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I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgr
by vouaobrasil 1y ago
I'd rather just have a world where people move a little slower, care less about efficiency, appreciate the smaller things in life, and stop forcing endless upgrades of every kind on everyone with new phones, new apps, soulless art, and new ways of doing things. But that's just me.
- Nevermark 1y agoWith enough money/capital growing, you can live however reasonably paced you like!
- tangent-man 1y agoOnly if you have found an end to old age, sickness and death. Until this ^ there are no guarantees in life. You cant eat money
- Nevermark 1y agoWell you can’t drive money, fly money, surgery money, publish money, build a house out of money that doesn’t melt in the rain… If you want to put it that way. But given we agree it is absolutely useless, you should probably periodically trade some of it for food. Etc. That works out really well, since money doesn’t mold as quickly as food, and doesn’t require refrigeration. So accumulate money, let it work for you in the form of productive capital, but skim it for food purchases.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoWell, I sincerely doubt I'm going to get much of that capital. Mostly the people at the top will....
- effed3 1y agoonly if you have a real (sane, sustainable, efficient) economy to give the money some value. without a real economy money is a number in a computer/a piece of paper, and growing is constrained by the finite resources of the world
- arkis22 1y agoWhat's really ironic, based on my understanding, is that the world that you have expressed a desire for, is much likelier in a world where economic growth accelerates based on AI. Granted, you need to have the political structure in place that allows the growth to benefit everyone.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoI sincerely doubt it, because that technology also invades life. It invades the world with more information, not less. More business...when has technology ever slowed things down? AI just seems to make certain tasks more efficient, but I haven't seen anything slow down.
- culopatin 1y agoBefore technology, even if things were slow, people didn’t have time to do anything with the slowness anyway. I think you’re thinking of some past utopia that never existed. Or maybe you’re thinking of the 90s, idk.
- bakuninsbart 1y ago> Granted, you need to have the political structure in place that allows the growth to benefit everyone. Which is the scary part of the AI revolution. Devaluing labor always leads to increased inequality in the short-to-mid term until a new equilibrium is met. But what if we have machines that can do most jobs for 10-20k a year? Suddenly we have a hard ceiling for everyone below a certain "skill level", where skill includes things like owning capital, going to the right college, and having the right parents. In the past, when inequality became too extreme, (the threat of) violent uprisings usually led to reform, but with autonomous weapon systems, drones and droids, manpower becomes less of a concern. The result might be a permanent underclass.
- spwa4 1y agoReally? The AI revolution is happening in the West, and mostly in the US. Just imagine it happened in a muslim country, or Russia, or China, or even India. Half of them would immediately use it to start a war. If you think labor is devalued here, it can be SO much worse. Also I don't understand the entire argument. The thread is about stopping economic growth. You say you don't receive enough of the current economic growth ... so you want growth to reduce? That will make your life a lot worse, won't it? At 0 growth the only way to give you anything would be to take it away from someone else. In other words: you want an extra meal at 0% growth? That can only happen if someone else doesn't get one ...
- doug_durham 1y agoThat world has never existed. People have always been hustling. If you are thinking of some agrarian ideal then you are looking at a world of incredible wealth and power inequality. Given the choice between moving faster and making a better life for you children and living a quiet life under the thumb of a dictator people have always chosen the former.
- Teever 1y agoMaybe the issue with society is that we don't care about efficiency? We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy from carrying that excess weight. We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars so we build all our infrastructure around cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. This also leads to higher medical costs, lower productivity, and less satisfaction in life. So maybe efficiency should be a priority. What do you think?
- solumunus 1y agoYou think people own cars because they’re unfit? Would it be more efficient for them to ditch their car and cycle 4 hours per day to and from work?
- aydyn 1y agoThe most common number of passengers in a car is 1, but nearly all cars are big enough for 4.
- Teever 1y agoYes I think people become unfit from growing up in a car culture and then become dependent on cars for transportation because they can't conceive of a world where they don't require one for transportation because they're so unfit. It's a wicked problem with no obvious solution.
- chairmansteve 1y agoThey don't cycle. In other advanced societies (say New York City), people catch public transport to go to work. Catching public transport usually involves a certain amount on walking, since the bus/metro stop is not usually outside your front door.
