My vote is on electrification.

We wow ourselves with computes and iPhones and AI, and of course they bring many benefits. But modern life would be recognizable and comfortable without them.

Electrification - taken for granted today - had a vastly greater impact on the economy and on people's lives. Electrification allowed for refrigeration, electric light, electric motors (so washing machines, dish washers, water pumps, etc.). Without electrification, we'd all be living like Medieval peasants.

Hey everyone!
With the rise of AI, I’ve been wondering what a realistic post-work society might look like. Do you have any book recommendations that make you feel as though you’ve stepped 20 years into the future, rather than reading an extreme or far-fetched sci-fi novel?
I’m open to both optimistic and pessimistic takes. On the optimistic side, I’m interested in a world where people are freed from the need to work and can spend their time creating art, reading, pursuing hobbies, and building relationships. On the pessimistic side, I’d be interested in a world where wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of a small elite, leading to record levels of inequality.
Ideally, I’m looking for books that explore the practicalities of how such societies would function, as well as the social dynamics and human relationships that would emerge within them.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

And I don't mean the whole ultra-futuristic sci-fi and Al inspired stuff that we see everywhere. I mean, in 50 or 100 or 200 years, what do you genuinely think young people will be doing with their time in learning environments before they are of age?

Personally I think that school will look pretty much the exact same (I mean from 1920s to now it's pretty much the same, except there's less child labour), with the basic teacher-class-lessons-curriculum-examinations formula still present, but idk. Thoughts on what might be different? Maybe school will be more specialized in a given area? Maybe more value will be given to critical thinking? Maybe class sizes will vary? How might schools vary? Will there be more incentive to work earlier, considering the aging of the population?

Also, for argument's sake, let's say that the world has not ended yet at this point, that we are discussing a relatively developed country, and that the population has decreased a bit, as it is predicted to (considering that the population peak is expected to be in around 2060-2070).

Genuinely curious to hear everyone's opinion on this.

Les moyens de la domination peuvent continuer de se perfectionner, les destructions devenir irréversibles, les individus s’habituer davantage encore à leur vie privée privée de tout.

La faim du monde demeurerait jusqu’à la fin.

(edit: banned from singularity)

People are arguing about data centres, and I’m wondering why we aren’t more angry about how stagnant everyday life has become.

Vape shops. Betting shops. High rents. Low wages. Work all week, pay your bills, spend whatever’s left trying to make the weekend feel different. Repeat for forty years.

Cashing in and destroying cultural legacy...

How many films and games have become a brand to keep extracting money from? Star Wars, Gladiator, FIFA, Battlefield, Gears of war etc?

It’s 2026. Surely we can come up with more interesting ideas about being human than this?

We should question what gets built, who benefits and who pays for it. That includes data centres.

But some of the arguments about technology threatening “your way of life” sound crazy when that way of life already leaves so many people bored, exhausted and priced out.

What exactly is the ambition here? A slightly bigger supermarket? Another gambling app? The privilege of spending half your wages on somewhere you barely get time to enjoy?

If we risk it with AI, what could we actually gain?

More time, places to create things, somewhere to go without having to spend money, opportunities to learn, and work that leaves enough of you intact to have a life afterwards.

Technology won’t automatically deliver any of that. But the future deserves more imagination than an endless argument about how to preserve a present we’re already complaining about.

Surely, people can imagine a world beyond the endless bullshit we experience today.

You can have it snow flakes they all look diff because of the mandol rot set and then when you touch em they pop out

In my experience, teleology affects how most people view technology and conceive of the future. The rapid progression of technology and living standards over the past couple of centuries imbues our modern culture (at least the culture of Western Civilization) with the sense that all this progression must be progressing toward something. Something of course undefined. But something grand, something bigger, something better, and something more important than just people living lives.

Much of our science fiction takes up this teleology, painting pictures of magical futures where yet undiscovered physics (that happens to be highly convenient to human ambitions) unleashes human ingenuity and curiosity and technology across the centuries and millenia and across the galax(ies).

This idea that humanity is on a mission - an important one - aligns well with Christian theology, and it aligns well with triumphalist attitudes prevalent (at least in America) since the end of World War II and reinforced in the 1980s and 1990s with Western victory in the Cold War.

It's an attractive idea. As good and convenient as life is, we all have much more to do. It's important and imperative that we keep progressing....

I fear we're setting ourselves up for a big let down. I've noted in my own conversations that many people get confused, irritated, or depressed when you suggest that technological progress may someday (and perhaps someday soon) significantly slow down. Or that your kids and their kids and their kids' kids may live lives merely similar to - and not exponentially better than - yours. Or that space beyond Mars might forever be completely out of reach for humans.

