# Future Trends



## notimp (Dec 15, 2019)

VR - PR to solve all growth related problems currently is everywhere. Nobody knows, that it currently doesnt work. Nobody knows the detrimental effects (think MMOs combined with the app economy). Everybody and their aunt is currently hyping it through the heavens. (Except Microsoft.  ) Put on your VR, jack out into escapism, and shut up.

Oh, and Apple is said to release their solution in 2022 after another delay.

Its far more likely though - that AR succeeds first - which means, Youtube tutorials for peoples lives - especially in job training. Which means decreased need of educated labor.
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More CSR (corporate social responsibility) - companies are seeing that the Ben and Jerries Business model worked, and that consumers are getting more weary about company practices - so everyone looks for a pet lighthouse project to act as if they were not following the capitalist model. This is coined as a move away from "shareholders value" and to "stakeholders value". "Party of Davos" already subscribed. According to one future scientist, maybe as much as half of companies will subscribe to this new marketing ploy. Companies do it, because they have predicted pushback from many societal interest (pressure) groups, that are starting to catch up, that they have been betrayed and cheated (taxes) for years. (Power shift from political institutions to large corporations.) They are now trying to find an answer to that. Because with digitization the problems they are causing will increase.

Which brings us to future scientists.

If you know nothing. But you still want money. You call yourself a future scientist, and then repeat all the proclamations that were already made in Davos, or in company investment plans. Write books about them. Do a Song and dance for the public. Let yourself be invited to talk at startup conferences.

Based on articles of Matthias Horx (german), future scientist.

(If you are silicon valley - you have just come to grips with that you ruined silicon valley (edit: house prices, social intermixing) - and are now trying to reproduce the same model in Austin and Denver.

Because people start to hate you, you are now also branching out and let US embassies all over the world string up exchange programs, where you pay for students of other countries to come and participate, to still swallow the same old deal.)
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Not sure - that it will play out in the ideological way I presented it (hey, maybe everyone will love their VR future), but those concepts, are currently trying to be pushed into the mainstream. They are the 'bitcoin' of the next five years.

Anything else I am missing?


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## notimp (Dec 15, 2019)

Green energy is pegged to be a growth market, but currently (in the west) only because of state (and special interest) investment commitments (private capital still doesnt care). All in all total energy use and profit margin in the sector will decrease compared to the sector today - which is why the energy lobby isnt excited. (Renewable energy will be a growth sector, but less growth overall - pitched against the decline of fossile energy.)

Digitization is projected to produce economic growth for another ten years - until a third of the population isn't needed for productivity work anymore - and can act as if the service economy is a replacement for white collar jobs. The thing that is offsetting job loss here is a trend towards 'automation assisted' job profiles. Meaning, you Bullshit your clients more in person, and let AI do the 'work part'. That of course only in small and medium enterprises, because you write out the entire regular communications work in bigger companies to be done by (AI trading) agents as well.

I think gigworking as a perspective is pushed maybe a bit less than two years ago, or maybe thats not as universally scalable as some people hoped.


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## Kraken_X (Dec 15, 2019)

Science is dying.  Science requires an open mind.  You make a guess (hypothesis) as to what the outcome might be, perform an experiment, record what actually happened, revise your hypothesis, then re-test.  The results are not, and should not, be tied to your expectations and the results of a properly run experiment benefit everyone's knowledge and advance technology regardless.  Modern science is companies paying for the results they want.  If the experiment doesn't show what they want, they fudge the data or change the inputs until it does.  If it still can't show what they want, they simply don't publish the result at all.  As an example, the USA is obese with tons of deaths from Diabetes and Heart Disease because a false study ran by the corn industry in the 70s said that Saturated Fats are bad.  A few FDA bribes later we had a food pyramid telling people to eat unhealthy grains and starches more than healthy vegetables and fats.


