I could imagine this becoming in reality. Maybe in 2 or 3 world wars and 100 more genocides there might be a society emerging like this.

It is obvious that this society is superior. It is also obvious that it is impossible to achieve for any culture that is living today.

We are already optimising and automating a shit ton! And we could already rest more than 100 years ago. Instead we just consume more.

I have like four different pairs of trousers, a 75 inch flat screen tv, a laptop, a tablet, a phone, a smart watch, and I eat meat like three times a week ( which is even low compared to my kin ). Stuff breaks all the time and a buy new ones.

My 80 year old uncle told me they did usually not eat meat when he was a child. They had two eggs per week, which were used for baking. And they were not poor. A normal household.

If we would consume as much as 100 years ago, I bet we could send half the work force into life long vacation!

My other bet is that our wealth will rise the more we automate, but we will still be working the same amount to afford our future wealth.

deleted by creator

Did you ever have 2000€ in your bank account and 0.63€ in your wallet? And then it was summer and you were thirsty, so you bought something with your card instead of riding the tram to the next ATM to get a 50€ bill and ride the tram back to the kiosk, where they did not have the right exchange for the 50€ bill, which was then the reason to visit the stores around to exchange money, what they did but they looked at you very suspiciously, because that’s a common theme for a scam, and then you could finally buy your drink, but the whole ordeal cost you 45 minutes?

That’s just one example.

Thanks for the TL;DR.

What difference does the form of currency make when people still use some rewards program to have their shopping tracked, or with all the NFC chips on products, that track you through the whole store?

I believe the form of payment is the minor issue here.

I don’t know the issues. Didn’t read the article.

That was too long to read. I already hardly ever use cash. It is so inconvenient.

That would mean I also have to change. 😵‍💫 But I am a big part of the problem!

Is there a „humanist nihilism“ movement? I mean a political and social narrative that the world would be better off without humans? Is there a party you can vote for, that aims to achieve this goal?

Twitter turning into Truth Social?

Is that safe? My knowledge of Columbia is limited to what I learned watching Narcos on Netflix. But it did not look like a medically advanced country.

I used the power of search engines. Looks like I’m the big cities, health care is quite adequate. Have a nice trip!

Dental work is often also not covered in the standard insurance in Germany. You either have to get an extra insurance, or you pay out of pocket, or you live with the condition (all serious things are covered, cosmetics often are not). But even then the cost is usually on the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands. 40,000 is more than the average person earns here 🙃

Ah, I see. I kind of get that. Hate to go to the doctor for a sick note, when I know I just need sleep and tea.

Isn’t it cheaper to fly to Europe, visit a doctor, and fly back instead of going to the ER?

Also for “normal” treatments. Getting a baby costs like $2000 in Germany without insurance. Plus flight and hotel for two months you are still far below 10K in total cost. 😁

I also have no idea what you are trying to say.

I was just at the doctor a couple of times in November. Turns out I had a bronchitis, possibly with a bacterial superinfection.

So I was at the doctor to

1. Check if my lungs were affected. is there a danger of a lung infection?
2. Do I need antibiotics or should I sit it out?
3. Get a doctors note (I was on sick leave for three and a half weeks)

This is nothing I could google. I actually did google and did not find bronchitis as an issue, but cold, influenza, and lung cancer. Google does not know how my lungs sound when I breathe.

So of course you should ask your doctor and not the internet.

In the past there was a big overhead in managing all of that. But I could think that this is coming to an end.

Solutions could be: Make weekend longer / Work less hours a day / implement minimum income (regardless if you work or not).

A more realistic scenario would be: Scale up productivity. All work is done by AI and robots? Just create even more wealth with more people working on and with robots and AI.

AI is bad at creating things that have not been there. It is good at structuring data in a new way. So there is still a demand to create new things.

I don’t see much difference between a machine replacing a bank teller to give out the cash, a machine to put together the majority of a car, or a robot replacing a health care worker completely.

In all cases some jobs were removed, but other jobs were created. Production and wealth go up quickly, but so does demand.

Almost everyone today has a larger television than the richest man 50 years ago. And you can afford new electronic devices every couple of years, while 50 years ago you only bought them when they broke after 20 years.

So I believe prices will still go up, as we will want to have more and more stuff.

If I only bought what my parents could afford at my age, then I would probably be quite rich. (Big exception is housing!) But that’s now how society works. We buy more and more, mostly for convenience. And convenience will go up with robots and AI. (Is it that unlikely that everyone will have a star-gourmet-quality chef robot cooking in their house and ordering all required ingredients on its own? I think that prospect sounds very reasonably realistic). But you will have to pay for the robot, the AI service, the truffles, the caviar, the ostrich egs…. and it will be just the normality people live in. (just like amazon replaced sending your butler to Harrods)

Therefore I believe there will still be an increased demand for goods even when our productivity goes up and people will need more money, hence inflation, not deflation.

Why deflation? Deflation is poison for any economy. If deflation is a risk, you must print more money. Central banks aim to keep inflation at 2% per year. (Which is a difficult task). Deflation is the death of market systems.

Robots already do most of the work. In every industry you see people operation machines to do all the work. The way our outdated financial system works is, that the machine owner gets the warnings. AI and fully autonomous robots will work the same way. So I doubt it will change something, when the system stays as it is.

Not sure if it really will stay this way. Autocracies are emerging more and more. China will be the next big financial superpower. It may be that they will force a overhaul for the better. (Unfounded careful optimism. One of the few positives of autocracy are easy change processes. Maybe it will work this time)

We tend to complain a lot about them. But compared to the US (and I don’t know any other system than US and Germany) it’s far better.

If you don’t take any loans your score gets better and better. If you take out a big loan it is at first negative, but after paying it off it may be even positive.

My mother never took out a load in her life and has almost a perfect score.

In the US you get rewarded for making credit card dept and paying off interest. That is actually a stupid way to handle money. In Germany you get rewarded if you save first and then spend your money.

The problems lie in the details. If you move to a poor neighbourhood your score drops. That is utterly stupid!

Die haben halt keine Schufa. Dank Schufa müssen wir keine Kreditkarten haben um uns irgendwann einen Baukredit leisten zu können. Das hat schon seinen Vorteil!

That’s long. 😱 For non emergencies I have waited long times. Like 40 minutes or even hours. But when I called the fire department once it came like 30 seconds after I had hung up. And it was just a smoking trash can, nothing really dangerous.

That’s war. You have a victory target and try to achieve that. We do not know the victory target of Russia (we only know the propaganda they are spreading publicly).

The victory target may also change over time with what is realistically achievable.

So it is difficult to speak of winning or loosing without that information.

In a sports game, the teams agreed on the terms before the game started.