Submitted by Gari_305 t3_z7swo5 in Futurology
ajabardar1 t1_iy8238x wrote
it will take us to a de facto post-scarcity society. the amount of resources in immediate vicinity of earth will fundamentally change our way of viewing property.
it will also create space industrialization thus leading the way to levels of human comfort that we can't even imagine, all without destroying our environment.
it will *be a net positive for all...
edit: added a word, laptop getting weird today.
ScaleneWangPole t1_iy82e51 wrote
They said the same thing about the industrial revolution. How's that going?
ajabardar1 t1_iy834e6 wrote
way better than before, that is a fact. it has problems, yeah. but by every metric possible the industrial revolution was a net positive for all. well at least for humankind.
dookiehat t1_iy9eb70 wrote
That is why we make less money than our parents did, because the world is objectively better. Also why authoritarianism is on the rise around the world, and why homelessness has been rising since 2008 in western economies. Elon Musk has plans to make starlink spell out “eat poop, earth” so we can always see how quirky he is. Also you’ll never own anything because we are in post scarcity so why would you need to own anything that a corporation can’t own and manage for you, it is so much easier that way!! Yes, the boomers are extending their lifespans and you have to live in one of our podrooms in one of our leisure campuses, where you can use new technologies all day long and forget being lonely, you’ll have lots of neighbors! Like the good ol days in college when you saw people irl. you don’t have to worry about those big person jobs that are scary with all sorts of responsibility because your parents can do them for another 60 years now while they add a wing to their suburban boomer palace that you visit with less frequency as they always vote against the leisure class, that’s us, but one day you think maybe they’ll come around. The future is objectively better, that’s a fact
ajabardar1 t1_iy9fz8g wrote
i mean, come on. you think before there was less authoritarianism? are you trolling?
dookiehat t1_iyat4zr wrote
I’m not, you should read capitalist realism by Mark Fisher. Honestly i feel like I’m a serf in one of the most opulent periods in history. Social progress and technological progress are not the same thing and when technological progress happens that doesn’t mean social progress happens.
ajabardar1 t1_iyau97b wrote
yeah being a serf is such a recent possibility.
Uvtha- t1_iycb501 wrote
The fact that there are still classes and injustice doesn't mean that there's been no social progress made, there quite obviously has been. You live a far more secure, socially free, and politically relevant position than any 17th century peasant, and to say otherwise is pretty silly.
dookiehat t1_iycgpuw wrote
HA HA HA HA, you have no clue what you are talking about dude. I’m about an inch from homelessness. You can’t apply an objective measure to subjective sentiment or individuals and say things are objectively better so therefore my feeling is invalid. Your conception of what objectively better means is purposefully ignoring subjectivity, which i claim has worsened in quality of life in the past few decades. People feel worse about life therefore it IS worse.
There is something toxic about the world right now that i feel like everyone can feel the underlying tension but they pretend things are dormant or that nothing can go wrong. Tell me in twenty years the world is better and that it hasn’t been the most chaotic disorienting upheaval of social order you’ve ever seen.
Uvtha- t1_iyd24lz wrote
I mean, yes, you can apply objective measurements to peoples subjective experiences, that's the whole reason we make an effort to gather empirical data rather than just relying one how we feel. Obviously people can have a flawed perspective, and also some people will be on the bottom end of the bell curve in any situation. Neither of which are invalid positions when in regard to individual... but when you are trying to express the general state of the world it's not useful to try and frame it through the lenses of one persons subjective experience, you know?
It sucks to hear about your situation, mine's not very good either. That said I know that my life isn't the only or even anything near the most average example of life in the modern age in general.
I in no way think that either the world is dormant or that nothing can go wrong, quite the contrary. The world is full of injustice and inequality, and there are very real looming existential crises... That said, just because it sucks doesn't mean it's not an improvement on the past. Most of human history was really really horrible especially for people in the lower classes.
ScaleneWangPole t1_iy86dzb wrote
I don't think that's a fact. It depends on your definition of better. Have their been technical advances and innovations that make life better? Sure, but at a cost to society, the health of the planet, and betrayal of the human condition.
