Are the Wealthy Plotting To Leave Us Behind? (medium.com) 412
"The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind," writes Douglas Rushkoff, describing what he learned from a high-paying speaking gig about the future of technology for "five super-wealthy guys...from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world," -- and what it says about perceptions of technology today.
The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down. This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader...?
That's when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.
There's nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It's less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity.... It's a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride... The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively. This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities... Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor.
The piece -- titled "Survival of the Richest" -- is an interesting read, and ends by suggesting this inspiring counter-philosophy.
"Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It's a team sport."
That's when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.
There's nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It's less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity.... It's a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride... The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively. This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities... Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor.
The piece -- titled "Survival of the Richest" -- is an interesting read, and ends by suggesting this inspiring counter-philosophy.
"Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It's a team sport."
Maybe (Score:2)
See subject.
I don't think it's just "the wealthy" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's just "the wealthy" ... it's a common temptation / failing of human kind.
Don't believe me?
You there, with the trendy facial hair ... whadya say we bring along the folks with the MAGA hats? What's that? No?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a government of the psychopath, by the psychopath and for the psychopath. Of course psychopaths can never be trusted, especially by psychopaths. Escape of the rich, the psychopath is a total delusion, as the ratio of psychopaths rises, so a society destroys itself, not by accident but on purpose. When psychopath do not have the rest of society, the normal human being to parasite off, to attack and abuse to feed the egos and lusts of the psychopaths, they will attack and destroy each other, till the sca
Re: (Score:2)
Hipsters are usually richer than the MAGA people. All that you managed to prove is that each class wants to leave behind the classes beneath it, except for they are needed as cheap work.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hipsters are usually richer than the MAGA people.
Trump voters have above average incomes.
The people most likely to vote Republican are rich people in poor places.
The people most likely to vote Democrat are poor people in rich places.
Rich landowners in the Mississippi Delta vote overwhelmingly Republican.
Poor people in prosperous coastal urban centers vote overwhelmingly Democrat.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Beyond a point 'education' is just a proxy of having nothing worthwhile to do with your life and having enough resources to be blind to realpolitik.
Not all college degrees require effort, those that don't, go to those that aren't going to be making any money...Guaranteed lifelong democrat.
Re:I don't think it's just "the wealthy" (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all college degrees require effort, those that don't, go to those that aren't going to be making any money...Guaranteed lifelong democrat.
Except the vast majority of public assistance goes to red states, full of guaranteed lifelong republicans. Something in your analysis is broken.
Re: (Score:3)
You need to look at the methodology of your favorite cite.
I'd have looked at a citation if you provided one, but you didn't.
So we've provided an equal number of cites.
Well, no. That's an idiotic thing to say right on the face of it. You're criticizing my favorite "cite", which shows that I've provided a citation in the past. Yet you're not providing one now to contradict it, and then you're complaining that I didn't provide one. Well, either I provided one and you're complaining about nothing, or I didn't provide one and you're acting as if I had. Either way, you're being a moron.
Re: (Score:3)
he never has sources.
just claims.
Re:I don't think it's just "the wealthy" (Score:5, Insightful)
You there, with the trendy facial hair ... whadya say we bring along the folks with the MAGA hats? What's that? No?
We've been trying to bring them along, but they are instead willfully hastening their own demise. You can't rescue a drowning man if he's flailing all over the place, he will only drag you beneath the waves and drown you too. You might well have to render him unconscious first. Barring that, you're just going to have to leave him.
Trump supporters are cutting off their own face to spite their face. Barring the wealthy ones (who are simply morally bankrupt) they are at best spectacular idiots, and they are universally racist even if they are in denial about it. That means that they are unwilling to work with the rest of us on an ignorant ideological basis. How are we supposed to work with them if they refuse to be educated? Suggesting that it's our responsibility is victim-blaming, since they're actively attacking us and our way of life.
It would be nice if we could find a way to get them on board, but nothing will even slightly do that besides starvation, and even then those idiots are more likely to attack their neighbor than the people who actually did it to them. We know that because they actually vote for the people who did it to them, over and over again.
TL;DR: Trying to include the people causing the problem in the solution is only workable if they are willing to stop causing the problem, and they aren't. Remember the civil war? BOHICA. We've been trying to educate them, and they won't be educated. What's left?