Truth is dying.  We have just 5 companies that control 90% of the media in the USA.  Of those same companies, they also own access to the internet and access to Cable TV: AT&T (CNN, HBO), Verizon (Huffington Post, Yahoo, Tumblr, etc.), Comcast (NBC, Universal) come to mind.  Anything that negatively affects those companies bottom lines will not be said on the air, so while they will pretend to be liberal by focusing on minorities and gender issues, they will not allow any discussion of anything other than their brand of monopoly capitalism which they have built on corruption and cronyism.  Factual discussion of either true right-wing free market capitalism or true left-wing regulated socialism/capitalism hybrid economies will not be allowed.  The public will not be informed about laws that increase their power, allow them to buy other companies, or restrict our freedoms to do anything to change the system.  If you go to the Internet seeking truth, you are more likely to be deceived by Corporate PR or foreign agents than actually find it. 

The critical thinking to separate facts from lies is both difficult and under direct attack as we de-fund education and emphasize teaching facts for standardized tests.  Even those of us with the needed skills to tell truth from lies are too tired from living our lives to find it, and we are too exhausted from both the negativity of that reality, and the strong brainwashing that nearly everyone (including us) is undergoing on a constant basis to do anything about it.  Even if we did try to do something about it, everything is already rigged and everyone's mind is already made up based on their choice of lies.


Technology will become very dangerous.  In your pocket right now is a device that is always recording your location, knows your family and friends, knows what you say to them, knows your daily routine, knows what websites you visit, has both a microphone and camera that can be activated at any time with or without your permission, and has access to tons more data than that.  You have dozens of apps installed that are all trying to collect that data all the time and there is no way to tell what they are doing at any given time and very limited capacity to restrict them (outside of rooting/jailbreaking, which companies are trying their hardest to kill).  You are one unread 60-page EULA away from that information being shared publicly on the internet with anyone who wants it, and chances are you didn't read that EULA and and it's already happening to you.  With just a handful of data points and some automated data analysis, businesses/governments that have that data already know who you are better than your friends, family and even you, yourself do.  It's nearly impossible to opt-out and still function in today's society, and even if you opt out, companies like Amazon's Ring are using people's fears of package theft to build the world's largest surveillance network. With advances in facial recognition, soon they won't even need your own devices to track you.  Walking down the street will be enough as your face is captured by dozens of cameras.

Right now, that information is mostly being used by advertisers and marketers, and while the ability to get people to vote against their own interests based on individually targeted advertisements and misinformation is scary, imagine what happens when all of the tracking from your phones, PCs, game consoles, home devices and your all of your friends devices is all aggregated and used to track you 24/7.  In China, going to a specific website or making a poorly thought out comment to a friend in a messaging app can cost your your job or you could spend the rest of your life in jail waiting for your organs to be harvested.  That's the reality in China right now, and it's only a few years away from reaching the west if laws aren't put in place, and enforced to stop it.


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## notimp (Dec 15, 2019)

Bleak. 

I'd maybe not vote out entire disciplines ("science"). I rather concentrated on fields, where likely societal pushback - or at least resistance to current developments probably is to be expected in some form. And even that I cant say for sure.

Even if the first impression might be an emotional one, I'm actually a little removed from you usual dooms day proposals like 'science is dead'.  But I'll think it over, at least once more.  Any other takes?


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## notimp (Dec 16, 2019)

No nothing?

The return of protectionism (tariffs) we've already talked about a bit. (US, EU and Asia retreating from international free trade under WTO rules, and going back under tariff structures - now that the US effectively has dismantled WTO. This means reduced economic growth for the most part.)

What about 'digital money'? The thing that currently every national bank thinks should be extensively looked into? So increased transparency on all money flows (- theoretically allows for better tax structures, but also for better nudging). Also the main reason (despite creating category A monopolies) national banks like the idea is, that with digital money you can put negative interest on it, so -0.5% interest while you are not spending it. Because currently all inflation producing measures seem to be pretty played out. (With national banks now printing money for Top 500 companies - tied to specific projects, if you are in the Eurozone.)

What about trends in surveillance capitalism (everyone pays with data - you aggregate this, then you do better predictive modeling). Thats only going to increase, right? So currently in my country efforts by the legislative branch to get more actionable data without probable cause are only stopped by the high courts, while Facebook for example is financing secret (as in they dont name them, and neither do the universities) research projects with top german universities, to do what exactly?
More behavioral modeling. Some would say its even needed. With the foreseen increase in migration pressure in Europe. In my country for example I can also look forward to a trend of social democratic fractions becoming more structurally xenophobic - because economically they have no answers to how they'd uphold current social structures.

