the troubadour

I've a feeling we've moved way beyond previous times. Of course international upheaval in the form of war, civil breakdown, may well force a change of events after heavy cost. Probably not come about though unless there is less passivity and change of mindset. Luddites cannot be compared with future trends.

Beoz

I'm with you Ozzie.

ozzieeagle

History is as well Beoz, as for population growth, Australia is still 80 pct empty and the Dutch, Israelis and Americans have shown us how to turn arid and wetlands into hospitable areas. Plenty of work and room for expansion yet. We haven't even began to think about the seas and oceans as habitats yet, which is 70 pct of the planet.

Underestimating mankinds ingenuity and abilities again.


There will be a tipping point of course, but that will be more to do with a social/technical futurist type change that we haven't even envisaged yet... probably 2 centuries away.

Beoz

Agree. Loads of potential. I'd be putting the efforts into what is largely a well educated population first. Then you can put that brain effort into the bits you describe.

scrubbedexpat098

This is all very well and good but you risk wasting the bottomless resource that builds stuff, condemning skilled people to the scrap heap. Creating an under class if you will living in ghettos and operating home industries that just service the ghetto. Unrealistic? Maybe, maybe not if you look at India

ABCD......

Déjà vu

1811 : The invention and application of the steam engine heralded the industrial revolution. It dramatically extended the power and ability of the community. No longer was human strength and endurance the limiting factor in achievements. Machines could be constructed to work harder faster cheaper and more reliably than any group of people, however the initial implementation of machines meant mass unemployment

Have things got worse or better since the early 1800's ?

GarryP

Interesting example.

The industrial revolution created mass unemployment, where previously unemployment hadn't really existed. Whole classes of job types were mechanised and the upheaval massively changed the social, economic and political systems - it's not called a revolution for nothing.

The rich got richer, and the standard of living of the poor got worse, much worse. In particular, those who were only capable of doing the old type of work (that had disappeared) tended to starve. For ~70-100 years this continued. It's no surprise that this is the era that gave us Karl Marx, and 'ownership of the means of production'.

Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty

In short, the industrial revolution did exactly what I previously suggested, which if you lived through it and were in the firing line wasn't great. That eventually the use of that industrialisation allowed Britain to subjugate an empire and benefit from it doesn't really change the nature of the thing. Maybe you should ask those in India that got the sh*tty end of that stick how much better things were as a result?

Beoz

Well there seems to be 2 trains of thought here. One bearing the risks and kind of suggesting we should not move forward and the other suggesting moving forward and help nurture the risks. I don't really think the first one is an option.

Bix

"Look what happened when" / "in the past" / "history shows".

All very well looking backward for pointers but does the past guarantee what will happen in the future?

GarryP

Actually no.

The point is this is coming over the horizon, ready or not.

The necessity is to plan and address it such that you don't get people starving in the streets whilst oligarchs buy up tropical islands and kick everyone else off so they can swim in champagne. Which never really works, because you do get revolutions eventually.

Hence why people are talking about mincomes and limiting the 1% to just 10 times what they can ever spend.

The problem that's being talked about is the regulatory capture is such that that will probably never happen on the global scale necessary - so we are on our way to a climate change fuelled widespread revolution, and/or mass genocide.

The only way you avoid disaster is by spotting it and making the changes needed ahead of time to prevent it.

Bix

If that's what you garner from what has been said I think you misunderstand. Change will happen but how it is managed is important.

Beoz

That would be point 2.

Ideas then?

Bix

Indeed.

My post #15 = population control.
"The root of all evil" IMO.

ozzieeagle

Generally speaking it's an unbending rule of fact, right down to the Middle East. Which is incredible 3000 years on. It paints a picture of how civilisations ebb and flow and the social machinations and effects behind it.

I'd trust an historians view over a futuroligist any day.

ABCD......

There are only a few guarantees in life:

1. Statistics can prove anything. (Until whatever happens happens)
2. We die.
3. Hmmm... that's about it

All the rest is interesting conversation