Re: (Score:3)
People who still believe in race are either uneducated or have a severe learning disability, there's no third way.
You physically cannot support Trump without supporting racism, sexism, denial of due process, and rampant violation of human rights.
If you think that Trump is better than the status quo, you must be an idiot, evil, or both. Trump is worse for literally everything and everyone except Russia than Clinton. And even Russia will suffer from his environmental policy.
If you are unwilling to realize the
Re: (Score:3)
You're trying to drive at some sort of false equivalency. Those of us who want to make the world a better place aren't focused on individuals. These 5 guys were talking about how to live longer and secure their private compounds that house just their family and the needed workers. They didn't even bother going, "Maybe we should try and stop these things from happening in the first place."
So, proposing that if we're going to let 'MAGA hat people' into my post-disaster compound is a straw-man, we'd never
Literally... (Score:4, Insightful)
...one of the most stupid posts I've seen on slashdot.
Seriously...leaving "us" behind? Is this some sort of attempt at class warfare? Someone just read Piketty and is all-fired about inequality?
In the breakdown of society that's postulated, 0.01 seconds after the electronics die, these guys are poorer than Gomer the Gas Station attendant because he at least has usable mechanical skills and a store full of parts that people will be desperate for. Peter Theil? Elon Musk? Richard Branson? They will all lost the vast bulk of their wealth the moment the volatile memory recording their wealth goes off; all their properties? They wouldn't be able to defend them from squatters, and they'll have nothing to actually pay their security WITH.
This is colossally stupid. When the "end times" comes, the wealthiest people on earth are going to be the vast majority of 3rd (and maybe 2nd) world farmers who still have skills needed to continue to produce food.
Re:Literally... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Well them , rural preppers and back to nature folk in general. Of course there will be that transitional period when machinery is breaking down and you will have people swarming out of the cities destroying everything in their path. It all depends on how rapidly things happen. Emp ? Bioweapons ? Financial Breakdown ? Nuclear exchange ? Democrats win the midterms ?
All sorts of ways to really damage society.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously...leaving "us" behind?
Of course not. I'm sure we'll get a ride in Spaceship "B".
Re: (Score:2)
When the "end times" comes, the wealthiest people on earth are going to be the vast majority of 3rd (and maybe 2nd) world farmers who still have skills needed to continue to produce food.
How do you know that? How do you even know what the "end" will be?
Re: (Score:2)
True, their virtual wealth will disappear or freeze up when the electrons stop flowing, but if they spend it smartly beforehand, they could continue to rule and lead luxurious lives.
Most of the ideas I've heard before that these wealthy monsters have for surviving "the event" have indeed been colossally stupid, but there were some genuinely smart ideas among this particular group of 0.001%ers in TFA - hiding out in the far-flung wilderness of Alaska rather than mostly warm and well-populated New Zealand (LO
Re: (Score:2)
Food, or maybe even valuable drugs, might "keep them in line".
Re: (Score:2)
You're badly mistaken. It's natural that some people are better at making money and motivated to do so, but how skewed does the distribution of wealth have to become before you say wait a minute, there is something else going on? Once you have a certain wealth you just hire someone to make it grow. You don't need much talent, and eventually the system becomes the opposite of what you claim: socialism for the rich.
Gordon Gekko still was a selfmade man, but that is over a generation ago. Now you've go
Re:Literally... (Score:4, Interesting)
It really depends on how and when people made their wealth.
Normally you are considered rich when you have enough money that your return on your investments exceeds the money you make doing a job.
Some people got there with a long term plan to become wealthy (often sacricing a lot of personal opportunities in the mean time). These will probably get rich again unless they assume these trade offs for wealth were not worth it.
Some had been given a large sum of money say a few million dollars after graduating college from rich parents. They have a safety net that allows risk taking and plenty of extra to save in case of a mistake. These people if to start over may not make it again as they never knew how to live poor and wouldn’t be able adjust their life style.
Then there are rich because of luck. They happened to have a good idea that people actually wanted it at the time, and they are riding the wave of its success. Starting over again would probably need that luck to happen again.
