h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rambling post alert...

Re Hoo's point about utopian plenty, I can't help but feel, like some others, that there will always be stuff that some people will want for reasons of status. Whether it's solid gold pots ('the heat conductivity is *so* much better than copper y'know, that's why I paid $834,000 for them dahlink!'), or backstage passes at concerts, people will always want to attain status, which is at the expense of other people. We've *evolved* to want that, and no matter how rich we get, there'll always be some kinda rat race going on.

Even if we go into space, some real estate will be more valuable than other real estate, and this will attract higher quality mates (ie top babes for men). I can't see this ever changing, under any economic structure.

<< Capitalism creates unhealthy inequalities>> Ed

Any society with more than about 50 people in it has inequalities. Is capitalism that different to all the other ones?

<>

What industries have yet to be invented? I'd guess once our material concerns are taken care of (and we're getting there) then it'll be about relative advantage (ie shagging nicer women/men). Better homes/access to education (this implant's $300,000 for the guaranteed Oxbridge entry, and it monitors your blood pressure too!), I'd guess will use different things to sell what private schools do today, and private schools won't go away. Treatments that make you have the skin of a twenty year old, make your child's face grow more symmetrically, and so be better looking. Direct electronic implants. Anti-ageing nanotechnology. The list is probably endless, and it will all be about relative advantage.

<>

Where you can download paragliding instructions, that you watch/enjoy/take part in with your pals? Or get an app for learning how to juggle? DIY in 5 minutes or less.. When you really can experience the reality of a concert without being there? I *think* this is what Ed means by a crisis of capitalism. Although for music, but not books or films or poetry (the 'feeling poetry' app), this might not be the case.


Finally a question. 3D printers are becoming more affordable in a Moore's Law kind of way, the price is halving every 1-2 years. So by 2030 we'll all have one and we'll be able to make anything we want, cos all the plans will be available on the internet. I think this will have absolutely *enormous* effects on everything, for the simple Marxist reason that how the means of production are controlled is very important. What'll happen when you make everything at home, and all you need is soil, cos everything's made of carbon (graphene etc) and other organic molecules anyway?

Thoughts everyone?

>>that there will always be stuff that some people will want for reasons of status.

That's not quite what I think. I say that there are currently people who seek the status of comparative wealth, but that does not necessarilarly mean there always will be. It's possible that we could change our instinctive behaviour, either through education or design. Or if the 'have nots' were able/willing to simply stop being impressed by demonstrations of status, then status symbols would lose their power. There are, and always have been, various schools of thought which try to convince us that seeking material wealth is wrong, shallow, or at least, unnecessary.

However, I still think there are many more of us currently seeking status than some of us (or is it just one?) acknowledge. An example was given by Hoo of his desire for high-performance cars, and how that desire was nothing to do with status, and I have no problem accepting this. The thing is about such objects, though, that they can at the same time have a useful function for one person, but be a status symbol for another. If you just want to be able to drive at 200mph for fun, or if you admire the engineering which goes into such machines, fair enough. But where I work in London, I see several Lamborghinis being driven through stop-start traffic to whatever their destination is, and then see them return through the same traffic after lunch. Clearly these people have just used the most showy-off car to pose in, because any sane person who had no concerns for status would use a more practical car for such traffic conditions (Lamborghinis are no fun in traffic).

This should come as no surprise, since status symbols have traditionally had an element of the practical about them, whether they be a ceremonial axe or sceptre, or an uncomfortable throne.

No, not everyone can afford paragliding lessons, because we have to spend our limited incomes on food, and clothing, and energy. Rather my point was that before this millenium is out, all those things will be effectively free, and if money even still exists, the only things we'll have to spend it on will be the services of other people.

"there will always be stuff that some people will want for reasons of status"

I'll give you that one. There's only one Mona Lisa, and a replicated copy, no matter how accurate, isn't THE Mona Lisa. So that will still happen, I guess.

"Even if we go into space, some real estate will be more valuable than other real estate"

At first. But with sufficiently advanced technology, it becomes clear that planets are nice places to visit, but RUBBISH places to live.

"Where you can download paragliding instructions"

There are some things you really, REALLY can't learn from a book, and strapping yourself into an aircraft you can lift with one hand and then flying it to several thousand feet above the ground is one of them.

I'm excited by the prospect of 3D printers, but having had experience with them in an industrial context, I don't think they're going to revolutionise the world in my lifetime. They'll make some things better, sure, but they won't, for at least a few decades, be societal-level game-changers the way, say, the internet has been.

"Where you can download paragliding instructions"

There are some things you really, REALLY can't learn from a book,


I meant downloading it into your brain.