- vouaobrasil 1y ago> We throw away 1/3 of the food that we make. We're overweight and waste energy in terms of carrying that weight. But it's efficient in terms of working as a slave for the technological system, though. It means less time spent on life, more time spent on thinking about technology. > We're less physically active as a result so we require motorized transport that is predominantly single passenger cars which in turn causes us to be even more inactive and unhealthy. Again, quite efficient for the system.
- bravetraveler 1y ago... but trinkets! FOMO! Socially-acceptable welfare! This industry is so wasteful that I'm convinced productivity only matters when looking to fire someone. Otherwise, Animal Farm.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoIt is wasteful. But it only is wasteful if you look at it from the valuation of human utility. For technological advancement, the system is quite efficient. It's just that we're not the priority.
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- bravetraveler 1y agoWe achieve... something, to be sure. I maintain it's more 'control' than 'progress'. Looking at the technological advancement from a human utility perspective... opting out as circumstance allows seems reasonable. I still live like it's 2004. Computer room and everything. What's an AdTech? /s
- moomoo11 1y agoAnd then what? What’s there to do? By that logic we would all be playing pixelated Doom, carrying Walkman around, and smoking inside restaurants.
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- vouaobrasil 1y agoGo out and observe and enjoy nature, enjoy good food, the company of lots of friends, etc. I wouldn't mind a world where people had more time to do that, if it meant I had to carry around a Walkman or go to live concerts... Of course, not all innovation is bad. Banning smoking in restaurants does not require technology to restrict it...
- ashoeafoot 1y agoTons of people do not have anything on that list thanks to the social implants and if we are honest cant have it ever again in a world with 8 billion. So why not stop pretending that the idealizations of the past is a viable alternative. Its empty appartments, games, drugs and loneliness on UBI, that would be the outcome.
- vouaobrasil 1y ago> ts empty appartments, games, drugs and loneliness on UBI, that would be the outcome. Alright then, if that's really the foregone conclusion, then what's the point of existence? Should we not try and make things better by any means necessary?
- aspenmayer 1y ago> > ts empty appartments, games, drugs and loneliness on UBI, that would be the outcome. > Alright then, if that's really the foregone conclusion, then what's the point of existence? Should we not try and make things better by any means necessary? That's the pertinent question, and I don't have an answer that can adjudicate the dispute, but I can humbly help you formulate the choice as one between Leviathan or oblivion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ophuls#Leviathan_or_oblivion?,_1973 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ophuls#Leviathan_or_ob... > In his contribution, "Leviathan or Oblivion?", Ophuls wrote on the political and economical implications of environmental problems. His main argument was that "because of the tragedy of the commons, environmental problems cannot be solved through cooperation...and the rationale for government with major coercive powers is overwhelming." According to Ophuls "reforming a corrupt people is a Herculean task," which only leaves us with the choice of becoming a leviathan or oblivion. > Eckersley (1992) argued that, "...although Ophuls has since moderated his position by placing a greater emphasis on the need for self restraint than on the need for external coercion, he continues to maintain that the latter must be resorted to if calls for the former are unsuccessful." The sobering realization that others smarter and earlier than I am have seen this change coming over the horizon and have warned us heedlessly leads me to believe that we must be the change we wish to see, and that change must happen socially, culturally, and politically. Ours must be a human revolution toward society, not withdrawing from it. We must encourage and embrace the humanity in ourselves and in each other, and seek to lift others up more than we seek to tear others down. Hate can't drive out hate; only love can do that. We must love each other more than we hate each other. Love will guide us to our salvation.
- sampton 1y agoPeople say that until they are asked to pay more and earn less.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoWell, I had a high-paying job, six figures. But that six-figures came with less freedom, higher-paced work, life bureacracy, and I wasn't happy. I had no time or mental space to just sit and think. Probably the least happy I was in my entire life. So I quit. Now, I do live a slower-paced life, and earn very little. But I'm the happiest I've ever been. But YMMV I guess.
- hkt 1y agoOut of interest, how much capital did you accrue during that time? Mortgage free and a good pension seems to be the bar for voluntarily adopting a slower pace of life.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoNot a lot, lol. I don't even own property, and my pension will be a very small pittance. The goal is to hopefully make enough through independent projects to make it work. And if North American becomes too expensive, then Plan B is to move to a cheaper part of the world, much cheaper. Less infrastructure there, but what're ya going to do? Can't have everything in life, and you've only got one :)
- spwa4 1y agoOut of the 2 things asked for: paying more while earning less, paying more is the more critical of them ...
