Society 3.0
I'm not into the current hipster terminology, so I don't know which version we
are at now, but I'm thinking around 1.9 on the verge to 2.0. Something big might
happen in the near future, and we're going to get most of the intentions right,
and most of the implementation wrong. We'll basically do the wrong things for
the right reasons. Bill Gates (a man I respect far more than I do the products
and business practices of the company he created), recently talked about putting
tax on robot labor, which is along the right idea, and in no way a new idea, but
it takes someone famous to speak it before it will be widely discussed, so it's
having a positive impact. So, in society 2.0, or maybe 2.5, many people will be
displaced by robots, their further education may be partially or completely
funded by robot labor tax. Any we will educate them for nonsense jobs, things
people won't need, but we will still be old fashioned capitalists, and we will
invent needs, so that we can have jobs, so that we can buy stuff for which we
invented our own need.
Step back
What do we actually need? What may be the foundation on top of which any
individual has the potential to construct a happy, gratifying life?
I left out the word meaningful because I don't consider it a requirement that
everyone seeks meaning where one might not exist (meaning, the word is vague at
best). But still, let's say we want to build a society for all people to have a
chance to be fulfilled, and let us ignore the edge case where the fulfillment
of one person relies on the obstruction or denial of happiness for another.
Then, in this simplified scenario, I'd argue that we need the following
properties of a society:
* An amble supply of time for which no non-voluntary activity has been planned
* Private quarters of sufficient size, over which the person has full authority
* A stable supply of nutrients which the person find satisfying
* Access to resources that the person require
* The freedom to move around and exchange opinions
* Safety from violence and natural dangers
* Access to information and knowledge
Am I proposing that a Utopian paradise is what we require to be happy? No, not
exactly, but as our personal needs are different, the requirements must be wide
enough to accommodate such a scenario. Most people will in fact not want to just
sit around and do nothing all day if they could, that is what we may think, when
we are tired and stressed, but give people enough time, with sufficient resource
and they start spending it as they actually wish. These assumptions might be
wrong entirely, and if they are, excuse me, but this was also a large step back.
Tiny step forward
Let's try and extrapolate a capitalist society, some people will afford robots,
the robots will create products, people will buy products, or, those employed
will buy products, they will be fewer and fewer as their jobs are automated.
Society at large is unemployed and can not afford to buy products. That's taken
to an extreme, and naive conclusion, but I don't think it's far from the truth.
Now, robots basically mean free production, free labor, basically, the scarcity
principle of work no longer apply. The scarcity of resources is a whole other
discussion (my stand is that all of earths population together own all of earths
resources, but let that be). With an unlimited supply of labor, the idea that
man must work to deserve becomes twisted, indeed, how do one make himself worthy
of food if there is no meaningful job to do? When robots harvest the grain, man
has no place. Machines could run the planet just fine, we wouldn't be needed
when the AI becomes strong enough. That's another, loony scenario, that we will
indeed release a machine intelligence which makes us obsolete. But it is not a
true one, as obsolescence implies purpose, and mans true purpose is either
unknown of nonexistent, for now, let us say that the purpose of man is simply to
exist, and for that purpose, AI can not replace him. But, unless we embrace that
idea, that mans purpose is to exist, then man _can_ indeed be made obsolete, and
we can indeed replace ourselves entirely with robots. We could replace ourselves
entirely with rocks, were our purpose to be still and solid. It sounds much more
rambling than it is. The discussion often touches on the subject of efficiency
and productivity, obsolescence and jobs/tasks/purpose, and those are actually
only relevant when resources of labor are scarce, when the demand for food and
shelter is higher than the supply. Robots make scarcity of those resources
practically obsolete, we could all be fed, have stuff and live somewhere, were
it not for a very small amount of humanity owning access to the resources needed
to do so.
So basically
What I suggest is that, either nation-states own their (robotic) labor force and
makes available to its population the outcome hereof, or, as a robot replaces a
job, the proceeds earned from the labor of that robot is distributed to the part
of the population that has been replaced, or rather, freed.
And this concludes my rants on the future, for now.
Tomb Raider (2013)
I played this for two hours, and found a "tomb", one of the DLC ones, that came
with the package that I bought. The very first tomb, and after messing around
with it for an hour, I was finally convinced that it was broken. Basically, to
complete it, you have to get a plane to break in two, by burning trees that are
holding it up. However, the order of which you burn the trees will change the
resulting orientation of the plane, but this was not intended by the developer,
basically, the game doesn't know that you're in a state where you can not
complete it, and the "instinct" tool cluelessly marks the place where you can't
go. Fortunately, I decided to google around, and found a forum post from 2013!!!
about this problem.. Square Enix acknowledged the glitch and provided a
workaround, basically, I was really lucky that I didn't go back and save, so I
was able to do this; load the game from a point before the plane was dropped.
Others were not so lucky. I bought this game in 2017, I'm surprised that a patch
has not yet been released as this is potentially game-breaking behavior. Well...
It's still rather entertaining, though I do not appreciate the amount of times
I lose control and are forced to watch pseudo-cinematic performances interrupted
by me suddenly having to "mash" some randomly selected key.. Don't want to sound
like I'm only complaining, the game is certainly entertaining so far, it looks
and performs great too.
