Are we all fucked?

[astfgyl]

You're surely right there.

I wonder what it would take for something like that to happen though? Surely anyone looking at the basic explanation would think "Sounds good", is it simply a matter of exposing enough people to the idea? It's hard to argue against the principle. Maybe if it was introduced in stages, like the whole world agrees to manage one resource on that basis, using some sort of cryptocurrency to manage it to see how it works out and maybe it knocks on from there or something. Obviously it wouldn't be that simple it'd have to start somewhere

[Kurt Cocaine]

Sounds too good to ever be implemented.

But that's the thing, we're going to have to invariably go with something that sounds too good to be true because the alternatives aren't really there. Technology is the key alright and the whole world is going to have to run together on this one.

[Eoin McLove]

I agree that technology is likely to provide the answer, but it'll probably come from way out in leftfield.

[astfgyl]

A quick google reveals the Venus Project and the video is very interesting> https://www.thevenusproject.com/resource-based-economy/

His other videos there regarding his thoughts on depression are interesting food for thought. A lot of us probably have thoughts like that of our own around that sort of thing though but nevertheless worth a listen

[mugz]

You're surely right there.

I wonder what it would take for something like that to happen though? Surely anyone looking at the basic explanation would think "Sounds good", is it simply a matter of exposing enough people to the idea? It's hard to argue against the principle. Maybe if it was introduced in stages, like the whole world agrees to manage one resource on that basis, using some sort of cryptocurrency to manage it to see how it works out and maybe it knocks on from there or something. Obviously it wouldn't be that simple it'd have to start somewhere

currency has already always been a cryptocurrency; the nature of all currency is just symbols on top of computation, if it's coins on exchange rates, paper notes on labour offered or completed, agreements that things mean something on the basis we agree to believe other things mean things.

that's why they used gold or state-backed scrips with exciting squiggles in fine ink etc, then they removed the gold standard, then they removed money tied to cultures and nations, so you got the euro in all its futility, then they brought in debit cards, then they bring in the state as sole provider of essential purchase tokens, then only smartphones with state registered sim cards to receive/use state credits, and of course the next stage will be integration of smart capability into the human body itself, total integration of mental and physical, total integration of thought and experience, virtual and real.

at some point they'll use all that as a soft reveal for us having always been trapped in a blended reality for unknown years already, whatever time is.

time is money!

the scary thing is within 15 years none of the young people of that future will think anything of it other than why we spent 12 decades 'watching from afar' on some screen, when the screen is you, is everything around you already.

it's all a gradual push to the abandonment of the material completely, to become completely computational.

[astfgyl]

Terry Pratchett's Making Money is a decent satire of the idea of money. It doesn't go quite as far as your description though. But yes there is nothing to truly back up money in its' current state and that is a system just waiting to collapse. That is the argument for the resource based economy which as pointed out makes too much sense to ever take off although I'd enjoy my thoughts on that being proved wrong. The upheaval involved is difficult to imagine though.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Universal basic income could be a first step towards a resource based economy. It's basically a way of setting the baseline as "we have enough resources to feed and house everyone, so let's do that." There'd be a long way still to go after that, but.

[astfgyl]

Good point. I was reading about a town in the U.S. which experimented with UBI in the latter part of 2019 and the results were fascinating and really put forward a great case for the idea. If you haven't seen it yourself, I'll dig out the link for you. But yeah, something like that would be a great move towards the ideal.

Edit: Stockton, CA was the town. Bit of a write up here https://www.businessinsider.com/stockton-basic-income-trial-results-success-2019-10?r=US&IR=T but of course there are many more to be found.

[Pedrito]

The universal basic income thing isn't the worst idea ever if, I suppose, there was some sort of way to stop people from just lying around eating pizzas all day and wanking. Historically speaking or even in terms of evolution, I think we are living in constantly changing circumstances and the idea of 'the worker' I would imagine is quite a new idea.

