_     _             
                        _ __ | |__ | | ___   __ _ 
                       | '_ \| '_ \| |/ _ \ / _` |
                       | |_) | | | | | (_) | (_| |
                       | .__/|_| |_|_|\___/ \__, |
                       |_|    ...2017-02-21 |___/ 

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. -OUT ----------------------------------------------------------------+ \ \ \_________