When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the hope is that voters will once again wake up and become engaged, and cause democracy to function better. — Tzeentch
After several decades without major wars, two have begun in the last 2 years. — Tim3003
Ok.I thought a year or two back that our generation may well be remembered as the lucky ones - the ones to live during 'peak earth'. Now it seems to me clearer than ever. — Tim3003
I do think the statistics show there are fewer deaths from war now than historically, but I don't think they support your thesis that there was a war holiday the past couple of decades. — Hanover
Any more positive views of the world's future? — Tim3003
Given (3) accelerating global climate change, (2) persistent proliferation of WMDs and (1) the ascendancy of anti-democratic, reactionary populisms in high-income nations, the near-imminent prospect of 'strong AGI' (capable of automating the strategic infrastructures of global civilization in order to transform the current, unsustainable scarcity economy into a sustainable, post-scarcity circular economy) cannot be realized soon enough.Any more positive views of the world's future? — Tim3003
If there is some global measure of the average standard of living, I wonder if it is flattening off, soon to start declining - for the first time in history(?).
After several decades without major wars, two have begun in the last 2 years. — Tim3003
Any more positive views of the world's future? — Tim3003
The question I have is whether the financial elites would allow it and/ or whether the populace can ever manage to unify itself sufficiently to defy them and their cronies (the politicians). — Janus
What I meant was whether the financial elites would allow control to be handed over to benign "strong AGI". — Janus
They're building luxury bunkers in preparation for "the event". I don't think they have a whole lot of faith in their power to stave it off.I believe they will do everything in their power to stop the collapse of their "house of cards". — Janus
Ten years? Unless the nukes get here first.How much longer can this collapse be staved off?
They're building luxury bunkers in preparation for "the event". I don't think they have a whole lot of faith in their power to stave it off.
How much longer can this collapse be staved off?
Ten years? Unless the nukes get here first. — Vera Mont
Oh, that. I don't expect "financial elites" will "allow" it any more than junkies & drunks "allow" themselves to become addicts or chimps & tigers "allow" themselves to become well-fed captives in municipal zoos. We – cradle-to-grave dependents on 24/7 goods, services & infrastructures – already live inside the internet and there's always a mad-scramble race on to monetize 'ANI' (i.e. deep learning/neural-net systems and agents e.g. ChatGPT, OpenAI, face-recognition surveillance CCTV, Siri, etc) in any and every c/overt way possible. Mass culture has been 'amusing us to brain death' (i.e. cognitive obsolescence) for a century, which ubiquitious – no "off-switch!" – computerization has accelerated the last few decades ... and maybe the computational curve is going vertical – 'strong AGI' running the asylum – just in time to prevent us from bringing down global civilization on our own heads. Will such caretakers (zookeepers) be "benign"? I expect AGI to be no worse to us than our Haves have been to we Have-nots (or nature) for the last half-millennium.What I meant was whether the financial elites would allow control to be handed over to benign "strong AGI". — Janus
On the contrary.Why not. It has to be some time. No defunct empire, no lost civilization thought their NOW had come. But it did. — Vera Mont
That was published 100 years ago. So I guess we have had this "Winter of a Faustian civilization", fall of the West for a century now. — ssu
Optimism just looks so naive and silly — ssu
And pessimism so deep and full of wisdom. — ssu
The end is nigh. — ssu
Thinking that this is the best it will get and everything is downhill from here is an extremely popular, extremely long-standing idea that has been with us actually for Centuries now, if not longer. People find comfort in it. — ssu
But anyway, I do think the statistics show there are fewer deaths from war now than historically, but I don't think they support your thesis that there was a war holiday the past couple of decades. — Hanover
The question I have is whether the financial elites would allow it and/ or whether the populace can ever manage to unify itself sufficiently to defy them and their cronies (the politicians). — Janus
Quite the opposite. Global inequality has been going down the last decade or so, and at a decent clip. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The past decade has shown that those elites are quite happy to rush headlong into the dire effects of climate change as long as they preserve their wealth and power. — Tim3003
and when social structure is in tatters, demand shifts to bread, shoes, antibiotics, and clean water. Mountains of fancy electronics and luxury cars rust away in containers on stranded ships in the Suez Canal.The elites only supply a demand — Janus
The elites only supply a demand
— Janus
and when social structure is in tatters, demand shifts to bread, shoes, antibiotics, and clean water. Mountains of fancy electronics and luxury cars rust away in containers on stranded ships in the Suez Canal. — Vera Mont
What if everyone collectively decided they did not want their money to be in the bank or in the financial and stock markets, and collectively decided to keep their energy consumption to an absolute minimum, grow their own food, only travel when absolutely necessary and so on? — Janus
think most people won't vote for anything that more than marginally affects their accustomed lifestyle. — Janus
Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one. — Dr Emmett Brown (1990)
if people can remember what mistakes not to repeat — Vera Mont
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. — Santayana (1905)
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