Now that hypothetical situation of taking everyone’s wealth away and start over will need to find a way to clear everyone’s reputation as well
Re:Literally... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a good friend who is a genius, has a long list of real survival skills, chemistry, basic engineering, invention, physics, etc. He knows how to hunt and clean a deer, tan a hide (braining is so gross, but worse well I'm told), smelting various ores into metals, designing simple circuits, working on cars, making various power generation systems, etc. If there is an apocalypse, he's the guy I'm going with. I'm pretty smart too, but I don't think that my system admin skills, powershell, and such would be much use!
everyone at the same level = 250K student loan gon (Score:2)
everyone at the same level = 250K student loan gone
Not this generation but Methusela is coming (Score:3)
Most of those other "super solutions" have similar pitfalls at this time.
But the general concept is something that is worth watching. The one most worth watching is life extension that provides more years that are productive. Right now we can tack on years that involve being hooked up to machines. If someone came along and said: "For one million dollars I could give you five more years as if you were forty years old and after that you would age normally. There wouldn't be any rapid catch up aging" you would find every real rich person would buy that up in a snap. It provides a practical benefit at an affordable price (for the wealthy). Once this technology comes along (or major organ cloning/replacement) the life expectancy of the rich will leap forward many years. And they will fight tooth and claw to keep those treatments off of insurance and only for the rich. At that point you will have the people rich enough to live an extra fifty years and everyone else. And those super rich people will work to mold the society to suit them because their horizon is longer than ours.
Re:Not this generation but Methusela is coming (Score:5, Interesting)
At that point you will have the people rich enough to live an extra fifty years and everyone else. And those super rich people will work to mold the society to suit them because their horizon is longer than ours.
If that means they finally treat climate change and environmental destruction as the serious problems they really are, then I'm all for it.
Re: (Score:2)
But being cynical: There would be a pristine "rich people's retreat" that could house five or ten thousand super rich long lived people where they lived and would only step down off of Mt Olympus when they needed to. Imagine these super rich people using their wealth to buy Ireland and turn it into a rich people only land. Ireland is beautiful country so not much work is needed to be done. And your HOA dues go toward keeping the poor people from invad
Re: (Score:2)
If that means they finally treat climate change and environmental destruction as the serious problems they really are, then I'm all for it.
All of these problems disappear after you eliminate 99.99% of the people, and have a bunch of robots take care of you instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You get a turtle to fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
The remaining 0.001% maintain them.
Re: (Score:2)
But what happens when the robots break down?
Right now, they'd be screwed. But given enough time, it could be viable. Robots will eventually simply service themselves, ship damaged parts off for refurbishment or recycling, and so on. Factories will eventually be wholly automated, with zero humans in them. Mining, smelting, casting, machining, assembly... all can be automated eventually. At that point, it will be more or less feasible for the ultra-wealthy to retreat to robot-protected enclaves from which they release their killbots to eliminate the re
Re: (Score:2)
How convinient, they make their money from environmental destruction, which they then accuse us of, and then they get rid of us together with fixing the environment.
Re: (Score:2)
If that means they finally treat climate change and environmental destruction as the serious problems they really are, then I'm all for it.
No, it just means they buy and trade options on future land development in Antarctica...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Not this generation but Methusela is coming (Score:3)
And they will fight tooth and claw to keep those treatments off of insurance and only for the rich.
No they won't. Not unless they think it will affect their own survival. The rich aren't evil. They aren't planning on leaving everyone behind and they don't care whether the poor live forever or not. The rich are just like everyone else on this planet. They are acting in their own best interest to the best of their abilty. For the middle class this means saving for retirement, buying health insurance, having an emergency fund, and maybe stockpiling a little food or learning a backup job skill. For th
what if life extension happed for imates & ric (Score:2)
what if life extension happened for inmates & rich.
Right inmates get better healthcare then poor
No, wealthy, please, stay and care for us! (Score:3)
Oh, no, what are we going to do? If Elon Musk builds himself an Elysium, we'll inevitably get at each other's throats!
Yey, Collectivism! Down with the greedy cantankerous Individual, glory be to the Collective!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And yet here you are, sucking on the teat of a collective endeavour.
Libertarians and other hyper-individualists wander around the supermarket of civilisation, stocked and supplied by other people, filling their pockets, and acting indignant and crying 'robbers!' when security stops them as they try to leave without paying.
Re: (Score:2)
What I get is that you are too stupid to recognise a metaphor.
And you're a libertarian.
But I repeat myself.
Re: (Score:2)
You're posting on a government-designed network, using a protocol designed by a scientist working at a government-sponsored institution.
