Is Privacy Holding Back Humanity?

[Saul]

What I've asked people to do is try to imagine a different way of thinking and in this case some obstacles do indeed go away by ignoring them because what we're talking about is behaviours and belief systems.

What do you mean they do indeed go away by ignoring them? Getting all people to ignore an obstacle that would go away in doing so is an obstacle all by itself. If ignoring is the solution then it creates a new obstacle - getting everyone to ignore it - which leads back to square one.

I can imagine the end goal but I don't see what good it does if I can't imagine how to get there.

If we continue to base our society around trade we'll continue to be trapped on our tiny vunerable ball of rock by the greed of a small minority who thrive through our acceptance of their control of the Earth's resources.

First of all, our society is not based on trade alone, though I think it should be. So blaming everything on trade is unfair.

Secondly, greed is the result of scarcity. Trade doesn't create scarcity, on the contrary, it results in production and reduced scarcity. So in fact, free trade is an option of reducing scarcity, it's not the cause of it, much less greed. Even in collectivist society trade still exists. So I fail to understand your point against trade.

[benitez17]

I don't mind you being blunt at all if I can speak to you in the same manner. I'll reserve the priviledge for now For now can we also stay away from timelines and words like simple, I don't have a timeline in mind and simple is a relative term.

You are right that simple and soon are relative terms, and we clearly weren't in agreement on their meaning in this conversation. Now that you have clarified that you don't even know if your goals are possible and that you expect that it would take centuries to reach them, we disagree on much less.

I certainly agree that a world where want and the need for work no longer exist would be fantastic, but I don't see it as possible unless humans evolve into fundamentally different beings that have no concern for their own relative well being.

Unless you have peers in the Government think tanks I strongly doubt you know what the current pace of advancement is and given that there are obvious military applications for AI I think it's a reasonable assumption that there has been and is an ongoing large governemnt investment in AI that isn't public knowledge. Secrets kept for our own benefit of course because we have to protect our idea of a country against other people's idea of a country. Even if that's not true, we've started down the path and unless it's actually impossible to create an AI that can take over our daily toil and free us from the yoke of resource control then I'd say it's going to happen at some point.

I work for a large US defense contractor.

I have no doubt that most of what I'm saying sounds unrealistic, it would in the context of how we live now. Maybe you have to read as much sci-fi as I do to develop a perspective like mine. What I imagine won't happen in my lifetime but it's a worthwhile dream. My money is on Richard Branson, he's a dreamer too, he has money and he has the business savvy to be the first person to launch a resource recovery mission to a nearby asteroid. He's already building his own vehicle capable of achieving orbit and while in the short term he may be focussing on space tourism I bet he has one eye on the resources available in our solar system too.

It's unrealistic to expect any of this to happen in the next 100 years. I imagine our wildest dreams will fall way short of reality a millenium from now in some ways, and will still seem like science fiction in other ways.

To me, a much more interesting question is: What do you think is possible in the next 50 years, and how would you accomplish it?

[tke71709]

To me, a much more interesting question is: What do you think is possible in the next 50 years, and how would you accomplish it?

We'll be mining the ocean floors rather than wasting tons of money and fuel launching mining operations in space.

Natural gas will be the defacto energy source if hydrogen or the such doesn't take off.

We will revert back to small independent power stations (solar, wind, nuclear) rather than investing in behemoth power projects with individual houses and the such feeding power into the grid when they have a surplus and taking it from the grid when they don't.

The end of the office, the rise of the telecommute.

How will we accomplish all of the above? The market will dictate those choices as we run out of oil.

[benitez17]

We'll be mining the ocean floors rather than wasting tons of money and fuel launching mining operations in space.

Natural gas will be the defacto energy source if hydrogen or the such doesn't take off.

We will revert back to small independent power stations (solar, wind, nuclear) rather than investing in behemoth power projects with individual houses and the such feeding power into the grid when they have a surplus and taking it from the grid when they don't.

The end of the office, the rise of the telecommute.

