I was hoping we could evolve sociologically in step with technology,
that implies an intelligent management infrastructure that educates and
motivates free agents to make contributions to the works of humanity.
Suitably educated in the workings of organisms (especially how they
relate and compare to man), the arts, sciences, elimination of
destitution, poverty, mental illnesses, the list goes on.. It requires
that we manage things intelligently, learn from mistakes and move
forward. If this progress happened in a 100 years I think we would
likely reduce our population to half within the next hundred, there is
nothing logical about reproducing ad infinitum and by then the social
costs should be obvious enough, added to the lack of need as we extend
the human lifespan. I think we have a large potential in voluntary acts.
Who is pie in the sky now? :p
On 10/3/2012 5:57 PM, archytas wrote:
If workers aren't needed for work, what will happen to them? The
animal and plant world answer is generally a 'return to nutrients'.
On 3 Oct, 09:57, Shekila Tieschmaker<[email protected]>
wrote:
how do you get out this group thing ?
________________________________
From: James<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye thought experiments
Well it is far worse (or better depending on who is looking at it), many of the
older trades and crafts-people I've met had an appreciation for seeing their
work as an artform. That would be my robot heaven, working toward a world where
we can all pursue meaning and purposeful work without the burden of resource
scarcity. What would it matter that someone wants to be a plumber or architect
in a day when those positions are obsolete, if that is pursuing meaning, it
would matter little more than what restaurant someone likes to the next guy. In
a world that valued human contribution it might be a plus, there is a name
associated with the foundation of my home, or certain furniture or I tweaked my
engine to respond exactly the way I like in a curve, finding a way to shield a
planet from gamma radiation, optimizing resource allocations in complex
evolving environments from nanotech on up to transport vessels for
interplanetary mining and settlement, etc..
Back to the present time and scale there is the matter of plotting a course of
innovation by meeting challenges.
Laziness might be a challenge, and frailty, I haven't met many people who have had to
wash clothes in a bathtub complain about the advancement of the washing machine, or get
whimsical about enduring ailments we've found remedies or therapies for. We seem to be in
a transitional stage, not quite coming to grips with the world we could create.
Psychology is important to survival, nonproductive time as some call it, I eye some of
them as suspect sociopaths. Being motivated can be very rewarding, it is too bad that out
word for meaningfully motivated is "naive". I'm taking the long way 'round with
this.
On 9/19/2012 5:56 PM, archytas wrote:
Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate
the nature of things. Thought experimenting often takes place when the
method of variation is employed in entertaining imaginative
suppositions. They are used for diverse reasons in a variety of areas,
including economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and physics.
Most often thought experiments are communicated in narrative form,
sometimes through media like a diagram. Thought experiments should be
distinguished from thinking about experiments, from merely imagining
any experiments to be conducted outside the imagination, and from
psychological experiments with thoughts. They should also be
distinguished from counterfactual reasoning in general, as they seem
to require an experimental element.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/
One I like is the notion of robot heaven. It's easy enough to imagine
a time when machines grow our food, build our shelter and do our
work. The interesting stuff comes in thinking what this would mean
for wealth distribution and the nature of society. What work would be
left to do? One can also wonder what place any of our work ethics
would have in such a society. There may be some deconstructive effect
on just what current work ideologies are in place for.
One of the great improvements technology brought to my life is more or
less never having to go into a bank. The only real innovations in
banking are the ATM and electronic banking. This kind of technology
and similar in agriculture and industry fundamentally reduce the
amount of human effort to grow and make what we need. We are in
partial state of robot heaven.
Our ideologies are not up to speed. Real unemployment is massive and
education does little to provide job skills. We are sold life-styles
and products by insane advertising. Job creation seems to be in
perverse areas like financial services or bringing back attended gas-
pumps. With more efficient production we should be able to afford a
bigger social sector and I can't for the life of me understand why we
allow competition through crap wages and conditions.
A great deal of what we pay for could be available more or less free.
Educational content and utility banking are examples - these are areas
that could be ratinalised like agriculture and manufacturing.
Millions of jobs would go. We should be asking why jobs are so
central to out thinking on wealth distribution and how we might
encourage work without the rat race.
--
--
