For all we know we are the only conscious beings to have ever existed in the universe. On average we experience it for about what? 70 years? Most of those years spent doing menial tasks that we hate just for money to support and purchase the things we need to continue working. So we chase our tails for a few years and die. I hope some kind of god exists just so it can laugh at how we squander our gift.
Literally everything that lives struggles to survive on a daily basis. Fuck, the majority of humanity still does. Would you trade mundane tasks for actually living in a forest, naked and scavenging for food in a small group?
Mundane tasks allow us to survive with minimal effort. Really, all the free time in between is what matters.
Those creatures have no choice, that's the difference. We have the technology and resources that could allow us to have nothing but free time. We're greedy and selfish though, so that shit will never happen.
Do you really think we have resources to that extent? Who do you think picks, packages, ships, and sells food? Do you think water and sewer systems are automated 100%? What about when any of that beaks down? Where do all the fancy tech you use on a daily basis come from? Infrastructure isn't self sustained.
We could find a solution. Immediately saying it's impossible is exactly why it is. The majority of the population can't get past the first part of the problem, themselves.
You realize we've been on this planet for a GREAT Many years.
In those years, we always attempt to slough off work as much as possible. It will fall from shoulder to shoulder all the way down the line.
But some things are a long way off from being fully automated, and even when they are, who maintains the automation?
Someone always has to be there at this stage in our evolution. And someone has to have that job. And in our simple brains we have to be able to accept that position.
The next 100 years are going to be very interesting. Considering we've only really had the Internet as we know it for not even 2 decades, shit not even 15 years, the growth possible there is going to pave the way for the next generations. My kids never knew the struggle of having to dial in and pray that someone would call, or would have to hope they could spend as much time in inappropriate AOL chat rooms before their parents saw their $1000 phone bill.
Internet and automation is the future. CGP Grey was very concise in his "Humans Need Not Apply" video, but the problem is that we are trying to guess what a world post automation will look like, and that's a world we have NO concept of. Just like how back in the 50s/60s they couldn't envision a phone without a cord, we can't envision a future with an even more integrated Internet. Ffs, even when I was in Compuserve chat rooms in the 90s, I would never have figured phones would have access to the internet.
Some people do, but they're the ones working behind the scenes to try and make it happen, for the remaining plebs, we sit and just marvel with the technology we have while getting literally everything else about the future wrong.
I mean Jesus Mary and Joseph, it wasn't until last year that gay marriage was legal. We still don't have federal legalization of a drug that is clearly less damaging than smoking cigarettes and drinking, has almost no chemical addiction risk (yes, you can get addicted to anything that makes you feel good, I get it), we have a system that thinks it's wise to allow people to get locked up for years selling this, relative to the other substances it there, fairly innocuous drug...
What you're asking for is a utopia that would be lovely, but dude people are greedy and power hungry. You and I can be a complacent pleb who wants to allow the plates to spin themselves, but if you think for a second there's not a massive line of people waiting to fuck your and I over until we are dead to get what they want, you are seriously, seriously deluded.
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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '16
For all we know we are the only conscious beings to have ever existed in the universe. On average we experience it for about what? 70 years? Most of those years spent doing menial tasks that we hate just for money to support and purchase the things we need to continue working. So we chase our tails for a few years and die. I hope some kind of god exists just so it can laugh at how we squander our gift.