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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the ideas-merit-discussion dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Jacque Fresco spent decades building a life-sized model of his ideal city. The central idea? If we want the Western world to overcome war, avarice, and poverty, all we need to do is redesign the culture.

[...] This civilization would be created through "sociocyberneering," a radical form of social engineering where automation and technology would bring about "a way of life worthy of man." 171391-02-223

Throughout the interview, Fresco brandished full-color sketches of the future: white domes perched on the surface of the ocean and arranged in concentric circles so as to resemble the structure of an atom. Serving as the city's nucleus was a central computer, which would monitor the ecology of the region—measuring crop yields in farmland, controlling irrigation, and overseeing hydroelectric power grids. Expanding outward were civic centers, museums, and universities, all of which would operate like public libraries in that any cultural artifact would be available for temporary loan. The next largest ring of the city consisted of a residential area, where denizens would dwell amid opulent gardens and manicured parks, in built-to-suit developments. These elliptical abodes would contain every amenity imaginable (at one point, Fresco predicts the invention of entertainment software that sounds breathtakingly similar to Netflix). The city's enclosure—the crust of the circle—would house a massive recycling center to which all trash would be ferried via underground conveyor belts. Once there, automated machines would sort the refuse for proper salvaging.

Fresco was gruff and humorless throughout the interview, wholly immune to King's attempts at playful banter. At one point, he pronounced, "Sociocyberneering is an organization that is probably the boldest organization ever conceived of, and we're undertaking the most ambitious project in the history of mankind."

Source: https://psmag.com/magazine/waiting-for-fresco-social-engineering-technology


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:04PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:04PM (#614365) Journal

    Yes, the pure engineered society removes the tangible rewards that we primates really enjoy. It could be done, but removing money overnight would absolutely destroy a lot of good human activity.

    Without an adequate replacement, it would absolutely destroy a lot of good human activity over any time frame. Let us keep in mind that the key reason money exists in the first place is that it greatly reduces the algorithmic complexity of trade. You don't have to know what the other side of a trade needs in order to trade with them.

    Counterpoint: we need restrictions on wealth inequality, the simplest method being taxes that scale heavily the more money one makes.

    We already have progressive taxes. And what is that wealth actually worth?

    Without that we get the bad situations we have today, and I'd like to remind you that unrestricted economic activity has brought us to a world that is steadily walking up to the cliff of ecological collapse.

    Let us note here that the "bad situations" are the best situations ever in history. I've written about this [soylentnews.org] before. It's a comforting narrative that humanity is destroying itself.

    But by a huge number of metrics we're doing better than ever before. Humanity is wealthier than it's ever been before and trending towards most of the world . Environmentally, we're not that bad off and large portions of the world (in particular, the entire developed world) have figured out how to live without causing ecological collapse. There are less wars than ever. And overpopulation, the true problem is improving. The world's population is still growing, but the population growth rate has declined since the 1950s.

    There are problems to solve, some of which require some aspects of these centrally planned "utopias" but you're khallow, you can't fathom these deeper truths.

    You have yet to name such a problem or such a truth. Appeal to intangible "truths" are the refuge of the intellectual scoundrel. And we continue with the comforting fantasy of "wiser than thou".

    Let us note that in the first place, you claimed that "wealth inequality" was responsible for the "bad situations". I disagree. It's a red herring, but a convenient one. After all, why use metrics that can improve, when you can choose a metric that won't and thus, have a permanent cause to rally behind? There will always be wealth inequality because there will always be people with unequal competence and interest in obtaining wealth.

    Further, what does wealth inequality have to do with pollution and other ecological damage? I can point to direct connections between overpopulation and poverty to such things. More people means more pollution per person and more land taken from nature.

    But wealth inequality doesn't have that connection. If someone is wealthier than me, it doesn't matter to my ability to obtain the things I need and want (like food, shelter, etc) how much wealthier they are. It doesn't matter to our pollution footprint if someone owns more or less. I'm just as well fed and sheltered, if Bill Gates is worth $50 billion as if he is worth $50 million. My society is just as polluting. Wars are just as likely.