"people will always want to attain status, which is at the expense of other people"

I agree with the first part. I don't agree that the second part naturally follows. Status is not a zero-sum game, necessarily.

For instance: Mark Knopfler has great status as a player of the guitar. Our economy is set up such that this has brought him great *wealth*, too, but I would argue that even in a society where wealth was meaningless, Knopfler would *still* have great status, simply because of what he's able to do. And, crucially, his greatness as a guitarist takes away precisely nothing from anyone else. Indeed, his greatness might very well inspire others to take up the instrument, leading to an overall increase in the sum total of human fulfillment.

Re: downloading direct to the brain.

Hmm... looked good in "The Matrix" didn't it?

The thing is, we have absolutely no idea how that could actually be done.

Worse, we have no idea WHETHER it could be done, even in principle.

It is often hard to spot which posited future technologies in sf are reasonable extrapolations, and which are fundamentally physically or for other reasons unlikely ever to exist. Tell me your grandchildren will live in a house made from a single flawless diamond crystal, and I'll say "maybe". Tell me THEIR grandchildren will live on a spaceship, and I'll say "could be". Tell me their grandchildren will get up and down from space by space elevator, and I'll say "Probably, and I do hope so". But tell me THEIR grandchildren will travel by Star Trek style teleporter, and I'll shake my head sadly and say "Nope, don't believe it." Brain downloading is something else I don't believe we'll see any time this millenium. Time and again what constitutes our minds turns out, on inspection, to be far, far more complicated than we could have imagined (ironically..).

Besides... in a post-scarcity future, the very experience of learning something new would be valued. Simply downloading the finished skill would be to miss the point - it would be like taking a woman out to dinner and feeding her liquid through a tube direct to her stomach. The end result - she's been fed - is achieved, but the end result was not the *point* of the exercise. (Plus, in my experience, feeding them liquid through a tube direct to their stomach when you've promised to take them out to dinner is a one-way ticket the "friend zone", and who wants to be there?)

this will attract higher quality mates (ie top babes for men). I can't see this ever changing, under any economic structure.<<<

I´m not sure if I´ve understood you well...

It seems that:

a) men are the ones who will be able to achieve economical status

b) women are brainless enough to want to go with those men (like the guy of the Lamborgini)

That has been true in the past and up to a point,now too.
I disagree completely with that still being the future "under any economic structure"

Economical emancipation of women, with or without professional status or achievement, means that women do not need a man who earns the money for a living or for aesthetic surgery or diamonds.

Economical status is no longer the way to get the best babe-mate.

However, if this crisis goes on, the MAN, that one who fits into the traditional suit of conservative patriarchal values (just the same ones of these neoliberals men who are screwing us all) then women may need to start looking for the best hunter who brings food to home.
This crisis is going to be a comeback to the "old good values" of women at home.

Me:
>><< Capitalism creates unhealthy inequalities>>

Pedro:
>>Any society with more than about 50 people in it has inequalities. Is capitalism that different to all the other ones?

Yes yes. The Marxist argument is not naive about The Human Condition. When we say 'Capitalism' we should recognise that all we're talking about is a stage of economic development which is based on same type of basic, inequality-creating economic transactions as previously, only within a certain structural framework.

What I meant was fatal inequalities. I'm not so much concerned about equality in the sense of 'being nice to folk' (although am). Rather if those inequalities become too great Capitalism stops working. There isn't the wealth at the bottom end to finance the top.

Some more thoughts on the idea that status will attract higher quality mates...

In a society with little or no scarcity, sexual politics will be very, very different. For one thing, nobody will "depend" on anyone else for food, shelter, or whatever, so the traditional household structure will be obsolete. Quite a lot of people shack up together because to do so makes economic sense. Remove that from the equation and things change.

I'm no expert, and I don't think I'm revealing any secrets when I say my attitudes are non-typical, but in my opinion the basic drive of the human male is not to breed... it is to mate. This is in direct conflict with the basic drive of the human female, which is to breed. Feminist bleating aside, that's what four billion years of evolution has programmed us to want to do. Sure, there are exceptions. I'm acquainted with men who say they want babies, and with women who say they don't. I think they're lying, to themselves and others, but I could be wrong.

Consider: when I went through puberty, porn was scarce. There were magazines and videos, of course, but they were of limited availability, and there were significant barriers of embarrassment to be overcome.

Today, only a couple of decades on, any porn I want, of any specialist type I can think of (plus a few I'd rather not) are available, instantly, in high definition, free, 24/7, and I don't have to ask anyone for it. We're officially post-scarcity for porn, to the point that, when it was discovered that a government minister's husband had paid for "adult" movies out of MP's expenses, the most common comment my acquaintances made was not "how terrible", or "how hypocritical" or whatever... it was "what kind of ignorant loser *pays* for porn?"