You owe your very survival to the existence of other people working together to create a society where you could grow up without some strongman taking away your parents' livelihood. You went to collectively financed-schools, your property is protected by collectively financed police and soldiers.
Yeah, you're stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to imply, no such network would've been created, had government not done it first...
No, I don't. I owe my existence to my parents and the rest of the family, who raised me and cared for me.
Everyone else pursued their own self-interest — and I don't blame them, there is nothing wrong with that.
When they get 'there'... (Score:5, Funny)
I hope that someone is already there to sanitize their telephones.
See ya (Score:2)
On the whole, the world wouldn't really be any worse off if the top 0.1% disappeared, "breakaway civilization" style. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that the rest of us would be much better off if we simply, and regularly, purged ourselves of them.
I don't blame them for wanting to leave us behind, because we're really not that far away from torches and guillotines. And for that, they only have themselves to blame.
Article is a badly formed galts gulch argument (Score:2)
What we will do is hire a qualified replacement and move on with our lives and the business at hand. In a year those rich people won't even be missed anymore. In five they will be forgotten completely.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a Galt's Gulch argument, it's an Elysium argument: Oh noes, the rich have no need for this planet and they're planning to run it into the ground and then move on from it like an old beater car, what shall we ever do?
The rich know damn well that Galt's Gulch would be hell for them: They'd have to actually do work rather than bathing in luxury while an army of underpaid workers does all the work for them, just like an average human, and they'd be easily and quickly replaced by a society that would be
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My idea I started mentioning about 20 years ago. Every year we have a big party to celebrate the richest 1:1,000,000; the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.
"Yay! you won life!" we'll all cheer, and honor them, and then execute them.
Re: (Score:2)
May I suggest a small modification:
Randomise (and hide) the time frame, though by all means set a maximum of 1 year. This way there can be no last minute, and only last minute, dumping of wealth by the "pico-percent" to avoid reaping their just reward.
Apart from a certain qualm about celebrating ritual sacrifice, I have to say your idea, with minor modifications, should lead to a more generous society.
It's nothing as dramatic as a disaster event (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're going to do something about it now's the time. Now would be the time to establish a guaranteed quality of life for all human beings. Food, shelter, healthcare, Education, and transportation established as birth rights. The hard part is to get the 99% to stop fighting among themselves long enough to do it. Hell, I can't even convince my lower middle class friends that a living minimum wage won't cause prices to spiral out of control let alone get them onboard for single payer health care....
Re: (Score:2)
If we're going to do something about it now's the time. Now would be the time to establish a guaranteed quality of life for all human beings. Food, shelter, healthcare, Education, and transportation established as birth rights.
No, there is no such "right", because those things have to be provided by others. But hey, if you want all those "rights", you can find them in prison. You just won't have much need for transportation, though.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right. They already have left everyone else behind and they are only looking at scenarios for a final escape.
I found this paragraph most interesting:
"When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of incl
You're underestimating just how many people (Score:2)
Seriously, we need to start preparing for a world where the rich don't need us to generate the wealthy that use.
Survival of the Smart (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't about being wealthy. It is about being smart and being prepared.
Even the Red Cross recommends having a emergency survival kit In case of a catastrophic event. If you get a bit more serious about it you start putting together a bug out bag.
Do you have a emergency water filter (aka Life Straw / Survivor Filter)?
Do you have food rations to feed everyone you care about for at least 72 hours, and preferably 2 weeks?
Do you have portable solar power to power necessary electronics?
Do you have medical supply kit? (Bandages, gauze, aspirin, soap, swab alcohol, iodine, general antibiotics, suture thread/needle, scissors, tweezers)
Do you have a blanket that can keep you *warm*, is light, and water resistant?
Do you have a sleeping bag, same as above?
Do you have para-cord (type 3)? (Has all kinds of uses)
Do you have a waterproof tarp? (rain s***s, and wet equipment really s***s)
Do you have a dependable light source (no a flashlight is *not* dependable - it runs out)
Do you have a reliable way to start a fire?
Do you have a emergency radio / shortwave, preferably crank?
Do you have at least two changes of clothes?
Do you have a guns / ammo, preferably compact, and training to use it?
Do you have a good bush knife (pref Bowie)? (no your kitchen knives don't count)
Do you have a hatchet?
