The paradox of productivity in 2018 is even if you're writing a quantum tech article whilst simultaneously dogwalking, podcasting your fourth Ph. D, & inventing the next revolutionary drudge-work-automating app (that will be consumed by a tech giant), you'll always be making not-enough per hour for a dignified existence.
No amount of neurohack pills, 180-hour crunches and AI assistants will ever free us, because neofeudal capitalism will consume all abundance.
The wheel must break.
@silverspookgames What would you like to see rise in its place once it does? I’ve asked this question of myself many times and have yet to come up with a satisfying answer. I would like to think that humans could be driven to productivity by something other than agreed but thus far haven’t been able to convince myself of that.
@feoh Human nature may change, though it doesn't need to. Are the German pencil factory workers making $35 an hour or the Scandinavians with their universal health care, free college, and months of maternity leave just naturally "less greedy" than the Americans living in cars make $7 to do three gig jobs and duct taping their broken bones? No. The system and specific circumstances of the society are just different. Circumstances can change. People demanding respect in solidarity is one.
@silverspookgames You're preaching to the choir. That's definitely what I'm after as well. However I'm surrounded by smart people who claim that it can't work here, that our government is too currupt and that the books wouldn't balance. So I maintain that here in the US, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we can't afford NOT to help the poor get the health care they need, but I'm not sure how we get there.
@feoh There is no easy solution to the problem, no doubt. All we can do is our best.
@feoh It is highly probable that the Forbes 500 list would re-fill shortly after any globally destabilizing cataclysm, French Revolution-esque upheaval, accelerationist obsolescence of pre-posthuman nature, or simple serial-wins of labor against suicidal capitalism. If a New-New-Deal redistributing wealth less insanely happens to be a side-effect (as it was in the 30's) that's better than decades of torture, austerity and fascism-fueled depopulation-by-lynching and proxy-warfare.