Before that you had big shots and slaves and variations of that. So this idea that every person should have a career that fills their existence up and makes them happy and even defines them as a person is quite a new concept really. (I'm riffing a bit here and open to corrections). So zooming out and looking at society from a distance, you could easily see how basic income and automation could be a really freeing and revolutionary idea. I think the problem arrives when you zoom back in and look at the amount of donkeys out there that probably need somewhere to go everyday so as to stop them throwing their shite at eachother in the streets.

That said, I think we are probably moving in that direction. If we can hold off on nuking eachother and somehow curb the environmental issue, it's not unreasonable to think we could be living like that in maybe 100 or 200 years. I doubt I'll be seeing it in my lifetime.

[mugz]

The universal basic income thing isn't the worst idea ever if, I suppose, there was some sort of way to stop people from just lying around eating pizzas all day and wanking. Historically speaking or even in terms of evolution, I think we are living in constantly changing circumstances and the idea of 'the worker' I would imagine is quite a new idea.

Before that you had big shots and slaves and variations of that. So this idea that every person should have a career that fills their existence up and makes them happy and even defines them as a person is quite a new concept really. (I'm riffing a bit here and open to corrections). So zooming out and looking at society from a distance, you could easily see how basic income and automation could be a really freeing and revolutionary idea. I think the problem arrives when you zoom back in and look at the amount of donkeys out there that probably need somewhere to go everyday so as to stop them throwing their shite at eachother in the streets.

That said, I think we are probably moving in that direction. If we can hold off on nuking eachother and somehow curb the environmental issue, it's not unreasonable to think we could be living like that in maybe 100 or 200 years. I doubt I'll be seeing it in my lifetime.

UBI is kinda funny- it ties in with questions of population reduction, the purpose of human existence, human lifespan...and up to and including our generation, work was economically unnecessary, but socially necessary to a certain point. The lower downs were bought out by and large by the time of the victorian slum clearances, and in ireland the urban clearances of the 1910-1970s, but of course if you had anything like an IQ you'd get trapped into slavery of various kinds, just to keep you from causing trouble. Your leaving cert was just to entrap you, your postgrad was to make you too sure of yourself and in some countries beholden to state debt, your job was a job for people who were bought out decades ago, but you want to be a 'professional' so they give you slavework, but it's 'middle class'  slave work.

So middle class replacement is afoot for the last 15 years or so, and with AI and automation and 3D printing as well as all the matter replication, gene manipulation tech they've been using since the late 90s, it won't be UBI as universal basic income, it'll be a small cohort of 'necessary' humans competing for universal basic incarnation- we'll be ghosts turning up in 'life' once an aeon. If that sounds familiar, it should because that's where we were before say the past 600 years we can actually verify. So we live in a time where our social problems are sci-fi problems.

[Eoin McLove]

I don't understand most of that.  What is your overall point? Is it good that people will be freed from this so called slavery? I mean,  that's a utopian idea but I'm not sure how it will work in reality,  considering we are,  whether we like it or not,  wired to work (most of us, anyway).

I think having a sense of purpose and usefulness in society is a simple human need.  Reverting to an agrarian culture, or some bucolic existence where we become iron mongers, craftsmen, small scale farmers,  artists,  musicians,  philosophers etc is a wonderful notion,  but completely unrealistic. 

Technology is here and it's not going away.  I think it's not all bad either (this conversation is a case in point), but I do think it has its sinister sides too.  I have no idea what the future holds but dystopia seems as unlikely to me as romantic pastoral reversion.  Things will probably plod on,  jobs will gradually change,  our generation will become the dinosaurs our grandparents became and our kids will adapt to whatever the future society looks like. 

If my pyramid ends up in the middle of a roundabout for hovercrafts it'll at least give me something to give out about while my mummified remains slowly turn to dust.

[Emphyrio]

You'll have a nice soundtrack anyway.

[mugz]

I don't understand most of that.  What is your overall point? Is it good that people will be freed from this so called slavery? I mean,  that's a utopian idea but I'm not sure how it will work in reality,  considering we are,  whether we like it or not,  wired to work (most of us, anyway).

