hey, if that’s what they think is best, who am I to argue?
Post-scarcity isn’t a new phenomenon. Human history begins with the invention of agriculture, which created a reliable food surplus. That’s when we got the first ruling class, who invented poverty.
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Yup. Just look at minimally impacted/contacted cultures in the tropics where hunting and gathering is still possible, like the Piraha. They work about 15 hours a week sustaining themselves, don’t really have any leadership, base their social interaction on complete non-coercion, and don’t even have a religion, because their frame of mind is “if I didn’t see it, and you didn’t see it, and you don’t have evidence for it, what’s the point of even telling me about it?” Missionaries have made several attempts to introduce christianity and have failed miserably for the simple fact that neither the missionaries, nor anyone the missionaries knew ever met jesus. They’re apparently some of the happiest people on earth, wouldn’t you be if you only had to work 15 hours a week and spent the rest of your time just chilling with your friends?
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Does affirmative action even apply to hitchhiking?
Only at the college level. Once you get sent up to the majors, it’s up to the team manager who hits the pavement and who rides the bench-seats.
Sure technology advances… that’s not the point. The point is what direction will that technology take us, and who controls the technology? You don’t get the Star Trek future just because someone invents holodecks and replicators… you get that because you invented that AND people decided that everyone having enough without having to work for wages was the way society needed to evolve. It’s technology and social (and political, economic, etc). We could also have these technologies and have them hoardered by some state-backed, corporate-backed new feudal elite, too. They wouldn’t stop technology, they’d limit access to it. Neither is necessary, but either (or neither) could happen. It’s not about stopping technology (which is also not necessarily what will happen, I’d argue), it’s about what that technology does for us or for some elites…
In the Piketty book, one of the things he discusses is how very different the transition from the feudal to modern age is… it was one of the only times where there was a major transfer of power from one group to another (from aristocratic elites to the bourgeois). Beginning with the French revolution, it was people making choices, not just changing technology, that caused these changes. But, he argues (and Marx agreed) it was the only successful revolutionary shift of this kind in history… That’s something to think about, I’d argue.
Anyway, I’m not sure we agree on this (well, obviously not, duh!) but I’ve enjoyed the discussion! I do hope that technology can help us to a post-scarcity world, but let’s just say I’m skeptical! 
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Technology drives social change, not the other way around. The French revolution was a direct result of the Enlightenment, which was at it’s core a scientific revolution. The choices that opened up to people in this period only presented themselves because of new tools and new knowledge brought about by radical shifts in thinking.
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A scientific revolution is a social change. Thinking does not directly have anything to do with technology.
But either way, I think it is a feedback loop. Technology drives social change as much as social change drives technology. New knowledge exists somewhere in the middle. So much of the revolutionary tech of even the 80s-00s was still capitalizing upon old developments from the cold war.
Sure, but not all social change is technological. Technological change is a type of social change, and has been the type of social change most responsible for civilizational advancement, from animal husbandry, to agriculture, to metal work, to engineering…(some of this you may describe as proto-technological, but enough of the concept remains to make more general point I think) to the enlightenment, to the industrial revolution, to pretty much everything about the modern age. You can of course point to many non-technological social changes that have had big impacts throughout history, but none will come close to what’s been achieved technologically.
I’m not sure I fully agree here (nor do historians of the enlightenment, I’d guess, necessarily, though some would). I’d argue it was the economic changes and social dislocations that was the largest factor in the Revolution.
And I agree with this as well. The scientific method was something that evolved in time, with the changes taking place, not something that happened, fully formed, and drove changes…
That too.
that’s likely true… we sent people to the bloody moon, actually which is kind of mind boggling. But once again, the social, economic, and political conditions here on earth helped drive those technological advancements… I doubt we would have had the political will to go to the moon without the spectre of communism haunting us (and vice versa).
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I’m not sure I fully agree here (nor do historians of the enlightenment, I’d guess, necessarily, though some would). I’d argue it was the economic changes and social dislocations that was the largest factor in the Revolution.
The economic changes and social dislocations were largely due to war and the explosion in trade and the merchant class at the time (the dutch in particular), the later was a direct result of technological progress! 
I doubt we would have had the political will to go to the moon without the spectre of communism haunting us (and vice versa).
maybe not, at least not immediately, can’t imagine it would have stayed off limits for long though.
I disagree. Bread riots are most certainly social/political, not technological. Sure the people who wanted a larger share of social power employed enlightenment language to justify themselves, but they wouldn’t have been able to do that if the rabble weren’t pissed off enough about the rising costs of bread.
It’s not that it would have been “off-limits”, but more about having the support to do it in the first place.
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people moved to cities because of war and trade mostly, cities weren’t built for large numbers of people at the time, hence problems. the war and trade parts were primarily caused by technological advances, the social ills were a knock on effect.
It’s not that it would have been “off-limits”, but more about having the support to do it in the first place.
what I mean is the support would have arrived sooner or later.
Also @anon61221983 - I thought the bread riots we’re the result of abysmal crops for a few years in a row. Wiped out their stockpile of grain and there simply wasn’t any food. And the rural people came to the cities looking for food cuz there was none in the country. If the people hadnt been starving would they have revolted? Interesting question.
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I think that’s correct… I’m no French historian, mind you! I’m not even an early modernists. But yeah, crop failure…
Oh, I do know that the reason why the French attempted to invade Egypt was due to the fact it was a bread basket of the ottoman empire, and they were low on grain due to the wars they were fighting against the rest of Europe and a drought in France…
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Hungry people watching the nobility cavort and build giant gardens… well yeah.
One could even say if they hadn’t funded America’s revolt the world would be a very different place now!
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What May Happen When Robots Do All The Work. Hearst’s 1938 American Weekly Sunday Magazine
Special Laws to Make You Responsible For Their Behavior,
The more they approach perfection the more likely to betray their
masters…And probably will turn out to be nature’s weapon of punishing
man for trying to conquer her.
That’s quite a teleological argument there.
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In Soviet Russia, robots are nature, and humans are technology!
What do you want, it was 1938 and published in the Hearst newspaper…