    Feel free to prove me wrong, don't let it go to your head that someone actually agreed with you a little!

    Perhaps I can do so. But what's with the concern (trolling) about my ability to cope with agreement? I'm not the one being "forced" to agree with someone I don't like. Perhaps, we should be concerned (trolling) about your ability to agree with other people (which apparently requires some time on the intellectual torture rack in order to coerce agreement about things that you should be agreeing on in the first place)?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:57PM (#614381)

    And overpopulation, the true problem is improving. The world's population is still growing, but the population growth rate has declined since the 1950s.

    Temporarily, yes. Evolution does not stop; it is a mathematical certainty.

    There has been a change to the environment. We invented birth control, porn, jobs for women, abortion, child support, criminalized rape, and many other impediments to successful reproduction.

    All of that is easily overcome by behavioral changes. People with the required mental attributes already exist in the world today, and their DNA is being preferentially passed down in each successive generation.

    We're headed back to squalor. Evolution makes this the destiny of every species that survives.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:16PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:16PM (#614701) Journal

      it is a mathematical certainty.

      Is that so? Where's the proof? Don't use phrases here you don't actually mean.

  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:05PM (1 child)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:05PM (#614403) Homepage Journal

    I'm just as well fed and sheltered, if Bill Gates is worth $50 billion as if he is worth $50 million.

    Except that he can outbid you and outcompete you for essential resources.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:05PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:05PM (#614696) Journal

      Except that he can outbid you and outcompete you for essential resources.

      What is the problem with that? Gates demonstrated he could do amazing things with the wealth he has obtained, including create from scratch a business that currently employs hundreds of thousands of people. Why shouldn't he be able to have a larger access to resources as a result?

      One of the basic observations about relatively free markets is that wealth is accumulated by those who make better decisions and try to save wealth, and lost by those who make poor decisions or who deliberate expend wealth for other reasons. This gives the people who are competent and trying to make wealth a larger say in the economy. Sounds like a good thing to me especially if they have a long track record, as Gates does, of making good economic decisions.

      A second related observation which is much more obscure is that a wealthy person who consumes inordinate amounts of resources or make investments with outsized levels of wealth ends up paying more per unit resource or investment than a person buying much less of those resources or making a smaller investment. In other words, while there are economies of scale to large levels of wealth, there are also diminishing returns to even greater, extremely high levels of wealth as well.

      In the US, a typical example is the luxury home versus a regular one. The latter is going to be much cheaper since it is built in bulk, using materials in great supply. The luxury home has to be specially designed and is more expensive at every stage. In this way, wealth is routinely shifted from the wealthy to the less wealthy.

      Extremely high levels of wealth also are far more difficult to invest. You won't be able to get the same high levels of return on investment on $50 billion as you can on $50 million. Most high risk/high return investments are niche markets with only so much you can invest. A chain restaurant, for example, might be very profitable at 50 locations, moderately profitable at 500, and a money sink at 5000 locations, simply because there are limited areas of the US that are suitable for the restaurant's niche.

      And while there are a lot of niches out there, it requires vastly more resources to find more such niches than less with diminishing returns to your attempts to find new niches.

      I'm not totally against a progressive tax system mentioned earlier in this thread. A modest amount of increased responsibility to pay taxes is ok with me. But we have that now. I see no reason to increase those levels in large part because I don't see greater access to wealth by the wealthy as a problem, but rather as a feature. Also, as mentioned above, I see various natural aspects of the economy that transfer wealth from the wealth to the rest of society.

      These actually work quite well, I might add. For example, we have a huge improvement [voxeu.org] in the wealth of the developing world. That has resulted in a massive improvement in global income inequality (which BTW is a much better measure [observer.com] of wealth inequality than wealth inequality itself!). Most of that IMHO has been wealth transfers at the country level which are beyond regulation or deliberate wealth transfers at the state level (and often occur despite interference via protectionism schemes).