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My main concerns: 1. When such wealth is possible through autonomous means, how can the earth survive such unprecedented demands on its natural resources? 2.
by steve_adams_86 1y ago
My main concerns:
1. When such wealth is possible through autonomous means, how can the earth survive such unprecedented demands on its natural resources?
2. Should I believe that someone with more wealth (and as such, more power) than I have would not use that power to overwhelm me? Isn't my demand on resources only going to get in their way? Why would they allow me to draw on resources as well?
3. It seems like the answer to both of these concerns lies in government, but no government I'm aware of has really begun to answer these questions. Worse yet, what if governments disagree on how to implement these strategies in a global economy? Competition could become an intractable drain on the earth and humans' resources. Essentially, it opens up the possibility of war at incalculable scales.
- lateforwork 1y ago> someone with more wealth Well in trekonomics [1], citizens are equal in terms of material wealth because scarcity has been eliminated. Wealth, in the conventional sense, does not exist; instead, the "wealth" that matters is human capital—skills, abilities, reputation, and status. The reward in this society comes not from accumulation of material goods but from intangible rewards such as honor, glory, intellectual achievement, and social esteem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics
- steve_adams_86 1y agoThat sounds great. Presently we still experience scarcity due to the limitations of earth's resources, though.
- beeflet 1y agoWhat use is human skill, abilities, reputation, and status when human labor has been totally outmoded machines? Trekonomics seems like a totally backwards way of approaching post-scarcity by starting with a fictional setting. You might as well prepare yourself for the Star Wars economy.
- lateforwork 1y agoHumans have an innate desire to be loved and respected, and this won’t change even if jobs cease to exist.
- beeflet 1y agoAll life has a desire to exist, but that doesn't prevent extinction.
- steve_adams_86 1y agoThere are billions of people who essentially live in varying degrees of servitude today, and they desire love and respect. Other humans ensure they stay in servitude, though. Why would that be any different in the future? Why wouldn't it be worse?
- dtauzell 1y agoThe rich will be the people who control the finite resources. If you have land that can be mined you will be rich if you can protect it and sell the thing that is actually limited.
- dzjkb 1y agoThese concerns are already perfectly applicable to the current state of the world, no? More planetary boundaries keep getting crossed due to unnecessarily large resource usage, the poorest people don't have access (even though they could) to the resources necessary to survive...
- steve_adams_86 1y agoThat's exactly why I'm concerned. It seems to me that we will only exacerbate the problems we have today, not alleviate them. We would need dramatic breakthroughs in energy technologies, but also... I don't know, some means of acquiring raw resources which doesn't strain the planet.
- overvale 1y agoI’m not so sure access to scarce resources = wealth. Wealth can be an abundance of valuable things that are not scarce.
- metabagel 1y agoPlus, many billionaires fund campaigns to spread the ideology of a cripplingly limited government.