We are entering an era where most anyone can quickly talk to most anyone else who can talk. Talking will get easier as more people speak English, and perhaps as automatic translation is improved. Easy talking wasn’t true before the widespread use of telephones, and it won’t be true after our descendants spread across the stars, or think billions of times faster. The next few centuries will contain the easiest talking era in all of history.
An era where children know more about the basic technology of the day than adults must be unique.
This era is already ending. I'm 31 and teens don't know more about computers than most of my friends, and they definitely don't know more about technology than 25-year-olds.
They might use different technologies and systems--more text messaging, less email--but they don't have a fundamental basic knowledge of anything that older folks don't. By contrast I understand computers like my father never will.
New technologies, as they're developed, seem likely to me to be adopted as widely by people in their 20s and 30s as young folks.
Why must population growth eventually outstrip economic growth? That certainly isn't happening in European countries with negative population growth is it?
Your thinking seems to assume that there is an upper limit to desire.
If I am indeed thinking ;-), my thought is more along the lines that desires can be achieved in ways other than money. Look at Linux and other open source software. People work on it, but they don't get paid.
Also, your thinking seems to assume that the only entities on the planet capable of doing human work are humans. I think even before the middle of this century, that won't be true for the vast majority of current human jobs.
For example, Brad Pitt gets paid millions of dollars per picture. But I think before mid-century it will be possible to produce a movie with a CGI Brad Pitt that is completely indistinguishable from the real Brad Pitt. So who is going to pay the real Brad Pitt, if CGI Brad Pitts are available for free? And even if they do pay Brad Pitt, who is going to pay $10 to see a Brad Pitt movie with the real Brad Pitt if a 1000 CGI Brad Pitt movies are available for free?
Again, if everyone had a billion-dollar trust fund and was immortal there would still be competition for relative status and or scarce resources.
There might be competition among humans, but there needn't be among machines. How are the humans who want to compete going to be able to compete with the machines who will work for free, and with the "open source" humans who are also willing to work for free (even if that does not include the entire population of humans)?
There are currently recipients of philanthropy who are well above subsistence income (not only through things like strict social welfare, but also through arts grants, etc.)
Yes, because, for example, the members of symphony orchestras aren't all immortal billionaires. If they were all immortal billionaires,
Even if we were all billionaires, I am not convinced that there would not be trillionaire philanthropists.
If I was an immortal billionaire, I'd be too embarrassed to accept money from a trillionaire philanthropist. (I think. I hope to be in the position to find out, but I was probably born 50 years too early.)
Your thinking seems to assume that there is an upper limit to desire. I am less than convinced that this is the case. There are (or at lest the evidential appearance is that there are) limits in the the universe, a limited amount of matter & energy and/or the speed limit of "c". Given that there are limits an indefinite number of immortal individuals could not be supported, resulting in competition.
Again, if everyone had a billion-dollar trust fund and was immortal there would still be competition for relative status and or scarce resources.
There are currently recipients of philanthropy who are well above subsistence income (not only through things like strict social welfare, but also through arts grants, etc.) Even if we were all billionaires, I am not convinced that there would not be trillionaire philanthropists.
For instance, if further technological advances and additional materials and energy could sustain my life indefinitely, why would I at any point become sated?
I agree you wouldn't. I think technological advances will be available within this century such that you can sustain your life indefinitely. So what other things would people demand money for, if they are already immortal?
Even if your desires are to work merely for power or philanthropic ends an individual requires resources to attain those ends.
What philanthropic end is there if everyone is born with a billion dollar trust fund?
And how could individuals obtain power if everyone could obtain whatever it is these individuals are selling for virtually nothing?
Asimov and Herbert are polar opposites in their view of the best or most successful organisation of humanity and the importance of the individual vs that of society.
In Asimov's early works*, the Spacers are extremely individualistic societies. One of their planets even has a population of only 10,000 people, each of them living completely on their own, served by armies of robots. This culture eventually dies out. By contrast, protagonist Elijah Bailey lives on earth in domed cities with communal eating halls, and a rigid bureaucratic class system that regulates everything. They eventually overtake the previous space colonists (the Spacers) and spread out into space to become the Galactic Empire.Much later (in the series), the Galactic Empire, corrupt and inefficient, collapses, and this is the start of the Dark Ages, a reversion to barbarism. Only after a millenium of chaos does a new and improved Second Galactic Empire spring up. And this is all predicted and planned by the protagonist, Hari Seldon, through analysis of the collective behavior of humanity as a whole.
