Politics for profoundly enhanced human wellbeing
Very interesting thread of discussions. Understand the need for your action David, and I agree – some interesting ideas in too much anger.
And for me, the 20ft caterpillar on the coffee table is the fundamental systemic incompatibility between exchange based values and universal abundance. Compared to resolving the depths of systemic complexity in that issue, the tech issues are trivial. And if it isn’t solved, it is #1 existential level risk.
My #2 issue is I don’t see anyone addressing the exponential implications of what happens when we achieve fully automated systems of production. Currently phytoplankton can achieve it in 1 day. If we achieve it with systems that take 2 weeks to double, we can cover the moon with solar cells in 2 years, and have put enough mass into earth orbit to build large habitats giving us the equivalent surface area we have on earth within another 5 years (though getting fully functioning ecologies would take a couple of decades longer).
[followed by]
Hi Richard,
3% is just a number agreed upon a long time ago for the growth of money supply. When I was a kid my grandfather bought a house for $800, 20 years ago I paid $160,000 for one – those two events were 40 years apart (an average rate of increase of 13% in cost of housing).
The first section I bought cost me 1 month’s income. The section next to mine was sold 2 years ago for 5 year’s income.
What you look at very much determine’s what one sees.
I have many computers, some of which cost very little (the ARM9s, “raspberry pi”s and arduino’s and ESP32s etc). When I started working with computers the one I worked on cost as much as 10 new houses, and there were maybe 100 in this country, now I have more than that in my house and the cheapest cost a few minutes work.
Energy for transport is now expensive. I used to think nothing of driving 60 miles for a burger. Not any more.
