33877 replies to this topic

[PItiful Boar]

75 i'm sorry i thought you've leveled up by now D:

 

and yeah, know what it feels like when your eyes hurt from reading too much

[pokari]

76 Trombones

72
 
Eyyyyyyeyyyyyyyeeeeeyyy
 
o/

\o

[penrosecat]

77

 

high expectations mostly lead to disappointments

[PItiful Boar]

78 expectations rising

[pokari]

79

I do try to keep my expectations humorously on the low side for most things. That way the only options are, "pleasantly surprised," "as expected," and "dear god, how did it go so wrong."

But almost never low-grade "disappointment".

[penrosecat]

80

 

HECK YYYEAH

[pokari]

81

Nya?!

[PItiful Boar]

82 it’s getting harder to make a living in a high tech society
At some point capital becomes a replacement for labor

[pokari]

83

Yup.

We are presented with the current ongoing connundrum:

- The planet is getting overpopulated by humans (cf. the environment and rising costs of living)
-> Surprisingly, humans are actually in many (though perhaps not enough) cases self-adjusting for this; population growth is markedly down in first-world countries.
-> This in turn presents a problem because all of our societies are pyramid schemes (be it in formalised form like with pensions or social security, or else with our more general dependence on "stable economic growth" to pay tomorrow for the expenditures of today)
-> The obvious long-term solution to the problems of underpopulation (that doesn't involve forcing massive fundamental changes in lifestyle) is to increase both per-capita and per-resource productivity with robots and automation.
-> Great, if we continue doing that now the economy can be healthy. Right? But there's one problem. Trickle-down theories of economics don't work when all the work is being done by robots. And, trickle-down economics are the only reason capitalism ever worked at all in fighting abject poverty for the masses, or so I feel.
-> Obvious outcomes would seem to then be either: 1) Massive rich/poor gap resulting in stratified caste system, 2) Socialism, or 3) Welcome to our new robot overlords

Edited by pokari, 23 November 2018 - 09:52 PM.

[penrosecat]

84

 

As usual, there are just too many damn people

[pokari]

85

Well, part of my point was that there are also starting to be too few, at the same time as the problems of having too manu are still worsening.

This is why invasive species populations normally collapse, I guess.

[penrosecat]

86

 

Now that I read through 83 more carefully I started thinking about it more as well.

 

everything is a pyramid scheme :/

 

Is it necessary to spend every moment of life doing something productive? Because there are some people who look like they're better prepared for life than I could ever be. Of course, I trust myself to cross those bridges when they come. 

 

Also, isn't outcome 1) already happening.

 

Kind of nice being in a reality where robot overlords are almost reality. Maybe they will replace humans as humans and form their own civilizations somewhere.

[pokari]

87

Is it necessary to spend every moment of life doing something productive?

With regards to this thought and robots, there's a bit of the original Kino no Tabi anime (maybe also in other formats, haven't read the light novel or mangas) that always seemed particularly relevant... A quick look at episode listings says it's part of ep. 5.

That episode fragment contains a visit to a country where they built robots that could take care of everything. However, in the should-have-been-utopia that follows, people decide that the most fair way to distribute resources is to give more to whoever works harder. And so everyone ends up stressing themselves out doing completely meaningless tasks to get ahead, and most everyone ends up unhappy. (To my recollection, basically every "country" visited in Kino no Tabi was allegorical like that)

Also, isn't outcome 1) already happening.

Yes, although at present it's difficult to say to what extent it's for the stated reasons as opposed to other stuff.

For instance, some of it is cultural—for example the U.S. of A. in the past few decades has picked up a habit of paying upper-level executives exponentially more than "low-level" workers, which I don't think has much to do with automation.

Also, in theory too many robots should lead to poverty through underemployment, and lead to lowering of pay through supply-and-demand, but instead at least in the U.S. (sorry, I hear more figures cited for the U.S. on account of living there) demand for workers is supposedly quite high right now, and yet they pay gap somehow isn't closing.

So something even stickier is definitely going on at this exact moment (maybe supply-and-demand isn't as strong a force for raising wages as it used to be, because of online job applications matching more desperate employees with companies?). The causes should be many-factor in practice, of course...

Kind of nice being in a reality where robot overlords are almost reality. Maybe they will replace humans as humans and form their own civilizations somewhere.

Yup ~w~

If we go out Matrix style—with superior, self-reproducing, survival-motivated robots with superior planning capabilities edging us out—I for one will be proud. Many species have gone extinct, but few can claim to have deliberately created an entirely new form of life on their way out.

And unlike us, they'd make a great spacefaring race, so spreading out everywhere throughout the galaxy and universe and sticking around until the heat-death of the universe wouldn't seem that unlikely...

Edited by pokari, 26 November 2018 - 06:23 AM.

[PItiful Boar]

88 I just feel so decadent doing nothing for the past few days over the thanksgiving holidays
Maybe I should go extinct and make room for more useful creatures

[penrosecat]

89

 

same here ~w~

 

I really like lazing round now that exams are done

[pokari]

90

I would like to emphasize that it's important to be able to remember how to enjoy lazing around.

Otherwise, one might waste the time spent lazing around, which would be inefficient.

[PItiful Boar]

91 so I gained a couple of lbs after losing them
Why is life so unfair

[penrosecat]

92

 

Central to lazing around is not being worried about the future so much for a change, which I achieved by reading more fluff like Hinamatsuri and Yotsuba&! 

 

91 so I gained a couple of lbs after losing them
Why is life so unfair

 

I did too, but only cause I'm lazing around at home.

fully expect to lose them in a month (shocking how reliable stress is)

 

I had more childlike qualities back in January :/

 

Well, I wasn't surrounded by perfect people back then.

[pokari]

93

Luckily, childlike qualities, once gone, do also occasionally wander back on their own. Like cats. Once stress is gone for long enough, possibly...? ...As with cats, I haven't been able to figure out any of the particulars.

I'm the other way around on mass, though—I gain weight when stressed and lose it when relaxed. It's all rather like being a non-newtonian fluid, I guess, except with mass instead of viscosity...

[penrosecat]

94

 

Everything will one day be alright

 

is it alright to say alright at all

 

feels like a fake word