Universal basic income is a fluke, currently mostly propagated by free market liberals talking about how dismantling current social structures could be made sexy sounding (not counting some philosophers ideas of the future).

How about trends towards 'single universal identification from birth'? I hear in some corporate structures it has become hip for people to implant RFID chips instead of using access cards? You could combine that with negative interest digital money - and have your personal dystopia tomorrow.  (edit: Ok, thats not a trend. )

How about problems that arise from a decline in the demographic curve? My country is projected to lose about 4000 USD in effective productivity on its average working individual per year within the next 20 years. What about that trend?

How about that actual science is now more tied to corporate investing than ever - producing more low level educated folks, that are fit for carreers in the corporate sector, but forgoing f.e. transdisciplinary learning all together?

How about, that with this in place - corporate investments in R&D were on a decline for the past 10 years. So they certainly didnt pick up the slack.

How about that a basic strand of thought is, that we dont need any further structural innovation or growth (is building circular economies a trend?), we use our current development level to bootstrap economies in the transitioning world, and then zone out about the rest?

No?

Still no takers? This is supposed to be a political forum, right? But if someone isnt telling you what of all that is a blue, or red issue - you have no opinion, right?

What do you see as future trends? And maybe dont just stop at 'bleak' in general. 

Is 'social score' a future trend? Because we have already seen possible implementations of that concept for western societies being discussed openly in political forums ( https://alpbach.apa-ots-video.at/video/5333013067a14a6eb3013067a17a6ef3 ).


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## notimp (Dec 16, 2019)

In distribution infrastructure, Amazon is now so far ahead of everyone else (also by building horizontal integration (Amazon Prime (TV shows finance distribution infrastructure))), that monopolizing customer trade interaction is a future trend, right? City centers are already dying because of it.
edit: Dont worry - we'll offset it with Pokemon Go.  (Small trend..  Is that social engineering btw?)

How about further military intervention? Microsoft seems to think so... Under Satya Nadella they not only pivoted towards a 'service business modell' you pay for with personal data, but also structurally bound the company in high volume investments to the US military industrial complex. Thats a trend right? So Bill can not only try to irradicate Polio, but also profit from fighting local uprisings that will pop up along the way? (As a shareholder). Europe is also on the way to develop a more all encompasing millitary infrastructure - right? And in NATO we are now at the point, where the US openly curses out EU states for not paying enough. Thats a trend, right?

Cloud infrastructure still a trend right? Part of digitization. The idea here is, if you have all your companies data centralized at one point, hosted by someone else, you'll come up with new ideas on how to develop or monetize your business in no time. Right. Again - thats still a trend for the next 10 years.

Am I still missing stuff?

Robotics. Yeah, thats still a trend. Boston dynamics apparently already are supplying service 'dogs' to local police units, and if ever we run out of third world nations to develop - we are still working on switching over to autonomous production. Closer to our key markets.

Oh yeah - autonomous cars. So currently we have predictions out there, that if UBER (edit: driving as a service as the default actually - UBER already exists.  ) takes off as a trend, we'll have more cars in our streets than today, even if we dont own them anymore. So make UBER more expensive right? And kick out all the drivers (3% of US working population) thats a trend, correct?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Water has now for the first time been made a commodity on the international level (more thoroughly - so more on a system level - than before). To help 'save' it in the long run (also to help distribute it 'more fairly' - as in free market fairly, but still). So shorter showers in the future will become a trend, right?
edit: This also means, more intended for urban use, as water will be syphoned in towards cities, leaving less untapped resources for (comparatively poorer rural populations).
Teaching people the worth of preservation (not buying new clothes), thats also a trend. (That just started.)

Personalized medicine still being a trend? (I don't know the sector), I mean now that US working population age expectation is on a decline - for the first time in our lives? Hows that going? 
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We know that resettlement projects will be a future trend because of impacts of global warming, right? So lets look at one such project today. http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/flint-mi-population/ Hows that going, thats a trend, right?

