It's not the fact that it's safe or that all diseases are solved - heck, I'd love that.

But, it's the necessary infrastructure that goes with it: the only reason that it would be safe would be high-tech surveillance and tight government/corporation control. The only reason why it would be disease-free would likely be genetic engineering and a dependence on technology. The only reason why we'd have endless surplus would be because we would have pilfered the earth.

And endless surplus deadens the creative spirit as well and all art becomes superficial. In other words, the supposed utopia necessarily implies us living in a zoo.

The problem with people who are bright about a high-tech future is that they never imagine the downsides because they're too obsessed and myopic about problem solving.

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willmarch 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I think your criticisms are mostly fair but I think most tech people are aware of the potential downsides but ask themselves, "what is the alternative course?"

We stay the same? We accept some amount of harm, disease, and want as necessary to the human condition?

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LogicFailsMe 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm a fan of solving aging and disease, making the genetic code customizable, and commoditizing space flight to the point we can all just consciously uncouple in space and go our separate ways.

It's a really big galaxy out there and a few million years later, it's a really big universe. And unless we run into someone who has done it first, why not be first?

And I say that thinking we will run into someone who has done it first if we go out far enough. But we've got a couple thousand years of you get the hell off my asteroid before that's even a consideration.

	▲	vouaobrasil 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm a fan of solving aging and disease, making the genetic code customizable, and commoditizing space flight to the point we can all just consciously uncouple in space and go our separate ways. Hey, when you put it like that, it sounds good. But the reality is, the best ageing cures will be used for the rich. The genetic code being openly editable will just lead to eugenics. And space flight? Heck, there's no where to go in space and it's unlikely we'll be able to make planets habitable so I think we'd better focus on this one.

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vouaobrasil 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think there is an alternative course. Work to make smaller communities that aren't so dependent on technology and innovation. A lot of diseases are caused by technology, at least ones like depression and stress-related things. I bet a lot of heart disease could be lessened if people had more time for themselves in smaller communities where people would encourage each other to eat more healthy.

That's not staying the same, and it's not using technology to solve a problem either. It's using human ingenuity.

You could say that it's difficult. But every big tech innovation is also difficult. The guy who constructed Deep Blue to beat Gary Kasparov was told that it was impossible at every stage, and yet he went ahead, working for years to construct the first chess computer to beat Gary.

Yet, we don't even try to find new, non-tech solutions to things. We just throw up our hands and give up. Why can't we have the same attitude towards non-tech that we have towards tech innovation? Andrew Wiles spent a decade in his attic chipping away at Fermat's last theorem. We should all spent the same amount of effort trying to find lower-resource ways of solving our problems through human cooperation rather than technology. But most techies just give up and say tech is the solution.

Yes, this won't solve every disease, but I do think with less pollution and less land destruction, we'd make life a lot better, if not perfect. And if there's a bit of imperfection left in life, I think that'd be worth it compared to the coming tech dystopia.