- lurking_swe 1y agothere are many many 6 figure jobs that don’t require working more than > 40 hours a week. Bureaucracy is hard to avoid though, unless you’re at a startup, but then you’re working all the time lol. For me personally, lack of money early in my career caused me _far_ greater daily stress than bureaucracy at work. Not needing to budget daily purchases? now that’s low stress.
- whatshisface 1y agoEfficiency improvements tend not to create more leisure time, because one person working eight hours a day remains more efficient than two people each working four hours a day. The reasons behind this are communication and training overheads. If AI leads to a world where people don't really have to know anything to do their jobs - just provide high-level judgements that LLMs seem farther away from than they are from accuracy, or if they could somehow keep the human beings out of meetings, the forces keeping labor concentrated could abate. On the other hand, if AI accuracy limitations drive the labor demand even further towards expertise, and if making tasks higher-level raises the communication requirements rather than somehow reducing them, the preference for having a few people work 80-hour weeks while twice as many people remain unemployed will become even stronger.
- danaris 1y ago> Efficiency improvements tend not to create more leisure time, because one person working eight hours a day remains more efficient than two people each working four hours a day. Efficiency improvements tend not to create more leisure time because the gains all go to the people at the top. Just like they have for 40 years.
- gruez 1y ago>Just like they have for 40 years. Taking that at face value, what happened before 40 years ago? There was unimaginable growth in per-person GDP, so people could have plausibly kicked back and relaxed rather than toiling in factories.
- bbuut 1y agoWell for one, no computers collating every persons value to the economy to buy and sell as and manipulate through targeted effort Credit system didn’t exist, which conveniently grandfathered in all the Bloomberg, Trump, and other old money …obviously inheritance made them geniuses who deserved it Basically Boomers came of age 40 years ago and needed something to do. So the 80-90 year olds of the day handed them all the power. I mean come on. Do we really need to circumlocute the cause? Why the old rich people writing the rules and always winning is suspicious af still?
- senko 1y agoOh that's easy, just move to any small Mediterranean island.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoNot exactly easy, because first you have to make enough money to do so. And to do that, you'll likely be stuck in a grind of competing to be the most efficient. Adn even if you can do that in a short period of time, a sufficient number of people doing that will just fuel the system as usual.
- energy123 1y agoI feel like this mixes up good things (efficiency improvements -> more prosperity) with bad things (late-stage capitalism stuff like gamified apps)
- vouaobrasil 1y agoEven efficiency improvements only help up to a point. Just because making things more efficient increased propserity at one point, doesn't mean they will continue to do so. In fact, the very crossing of that point of diminishing returns is what fuels the late-stage capitalism you refer to.
- danaris 1y agoHonestly, I would say that the causality is the reverse. Late-stage capitalism is enabled by the 4+ decades of the very wealthy taking all the gains from increased efficiency, which gives them the power to turn it into a feedback loop. Our current situation is not an inevitable and natural outgrowth of the improved productivity of the late 20th century: it is specifically caused by policy changes (starting) under Reagan that allowed for more consolidation, less care for the common good, and more focus on personal self-aggrandizement.
- vouaobrasil 1y agoWell, you definitely have a point there. The causality is less clear than I implied for sure with regard to the connection between late-stage capitalism and efficiency.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- bugsMarathon88 1y ago[flagged]
- pyman 1y agoI'm in favour of countries regulating US exports, social media, tobacco, weapons, AI, and porn included. I'm sure those living in the US won't agree with me and will be against such regulations, since they don't benefit their companies and that's fine, everyone has to protect their own interests.
- bugsMarathon88 1y ago[flagged]
- pyman 1y agoI was echoing the words of EU regulators, who've already imposed heavy regulations on US weapons manufacturers, pharma companies, social media, AI and now porn. By the way, these goods and services don't represent freedom to the rest of the world. In fact, the US is seen as a protectionist country that promotes neoliberalism while imposing tight regulations to foreign companies.
- lm28469 1y agoYou're right, I'll keep buying cheap shit on aliexpress to bring freedom to the Uyghurs child slaves chasing the most efficient way to weave t-shirts
- Dig1t 1y agoThere should be a new modern-day version of the Amish, where we freeze technology at the 1999 level. Amish 2.0
- mensetmanusman 1y agoThose in poverty would rather people expand the economy so they can be lifted out of poverty to have time to focus on the smaller things.