Will that be offset by amazons workerless grocery stores? (Apparently the new line of grocery stores they are planning will now, for the first time, not only target the Whole Foods demographic, with all the savings on employment costs and all..).

So small and medium sized companies in the service sector are picking up all the slack right? (Because america likes tax decreases so much. Thats a trend, right?  )

Also - we all have politicians that understand that stuff, right? edit: I'm asking, because the only person liking anything in here currently is the religious nut, liking a 'science is dangerous' posting, from a fellow member.


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## notimp (Dec 16, 2019)

So - and what I've done here, basically seems to be to have made an argument, why centralized planning doesnt work. 

By all definitions of 'trends' we seem to be, at least in the west, and at least over parts of my lifetime in a 'bust' part of the economic cycle. Despite companies not 'busting' anymore - if they have no ideas (do we see actual bust cycles in capitalism anymore?), and arent doing much to change that, once they've reached a certain size. (Either they by then are diversified in many fields, or they go onto slower decline trajectories.)

Whats propping up the world still functioning instead are a few select, structural industries (without any obvious growth potential currently), and a metric ton of small and medium size ventures, that are happy as a fiddle, that some youtube influencer popularized a new hairstyle - because they might have a hair salon business in the service sector, or that apparently - tracking their customers behavior is now a new revenue stream, they could tap into (the electricity companies where I live are currently looking into that f.e.). Even though they might not know how, or the least bit about data anonymization/sanitization. At least they know, that the consumer doesnt care.

And so we end up in a world - that still functions, but thats unfair as can be - not just from an altruistic point of view, but also - that f.e. structurally a trend to lower education level (up to a certain point), and other intentionally detrimental systemically useless and even hurtful behavior gets incentivized.

And thats progress.

I think I've described old man syndrom as well.. 

And if I havent sufficiently -

I still remember, very vividly, when a holocaust surviver held a talk in my school - ending it with - to make sure, that people never again, get put on lists and get categorized by class identifyers or religious status, the way they were, before the atrocities in Germany happened.

And now we've got facebook, that sells that information for cents on the dollar to anyone that wants to produce (even just fake) rallies on the streets.

Same pattern with stuff like Orwell, that now seems to have replicated in the exact opposite manner as intended (by him), or - well, our proverbial "future scientist" that just copies, whatever investors call a trend at the time.

And this concept we could call 'future trends have never seemed bleak, when they get put in place' regardless of previous experiences, or - the ability of humankind - to forget past experiences structurally (= resilience) - I suppose. 

And the first part is what marketing helps with, I suppose.

Now, that was a philosophical excursion..  (Into my own irrationality.)

Btw: All (most of) the things I've listed, should still hold true short term. I wonder on how many of them I'll be wrong on in a year or two from now.

edit: Also - those mostly are structural trends where I live. Solutions might be specific to the actual state or country you are living in. Which is why this hasn't to be seen too "bleak" as well.  What prompted this extended monologue was reading another hype piece about how VR could replace future travel and save the planet - btw. Just so you know..


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## IncredulousP (Dec 16, 2019)

Kraken_X said:


> Science is dying.  Science requires an open mind.  You make a guess (hypothesis) as to what the outcome might be, perform an experiment, record what actually happened, revise your hypothesis, then re-test.  The results are not, and should not, be tied to your expectations and the results of a properly run experiment benefit everyone's knowledge and advance technology regardless.  Modern science is companies paying for the results they want.  If the experiment doesn't show what they want, they fudge the data or change the inputs until it does.  If it still can't show what they want, they simply don't publish the result at all.  As an example, the USA is obese with tons of deaths from Diabetes and Heart Disease because a false study ran by the corn industry in the 70s said that Saturated Fats are bad.  A few FDA bribes later we had a food pyramid telling people to eat unhealthy grains and starches more than healthy vegetables and fats.
> 
> 
> Truth is dying.  We have just 5 companies that control 90% of the media in the USA.  Of those same companies, they also own access to the internet and access to Cable TV: AT&T (CNN, HBO), Verizon (Huffington Post, Yahoo, Tumblr, etc.), Comcast (NBC, Universal) come to mind.  Anything that negatively affects those companies bottom lines will not be said on the air, so while they will pretend to be liberal by focusing on minorities and gender issues, they will not allow any discussion of anything other than their brand of monopoly capitalism which they have built on corruption and cronyism.  Factual discussion of either true right-wing free market capitalism or true left-wing regulated socialism/capitalism hybrid economies will not be allowed.  The public will not be informed about laws that increase their power, allow them to buy other companies, or restrict our freedoms to do anything to change the system.  If you go to the Internet seeking truth, you are more likely to be deceived by Corporate PR or foreign agents than actually find it.
> ...