Do you have heavy boots able to walk on sharp rubble? (maybe sharp glass / barb wire under water)
Do you have actual paper maps of your area? (MapQuest probably won't work in an emergency)
Do you have plastic baggies? (Multipurpose, waterproof)
Do you have a good backpack to hold this?
Do you know how much it weighs? Are you fit enough to carry your bag?
If the answer to any of these is "no", the term for you is "future victim". Remember the hurricane Katrina and the sad sacks sitting on their roofs with signs saying "Need water"? Why weren't they prepared?
If you have these items, but not in a kit, and they are scattered throughout your house, again this makes you a future victim. When an emergency hits you won't have time to assemble a bug out kit.
Look at the Mormons. They keep enough emergency supplies to last months or years, not just for disasters, but as preparation for life's ups and downs. Very smart.
This isn't expensive. You don't have to be rich. You just have to have the right mindset.
And by the way, in case of a disaster, don't expect people to share. Desperate times makes for desperate people. Don't forget the weapons (IMHO a good pistol, plus a simple rugged rifle, plus tactical batons, plus pepper spray, and in a pinch, the hatchet, and hiking staff).
Remember the fable of the ant and the grasshopper.
Re: (Score:2)
The Mormons do keep disaster supplies, but that's more a matter of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. They are preparing for their prophesied apocalypse.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't reach Armageddon unless you actually prepared to deal with the local hurricane seasons
Or deal with the logistical flaws of your local area
Re: (Score:3)
If the answer to any of these is "no", the term for you is "future victim"
I just need a bigger weapon to take all of your stuff.
Re: (Score:3)
No, you need some weapon training. 'Big' weapons are useless.
Guns are pure offence. A 22LR will take everything you have. It's all about who has the drop on who.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Calling everyone that doesn't fully subscribe to your nutter prepping bullshit a "Future Victim" is a bit provocative.
We got through Hurricane Harvey just fine after stocking up on a few extra groceries (both perishable and non-perishable). Nothing else on your list would have really helped much aside from a spare battery pack. A flashlight was plenty sufficient.
The only scenario where these things would really make sense is in a full on invasion (alien, military, or otherwise), and I think there will be
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't expensive. You don't have to be rich. You just have to have the right mindset.
The illusion that you'd be in control of the situation? If there was say a huge earthquake or meteor strike here I'll probably be buried in the rubble and die or survive long enough for help to arrive. Most casual prepping is a bit like the airplane safety instructions, sure it's nice to know where the nearest emergency exit is but it won't really matter if we go crashing into a mountain side.
If the answer to any of these is "no", the term for you is "future victim". Remember the hurricane Katrina and the sad sacks sitting on their roofs with signs saying "Need water"? Why weren't they prepared?
Did any of those sad sacks die of thirst? There was ~1.3 million people in the New Orleans metropolitan area before
Re: (Score:2)
This is about being having insurance against the unfortunate. I have car insurance that I hope never to use, health insurance ditto, and life insurance that I myself will certainly not benefit from. I have three fire extinguishers in my home (kitchen, bedroom closet, garage). My emergency kit is another insurance just in case.
Yes there are people willing to help other people out. These people deserve serious respect. Budweiser trucked water to hurricane disaster zones. Serious props.
Then there are other peo
Re: (Score:2)
Even the Red Cross recommends having a emergency survival kit In case of a catastrophic event.
Yeah, you're especially going to want to have one if the Red Cross shows up in your town and shuts down active goods distribution like they did in Lake County, CA after the Valley fire (etc.) They took over and proceeded to mismanage basically all disaster relief efforts. Fuck the ARC.
Re: (Score:2)
I've got a question. Why did you build a life you'd have to bug out from in the first place?
Re: (Score:3)
It is great to be prepared for natural disasters, flu epidemics, and so on, and that's a great list. A dramatist would say your list is prep for a "Man vs Nature" story.
The hedgies in this story, however, are concerned with Man vs Man.
They really think that the downtrodden masses will rise up against them. The discussion was not about food, shelter, solar power: it was about "angry mobs" and security guards.
This comes up but rarely in history ... mobs of the poor, if they aren't as poor as Les Miserables
Distribution of Wealth and Ideology (Score:5, Interesting)
When you get a class of very rich people it tends to come with a sense of entitlement. These people eventually want to arrange the world around them and consolidate their power. It also means that their solutions to global problems may only serve them. Suppose you have a catastrophic global warming scenario, then one approach to it is, how can we avoid it or minimize the damage. Another approach is, how can we create a fortress paradise which is safe from the rest of the world.