How will we accomplish all of the above? The market will dictate those choices as we run out of oil.

I agree with almost all of this, as long as the political environment doesn't prevent it from happening.

[JJMcClure]

What do you think is possible in the next 50 years, and how would you accomplish it?

We might be able to start changing the current mindset and get people questioning the way things are instead of being so insular and never thinking about anything that isn’t about human society and who’s going to win the next X Factor. Threads like this are part of how that will be accomplished, just talking about it.

I don't get your comment about how it won't happen "unless humans evolve into fundamentally different beings that have no concern for their own relative well being", that's not at all what I'm talking about. Humanity would still place it's well being above all else it just wouldn't have to work to fulfil it's material needs anymore, and actually there lies the only hope of us surviving long term, our survival instinct may kick in time unless the behavioural adaptations that got us this far are actually ones that will cause us to fail. All species go extinct eventually, maybe religion and greed, both tremendous behavioural adaptations in the short term, are what will cause us to make ourselves extinct.

Energy is a great subject to discuss in this context. Controlling the oil (and more importantly the need for oil) is what's allowed the oil companies to become so hugely powerful and they do everything they can to prevent a move way from our dependence on oil and gas (think George bush) but what are the alternatives? Wind and wave power are false economies, incredibly expensive and high maintenance. Solar may be the answer but we have a big problem in that the most efficient solar panels use a mineral called Indium but it's in very short supply on this planet so there's a finite limit to how many panels we can actually make. Plus, having them down here on the earth's surface immediately makes them 75% less efficient than if they were in orbit but the will to put them there doesn't exist because the people with the power to make it happen are owned by the oil companies.

Another possible answer is Helium 3, a totally clean energy source but there's hardly any of that on the Earth either, plenty out in the solar system though. A totally clean, endless supply of energy just sitting out there waiting to be collected. If we never have to worry about energy, a whole bunch of humanities problems get sorted right there and then, think of what we could do.

I can imagine the end goal but I don't see what good it does if I can't imagine how to get there.

First of all, our society is not based on trade alone, though I think it should be. So blaming everything on trade is unfair.

Secondly, greed is the result of scarcity. Trade doesn't create scarcity, on the contrary, it results in production and reduced scarcity. So in fact, free trade is an option of reducing scarcity, it's not the cause of it, much less greed. Even in collectivist society trade still exists. So I fail to understand your point against trade.

If you can imagine the culture I’m describing that’s great and frankly it’s a start on how to get there, all it will take is a change of thinking.

Scarcity caused the need to trade, remove scarcity and you remove the need to trade. To illustrate why I think trade is one of the primary causes of most of our problems I need to ask you question, what would you say are humanities biggest problems right now? If you can see where this is heading then I challenge you to identify a global problem that in some way doesn’t come back to power, greed or resource scarcity.

[benitez17]

I don't get your comment about how it won't happen "unless humans evolve into fundamentally different beings that have no concern for their own relative well being", that's not at all what I'm talking about. Humanity would still place it's well being above all else it just wouldn't have to work to fulfil it's material needs anymore, and actually there lies the only hope of us surviving long term, our survival instinct may kick in time unless the behavioural adaptations that got us this far are actually ones that will cause us to fail. All species go extinct eventually, maybe religion and greed, both tremendous behavioural adaptations in the short term, are what will cause us to make ourselves extinct.

Humans are by nature competitive and selfish. The extent to which people exhibit these characteristics varies quite a bit, but they exist at some level.

In your world, people will stop competing for mates, land, material goods, and everything else, and there is a segment of the population that will still have to work while most people are free to do whatever they want, while not feeling jealous or entitled to some form of compensation.

