[ExI] Philosophy Tech Support

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 10:13 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Philosophy Tech Support

 

​.  What if… everyone had too much free time on their hands?  Assume away constant struggles for the basics, so we have sufficient food, shelter, all the bear necessities of life, spelling intentional (Google on it, younger friends.)

Then what happens?

spike

​First, you have a biased question.  'Too much' is by definition going to lead to trouble of some kind.  But what about just a lot of time?  I've been retired for 17 years and have had no trouble filling the time with my hobbies, mostly reading.  What kind of trouble did you have in mind, fan of Baloo?  bill w

 

 

BillW, you retired and found constructive things to do, but I wasn’t really asking about you in particular.  Smart guys will find a way.  What if the seething masses are idle?  They are fed and sheltered, but have nothing to do.  What then?

 

Here’s where I am going with it.  Imagine things work out better than I expect, and we manage to transition somehow to fully renewable energy sources.  Imagine for the sake of argument that no singularity occurs, but we manage to build robots that pretty much take care of nearly everything we now call “work.”  There are still jobs, and things are being invented, fortunes are still being made with clever ideas, but minimal food and shelter are available for nothing, and crime really isn’t a factor, since robo-cops don’t cost much, so there are several of them milling around everywhere you look.

 

What then?  Do we settle down and stop fighting?  Or do we find some new struggle?  Anything else?

 

spike

 

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