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Which world would you rather live in?
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Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 02 2020, @07:31PM
Misconception #1: we do not have anything close to a meritocracy. Resources, connections, free time and a safety net to pursue advancement/greatness, and pure dumb luck are all much more important factors in who "rises to the top" of our system than outright merit, skill, intelligence, ability, etc.
Our society is still running highly resource constrained - limited (desirable) real-estate, limited access to energy, so many processes still "done by hand" that only a few can direct that hand labor... Mr. Fusion + intelligent robots + access to offworld resources would change all of that dramatically - transporters not required.
Within our lifetimes, with the oil cartels/barons/czars/etc. actively suppressing progress in fusion research? Yep.
Longer term, if we don't crash society before Mr. Fusion comes out, I think it might be possible, particularly in some splinter groups that go self-sufficient away from the billions of mud skippers who are mired in centuries of old ways of thinking and doing. Mind you, far more splinter groups will resemble Colonia Dignidad [wikipedia.org] than Enterprise, but if we manage to send out enough, I have faith that some will be "getting it right" - not that there is a single "right", but there are certainly more ways to "get it wrong" already demonstrated down here in the mud.
🌻🌻 [google.com]