Na! We’ll all fall out with each other and the Chinese will stop sending us stuff, and Norway and France will stop sending us gas and electricity, and Russia will stop sending us Diesel…
The UK will be the first to fall because people will be too busy listening to music, watching netflix and boxed sets of Hunger games and ‘Get me out of here’, and writing on forums while an invading army sneaks in right under our noses…
“Gentlemen time please, you know we can’t serve anymore”
Now the traffic lights change to stop, when there’s nothing to go
And by five o’clock everything’s dead and every third car is a cab
And ignorant people sleep in their beds like the doped white mice in the college lab
Back 40, 50 years ago there was a lot of speculation that the rapidly expanding world population would outstrip the ability to feed it, let alone anything else. But two things happened. Population growth started to slow - current estimates cite 2080 as peak population then it declines. The other thing has been a significant improvement in crop yields, especially in previous low fertility locations.
The other part of the old thinking that you refer to is that it ignored the huge wealth held by the rich people. The world’s GDP is about $100 trillion. That would mean $12,500 per person on earth. Given that about 1 billion people live on $1000 a year or less this would be a massive hike for some - probably a hike for over half the world’s population. It would be bit of a shock for some billionaires of course… but there is enough wealth kicking around. Just desire to do this.
Wealth is a fluid concept and is simply the value we attribute. It would rapidly nosedive in the scenario you describe. As would motivation, productivity and quality of life. That has been clearly demonstrated in last century’s experiments with communism. The Star trek model lifestyle is only interesting for the participants because they are on the Starship Enterprise and have a purpose.
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Ooh, is that a movie or series? What channel’s it on?
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I could turn the other cheek if they bought me choccy and silk stockings.
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You’ve been watching reruns of Foyle’s war again, haven’t you?
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Hi, I was not recommending this crazy redistribution - as you say it would be disastrous to attempt to this in one action. I’m not sure how productivity and quality of life can be so easily predicted to fall. Surely if everyone had a decent standard of living, and want was a thing of the past, then the quality of life would improve dramatically for the vast majority?
Your reference to communism is interesting. I do not think communism proper was ever fully put in place. The all people are equal but some are more equal than others seemed to be the dominant mindset. Worse, what was set out as communism lacked lots of key things - but primarily innovation and productivity. I’ve been round communist era factories in Russia and Belarus (back in the mid 90’s) and they were terrible. Old machines making components (badly) in vast numbers, regardless of the actual need. To end up with very dated designs of poorly made vehicles. It was the lack of technological advancement that caused the old Soviet Union to fail. Surely though, AI could solve all of that if we tried communism again?
This was exactly my experience too, and what Annie mentioned about motivation and quality of life is spot on. I witnessed zero incentive for innovation or for anyone to be productive above the minimum. While it wasn’t universal, I met any number of workers who were so numb and defeated that they were drunk or hungover at or just outside their work stations
How do you propose that? I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely interested in what that proposed model would look like.
My understanding is that exactly those things that went wrong with 60s/70s/80s communism can be solved by AI. Innovation certainly can readily be baked into product & service development - not just incremental improvements but likely step changes that mankind would take decades to work out. Productivity would go through roof as AI worked out in detail demand & supply forecasts, contingency planning and optimised production. This would deliver improvement in all sectors. AI might even be able to evolve meaningful roles for people - or meaningful leisure time.
That at least is the science fiction perspective.
Depictive of that being discussed
perhaps AI can think of a new fuel source for its power hungry operating costs?
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Hmmm. It might conclude that it doesn’t require new fuel sources per se, but that it would be highly useful to eliminate things that are using excessive fuel and serving little purpose.
This may, after all, be the predator I referred to earlier.