Here is another concept central to this discussion -- There are no permanent solutions in technology, economics or social policy.
Take a Watson class supercomputer. Such a thing would be impossible with 19th century Babbage computer technology. In 1970 it would have been extraordinarily expensive, wasteful and impractical. It might have taken money and electricity on the scale of the Manhattan Project. That would an unjustified use of resources. Now, of course, it can be made at a modest cost. A few generations from now, everyone will have a Watson class computer in their cell phone. Take a social policy such as universal national health care. This was not necessary in the 19th century, because health care cost practically nothing. Most of the time, when a person got seriously ill, the doctors could do nothing. You lived or died by the whim of nature. As medicine improved, the cost began to increase. Still, in 1963, President Kennedy's child was born and died a few days later from infant respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS). The hospital bill was small, because there was nothing the doctors could do to save the child -- even the child of the President. Nowadays, a child in that condition can be saved, but it costs tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Medical costs have gone out of control partly *because the technology works so well*. By the late 20th century, it became possible to cure a wide range of diseases and to prolong old age by years or decades, but the financial cost was going through the roof. So right now, in this era of history, we need to spend a lot of money on healthcare, and it often bankrupts families. It threatens to bankrupt the whole economy. So we need social policies do deal with it. But it does not follow that we will need these policies a hundred years from now. We can predict that the cost will stabilize. Medical technology will eventually stop improving by leaps and bounds. Instruments now covered by patents will go into the public domain. Manufacturing techniques will improve, and costs will fall. Things like kidney dialysis machines are much cheaper than they used to be. Many nursing tasks will be done by robots. I predict that many forms of surgery will eventually be done by robots. More diseases may be diagnosed or even treated at home. Self-testing at home has already made progress, and it may become far more sophisticated. We already have things like blood pressure, blood glucose test kits and pregnancy tests. Instant AIDS tests are being developed. Much more will follow. I predict that decades from now the cost of healthcare will stabilize and even decline as a percent of the GDP. Perhaps our social policies can then be adjusted. We need policies that fit this era, these conditions, and the medical technology we have now. Not what we had in 19th century, and not what we will have in the 22nd century. There are no permanent solutions, and there is no permanent moral obligation or moral imperative. People nowadays say "healthcare is a right." I agree. It should be considered a human right now, in our time, in our circumstances. It would be absurd to say that in 1870 because healthcare as we know it did not exist. It will probably be absurd to say that in the 22nd century because healthcare will be more or less free, except in rare cases with extreme diseases. People in first world countries not go around nowadays saying "safe drinking water is a right" because everyone agrees, and because safe drinking water cost society practically nothing. Except for a few places such as Flint, MI, everyone takes safe drinking water for granted, and no one worries about the cost. Healthcare will be the same in the 22nd century. I hope that a basic income will be the same this century. - Jed
