The sole point of AI is to devalue people and their skills. Any futurist image of a work free utopia is just an oasis level mirage used to dupe people into walking into the meat grinder.
I have hope for post-scarcity communism — or, rather had. If the greed of the plutocratic class wasn’t so severe they’d rather let the global ecology die off and let humanity run out of water than actually act to sustain the society and infrastructure that allows them to flourish, then maybe we’d have a chance to see it.
But then we might collectively recognize aristocracy as a catastrophic existential risk that we need to not only separate from their ill-gotten riches, but assure such a class never forms again.
Once they’re done plundering the world, they won’t exist, but then neither will the rest of humanity.
There is the argument of the ‘bend not break’ model which I think is admirable. It is the path we should take but are unlikely to do so. The pessimistic take is that we don’t avoid the problem, we have to endure through it. Basically the entire capital enterprise crumbles under its own weigh as the resources to maintain it diminish. This is a rough path down but there is a bright side. We won’t be extinguished but we shall be greatly diminished. The meek shall inherit the earth.
Think of the Lodgepole pine cones. They are the seed of the tree that have sap so dense that you cannot break into them. And yet when the forest fire comes through, the heat of the destruction melts the sap and they are free to seed. I am starting to feel the is the path through. You cannot prevent the disaster but you can provide a parachute on the way down so that something can be rebuilt on the other side.
The stories of the greedy are going to be the myth of the future and they will not be kind to the people of our times.
This is why I talk about degrowth, I don’t believe we will do it by choice but by force. But it is best that we have a structure in place for the worst of the fall.
The sole point of AI is to devalue people and their skills. Any futurist image of a work free utopia is just an oasis level mirage used to dupe people into walking into the meat grinder.
I have hope for post-scarcity communism — or, rather had. If the greed of the plutocratic class wasn’t so severe they’d rather let the global ecology die off and let humanity run out of water than actually act to sustain the society and infrastructure that allows them to flourish, then maybe we’d have a chance to see it.
But then we might collectively recognize aristocracy as a catastrophic existential risk that we need to not only separate from their ill-gotten riches, but assure such a class never forms again.
Once they’re done plundering the world, they won’t exist, but then neither will the rest of humanity.
There is the argument of the ‘bend not break’ model which I think is admirable. It is the path we should take but are unlikely to do so. The pessimistic take is that we don’t avoid the problem, we have to endure through it. Basically the entire capital enterprise crumbles under its own weigh as the resources to maintain it diminish. This is a rough path down but there is a bright side. We won’t be extinguished but we shall be greatly diminished. The meek shall inherit the earth.
Think of the Lodgepole pine cones. They are the seed of the tree that have sap so dense that you cannot break into them. And yet when the forest fire comes through, the heat of the destruction melts the sap and they are free to seed. I am starting to feel the is the path through. You cannot prevent the disaster but you can provide a parachute on the way down so that something can be rebuilt on the other side.
The stories of the greedy are going to be the myth of the future and they will not be kind to the people of our times.
This is why I talk about degrowth, I don’t believe we will do it by choice but by force. But it is best that we have a structure in place for the worst of the fall.