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What exotic science fiction technology would you finance research into, if you had billions of dollars? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Perhaps the main use for technology is increasing the amount of inequality society can tolerate without collapse. I can't fix inequality -- that just seems to be what the humans want.

However by investing in surveillance technology, computer vision, and AI I could perhaps help our society to bear unbounded amounts of inequality indefinitely, without collapse. Social collapse is a less-than-zero-sum game, whereas an unequal society is still generally more-than-zero-sum. So I posit that the latter is objectively better.

Especially if you plan to survive long enough to get off this stinking rock -- you're going to need to concentrate resources, because the public sector only seems to be able to succeed at space travel under a very specific set of hard-to-replicate circumstances. Whereas greed, inflated egos, and concentrated power are easy to replicate.

Your objections will be noted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps the main use for technology is increasing the amount of inequality society can tolerate without collapse. I can’t fix inequality – that just seems to be what the humans want.

However by investing in surveillance technology, computer vision, and AI I could perhaps help our society to bear unbounded amounts of inequality indefinitely, without collapse. Social collapse is a less-than-zero-sum game, whereas an unequal society is still generally more-than-zero-sum. So I posit that the latter is objectively better.

... Are you suggesting that we increase inequality to make the world better? Like we need an overlord, be it robot or human, and the rest of the population needs to be placated, worked to the bone, and easily replaced?

I gotta assume I am just vastly misunderstanding something in this argument, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is. Is it just sarcastic?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I think the optimal outcome is that technology develops to permit our society to support increasing amounts of inequality. The increasing inequality will happen anyway, we'll just be able to bear it, or not. I'm won't suggest it's a good outcome, just the optimal one.