It’s really unclear, as a society, how to get them into a position where they can provide as much value as the resources they take.
Harvest their reusable organs, and melt down what remains to make a nutrient paste suitable for livestock and the working poor?
(Kidding! But that sort of thing is always where my mind wanders when people put the question in such stark terms, perhaps because I myself am a chronically unemployed “taker” (mental illness). Anyway, one of the long-term goals of AI and automation research, as I understand it, is to turn everyone into takers (“full unemployment”). Meanwhile, one of the long-term goals of transhumanism is to be able to cure all of the various disorders and disabilities that render a large fraction of currently umemployed people unemployable. Until at least one of those goals is achieved, we will continue to have an unemployable underclass. I guess progress towards the transhumanist goal, or better public policy, could make that underclass smaller, but right now more people seem to be worrying about progress on the AI/automation front making it larger.)
Apologies for the stark terms if it felt judgmental or degrading! I have a LOT of sympathy for people who temporarily or permanently aren’t a good fit for the corporate standards of common high-paying jobs. I’m lucky enough currently to be well-employed and providing enough value that I don’t feel bad being highly paid, but that wasn’t always the case and I recognize the that combination of talents and skills that work for me are pretty much pure luck for me to have. The ability to focus for many hours and work my ass off is mildly rare and incredibly lucky for me to have.
I don’t mean any blame in my recognition that resources are limited and it’s FAR easier for those lucky enough to be smart and conforming to get some of those resources. I recoil from the label “taker”—it’s an unhelpful model, more about social status than about understanding or problem-solving.
I do honestly believe that one of the biggest challenges for humanity’s moral and economic growth (which I see as correlated, if not causal) in the medium-term (next 2 generations, modulo singularity) is how to make more people’s contributions larger and more legible so it’s trivially obvious that we should give a much higher percentage of humanity more resources and status than we do today.
Apologies for the stark terms if it felt judgmental or degrading!
No worries! I mostly just wrote that comment for the lulz. And the rest was mostly so people wouldn’t think I was using humor to obliquely endorse social Darwinism.
Harvest their reusable organs, and melt down what remains to make a nutrient paste suitable for livestock and the working poor?
(Kidding! But that sort of thing is always where my mind wanders when people put the question in such stark terms, perhaps because I myself am a chronically unemployed “taker” (mental illness). Anyway, one of the long-term goals of AI and automation research, as I understand it, is to turn everyone into takers (“full unemployment”). Meanwhile, one of the long-term goals of transhumanism is to be able to cure all of the various disorders and disabilities that render a large fraction of currently umemployed people unemployable. Until at least one of those goals is achieved, we will continue to have an unemployable underclass. I guess progress towards the transhumanist goal, or better public policy, could make that underclass smaller, but right now more people seem to be worrying about progress on the AI/automation front making it larger.)
Apologies for the stark terms if it felt judgmental or degrading! I have a LOT of sympathy for people who temporarily or permanently aren’t a good fit for the corporate standards of common high-paying jobs. I’m lucky enough currently to be well-employed and providing enough value that I don’t feel bad being highly paid, but that wasn’t always the case and I recognize the that combination of talents and skills that work for me are pretty much pure luck for me to have. The ability to focus for many hours and work my ass off is mildly rare and incredibly lucky for me to have.
I don’t mean any blame in my recognition that resources are limited and it’s FAR easier for those lucky enough to be smart and conforming to get some of those resources. I recoil from the label “taker”—it’s an unhelpful model, more about social status than about understanding or problem-solving.
I do honestly believe that one of the biggest challenges for humanity’s moral and economic growth (which I see as correlated, if not causal) in the medium-term (next 2 generations, modulo singularity) is how to make more people’s contributions larger and more legible so it’s trivially obvious that we should give a much higher percentage of humanity more resources and status than we do today.
No worries! I mostly just wrote that comment for the lulz. And the rest was mostly so people wouldn’t think I was using humor to obliquely endorse social Darwinism.