I don't think truth and science are dying, I just think it's becoming clearer that truth and science aren't the strongest motivators and people on average can't or won't understand them. Would people 1000 years ago give half a shit about anything scientific or truthful when it came to how they or their ruler felt about something? Would they even know "science" from "magic", "religion", etc.


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## KingVamp (Dec 17, 2019)

What about genetic engineering and cybernetics? Cryptocurrency?

Anyway, a lot these things are depended on what happens a year from now. At the very least, the quickness of these trends. 


notimp said:


> Its far more likely though - that AR succeeds first - which means, Youtube tutorials for peoples lives - especially in job training. Which means decreased need of educated labor


If/when AR succeeds, it will replace every personal display. 



notimp said:


> Universal basic income is a fluke, currently mostly propagated by free market liberals talking about how dismantling current social structures could be made sexy sounding (not counting some philosophers ideas of the future).
> 
> How about problems that arise from a decline in the demographic curve? My country is projected to lose about 4000 USD in effective productivity on its average working individual per year within the next 20 years. What about that trend?


Less of a fluke and more of an eventuality. What else can you do when automation hits full swing and even a lot of jobs we do have right now, can't or don't pay a living wage?

Well, human production isn't going to matter as much, as things get more automated.


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## notimp (Dec 18, 2019)

Cryptocurrency as a concept is pretty likely to work the way Facebook would implement it (without proof of work - but simply centralized with limited, but diversified, stakeholders. At least in theory. The issue here rather is, that they can change the 'contract' (what that money is - how its created) unilaterally (within their group of stakeholders having a seat at the table). Meaning - they are disintermediating central banks. (By becoming another one.) There are huge issues with that (it isnt 'baked into unchangable code'). So in fact, they'd just become another power player. (But they being - a diversified group of companies and NGOs, (and currencies ) sitting at the same table.)

On one level central banks as financiers are the opposite of private investing, or at least they are a counter balance. (They can produce spending trends, when private capital does nothing to induce investing f.e.).

Who gets to say by what rules our money operates is kind of important - so.. there is considerable pushback.

(National) Central banks mostly want crypto (digital only) currencies within the corresponding national currency. Thats a thing where you could oversee transactions more easily and for example introduce negative interest over time. Which equates to more direct control ('options') for monetary politics.


The easiest way to describe Blockchain (which the facebook model of currency is not ('almost never')) is: "Hey you in the audience, raise your hands - ok, you were first, you now become our treasurer for the next half hour". We pay you a fee. So its a way to make sure that people dont use power to cheat on balance sheets (or contracts), but it has all the structural detriments of "hey you - you become our treasurer for the next half hour" as well. To make sure there is trust in this person and it cant be 'helped' to give you a heads up at 'whose first' the next time arround, and ensure that people are invested, you sadly also need the energy equivalent of an entire small state (if you are bitcoin) at this moment, and transaction flow is so limited, that it couldnt be a real currency. This problem is unsolved. So you look at the concept (blockchain) more for smaller volume transactions. (Contracts between banks, f.e.) Or you realize, that its not what you were looking for, and those usecases can be easier done in a different way. The one thing it produces is, that you really have 'distributed' trust. (So no referee, or board, or... is needed)

One interesting conundrum also is, that all transactions are visible forever. Which in most cases is more unwanted and unneeded than you'd think.