On the other hand, in Dune, a totalitarian Empire is deliberately created by Leto II, and exists for thousands of years in order to suppress humanity so deeply that it eventually explodes in a Minsky moment; the enforced stability must give way to raging instability. To Herbert, the resulting Scattering of humanity in space, very similar to Asimov's Dark Ages, is not a temporary reversal to barbarism in order to create a new Empire, but rather the end goal in itself. The chaos and the fact that interconnectedness is very low ensures humanity's survival.
This line of thinking is completely alien to Asimov, with his power-behind-the-throne Foundation controlling everything, and in turn being secretly controlled by the Second Foundation. Asimov's Hari Seldon and Herbert's Leto II can both look into the future, but one does it through scientific analysis to predict exact events, while the other can only glimpse unpredictable trends and does his very best to make the course of humanity unpredictable. One creates instability to end in stability, the other does the complete opposite.
I wouldn't argue that it is not possible to renounce worldly possessions, desire for additional resources, and all that. But I suggest that it is unlikely-to-the-point-of-impossibility that it will become a universal attitude. (Much like Robin's argument above about sustained near-zero population growth rates.) It is simply not a resilient aspect of human nature and sociology. Even in a society where every child is born with a billion dollar trust fund there would still be invidious comparison. Further, even sans social competition, it is not necessarily rational that individuals should at any point choose to forgo additional resources. For instance, if further technilogical advances and additional materials and energy could sustain my life indefinitely, why would I at any point become sated?
Even if your desires are to work merely for power or philanthropic ends an individual requires resources to attain those ends. Resources being scarce (at some point), they must be competed for in a marketplace.
You are positing that our wants are not unlimited. You will not have to look far to find that there are many deca-millionaires who are not financially sated. In fact, likewise deca-billionaires.
They are financially sated. What they aren't is satisfied with doing nothing. Bill Gates is financially sated. Warren Buffet is financially sated. The Waltons are financially sated. What they aren't is satisfied with is doing nothing.
Why would this change if we were all multi-millionaires?
Ugh, I hate to do this, but there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that addressed this. A millionaire (among others) was frozen and sent into space right before he died. When the Enterprise found their ship, the millionaire was depressed because money was irrelevant. But he realized/acknowledged that it was never about the money, even in his own time. It was about power.
People will work even after money becomes obsolete...which it may even in the lifetime of some who read this. They will work because doing nothing is boring.
Do you really think that if everyone had the equivalent of 20 million dollars (in today’s dollars) there would be any need for such thing as an “economy”?
Yes. While I think there is something to what you're saying (and perhaps think what you are saying should be true), I do not think it is the case.
On the first day of many students' first economics class they will learn some variation of: "Economics is the study of how individuals and societies satisfy their unlimited wants relative to their limited means." You are positing that our wants are not unlimited. You will not have to look far to find that there are many deca-millionaires who are not financially sated. In fact, likewise deca-billionaires. Why would this change if we were all multi-millionaires? As has been noted, the mean human income is already many multiples of subsistence levels, why should anyone be striving for more now?
Tim do you really think we, for a million years, could keep discovering enough better ways to arrange atoms to keep our economy doubling every century over that time?
Do you really think that if everyone had the equivalent of 20 million dollars (in today's dollars) there would be any need for such thing as an "economy"?
The per-capita "economy" will not need to double more than ~5 more times before the concept of an "economy" will be irrelevant. And that should happen by the end of this century.
We don't need a large number of people to expand into space. How many people do you need to have sufficient biological diversity to survive? 100? 1,000? What percentage of the world population is that? Once those people leave for another planet or star, they only need to survive and grow to eventually fill the new location with people.
I agree that going to another star, or even another planet in our solar system, may not be the most efficient way to make room for more people. But neither is climbing mountains, and people still do that.
I didn't know you were into 60s-70s hippie literature. You should check out Robert Anton Wilson, on SMI²LE SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension), if you haven't.