Energy is a great subject to discuss in this context. Controlling the oil (and more importantly the need for oil) is what's allowed the oil companies to become so hugely powerful and they do everything they can to prevent a move way from our dependence on oil and gas (think George bush) but what are the alternatives? Wind and wave power are false economies, incredibly expensive and high maintenance. Solar may be the answer but we have a big problem in that the most efficient solar panels use a mineral called Indium but it's in very short supply on this planet so there's a finite limit to how many panels we can actually make. Plus, having them down here on the earth's surface immediately makes them 75% less efficient than if they were in orbit but the will to put them there doesn't exist because the people with the power to make it happen are owned by the oil companies.

Another possible answer is Helium 3, a totally clean energy source but there's hardly any of that on the Earth either, plenty out in the solar system though. A totally clean, endless supply of energy just sitting out there waiting to be collected. If we never have to worry about energy, a whole bunch of humanities problems get sorted right there and then, think of what we could do.

I'm not really interested in discussing conspiracy theories. There are numerous companies working on solar kites (which are really tethered UAVs), there are incremental breakthroughs being made in solar panels on a regular basis, and other sources of power are being studied and tested. As oil becomes more expensive, people will move to other sources.

Scarcity caused the need to trade, remove scarcity and you remove the need to trade. To illustrate why I think trade is one of the primary causes of most of our problems I need to ask you question, what would you say are humanities biggest problems right now? If you can see where this is heading then I challenge you to identify a global problem that in some way doesn’t come back to power, greed or resource scarcity.

Sure, but again, how are you going to remove scarcity? You can provide food and shelter to all people so that they can survive, but there are items that will always remain scarce. Even if you were able to produce enough of every item to supply every person who wants something (which I don't believe you can in many instances), who gets one first?

[JJMcClure]

Humans are by nature competitive and selfish.

Yes they are, they’re behavioural adaptations that have helped us become a very successful species but that doesn’t mean that they’ll continue to be an advantage. In my view they’re now working against us.

Dodos were very successful too, they gave up flight because there were no land predators and became plentiful throughout Mauritius. Then we introduced rats, dogs and cats and it was goodbye dodo. Behavioural adaptations don’t always work out, they can fail in the face of a new environmental pressure or because they’re intrinsically flawed and if you can look past your own life span at the long term implications of various behaviours it’s easy to imagine everything going pear shaped because of them. Look what happened on Easter Island, then extrapolate that to the whole of humanity.

In your world, people will stop competing for mates, land, material goods, and everything else, and there is a segment of the population that will still have to work while most people are free to do whatever they want, while not feeling jealous or entitled to some form of compensation.

No one will have to work, I have been saying that the whole way through. That’s where the AI comes in, we already have machines working for us, they’ll just get smarter until we don’t have to work at all. And I’m not talking about robots tilling the fields, we’ll have learned how to synthsise all the food we need by then, we’re already doing it to some extent. They’ll be self replicating and autonomous Ais, let’s just hope they don’t turn into Skynet…

I'm not really interested in discussing conspiracy theories.

You’ve accused me of being naïve and spoken bluntly to me so now I’m going to cash in some of my credit, if you don’t think that the oil companies run this planet it’s not me that’s being naïve. When the oil runs out, the oil companies will have positioned themselves to continue holding the reigns, they’re already doing it.

The only relevant question that should ever be asked of politicians is ‘who owns you?’. It’s not possible to obtain serious power in our society without the backing of more powerful people, the ones with the money, and then you owe them and they own you.

Sure, but again, how are you going to remove scarcity?

Now you‘re discussing infrastructure, I love it. First we have to find and exploit resources we need and we have to get off planet to do that (every mineral we could ever need is out there for the taking) and then we have to build the infrastructure to supply the population using AI. Once it’s in place, the system will become self-perpetuating. No one will have to work unless they actually want to and that will be their choice. We already strive daily to make our lives easier, why is it so hard to imagine that will continue?

The biggest technological issue standing in the way of this becoming reality I think is breaking the FTL problem. We can spread out and fill this whole solar system with space habitats and by terraforming moons and asteroids but at the rate that we propagate eventually it won’t be big enough and then we have to cross interstellar space to be able to continue our expansion. Otherwise we’ll fall right back into wars over resources, the power system will reappear and we’ll be back at square one.