Cottagers in the late 1700s had a great thing going until economics forced them into pauperism due to not being able to compete with big manufacturing plants. Maybe they didn't have many physical items, but they lived a simple life near family and local communities. Their needs were met. They didn't have cell phones or access to the worlds knowledge at their fingertips, but they didn't get those things in cramped cities either living to make some rich guy more money.
ajabardar1 t1_iy874u9 wrote
cottagers in the late 1700 where specifically? and what percentage of population where these 1700s cottagers? 0.001%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%?
society is way better in every metric possible. that is just a fact. ted, please, your manifesto was wrong. idealism is not a metric.
Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8ffzc wrote
>society is way better in every metric possible.
People back then had enough kids to prevent population decline, that's one catastrophic metric right there.
BKGPrints t1_iy94u04 wrote
No it's not. There are indications that prosperity leads to lower birth rates. A lower birth rate is not necessarily a bad thing.
It took thousands of years for the population to increase to two billion by 1900. It took less than a century to get to six billion and then another twenty years to get to eight billion.
During that time, most of the population growth was in impoverished countries in Asia, Africa and Indonesia.
As the economies of many of those countries have improved, so has the birth rate decline. But at the same time, recognize that a significant part of the population decline is because many of the population is just getting older and dying out.
And to support that poverty increases birth rates. The population for Nigeria, which more than 90% of the population is considered to live in poverty, is expected to double from it's current population of 210 million to more than 400 million by 2050.
ajabardar1 t1_iy8kreb wrote
less kids die today. i guess if you just measure quantity yeah, you are correct. if you want to measure quality, infant death is a great metric.
1015267 t1_iy87faj wrote
They also died of paper cuts and mama/aunt sally was buried out back because she died in childbirth. Uncle Reg was locked in the upstairs attic because ghosts had sickened his brain.
The whole family had worms and scurvy
ScaleneWangPole t1_iy88swy wrote
There are plenty of people in the US post industrialization still believing in ghosts and sky man and unfortunately eugenics for that matter. But at least they weren't filled with microplastics and their food wasn't poison. They didn't die from the sun or peanuts. We can only sit here and say it's better now because we've robbed the global south thanks to industrialization. These exploited countries aren't gaining from all the innovation that they paid for.
Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8fjjr wrote
>and unfortunately eugenics for that matter.
Eugenics are real, just not very ethical.
1015267 t1_iy89nfb wrote
Ahh so you’re ignorant ignorant, I’ll just be leaving now.
[deleted] t1_iy8d33m wrote
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TheZimmerian t1_iy8c6jf wrote
Just the fact almost nobody in any western nation has to worry about water, food or shelter answers that question for you. The industrial revolutions have also produced for us the tools needed to fix the problems they have caused. For those problems, the industrial revolutions are the cause, but it's the human factor that perpetuates them.
We wouldn't even be having this conversation without the industrial revolutions, because the internet would (likely) not exist in the form it exists today, if at all, and you certainly wouldn't be able to buy a pocket computer more powerful than the one that sent mankind to the Moon for less than 1/3rd of an average month's salary.
Shillbot_9001 t1_iy8frxn wrote
>Just the fact almost nobody in any western nation has to worry about water
Laughs in Flint.
Laughs in 3000 cities with worse water than Flint.
Red_Aurora1917 t1_iy997en wrote
I saw a 10 year old boil water advisory that was still in effect posted in a gas station in rural Canada. This was in cottage country too, plenty of property taxes being paid. If our government won't even fix the water supply for well-off vacationers, there is no hope for the hundreds of reservations and poorer communities without access to clean water.
"Almost nobody" is actually an unacceptable amount of people when you look at the details! And very little is being done to fix it!
On topic: The wealth of space will be snatched up by billionaires and trickled down on our heads from their ivory towers at minimum wage.
TheZimmerian t1_iy9qpxr wrote
Good job taking the sentence completely out of the context of the argument.
>For those problems, the industrial revolutions are the cause, but it's the human factor that perpetuates them.