Robin I know you want an argument based on the given assumptions, but I have to say I don't share the "spreading out over space" thing beyond the distance for easy communication. I don't understand why anybody would want to do that. I'm not even sure I understand why you would want to spend four years going to Alpha Centauri, at nearlight speed your spaceship racing. If our locale here gets crowded we'll be building adjacent local Dyson spheres, not hopping to the next natural dirtball. If we figure out the sun is going to explode, well then, we're all going -- or the ones left behind won't be here to talk to unless they've got good shields. I suppose if we build solar-system-wide telescopes we might see something that piques our interest way way out there, some siren beckoning beyond any reason. And of course we shall shortly all live forever, so each may explore the entire universe at his or her own leisure. ("His" or "her" if there are still sexes.) You could drift there in your spacesuit, you'll live so long! But what I really believe is that we will have technology to go faster than the speed of light, within another century I imagine, so we won't be out of touch: and therefore, the easytalk era will never end.
to keep population growth low over ten thousand years, it is not enough for most nations to keep their growth low for a few generations. Every subgroup that tries to grow its population must be stopped.I don't believe that's true. It's okay for some subgroups to be growing some of the time so long as other groups are shrinking enough to compensate. The vast overwhelming worldwide trend over the last 50 years has been in the direction of lower fertility rates, to the extent that most of the developed world is already reproducing below replacement levels and the developed world is following the exact same trend just several decades behind. The fact that we see this trend across nations for essentially every nation in the world, tells me this trend is not being driven by a few enlightened countries folowing policies that oppose human nature. This trend is human nature.
(Press the "play" button on this Gapminder.org chart of fertility versus longevity to see the trend over time. Or you can watch Hans Rosling explain the same trends in more detail in a video.)
Robin also writes:
until two hundred years ago humanity had always lived near subsistence levels because population grew fast enough to soak up the slowly accumulating tech gains.
I see the causality as reversed there. I would have said that: until 200 years ago the human population hadn't grown sufficiently to be able to reap the huge benefits from division of labor and economies of scale that ultimately enabled a modern standard of living. (Maybe throw in something about concentration of capital and accumulation of knowledge too, but that's the gist of it.)
I regret replying to myself, but I realized that I accidentally wrote "Brian" not "Robin". Very sorry about that. My attention lapsed. Sincere regrets.
An era where children know more about the basic technology of the day than adults must be unique.
This era is already ending. I'm 31 and teens don't know more about computers than most of my friends, and they definitely don't know more about technology than 25-year-olds.
They might use different technologies and systems--more text messaging, less email--but they don't have a fundamental basic knowledge of anything that older folks don't. By contrast I understand computers like my father never will.
New technologies, as they're developed, seem likely to me to be adopted as widely by people in their 20s and 30s as young folks.
Why must population growth eventually outstrip economic growth? That certainly isn't happening in European countries with negative population growth is it?
Your thinking seems to assume that there is an upper limit to desire.
If I am indeed thinking ;-), my thought is more along the lines that desires can be achieved in ways other than money. Look at Linux and other open source software. People work on it, but they don't get paid.
Also, your thinking seems to assume that the only entities on the planet capable of doing human work are humans. I think even before the middle of this century, that won't be true for the vast majority of current human jobs.
For example, Brad Pitt gets paid millions of dollars per picture. But I think before mid-century it will be possible to produce a movie with a CGI Brad Pitt that is completely indistinguishable from the real Brad Pitt. So who is going to pay the real Brad Pitt, if CGI Brad Pitts are available for free? And even if they do pay Brad Pitt, who is going to pay $10 to see a Brad Pitt movie with the real Brad Pitt if a 1000 CGI Brad Pitt movies are available for free?
Again, if everyone had a billion-dollar trust fund and was immortal there would still be competition for relative status and or scarce resources.
There might be competition among humans, but there needn't be among machines. How are the humans who want to compete going to be able to compete with the machines who will work for free, and with the "open source" humans who are also willing to work for free (even if that does not include the entire population of humans)?
There are currently recipients of philanthropy who are well above subsistence income (not only through things like strict social welfare, but also through arts grants, etc.)
Yes, because, for example, the members of symphony orchestras aren't all immortal billionaires. If they were all immortal billionaires,
Even if we were all billionaires, I am not convinced that there would not be trillionaire philanthropists.