I think having a sense of purpose and usefulness in society is a simple human need.  Reverting to an agrarian culture, or some bucolic existence where we become iron mongers, craftsmen, small scale farmers,  artists,  musicians,  philosophers etc is a wonderful notion,  but completely unrealistic. 

Technology is here and it's not going away.  I think it's not all bad either (this conversation is a case in point), but I do think it has its sinister sides too.  I have no idea what the future holds but dystopia seems as unlikely to me as romantic pastoral reversion.  Things will probably plod on,  jobs will gradually change,  our generation will become the dinosaurs our grandparents became and our kids will adapt to whatever the future society looks like. 

If my pyramid ends up in the middle of a roundabout for hovercrafts it'll at least give me something to give out about while my mummified remains slowly turn to dust.

you've more or less summed it up there. I'm not saying I like/want any of this to happen, but the rate of change going forward from now will make the changes from the 30s to the 90s look miniscule, I mean from 00 to now was somehow a stalled little mini-epoch, the same everything, just more finesse/pointless complexity. From say 4 months ago onwards you'll be in the middle of constant high speed evolution, dephysicalisation, posthumanism, changes to human brain structure and biochemistry.. it's gonna be different from when they babyboomers hung around for 7 decades, buying the latest 1000 euro smartphone, wearing 'young' clothes etc... The tragedy is we won't get the chance to hang around enjoying the 'fruits' of progress like the previous 2 generations. We won't live as long as they did, nor will most of us want to.

we're the new version of the cohort that protested industrial weaving technology, ill-loom-ination etc

so there is no biological contagion, but there is a really stunningly powerful agent of reality-change.

so, basically I only joined out of moral duty to the handful of people who are genuinely afraid of something which isn't biologically real, but by which measure is absolutely terrifying precisely because it's everything/anything.

there's an analogue to all this 80 years ago with the telecommunications boom of the mid 20th century. If you think how quaint all the Paris intellectuals look now in those black and white photos, but they were the bleeding edge at the time.

in the blink of an eye, we're now quaint but with no money, assets, social power or political influence, those of you with kids will be unable to relate to them, families will split apart along lines of those who are digital natives, versus those of us with any connection to the 20th century.

we'll all be begging for death/ready for death in the next 10-15 years max, UNLIKE the prior maybe 3 generations where lifespan increased and desire for life was maintained long after those people should have died. We're the hinge generation, but as much as we are now obsolete, if you have kids they will latch onto the new trajectory and like the generations before us will expand in line with history. They'll get a century lifespan, we won't and won't want it.

[Pedrito]

The dole in Ireland used to be used as a type of base Universal Income in the same way it's used in that Stockton piece. Here in Spain the system still exists to quite a degree, whereby you might get enough from the dole to actually allow you to work part time or even have a job in a bar or have your small piece of land or whatever. The problem was when the beancounters came in and started making sure if you were on the dole you basically shouldn't have a job. Council housing and council estates didn't have the stigma attached to them that they do now.

[mugz]

The dole in Ireland used to be used as a type of base Universal Income in the same way it's used in that Stockton piece. Here in Spain the system still exists to quite a degree, whereby you might get enough from the dole to actually allow you to work part time or even have a job in a bar or have your small piece of land or whatever. The problem was when the beancounters came in and started making sure if you were on the dole you basically shouldn't have a job. Council housing and council estates didn't have the stigma attached to them that they do now.

the whole housing thing's another great psyop. they know what buttons to push, what to deliberately run badly to cause mental stress and feelings of hopelessness.

as to why- maybe we're in hell or limbo, there's no economic reason for most of the nonsense that goes on such as bad planning, high rents, empty houses, ghost estates, all the rest.

same with medical care, once you realise it's all a bizarre charade, it becomes easier to disengage. they just just spent 2 months showing us all nothing we thought was important actually exists, so when the 'get ireland back to work' stuff starts coming out in the media, maybe people will start to question things a bit more.

the tv show the good place is fun in this regard.