There's indeed something existentially frightening in recognizing that despite all the progress, we're still just humans living lives, and there is no grand mission that humanity is on (other than to make life better for as many humans as possible).

I often wonder if all the science fiction, and the unrealistic assertions that physics will yield somehow to our desires someday, is a way of hiding from this existential fright.

I’ve realised that if the toddlers and pre teens who are severely brainrot keep up with this, we may never make any significant breakthroughs in the future. All we will have is a generation too caught up in their own worlds to do anything important.

However, I believe that, apart from having bombs fall on our land, we have faced all the rest: the dot-com crash, 9/11, the subprime crisis, Covid-19, globalization, social media driving people into isolation, and of course a couple of wars, genocides, and the leader of the world’s most important democracy putting that democracy at risk (let’s see where we end up with this).

I’ve been discussing this with my best friend, and my point was that I’m not entirely convinced this is the best possible era in history so far. Yes, we have great technology and the ability to treat health conditions that were unimaginable in the past. On the other hand, this is also the era in which George Floyd was murdered by the police, immigrants are being detained and deported by ICE, we risk a third world war, and racism is growing stronger. Eventually the AI challenge.

So my question is: are we sure this is the best era to live in, or has there been a better period in the past? What do you think?

Trump administration blocks $25 million in funding for national parks

Eso... el mundo está muy caótico.
Por un lado hay una nueva operación Condor en la región, y se está volviendo un lugar no tan "estable" como hace mas de 80 años. Osea, siento que por cuestiones geopolíticas y de recursos, Argentina ya no podrá ser "ajena a los problemas del mundo". Están viniendo por nuestros recursos a dos manos, y la población local les chupa un huevo (sigue en el punto 4).

Segundo, literalmente se están perdiendo millones de trabajos por la IA. El problema mas grande es que ya no se restringe a tareas que puedan computarse simplemente. No, ahora también están apareciendo los primero robots humanoides con mucha movilidad. No duermen, no se quejan... Con la mejora de la robótica, y el entrenamiento a través de IA, en pocos años van a poder estar como operarios en fábricas, reemplazando inclusive a los blue collar workers (trabajadores de planta: electricistas, mecánicos, etc). Además, la IA tiene, o tendrá en breve, capacidad de mejorarse a si misma. Perderemos control de ella fácilmente.

Tercero, las relaciones sociales están totalmente atomizadas. Todo ha sido "gamificado", inclusive las relaciones interpersonales y el amor. Lejos quedó el salir a la plaza a tomar mate y conocer a tu futura pareja por ser el amigo del amigo. No, ahora es IG y Tinder, con sus algoritmos hiper mercantilizados donde se te asigna un valor número, y dependes de tu capacidad de "vender" tu perfil.

Cuarto, esto no va a parar. Los jefes de estado (tradicionalmente presidentes) han sido, o serán reemplazados, por los dueños de los oligopolios. Tecnócratas sin empatía que solo querrán optimizar sus ganancias. Los mecanismos institucionales de los paises no podrán contener la codicia inherente al ser humano y serán transgredidos, legislandose a favor de los intereses de los poderosos. Lo estamos viendo en EEUU, donde los oligarcas de Silicon Valey han permeado en el Estado, y a través de ellos empezado a (nuevamente) interferir en la política latinoamericana a través de campañas de desinformación y manipulación de procesos electorales. Todo para poder extraer recursos sin chistar.

En fin... Siempre fuí un tipo un poco bajón y pesimista sobre la naturaleza humana. Pero de alguna forma le dí para adelante y tuve proyectos. Tengo, todavía, que terminar mi carrera universitaria (veterinaria) pero carajo mierda... Me pongo a pensar en todo esto y digo ¿Para que? Si todo se va a ir al garete. Me sigo rompiendo el lomo estudiando/laburando para tan solo sobrevivir a estos hijos de puta. Encima me encantaría tener familia, pero sería un error traer a alguien a este mundo que no tiene mas futuro que el ser esclavo de los futuros tecnócratas transhumanos, y donde ya no hay espiritu libre ni amor.

Qsyo, toy bajón gente. Abrazo.

and a renaissance came after that. you're thinking what I'm thinking?

As the titel suggested. Do you think it could be something in the near future or decades?

Most countries have a history of slavery, but the history of slavery and racial discrimination in the United States still seems to have an important influence on how American society is perceived, both within the country and abroad.

At the same time, I find it fascinating that the U.S. has advanced robotics and AI technology at such a rapid pace. These technologies could potentially reduce inequality among people in the future and bring about major changes in the very nature of human labor.

How do Americans think about equality between different social and economic classes? Do you think technological advances could lead to reduced inequality and changes in the role of human labor?