[benitez17]

Yes they are, they’re behavioural adaptations that have helped us become a very successful species but that doesn’t mean that they’ll continue to be an advantage. In my view they’re now working against us.

Dodos were very successful too, they gave up flight because there were no land predators and became plentiful throughout Mauritius. Then we introduced rats, dogs and cats and it was goodbye dodo. Behavioural adaptations don’t always work out, they can fail in the face of a new environmental pressure or because they’re intrinsically flawed and if you can look past your own life span at the long term implications of various behaviours it’s easy to imagine everything going pear shaped because of them. Look what happened on Easter Island, then extrapolate that to the whole of humanity.

Right. As I said, fundamental changes to human behavior will be required if your world has any chance of ever existing.

No one will have to work, I have been saying that the whole way through. That’s where the AI comes in, we already have machines working for us, they’ll just get smarter until we don’t have to work at all. And I’m not talking about robots tilling the fields, we’ll have learned how to synthsise all the food we need by then, we’re already doing it to some extent. They’ll be self replicating and autonomous Ais, let’s just hope they don’t turn into Skynet…

I know you've been saying that, but I don't see a world where robots are capable of doing every single task that a person does better than a human without any negative repercussions.

You’ve accused me of being naïve and spoken bluntly to me so now I’m going to cash in some of my credit, if you don’t think that the oil companies run this planet it’s not me that’s being naïve. When the oil runs out, the oil companies will have positioned themselves to continue holding the reigns, they’re already doing it.

The only relevant question that should ever be asked of politicians is ‘who owns you?’. It’s not possible to obtain serious power in our society without the backing of more powerful people, the ones with the money, and then you owe them and they own you.

You have an hatred of oil companies that you mention from time to time. To me, they are another business. The ones that aren't moving into other forms of energy production are probably going to be irrelevant in the next century.

When I said that I'm not interested in discussing conspiracy theories, it's not because I don't consider them to be possible. It's because they are nothing more than mental masturbation.

You look at G.W. Bush in the White House, and declare that it is obvious that oil companies worked behind the scenes to make that happen, because they control the world. Do you have any hard evidence of this? Of course not. Do I have any evidence that it didn't happen? Nope. What's the point of that discussion?

Now you‘re discussing infrastructure, I love it. First we have to find and exploit resources we need and we have to get off planet to do that (every mineral we could ever need is out there for the taking) and then we have to build the infrastructure to supply the population using AI. Once it’s in place, the system will become self-perpetuating. No one will have to work unless they actually want to and that will be their choice. We already strive daily to make our lives easier, why is it so hard to imagine that will continue?

The biggest technological issue standing in the way of this becoming reality I think is breaking the FTL problem. We can spread out and fill this whole solar system with space habitats and by terraforming moons and asteroids but at the rate that we propagate eventually it won’t be big enough and then we have to cross interstellar space to be able to continue our expansion. Otherwise we’ll fall right back into wars over resources, the power system will reappear and we’ll be back at square one.

That's not going to remove scarcity.

Also, why do you assume that it makes more sense to expend the resources required to mine in space on that work, rather than on something like mining the oceans, or improving existing energy generation methods?

[mgallone]

Yes they are, they’re behavioural adaptations that have helped us become a very successful species but that doesn’t mean that they’ll continue to be an advantage. In my view they’re now working against us.

Dodos were very successful too, they gave up flight because there were no land predators and became plentiful throughout Mauritius. Then we introduced rats, dogs and cats and it was goodbye dodo. Behavioural adaptations don’t always work out, they can fail in the face of a new environmental pressure or because they’re intrinsically flawed and if you can look past your own life span at the long term implications of various behaviours it’s easy to imagine everything going pear shaped because of them. Look what happened on Easter Island, then extrapolate that to the whole of humanity.