You don't need to believe the purpose of the surveillance state was to protect the wealthy from the rest, to see that it is bound to end up that way. Fear of the external enemy serves that purpose that very well, whether it's terrorists or Russians.
Checks and balances should apply for all concentrations of power, also those who claim to protect us and also private wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
Suppose you have a catastrophic global warming scenario, then one approach to it is, how can we avoid it or minimize the damage. Another approach is, how can we create a fortress paradise which is safe from the rest of the world.
Well, no. There is no such thing as a fortress paradise which is safe from climate change. We have yet to be able to create an artificial biosphere with zero gas exchange, and it takes a whole civilization to maintain a sufficient level of technology to do things like replace door seals and the like. Only a spectacular moron would believe such a thing is possible. A Trump might believe it, but there's no chance that a Bezos or Musk would.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to look at it as a general strategy: general care vs insulate. A gated community belongs to the second category. There are positive feedback mechanisms. The more you put your trust in insulation, the less you're inclined to invest in the general care which locks you into the gated community approach, which makes things worse outside. There can be different levels of gated community: at one level you can insulate your country from a range of refugees , which frees you to pursue aggressive policies a
Look at the movement out of parts of the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Police who don't remove tents and parked RV.
Drug use and police who don't enforce laws due to city politics and demographics.
People with any kind of work ethic and money save up and escape to great parts of the USA.
Clean cities, no crime, no tents, no waste left on streets. Well paid police who are friendly and who have the skills to enforce laws.
Working city governments who work hard to attract new jobs rather than tax jobs.
The more wealthy are buying passports into great nations like New Zealand with the idea of exiting the USA when riots start.
Clean up your city and good people will stay and innovate.
Re: (Score:2)
As US cities fail to keep their streets safe and clean.
As federal policy produces more crime, and fails to address the issue of waste (which could be handled by simply mandating that all packaging should be compostable... what year is it?)
Police who don't remove tents and parked RV.
Homelessness is produced by federal policy. The real unemployment rate is certainly well over 10%. (Even the U6 shows it over 7.)
Drug use and police who don't enforce laws due to city politics and demographics.
Drug use doesn't lead to most drug-related crime, criminalization of drugs does. This has been demonstrated again and again. Drug addiction is exacerbated or even caused by unmet need; studies repeat
I'm not wealthy, but I am happy. Not j (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
People that make more then me, be them have better skill sets that pay better. Higher positions. Or just flat out owners of business's.
Well, no. Economic success is predicated first and foremost on who your parents are. It determines much of your opportunity in all areas; education, connections, geographical location.
They make more then me, I deserve. I deserve what I can do on my own
In that case, you deserve a mud hut and a loincloth, because everything you've got was a group effort. You didn't do any of it on your own.
Re: (Score:2)
Paranoid wealthy? (Score:2)
There must be a positive correlation between wealth and paranoia; here are the "richest" people in the world unable to distinguish between a largely make-believe techno-future, that contains both terrible disasters and miraculous benefits, and reality, and assuming that reality is going to hurt them badly.
I don't envy them.
ST (TOS) (Score:2)
This sounds like a good script for Kirk and co.
Well, it sounds nice... (Score:2)
And apparently we're not on their team.
Beatles: " Life is what happens while... (Score:2)
...you are making other plans"
Travels to escapist encampments in South America teach a very paranoid, sadistic outcome in store for those in whom choice is simply an escape plan.
Eat them!!! (Score:2)
When we’re all starving that’s the only solution. But avoid Peter Thiel, you don’t know what he’s got. A person like him doesn’t fund herpes research for the greater good of humanity. He’s doing it for self-preservation.
Re: (Score:2)
Atlas Shrugged (Score:2)
If the rich pack up and leave (Score:2)
Re:yup (Score:5, Interesting)
Pick the most extreme, uninhabited artic/desert condition here on Earth - then remind yourself that Mars is less comfortable. They'll be sick for a long time, and they will get osteoporosis. The children will definately get it, if they form properly at all. You might not think a prison sentence sounds welcoming, but the odds of going to a maximum security prison - and surviving - are better than life on Mars.