Feminists bemoan the situation, stating with some justification that the "pornification" of society leads to reduced respect for women, greater expectations for men that women can't or more likely won't conform to, and a generally unpleasant effect on society.

Can anyone argue convincingly that the end of the scarcity of actual satisfactory sex is far in the future? And how much worse will it be then?

Or will it...? There's a lot to be said for the idea that we'd have a lot less war if everyone got laid every day. Imagine: some shouty man in a hat tells you to go and lie in a muddy trench for a week and get shot at and definitely no sex. The alternative is a guaranteed bunk up every single day. Hmm... let me think. Army recruitment would go into freefall. (Sure a few sick puppies would still join up, but probably best they're all in one place anyway).

aside/
excuse the poor syntax:

if this crisis goes on, the MAN, that one (...) WILL COME BACK and then women...

I usally don´t correct my mistakes, I let you guess, but this time, it was hurting me.

@Maria/pedro re top babes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/19/honey-money-catherine-hakim-review

There's a particularly apt quote, third para from the end.

"if those inequalities become too great Capitalism stops working"

Temporarily, yes. We're all living through it right now. We allowed the inequalities to over-inflate, and it popped.

But we're not sitting on the side of the road with the engine exploded and on fire - we've stalled. Again. We seem to stall pretty regularly, so regularly in fact that you'd think by now we'd have started spotting a pattern.

One pattern we have spotted, though, is this: when we've stalled, we always just start the engine and drive off. It might take a few goes, but we always just get going again. And we change up, and change up, and change up into ever higher gears, until we miss a gear change and stall again.

The problem you've got arguing against capitalism as a system is that, inconveniently, even despite its regularly stalling and restarts, it has produced the healthiest, longest lived, most literate, best fed poor people in the history of the world.

A jobless man on benefit in the worst council estate in Liverpool lives in conditions of luxury and comfort kings could not dream of even a couple of hundred years ago, with clean water, enough food, health care, and chances for intellectual enrichment, education, entertainment and transport that would have been unimaginable. And it's capitalism that's got us there and kept us there.

>>This is in direct conflict with the basic drive of the human female, which is to breed.

And yet women use contraception so that they can enjoy non procreative sex. And some of them, I understand, even particularly enjoy sexual activities unrelated to breeding.

Stick to the chemical plants.

"And yet women use contraception so that they can enjoy non procreative sex"

Indeed.

And the phrase "biological clock" is entirely obsolete and redundant and you never hear about it any more.

And IVF has to be provided for free, because nobody would be prepared to pay thousands and thousands of pounds just to have a child.

And no woman has ever claimed to be using contraception when, in fact, not doing in order to become pregnant.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

'Stalling' is a good analogy, SoRB. Someone else says 'Capitalism lurches from crisis to Crisis'.

But do you notice something else? Each of the crises tends to necessitate the abandonment of pure free market principles and a tiny bit more redistribution. Mainly. Although we should also observe that the aftermath of crises has, historically, often been...nasty.

I'll hold my hands up and say that it's inaccurate to talk about what we currently have as 'Capitalism'. To a degree I've been talking about an underlying theoretical model. The real world is messier. I've been endlessly plugging this guy on the topic:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/15/anti-capitalist-occupy-pigeonholing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/25/things-tell-capitalism-hajoon-chang?INTCMP=SRCH





Fintan O'Toole on R4 'Start The Week' is worth listening to on the Irish crisis. It's hard to see how they can pull out of their stall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r9xr

All I was suggesting, SoRB, is that sometimes you waaaaaaaaaaaaay overgeneralise.

>>And IVF has to be provided for free...


*TO COUPLES*


>>...because nobody would be prepared to pay thousands and thousands of pounds just to have a child.

?

Just sayin'.

...a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics...

and in her free time a Madam who wants to provide goods for those successful MEN in need of perky women. The speedy car and the will put the colour to the scene.

told you so...
This crisis is going to be the reafirmation of the neoliberal machos, and the decline of laboral and women rights.

"sometimes you waaaaaaaaaaaaay overgeneralise"

Well, yes. Guilty. Sometimes generalising is useful. "Men want sex and women want babies" is a generalisation - that (I hope) goes without saying. But being a generalisation doesn't make it *false*, though, does it?

post 78 in answer to Ed´s post 71.



about sex desire and women. Desire comes in all sizes, both for men and women.

In my case and in the case of MANY women, sex is a frolic activity.
You want biological reasons? We women are receptive not only during ovulation. We can have sex anytime, even with the blob.

Beasts of lust we are.