[extropy-chat] it's all understandable, except

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 12:01:41PM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> ### Jeez, Eugen, you sound depressed. Reading libertarian-leaning

No, just not irrationally exhuberant. You might or might not remember
that just prior to the .bomb I wasn't exactly exhuberant, either.
Where others saw the gleaming outskirts of the Singularity, I only saw a 
bubble about to pop. Well, I hate to repeat myself, but this one is 
going to be a really Big One. The only thing I don't know for sure is
when exactly. Some say as early as 2007, some put that at 2012.
It's hard to tell, because it's punctuated equilibrium psychology
thing. In a number of different universes it has happened already.

> economics blogs (Cafe Hayek, Marginal Revolution, Econlog) gives me a
> totally different outlook, with the middle class shrinking by steady

Yeah, the flavor varies widely, depending on which brand of koolaid you drink.

> attrition into the affluent class, and an economical revolution due to

I don't know the source of your numbers, but I'm hearing the entire
middle class is taking a mud slide downwards. The situation only reverses
in multiple megabuck (still single-digit, probably) country. I.e., the cutoff
threshold is really high. The situation in the rural U.S. is arguably
really dismal.

> disappearing manufacturing costs in the offing.

Yes, outsourcing production to hellholes which have no environmental
nor labor protection really makes things cheap, at least as long energy
is cheap enough so that transport doesn't figure much. On the plus side
of things, we see lots of long-ailing societies in the process of bootstrap.
As long as the ecosystem can still take it, that's a good thing.
I'm not sure the ecosystem is taking it at all well, though. 
 
> I may be the inveterate optimist seeing a silver lining everywhere
> ("The UFAI ante portas? Cool, it will fry all the guys I hate, too!")
> so maybe I am prone to missing the dark clouds on the horizon but,
> really, where is the evidence for doom (aside from the risk of UFAI in
> the next 20 - 50 years, which is the only major existential threat I
> am aware of)?

There is no existential risks short-term, but most world economies
are at the threshold of collapse, and the entire house of cards is
entirely interconnected. The reasons are boring and manifold, and I'm
sure you haven't missed them. The only thing which can pull us out
is a concerted disruptive technology series, but I just don't see
any signs for it.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20061106/9706194f/attachment.bin>