Also space is filled with deadly radiation. When you look around it's mostly empty, right? That's because it's utterly hostile to life.
There is no Earth 2.0. Ever. Not for the rich, or in the future, or anywhere at all. There is one Earth with a system of life tuned to its oceans and its roughly 24 hr day, and if the descendants of humanity ever move comfortably about on a different planet, it may very well be without legs, or with compound eyes and a chitinous shell.
Good luck to everyone who leaves Earth 1.0 - Final Edition
Re: (Score:2)
Not for the rich, or in the future, or anywhere at all.
You may be speaking sense here, but unfortunately this won't stop the detached super-wealthy from blowing it all up in an attempt to drive the industry towards the direction of technological development they think will most suit their dystopian plan for the future.
Good Reminder (Score:5, Insightful)
It really needs to get very bad before a place like Mars is better for us than earth. First, you can only get a tiny group to leave earth.
Second, with the investment needed it's always possible to create a better place for them here than you'd achieve elsewhere.
I can think of two reasons to explore space
1. pioneering. No rationale required
2. not putting all your eggs in a single basket. Things might get that bad that humanity kills itself off.
Re:yup (Score:4, Interesting)
They'll be sick for a long time, and they will get osteoporosis. The children will definately get it, if they form properly at all.
You are assuming the human genome will stay the same. We can already precisely edit DNA, and it shouldn't be too difficult to fix the genes associated with bone calcium and other low gravity issues. By the time SpaceX is ready to start shuttling people to Mars, we can already have a modified sub-population ready to go.
Re:yup (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming the human genome will stay the same. We can already precisely edit DNA,
Just because we can precisely edit DNA doesn't mean we know what exactly we are doing. We don't understand completely how DNA works and how changing bits of the genome affects everything.
and it shouldn't be too difficult to fix the genes associated with bone calcium and other low gravity issues.
That's a huge leap you are making there. Sure, we'll undo billions of years of evolution by messing around with a few genes, and at the same time not producing terrible side-effects. This is at least one level of complexity up from GMO food and whatever. I have not seen these X-Men-like genetically modified humans walking about.
By the time SpaceX is ready to start shuttling people to Mars, we can already have a modified sub-population ready to go.
Extremely unlikely.
Not only is the genetic modification required science fiction, but you wouldn't really know all the things you would need to do until you had 2-3 generations of people living on Mars. There is just too much we don't know.
Re: (Score:2)
You shouldn't admire it. He bought into some hype about the blood of young mice being able to reduce aging in older mice.
The problem is this only worked when the circulatory systems of the mice were connected. Because that gave the old mouse access to young kindeys, liver, pancreas, and everything else. When they just did whole blood transfusions, there was no effect on the older mice.
Thiel still thinks blood transfusions can work.
Re: (Score:2)
If they thought it would buy them more time, many people would be happy to spend an hour a day plumbed in to a minimum-wage teenager.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If they find a way to do it cheaply, they will...
...immediately patent it and then jack the price through the roof.
FTFY.
Re:What a bunch of fluff. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, people need to get their heads out of...er...whatever weird place they are in now. We are pushing our technological boundaries because that's what we do. It's not some grand conspiracy to fuck the world over, its just what makes sense to do right now. And with each breakthrough we make, "what makes sense" will change, and people will adapt to that.
Perhaps, but to an outside observer it is indistinguishable from a grand conspiracy to fuck the world over.
Laissez-faire capitalism is an environmental and societal suicide pact, and we must break it.
Re: (Score:2)
Laissez-faire capitalism is an environmental and societal suicide pact, and we must break it.
What do you propose as a replacement?
Re: What a bunch of fluff. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tightly regulated capitalism with sharply progressive taxation to redistribute income. Within the next few decades capitalism as we know it will have to be phased out entirely before post-scarcity effects and a lack of participation opportunity for workers due to automation force a hard crash of the system.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you seriously insinuating that we currently have Laissez-faire capitalism in effect? Try to start up your own business, get some real sales, and then come back and tell us how Laissez-faire it was.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm all for capitalism, but it will always need regulations for safety, and anti-monopolistic behavior.
Re: What a bunch of fluff. (Score:2)
The population has ALWAYS paid for stuff. Whether as soldiers in wars, peasants in kingdoms, slaves, paying taxes, currency inflation, bonds, etc.
