The good future

Nathan Dileas

I'm intending to read White Mirror as part of this. Here are some assorted thoughts before starting.

Descriptive

What does a good future look like 100 years from now? In 2125, unsought toil doesn't exist. Almost no one is trash picking to eat. ⊕ Except for permies and youtubers and maybe historical reenactors? War is fought with no humans dying. Most people die at 90 or up, except for daredevils in accidents. Travel is cheap. Lots of people see the five largest countries by cultural impact before they die. By our standards, there are robots everywhere. Mostly they don't look like us.

Society doesn't look that different. There's probably still nationalism and hierarchachal organizations and implicit bias and ants and mosquitoes. There's bad neighborhoods and theft. Most people even still "work" for a living. Some people still hit their kids and cheat on their spouses and shit in the punch bowl.

In areas which speak the same language ⊕ there is a more generally accepted code of conduct, and some laws which transcend borders. Conviction or acquittal happens extremely quickly by today's standards, and basically splits into 2 paths; inpatient or outpatient counseling.

There's a work of art which if you saw it now, would bring you to tears. It is considered passἑ and not spoken about in certain circles.

Speaking of social circles; there's way more of them. ⊕ There's a huge amount of interesting ways a hundred years from now is different which this margin is too small to contain.

Prescriptive

What needs to happen for us to end up here and not somewhere else?

Social changes. Credible threats of personal and wide-spread harm needs to become harder. Large groups need to get better at communicating and committing. Individuals need to be smarter and kinder.

Technological changes. Labor needs to become cheap and democratized. Food needs to be cheaper. Communication and travel et cetera.

I'd rate our curent progress as poor. But second prize might be pretty good!

Closing Thoughts

I'm excited to read a positive account of the future. I am slightly worried that it will be too unmoored. It's easy to write a bunch of words about how good something will be, now more than ever. We'll see!