So blockchain is a clever solution, in search of a lucrative problem its perfect to solve.
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Cybernetics? More Scifi than mainstreamable trend currently. The closest thing we've come to blurring that line is companies wanting to embed 'employee access cards', or even more abstract - maybe the social score system in China. So its more fruitful to talk about individual use cases I think.
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Genetic engineering I'm not well versed in as a subject. To modify small organisms already is possible and viable. Main tool in use should be CRISPR. Main issue is - that you cant control outcome of more complex modifications. But you can turn off certain genes f.e. where viable (food production - where there is also a huge issue with patents inside this process).

As a security measure against chance mutations, reproduction is usually also designed out (= also plants you would always have to buy from one company, every year), and there are ethical guidelines on what not to try - world wide (because of risk profiles).

So on smaller stuff (GMOs, modified small organisms) sure. I think of it more as a field (you are always looking for will it work, how well will it work, ...), than as a trend. So widely possible and varying outcomes I guess. 

Regarding the concept of 'personalized medicine' I'm entirely out of my depth I'm afraid. 
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@Universal basic income - yes, in theory you are correct - but the transition phase will or would be hugely disruptive and not fun. (Eliminate most of 'public services' for its financing) - so its very much more likely that it will be postponed as long as possible.

Economically it is interesting, because it solves the poverty problem without destroying incentives to work (even in different levels of jobs).

But what it is more than anything - is removing stigma from unemployment benefits. While this sounds nice, its actually not that needed.

You could always f.e. pay unemployed people so they are not slipping into real poverty (usually defined as a percentage of average income), and then let the market decide on the cost of work. And if people "top off" their unemployment benefits with work (that wouldnt sustain them as a 'non subsidized' job) - you allow them to keep a percentage of the income, rather than everything (on top of their unemployment money).

Thats a system we have in place in many democratic countries currently. And UBI would only be to raise the percentage quota of what they can keep (on top of benefits) to 100% (instead of lets say 50%), and you would be doing it mostly to remove the social stigma.

But for that - you would need so much money, that other 'common' goods couldnt be financed anymore (so its partly - do you really want to loose all the administration in those fields, because they serve different functions other than 'just distributing money').

For that to change, productivity (of f.e. automatized production of goods) would have to rise significantly. So its an answer for the extreme scenario, thats not likely to arrive so soon.

I mean - it depends. If you've designed a third of all white color workers out of their job (as the IT sector is currently pegged to do), maybe the public outcry would be big enough - but probably not.

UBI - in the most basic sense is a very liberal concept - because it reduces structural power - and basically believes, if you give people the money to survive - they'll do fine. Maybe add a few charities.


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## KingVamp (Dec 19, 2019)

I forgot foldable phones/devices and plant base "meat".



notimp said:


> @Universal basic income - yes, in theory you are correct - but the transition phase will or would be hugely disruptive and not fun.


Only because the people trying to get this done would have to fight against this tax cuts for the rich nonsense and actually get people to at least pay half their taxes.


notimp said:


> (Eliminate most of 'public services' for its financing) - so its very much more likely that it will be postponed as long as possible.
> 
> 
> But for that - you would need so much money, that other 'common' goods couldnt be financed anymore (so its partly - do you really want to loose all the administration in those fields, because they serve different functions other than 'just distributing money').


Putting aside on how much other services really need to be taking from to make this work, if basic income makes some services more streamline and redundant, isn't that a good thing? Like replacing our broken healthcare system with universal healthcare. 

Less bureaucracy, more money towards basic income and more efficient welfare, and everyone is covered by it? Win-Win?




notimp said:


> You could always f.e. pay unemployed people so they are not slipping into real poverty (usually defined as a percentage of average income), and then let the market decide on the cost of work. And if people "top off" their unemployment benefits with work (that wouldnt sustain them as a 'non subsidized' job) - you allow them to keep a percentage of the income, rather than everything (on top of their unemployment money).


Just sounds like a step up (maybe) from the welfare trap and bureaucracy we have now.



notimp said:


> Cybernetics? More Scifi than mainstreamable trend currently. The closest thing we've come to blurring that line is companies wanting to embed 'employee access cards', or even more abstract - maybe the social score system in China. So its more fruitful to talk about individual use cases I think.