Initially it has always been the few who benefit from the many. Who do you think actually paid for Columbus' journey, the Pyramids, Roman roads, or the Great Wall? The piece is just a fluff piece talking about something that hasn't changed since the dawn of man.
Re:What a bunch of fluff. (Score:5, Insightful)
They may make only 35% of all the "income", but top 5% also own roughly 70% of the total wealth, so that distribution seems somewhat equitable to me.
And just for the record, the remaining 95% also pay taxes: federal, state, and local taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, social security taxes, and so on. And for that 95%, those taxes often make up a much, much larger percentage of their available disposable income.
We all have a stake in the pie.
Re: What a bunch of fluff. (Score:3)
That would only be true if your definition of wealth is cash value. In other words, that wealth also includes billions of dollars worth (not really) of crappy abstract art, and a 2 million dollar tintype of Billy the Kid. But that's hardly any of it. Do you know what Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett have in common? If you guessed "billions of dollars", then you're wrong! What they all have in common is some prime real estate that somebody else decides how much it's worth, and most
Re: What a bunch of fluff. (Score:5, Informative)
That, and most of the services the government provides is not of service to these guys. Police? Many have and pay for private security anyway. Education? They send their kids to private schools. Direct entitlements like food stamps, welfare, low cost housing, free cell phones (in California at least), Medicare/medicade, all are lost to these guys because we stop them from having access to these entitlements.
Wow, that's so ridiculously wrong that it's bordering on the absurd.
The richer you are, the more in need you are of property protection, meaning police and courts. Private security cannot replace the police. In developed countries, private security are glorified doormen (they, by law, usually have no ability to actually do anything of any consequence). Even if the private security guys can shoot, they cannot investigate crimes and arrest people. You need the police for that. There is no private service you can pay for that will prosecute, try, convict, and lock away criminals - you need the public prosecutors and the government-funded court system.
As for education, in developed countries private schools are mostly about creating an exclusive social circle (kids with rich parents hanging out exclusively with other kids with rich parents), not about a higher quality education. Usually, the private schools have to follow whatever the national approved curriculum is (or at least some core elements of it), which means they lean heavily on the public education system (who develops that curriculum? not the private schools). The price of the private school is there to keep poor people out, not to pay for some above-and-beyond education.
Btw, who do the rich employ to work for them, and therefore, earn their money for them? Legions upon legions of people schooled in the public education system. Whether its basic literacy or numeracy, or people with advanced university degrees, the rich's ability to become rich and keep being rich is heavily dependent on millions of people educated using government money.
As for the "entitlements" of the poor - they are there to stop the poor from creating a revolution and stripping their rich of their wealth (and their heads, literally). The rich are the top of the pyramid, but for there to be a top, there has to be a pyramid, a base - and the foundations have to be solid. Do you really think all of the elements of the welfare state that developed over the past 200 years were just pressure from the poor and the lower classes and not a great chunk of the elite realizing that all shit breaks loose when you let people become hungry and desperate (a la France 1789, Russia 1917, and many other examples)?
So yes, the rich benefit from food stamps, welfare, and low-cost housing for the poor. In a very clear way.
Re: (Score:3)
Just because they own 70% of the total wealth doesnâ(TM)t mean you are entitled to any of it. What, you think the world just owes you a living?
Nobody "owes" the rich their property rights either, nor does anyone "owe" them the chance to avoid a revolution in which their heads will be guillotined.
If we assume that no one "owes" anyone anything (which, in a Hobbesian way, is a fair assumption for some uncivilized state), then everyone is just looking out for their own survival. So the poor, when they are hungry, robbing the rich, is completely fair game.
You see, the modern welfare state is a social contract between rich and poor: the rich get to kee
Re: (Score:3)
testosterone levels have been drastically falling in the US and other developed countries for quite awhile.
So have violent crime rates.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh? And when it sucks up all the funding for medical research into curing diseases that would have otherwise been within society's grasp to cure, then what? Does that still not matter?
Re: (Score:2)
The other real danger, and the most immediate real danger, of mass migration is the far-right ideology it inspires, posing unnecessary threats to the global economy and raising the risk of war (and hate crimes/genocide/humanitarian crises, but the rich don't care about that stuff). For this reason mass migration is only sustainable in short, widely spaced doses, otherwise you get nazis.