Society doing too well = bad for humanity?

[Theodarzna]

This entire thread OP is a lot like the topics covered in the book and film Fight Club. The OP seems to be describing the problem of modernity in which you spend your days largely saying "Yes Sir," dressed in ways you would not normal dress, doing things that seem largely pointless, and acting cheery even if you are not. People become basically dead inside. Things of course do not fill this, or they might but for some they don't so rampant consumerism doesn't suffice.

I think the hope of a society of self-educating or constantly educated people is not likely to happen. In short I don't buy into the Star Trek Utopia that even a basic income can promise. People are not going to be easily fit within a single universal answer of what they want to do with their life. Expanding on my disagreement with @Nihilist74, and that is that very much Boredom is worse than Death, and Boredom is precisely the society you describe. Not everyone will find solace in books. Science, Math, Engineering and Technology are incredibly well paying fields and still people have little interest in them, that is with tremendous financial incentives. Indeed Kierkegaard even went so far to say that the root of evil is boredom.

In order to fill the void of Boredom people will maybe turn to hedonism, but as lifespans get longer and longer, that will never really suffice. There might be intellectual pursuits, philosophy and science, but with robots solving all of life's problems and ending all difficulty, what would be the point of human action? Finally you could go for the religious life, but I suspect that Atheism and Secularism are the heart of this sort of society and more over it will ring hollow in a world with such vast scientific knowledge to resolve any mystery in life.

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I probably agree that human civilization is ultimately destructive. You have to figure out what specific metrics you value most. Currently violence is not that big of an issue, unless there is a conspiracy involving the statistics, which doesn't seem likely. Still I recommend having various tools, such as guns.

I think in general technical optimists and futurists are too hopeful that technology can somewhat solve existential problems that are core to human life.

To use Kierkegaard for a bit, the problem I have with that outlook is its purely Aesthete. People are hoping that shiny toys or continuous education or chasing "Self Actualization," will fill out the boredom of peoples life.

Plus I think the ecological damage such a society does will create such self destruction if not that, then a pandemic disease. ect. Death always gets his due.

[PC2]

I think in general technical optimists and futurists are too hopeful that technology can somewhat solve existential problems that are core to human life.

To use Kierkegaard for a bit, the problem I have with that outlook is its purely Aesthete. People are hoping that shiny toys or continuous education or chasing "Self Actualization," will fill out the boredom of peoples life.

Plus I think the ecological damage such a society does will create such self destruction if not that, then a pandemic disease. ect. Death always gets his due.

I see it as about 50:50 at this point. I would need more specific evidence to say for sure humanity will end up one way or the other.

[The Stormbringer]

Weeeeell...

In order to improve the conditions for humanity we need to progress with sciences and technology to the point where we can actually spread out from this rock, spread the eggs into more baskets so to say. In order to get to that point as fast as possible we need the majority of our species to have stable living conditions where they don't have to worry about fending off starvation and where they can be safe from internal and external threats.

That would cause them to get into useless shit such as art studies.
Desperate times cause people to improve their situation by any means.

Or they would study how to better their artificial environment to make it better and less likely to fail. Living in a space station or on a moon colony would be very difficult and terrifying at times. Even 'stable conditions' can mean jack shit if say, a meteor storm were to head your way, or solar winds, or even just technological failure.

I agree with Gabriel that we need to spread out and do it soon. If we had some kind of incoming cataclysmic, undeniable event approaching to motivate us all, I'm sure that'd be handy. Even if it wound up being a major hoax decades later.

[Theodarzna]

I see it as about 50:50 at this point. I would need more specific evidence to say for sure humanity will end up one way or the other.

I see it as inevitable. There is no ultimate escape from doom.

However, following your thought through,

Futurists or Optimists in the Future will have to resolve a few core problems IMHO. One is resource depletion and ecological chaos. A second problem will be the critical existential crisis of humans. Technology could either solve this through a kind of Dystopian Enslaved society akin to Brave New World, OR some other way to solve general apathy that would emerge from mass boredom which IMHO will necessitate a bunch of basically Luddite or Neo-Luddite laws to contrive some way of filling peoples existence with something to do and with ENOUGH things to do to match a diversity of desire and interest. Finally it will have to find some way to sustain itself and overcome the enormous costs of expanding pass the Planet Earth.

In my view attempting any of that will be gruesomely challenging without some cruel totalitarian actions in the service of Greater Good thinking, OR are just simply unmanageable.

[Blobfish]

I wonder how long it took for this person to realize what they wrote....

Yeah, i had to many wines last night.. Its was supposed to be WW2

[sethman75]

Yeah, i had to many wines last night.. Its was supposed to be WW2

Still out dude. WW2 started in 1939

[Shadowferal]

I see it as inevitable. There is no ultimate escape from doom.

However, following your thought through,

Futurists or Optimists in the Future will have to resolve a few core problems IMHO. One is resource depletion and ecological chaos. A second problem will be the critical existential crisis of humans. Technology could either solve this through a kind of Dystopian Enslaved society akin to Brave New World, OR some other way to solve general apathy that would emerge from mass boredom which IMHO will necessitate a bunch of basically Luddite or Neo-Luddite laws to contrive some way of filling peoples existence with something to do and with ENOUGH things to do to match a diversity of desire and interest. Finally it will have to find some way to sustain itself and overcome the enormous costs of expanding pass the Planet Earth.

In my view attempting any of that will be gruesomely challenging without some cruel totalitarian actions in the service of Greater Good thinking, OR are just simply unmanageable.

There was a point after a century of the Age of Enlightenment...in the late 19th century that thought scientific thought was going to replace everything, including religion. That science would somehow find a way to satisfy all our needs. And yes, religion was supposed to have withered away during the 20th century. Needless to say that I don't think that either will ever be the case.

[Masark]

Still out dude. WW2 started in 1939

Yes, but the great depression was one of the major causes. It combined with the reparations required by the Treaty of Versailles drove the German economy to the brink and gave the nazi party an opening.