Just some fun videos. Link Link Link  There also Neuralink and artificial neurons.


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## notimp (Dec 22, 2019)

KingVamp said:


> Only because the people trying to get this done would have to fight against this tax cuts for the rich nonsense and actually get people to at least pay half their taxes.


Structurally correct but.

Lets look at some factors.

So lets say there always will be interest groups for people with huge assets. Lets say that if they are not regionally 'bound' (f.e. land ownership), they can move - assets and investment (and its always mainly about investment) into other countries. And lets say - it benefits them even in the sense, that they could attain better growth potential with existing processes in less developed countries, that also would welcome them with tax exemptions even.
(Now all of this isnt available in limitless amounts. They would loose social status ('where do I send my kids to school' (schools thought of as social pools and not  only knowledge) kind of problems  ). and there is first mover advantage and if everyone relocates into one direction (lets say singapore) late movers arent as well off, but also have less risk. (Slowly compounding businesses be great.  ))

But just for the sake of the argument, lets say - that this would always be the case to some extent.

Then the next aspect worth looking into becomes: You want investment capital, in private hands, so they can take big risks, at some point even at international scale. And if they fail, you want them to be able to go 'bankrupt' (which never happens anymore, but..  ) while standing in for the loss - personally, and not have everyone do it societally.
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So having huge amounts of money isnt the main issue - if the investment infrastructure would work as intended. (Because this is what produces 'you getting more well off over time in the  right job' configurations. (If sector grows educated work doesnt scale up as well, thus becomes more valuable.)) But then you look at europe, f.e. see an aging (shrinking rather, because the old folks still have money) society - and suddenly would like to invest in 'keep their expectation low' but joyfully - infrastructure there - and not much else.

Not to talk about 2008, where risks where simply turned over to the public at large.
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So UBI - would rely on a 'worth generation structure' that would significantly wall out large, or important (as in revolts) parts of society from productive gains. Before that happens a change of that magnitude shouldnt be viable.

Now part of the argument is, that thats happened already - and that productivity decoupled from financial growth - but you can still massage that relationship for a while.

F.e. push all 'status seeking' people in jobs, where they can get status - making everyone else consume less. Stuff like that.
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So UBI is basically seen as an extreme measure - for when PR doesnt work anymore.. 
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If you want to condense it down - the main argument goes as follows. Yes, wealth generation decoupled from 'shared economic growth' in the mainstream. But you also got cheap china goods, so its simply our statistical figures that arent measuring how much better you have it than your parents (GDP). So shut up. And this will still work for a while.

There are people being actively financed to look at new fake metrics (happyness index) to measure progress - without looking at wealth distribution even.

So... yeah. UBI done wrong is maybe even a bigger issue. There is some part of 'unjust wealth distribution' that has to be there (incentives). There is part of it (investment capital) that has to be there to compete at 'megacorp scale'. And to talk someone affluent into 'sponsoring just a generation of nobodies' into a better lifestyle - isn't very enticing for anyone - so an argument has to be made for why it is sustainable. (F.e. much higher productivity because of automation.)

And as long as it only is sustainable cutting back an all other public services - eh. Now all of this is imaginative accounting on some level, but seeing all of that in place - I dont see the trend even longtorm - in my lifetime.



> Like replacing our broken healthcare system with universal healthcare.


Just fix healthcare.  Smaller issue. But I get the entire 'it needs a movement, to change bigly and... new change is better than old models and..." thing. 
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Folding screens. IO becomes the issue here at some point. Smartphone industry is basically peak smartphone and everyone is looking into any trend that would continue it. (Same parts in VR, foldable screens...) so sure... Very predictable - probably not with large growth potential, just iterative. I'm not excited.
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I'll look into machine learning more so thanks for those concepts. I have a basic understanding already, but its too fragmented still.  (Basic understanding is that 'general AI is hard' so everyone is doing 'personal assistants' instead.  Quality control is a huge issue (or you dont need it, as some would say  ). Hidden biases are as well. But maybe I'm conflating concepts.


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