of birth date to be able to see this. I get your perspective, and I have no doubt the wealth gap will widen painfully, but I'm also optimistic about humanity's ability to work it out.

davidmurdoch 3y ago
Where does your optimism come from?
- brink 3y ago
  Not history.
  - geor9e 3y ago
    Yes history. If you ignore the clickbait headlines designed to elicit rage, and the news feeds designed to spiral you into a cycle of fear, and just google "poverty graph" to find raw data sources you'll find it's generally a good trend like https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/dataviz-remake-fall-extreme-poverty-best-news-world https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/dataviz-remake-fall-ext...
    - brink 3y ago
      What I mean is the problem with wealth gaps is historically they typically get remedied with violent revolution.
      - dogcomplex 3y ago
        Or appeased with a tiny fraction of the total gains - just enough to keep a middle class happily with their basic little toys while wealth inequality grows. This could easily be the same, except the toy is "you don't have to work anymore and here's some houses and robot chefs! Now play nice while the adults go build star fleets"
- geor9e 3y ago
  That's a therapist question. Probably from an engineering career, surrounded by smart folks for whom succumbing to "we're doomed" was never an option, and a solution was something you beat your head against a brick wall for the 999th time about. You just get used to things turning out alright. But the topic has a lot written over the centuries by people who can write better than I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment
ed_mercer 3y ago
Same. It’s absolutely amazing to be alive right now. AGI is our only shot at fixing the planet and fixing/extending our lives.

by geor9e 3y ago

davidmurdoch 3y ago

Where does your optimism come from?

brink 3y ago
Not history.
- geor9e 3y ago
  Yes history. If you ignore the clickbait headlines designed to elicit rage, and the news feeds designed to spiral you into a cycle of fear, and just google "poverty graph" to find raw data sources you'll find it's generally a good trend like https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/dataviz-remake-fall-extreme-poverty-best-news-world https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/dataviz-remake-fall-ext...
  - brink 3y ago
    What I mean is the problem with wealth gaps is historically they typically get remedied with violent revolution.
    - dogcomplex 3y ago
      Or appeased with a tiny fraction of the total gains - just enough to keep a middle class happily with their basic little toys while wealth inequality grows. This could easily be the same, except the toy is "you don't have to work anymore and here's some houses and robot chefs! Now play nice while the adults go build star fleets"
geor9e 3y ago
That's a therapist question. Probably from an engineering career, surrounded by smart folks for whom succumbing to "we're doomed" was never an option, and a solution was something you beat your head against a brick wall for the 999th time about. You just get used to things turning out alright. But the topic has a lot written over the centuries by people who can write better than I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment

ed_mercer 3y ago

Same. It’s absolutely amazing to be alive right now. AGI is our only shot at fixing the planet and fixing/extending our lives.