The World Is a Mess. We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism

[brooklynite]

New York Times

To say the present era is one of crisis borders on cliché. It differs from the dystopias of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley, or hell in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. It is unlike Europe during the Black Death or Central Asia as it faced the galloping Golden Horde. And yet it is true: Ours is an age of crisis. We inhabit a world of low growth, low productivity and low wages, of climate breakdown and the collapse of democratic politics. A world where billions, mostly in the global south, live in poverty. A world defined by inequality.

But the most pressing crisis of all, arguably, is an absence of collective imagination. It is as if humanity has been afflicted by a psychological complex, in which we believe the present world is stronger than our capacity to remake it — as if it were not our ancestors who created what stands before us now. As if the very essence of humanity, if there is such a thing, is not to constantly build new worlds.

If we can move beyond such a failure, we will be able to see something wonderful. The plummeting cost of information and advances in technology are providing the ground for a collective future of freedom and luxury for all.

Automation, robotics and machine learning will, as many august bodies, from the Bank of England to the White House, have predicted, substantially shrink the work force, creating widespread technological unemployment. But that’s only a problem if you think work — as a cashier, driver or construction worker — is something to be cherished. For many, work is drudgery. And automation could set us free from it.

Gene editing and sequencing could revolutionize medical practice, moving it from reactive to predictive. Hereditary diseases could be eliminated, including Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia, and cancer cured before it reaches Stage 1. Those technologies could allow us to keep pace with the health challenges presented by societal aging — by 2020 there will be more people over the age of 60 than under the age of 5 — and even to surpass them.

[HopeAgain]

1. Ahhh, the myth of technology driven utopia... nt

[Brainstormy]

2. Might I suggest a book?

I think you would really enjoy Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now. It will go a LONG way toward easing your pessimism. It certainly did mine.

[brooklynite]

3. What pessimism?

I post articles of interest; they don't necessarily reflect my personal opinions.

[Brainstormy]

4. the pessimism reflected in your post

and I do understand that you were just passing in on, but I assumed it was because you concurred at least on some level. At any rate, the book was just a suggestion. My own attitudes and perspective were definitely described by the article until I read Pinker's book. I found it more than eye opening. But again, it was just a suggestion.