If I was an immortal billionaire, I'd be too embarrassed to accept money from a trillionaire philanthropist. (I think. I hope to be in the position to find out, but I was probably born 50 years too early.)
Your thinking seems to assume that there is an upper limit to desire. I am less than convinced that this is the case. There are (or at lest the evidential appearance is that there are) limits in the the universe, a limited amount of matter & energy and/or the speed limit of "c". Given that there are limits an indefinite number of immortal individuals could not be supported, resulting in competition.
Again, if everyone had a billion-dollar trust fund and was immortal there would still be competition for relative status and or scarce resources.
There are currently recipients of philanthropy who are well above subsistence income (not only through things like strict social welfare, but also through arts grants, etc.) Even if we were all billionaires, I am not convinced that there would not be trillionaire philanthropists.
For instance, if further technological advances and additional materials and energy could sustain my life indefinitely, why would I at any point become sated?
I agree you wouldn't. I think technological advances will be available within this century such that you can sustain your life indefinitely. So what other things would people demand money for, if they are already immortal?
Even if your desires are to work merely for power or philanthropic ends an individual requires resources to attain those ends.
What philanthropic end is there if everyone is born with a billion dollar trust fund?
And how could individuals obtain power if everyone could obtain whatever it is these individuals are selling for virtually nothing?
Asimov and Herbert are polar opposites in their view of the best or most successful organisation of humanity and the importance of the individual vs that of society.
In Asimov's early works*, the Spacers are extremely individualistic societies. One of their planets even has a population of only 10,000 people, each of them living completely on their own, served by armies of robots. This culture eventually dies out. By contrast, protagonist Elijah Bailey lives on earth in domed cities with communal eating halls, and a rigid bureaucratic class system that regulates everything. They eventually overtake the previous space colonists (the Spacers) and spread out into space to become the Galactic Empire.Much later (in the series), the Galactic Empire, corrupt and inefficient, collapses, and this is the start of the Dark Ages, a reversion to barbarism. Only after a millenium of chaos does a new and improved Second Galactic Empire spring up. And this is all predicted and planned by the protagonist, Hari Seldon, through analysis of the collective behavior of humanity as a whole.
On the other hand, in Dune, a totalitarian Empire is deliberately created by Leto II, and exists for thousands of years in order to suppress humanity so deeply that it eventually explodes in a Minsky moment; the enforced stability must give way to raging instability. To Herbert, the resulting Scattering of humanity in space, very similar to Asimov's Dark Ages, is not a temporary reversal to barbarism in order to create a new Empire, but rather the end goal in itself. The chaos and the fact that interconnectedness is very low ensures humanity's survival.
This line of thinking is completely alien to Asimov, with his power-behind-the-throne Foundation controlling everything, and in turn being secretly controlled by the Second Foundation. Asimov's Hari Seldon and Herbert's Leto II can both look into the future, but one does it through scientific analysis to predict exact events, while the other can only glimpse unpredictable trends and does his very best to make the course of humanity unpredictable. One creates instability to end in stability, the other does the complete opposite.
* The End of Eternity is a notable exception.
They are financially sated.
I wouldn't argue that it is not possible to renounce worldly possessions, desire for additional resources, and all that. But I suggest that it is unlikely-to-the-point-of-impossibility that it will become a universal attitude. (Much like Robin's argument above about sustained near-zero population growth rates.) It is simply not a resilient aspect of human nature and sociology. Even in a society where every child is born with a billion dollar trust fund there would still be invidious comparison. Further, even sans social competition, it is not necessarily rational that individuals should at any point choose to forgo additional resources. For instance, if further technilogical advances and additional materials and energy could sustain my life indefinitely, why would I at any point become sated?
Even if your desires are to work merely for power or philanthropic ends an individual requires resources to attain those ends. Resources being scarce (at some point), they must be competed for in a marketplace.
You are positing that our wants are not unlimited. You will not have to look far to find that there are many deca-millionaires who are not financially sated. In fact, likewise deca-billionaires.
They are financially sated. What they aren't is satisfied with doing nothing. Bill Gates is financially sated. Warren Buffet is financially sated. The Waltons are financially sated. What they aren't is satisfied with is doing nothing.
Why would this change if we were all multi-millionaires?