I never claimed it all to be perfect, I never said there wouldn't be any problems left to solve, looking at the past years there are quite a bunch of problems yet to be solved. I said the human factor is the problem, and not the technology.
The industrial revolutions have drastically improved the standard of living across the board in western nations with every subsequent revolution since the first. To deny that is to be completely disconnected from any semblence of common sense.
BKGPrints t1_iy92is4 wrote
The Industrial Revolution did bring millions billions of individuals out of poverty and increase the quality of life. That's not to say there aren't issues but progress has been made.
Harbinger2001 t1_iy8dlkr wrote
I really doubt we are even close to a post-scarcity society, and even more that space will help get us there. We already have far more resources than we need here on Earth. There is little value in mining and bringing down additional ores from space.
ajabardar1 t1_iy8l8vi wrote
depends on a single factor. do you want humanity to be imprisoned on earth or do you want humanity to colonize space. if you choose earth prison then yes we have more than enough resources. if you choose colonize space then no, we don't have enough resources.
but i enjoy that you said we aren't close to a post-scarcity society, and then you say we have far more resources than we need here on earth at the same time.
Harbinger2001 t1_iy8u9g6 wrote
Colonizing space requires a compelling reason for the colonists to endure the hardships required. Since the resources can’t be profitably repatriated to benefit Earth, there must be some other reason found.
And just because Earth still has vast resources doesn’t make it ‘post-scarcity’ which requires advances in power generation, automation and social structures that have nothing to do with resource availability.
ajabardar1 t1_iy8v819 wrote
why can't the resources be profitable?
astronauts go into space all the time, mostly for human progress.
Harbinger2001 t1_iy97gzl wrote
Fewer than 600 people have been to space. Colonization requires a whole new level of heavy lift capability and a destination worth going to. We are going to have nothing but government funded temporary staffed outposts for the forceable future. For people to permanently move, there needs to be a reason for them to go.
As for the resources, the issue it you have to have a customer for them. The only customers are on Earth and no space-based ore extraction can compete on price. On the flip-side, no Earth based extraction can compete for space construction, but that market will be minuscule in comparison. So it can be profitable- but not if we’re talking ‘benefit to Earth’
ajabardar1 t1_iy99mjg wrote
and how many are at this very moment in line for a chance to go? how many applicants for astronaut does nasa get every year? how many does chinese space agency?
there have been 600 people in space not because lack of willing candidates that is for sure.
depends massively on the future pricing of mining ore on earth. one can even deduce that needed regulatory restrictions on environmental damaging mining operations is a must have if we want to keep the earth habitable for humans.
unless you think everyone should either live in a cave or reduce the number of people by 90%.
BKGPrints t1_iy91qxk wrote
>but i enjoy that you said we aren't close to a post-scarcity society, and then you say we have far more resources than we need here on earth at the same time.<
He's right on that, though. The scarcity that we deal with today is artificial scarcity.
But I disagree with him that there isn't value or opportunity with being in space.
ajabardar1 t1_iy92mns wrote
yes that is the reason i enjoyed it. because its true, we could live in a post-scarcity society right now. but investors must be kept happy, so we don't. kind of spoiled these investors, wouldn't you agree? like babies, they are, to whom we must cater and obey, getting them fatter and fatter by the day.
Red_Aurora1917 t1_iy9aaxq wrote
We will never achieve a post-scarcity society under our current economic model which fundamentally *encourages* artificial scarcity. See: diamonds, housing, and food production to name a few. "post-scarcity" is incompatible with capitalism.
ajabardar1 t1_iy9ds58 wrote
that is a given. unless we fundamentally change our economic model there will be no post-scarcity society. space exploration can help that change of economic model.
[deleted] t1_iy8cxn2 wrote
>de facto post-scarcity society. the amount of resources in immediate vicinity of earth will fundamentally change our way of viewing property
No, it will be a de facto forced artificial scarcity society and nothing about our view of property will change in that those of us down here in the dirt will still be priced out of owning anything significant
[deleted] t1_iy8kt5o wrote
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