njarboe

Maybe it should be called the Department of War.

Those things and also everyone always having a video recorder in their pocket and a culture of posting them online where they can go viral, is likely a huge factor.

This is definitely not for people who think there is one to many of themselves.

The same was probably said when machines started making furniture, cloth, harvesting wheat, etc. A desk made custom by a human to your specs is cool, beautiful, and life giving for both involved. And will cost $10-$50k. Maybe with the AIs and robots doing the grunt work, humans could get back to building things for each other. That would be great but I'm not sure what percentage of people are interested in that though.

A printed list in her purse has certain beneficial properties that a password manager does not.

A big problem is bright screens and displays inside of cars at night. Your night vision never kicks in so you need extra bright lights to see, thus these bright lights that only light up a small section of the road. The more dispersed and even lighting of the old lights is so much better.

Blame the chicken tax.

"The economy has absorbed automation before; agricultural employment collapsed from ninety percent of the American workforce to two percent and civilization continued."

This automation happened between around 1910 and 1930. With WWI, the great depression, WWII, Communist Russia, failure of the gold standard, etc., some argue that is when civilization died.

Dark Unknown Matter would be a better name for lay people to understand what's going on. I'm no cosmologist but isn't it just a placeholder for something that gravity interacts with (and not much else) and we don't know what it currently is. When we discover what it is the name will change.

Agreed. My brother is a painter and has commented, "At least in the past cheap tools were one-time-use, now they are usually zero-time-use. Built so poorly they don't even work out of the box."

German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (a high-ranking army officer in the Reichswehr/Wehrmacht era):

“I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined.

Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff.

The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90% of every army and are suited to routine duties.

Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership posts, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions.

One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.”

Would like to see such a system in action. Have any examples? Most go horribly wrong.

Early United States was pretty good but having a western frontier with "free" land was probably the enabling factor that no longer exists.

It would be great if everyone felt and was in a major way in control of their life. Equal before the law and not much law. The people who want to create "equality" by preventing people from accumulating wealth also want to accumulate power in the state. A tiny fraction of people will also be running a socialist state.

Aristocrats are going to aristocrat, as they say.

What does inequality even mean? Everyone must be identical? The idea of removing inequality is dystopian.