Without going too much into the rest of this (very interesting) debate, as I feel some points have been discussed better than I could put them, I do take a certain objection to this. One of the key developments of Human evolution that has allowed us to survive both extreme drought and (if you believe the Homo Spaiens- Homo neanderthalensis interbreeding theories) ice ages. No other organism in the history of life on Earth has been able to adapt to and manipulate its environment to anywhhere near the same extent as Humanity. Rather than having any single or group of 'behavioural advantages', the one defining feature of Homo Sapiens is that it is able to adapt its behaviour to suit a massive range of external pressures. On the one hand- this throws very positive light on the idea of this future society: eventually, things will have to change and off world development is almost a certainty, bar a cataclysmic event before such a time. On the other, the saying 'greed is good' has never been as true as it is for scientific advancement. The vast majority of technological innovations over the course of history have been developed precisely because of greed or disagreements in ideology- one only needs to look at the history of computing to see that perfectly identified. Without conflicts, without the need to excel and do better than our neighbours, we have nothing to drive us forward. Sure- change may well happen, but at a greatly reduced rate.

This, for me, is the key problem with the future society outlined. If, and I don't totally rule out the possibility, it did arise- I think that would signal the final days of humanity. With everything 'done for us', there would very quickly develop a devestating brain drain- with no need to provide for ourselves, why would there be a need to learn? And what if the situation changed beyond what the Human-programmed behaviours of the various AI 'workers' could cope with? In the event of natural disasters, we would be extremely poorly equipped to deal with the consequences.

[JJMcClure]

Right. As I said, fundamental changes to human behavior will be required if your world has any chance of ever existing.

No argument from me, that’s what I’ve been saying throughout the thread, we need to change the way we think.

I know you've been saying that, but I don't see a world where robots are capable of doing every single task that a person does better than a human without any negative repercussions.

Why not? And what would the negative repercussions be?

You have an hatred of oil companies that you mention from time to time. To me, they are another business. The ones that aren't moving into other forms of energy production are probably going to be irrelevant in the next century.

When I said that I'm not interested in discussing conspiracy theories, it's not because I don't consider them to be possible. It's because they are nothing more than mental masturbation.

Calling it a conspiracy theory doesn’t automatically invalidate it. Money makes the world go round and who has the most money?

You look at G.W. Bush in the White House, and declare that it is obvious that oil companies worked behind the scenes to make that happen, because they control the world. Do you have any hard evidence of this? Of course not. Do I have any evidence that it didn't happen? Nope. What's the point of that discussion?

GW owned an oil company, he shot down every environmental legislation he could that would have constrained oil company activities, his dad started the first Iraq war, and GW junior started the second (a war all about controlling oil supplies), the Bushes are tied to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil throughout their family history, oil companies provide funds for political campaigns and seemingly can do whatever they want (like the Gulf spill) without any repercussions…

Without even getting into serious research I can make a case worthy of closer examination for the oil companies being the most powerful businesses on the planet and GW being their puppet.

What I don't want to do here though is have a discussion about oil companies specifically. For the sake of the argument let's say that the greatest power on this planet is wielded by the organisations with the most money and that power is achieved through resource control. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's fact because that's the basis of economics.

Also, why do you assume that it makes more sense to expend the resources required to mine in space on that work, rather than on something like mining the oceans, or improving existing energy generation methods?

First and most obvious point is that even sea bed resources are finite, they won’t last forever. There are practically infinite resources off planet. As long as resources are finite you have the need for trade and all the power horse trading and greed that goes along with it, it’s not the answer, it just causes more problems.

Secondly, seabed mining poses technical challenges similar to those that would presumably be used in an argument against mining asteroids.

Thirdly, I have no doubt that we would cause even more environmental devastation mining the seabed because that’s what we do, because of greed and shortsightedness and the seabed is in our backyard whereas the asteroid belt is 150 million miles away in space where pollution would be irrelevant.

How would you improve existing energy methods? We’re so stupid we build nuclear power stations over destructive plate margins and then we’re surprised when there’s a major disaster and why? Oh yeah, money and greed.