Ugh, I hate to do this, but there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that addressed this. A millionaire (among others) was frozen and sent into space right before he died. When the Enterprise found their ship, the millionaire was depressed because money was irrelevant. But he realized/acknowledged that it was never about the money, even in his own time. It was about power.
People will work even after money becomes obsolete...which it may even in the lifetime of some who read this. They will work because doing nothing is boring.
Do you really think that if everyone had the equivalent of 20 million dollars (in today’s dollars) there would be any need for such thing as an “economy”?
Yes. While I think there is something to what you're saying (and perhaps think what you are saying should be true), I do not think it is the case.
On the first day of many students' first economics class they will learn some variation of: "Economics is the study of how individuals and societies satisfy their unlimited wants relative to their limited means." You are positing that our wants are not unlimited. You will not have to look far to find that there are many deca-millionaires who are not financially sated. In fact, likewise deca-billionaires. Why would this change if we were all multi-millionaires? As has been noted, the mean human income is already many multiples of subsistence levels, why should anyone be striving for more now?
Tim do you really think we, for a million years, could keep discovering enough better ways to arrange atoms to keep our economy doubling every century over that time?
Do you really think that if everyone had the equivalent of 20 million dollars (in today's dollars) there would be any need for such thing as an "economy"?
The per-capita "economy" will not need to double more than ~5 more times before the concept of an "economy" will be irrelevant. And that should happen by the end of this century.
So they are going to another star and missing who wins the World Series "because it's there?" Don't their mothers talk them out of it, first?
We don't need a large number of people to expand into space. How many people do you need to have sufficient biological diversity to survive? 100? 1,000? What percentage of the world population is that? Once those people leave for another planet or star, they only need to survive and grow to eventually fill the new location with people.
I agree that going to another star, or even another planet in our solar system, may not be the most efficient way to make room for more people. But neither is climbing mountains, and people still do that.
I didn't know you were into 60s-70s hippie literature. You should check out Robert Anton Wilson, on SMI²LE SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension), if you haven't.
Robin I know you want an argument based on the given assumptions, but I have to say I don't share the "spreading out over space" thing beyond the distance for easy communication. I don't understand why anybody would want to do that. I'm not even sure I understand why you would want to spend four years going to Alpha Centauri, at nearlight speed your spaceship racing. If our locale here gets crowded we'll be building adjacent local Dyson spheres, not hopping to the next natural dirtball. If we figure out the sun is going to explode, well then, we're all going -- or the ones left behind won't be here to talk to unless they've got good shields. I suppose if we build solar-system-wide telescopes we might see something that piques our interest way way out there, some siren beckoning beyond any reason. And of course we shall shortly all live forever, so each may explore the entire universe at his or her own leisure. ("His" or "her" if there are still sexes.) You could drift there in your spacesuit, you'll live so long! But what I really believe is that we will have technology to go faster than the speed of light, within another century I imagine, so we won't be out of touch: and therefore, the easytalk era will never end.
Robin wrote:
to keep population growth low over ten thousand years, it is not enough for most nations to keep their growth low for a few generations. Every subgroup that tries to grow its population must be stopped.I don't believe that's true. It's okay for some subgroups to be growing some of the time so long as other groups are shrinking enough to compensate. The vast overwhelming worldwide trend over the last 50 years has been in the direction of lower fertility rates, to the extent that most of the developed world is already reproducing below replacement levels and the developed world is following the exact same trend just several decades behind. The fact that we see this trend across nations for essentially every nation in the world, tells me this trend is not being driven by a few enlightened countries folowing policies that oppose human nature. This trend is human nature.
(Press the "play" button on this Gapminder.org chart of fertility versus longevity to see the trend over time. Or you can watch Hans Rosling explain the same trends in more detail in a video.)
Robin also writes:
until two hundred years ago humanity had always lived near subsistence levels because population grew fast enough to soak up the slowly accumulating tech gains.
I see the causality as reversed there. I would have said that: until 200 years ago the human population hadn't grown sufficiently to be able to reap the huge benefits from division of labor and economies of scale that ultimately enabled a modern standard of living. (Maybe throw in something about concentration of capital and accumulation of knowledge too, but that's the gist of it.)
I regret replying to myself, but I realized that I accidentally wrote "Brian" not "Robin". Very sorry about that. My attention lapsed. Sincere regrets.