Amin Toufani at the SU Global Summit 2018 made several claims and conclusions in regard to the exponential future. One is that 2020-2030 would be remembered historically as the Great Bifurcation. He refers to this as the time when there is not just increasing inequality between the megarich and the rest but when the rich use the wealth to create permanent advantages in lifespan, health, intelligence and other changes.
India’s Caste system has had existed in various forms for 3500 years. This was a system of societal stratification that greatly reduced social mobility and had people marrying people at their same monetary and societal level.
This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences which were handed down through many generations.
Amin point is that exponential technologies will take the differences beyond monetary to buying life extension and cognitive enhancement.
Nextbigfuture tracks these developments and believes those technologies will be developed but they will become as universally accessible as vaccination. However, there will be lags where the best versions will be available to the wealthy first.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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The old fear of the rich and powerful becoming existentially different from the rest of the populace. As if free markets haven’t shown again and again that such advancements eventually become commonplace services and commodities with the exception of truly scarce resources like land in privileged spots and intangible social and positional goods (e.g. your family acquaintances and connections).The only problem I see is the hysterics trying to prevent these advances just because of this unfounded fear.
Happiness is relative. Things are only desirable if you have something the others don’t have. I think that has been scientifically shown. What happens next is predictable.
Just remind them they can opt out. They don’t have to live any more than they want to.
Why that’s precisely what a servant of the great evil would say!
Well I tells ya that the uber-uber-rich will make their BTC selling life extensions and other aftermarket third party modifications to people who are not uber-rich. Because we’ve seen this story before. Like 10,000 times before.
Do people buy the idea that if the Ur (uber-rich) don’t have strong motives to let ‘the masses’ live longer, healthier and smarter, they will conspire together to prevent that? From what I can see, the Ur compete heavily with each other to grab a bigger share of the pie – and one common way they do that is to offer the masses a better deal than the others.
The old fear of the rich and powerful becoming existentially different from the rest of the populace. As if free markets haven’t shown again and again that such advancements eventually become commonplace services and commodities, with the exception of truly scarce resources like land in privileged spots and intangible social and positional goods (e.g. your family, acquaintances and connections). The only problem I see is the hysterics trying to prevent these advances just because of this unfounded fear.
Happiness is relative.Things are only desirable if you have something the others don’t have.I think that has been scientifically shown. What happens next is predictable.
Just remind them they can opt out. They don’t have to live any more than they want to.
Why that’s precisely what a servant of the great evil would say!
Well I tells ya that the uber-uber-rich will make their BTC selling life extensions and other aftermarket third party modifications to people who are not uber-rich.Because we’ve seen this story before. Like 10000 times before.
Do people buy the idea that if the Ur (uber-rich) don’t have strong motives to let ‘the masses’ live longer healthier and smarter they will conspire together to prevent that? From what I can see the Ur compete heavily with each other to grab a bigger share of the pie – and one common way they do that is to offer the masses a better deal than the others.
Exactly. If the 0.01% ever do start to conspire among themselves, the first step will be to stop having TV shows and movies that depict their fantastic lifestyles. Once the proletariat are left with media that tells them the captains of industry live lives much like their own, except with slightly larger houses and cars, then everyone will stop grumbling. Alternative explanation is that this has already happened, and the REAL story is that the uberwealthy have palatial estates on Mars featuring unicorn centaur servents and play asteroid billiards for the ownership rights to new exoplanets.
They’ll sell contraceptives too. They’re sneaky like that.
Unless they figure out that it would lead to extreme overpopulation.
Exactly. If the 0.01{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} ever do start to conspire among themselves the first step will be to stop having TV shows and movies that depict their fantastic lifestyles.Once the proletariat are left with media that tells them the captains of industry live lives much like their own except with slightly larger houses and cars then everyone will stop grumbling.Alternative explanation is that this has already happened and the REAL story is that the uberwealthy have palatial estates on Mars featuring unicorn centaur servents and play asteroid billiards for the ownership rights to new exoplanets.
They’ll sell contraceptives too. They’re sneaky like that.
Unless they figure out that it would lead to extreme overpopulation.
Free markets” are not quite as free nor quite as efficient as we make them out to be: I can think of at least three ways to regulate access to indefinite life extension for the masses, and at least one argument to justify restricting this access (essentially governments will argue they cannot cope with the mass of pensioners). That said, it’s not necessary that this access will be restricted like use of nuclear tech has been; but it could well be.
Free markets”” are not quite as free nor quite as efficient as we make them out to be: I can think of at least three ways to regulate access to indefinite life extension for the masses”” and at least one argument to justify restricting this access (essentially governments will argue they cannot cope with the mass of pensioners). That said”” it’s not necessary that this access will be restricted like use of nuclear tech has been; but it could well be.”””
It hardly requires a conspiracy of rich people anymore than the “intelligent” actions of an ant colony require real intelligence. Most people . . . strike that . . . Most people that are successful, act in their own interests, exploiting opportunities as they may. Anyone that has played a few board games knows this. If a game’s rule become too wildly unbalanced, such that the same people win every time, then the other people stop playing. Can’t really do that in real life but the first thing is to know the rules. They are all out on the web for free yet I suspect a lot of people complaining about wealthier people have’t bothered to make themselves “financially literate.” Beyond that, we can still let the system get too far out of whack. Part of the problem in the US is Article V of the Constitution which makes it almost impossible to amend the rules by which we live. Hard is good, impossible is bad. This is because an inability to change at all makes us inflexible and subject to runaway problems when things become unbalanced. But I digress. “This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences . . . ” It resulted in educational differences, but if there was any attempt at intelligence breeding, there is no indication that it succeeded. As for this great bifurcation during the 2020s? I don’t discount it completely. That’s ground zero for when the next singularity is due and it’s probably one dealing with full automation (on a level and scale we have never come close to before) which means that capital based earnings, as a percentage of all earnings, will grow dramatically, causing a proportionate decrease in the percentage of wage based earnings. Other than changing the rules of the game, the only way I know of to deal with it is to try to land on the side of that potential bifurcation that you would probably prefer to be on. Especially if LE comes within reach.
Here is something relevant to the question of how to avoid a caste system. evonomics(dot)com where-in-the-world-is-it-easiest-to-get-rich
This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences which were handed down through many generations.” Not at all convincing. Your cast may be more intelligent on average, but this can be because of nutrition and education, and have next to nothing to do with “breeding”.
Is there any evidence at all that the megariches will be able to cut out everybody else with supertech? And how is the caste system of India in any way meaningful for the US and Europe?
As if that would work. Even now it only accomplishes the trash filling out the gap an massively out-breeding the rest.
It hardly requires a conspiracy of rich people anymore than the intelligent”” actions of an ant colony require real intelligence.Most people . . . strike that . . . Most people that are successful”” act in their own interests exploiting opportunities as they may. Anyone that has played a few board games knows this. If a game’s rule become too wildly unbalanced such that the same people win every time”” then the other people stop playing. Can’t really do that in real life but the first thing is to know the rules. They are all out on the web for free yet I suspect a lot of people complaining about wealthier people have’t bothered to make themselves “”””financially literate.”””” Beyond that”” we can still let the system get too far out of whack. Part of the problem in the US is Article V of the Constitution which makes it almost impossible to amend the rules by which we live. Hard is good”” impossible is bad. This is because an inability to change at all makes us inflexible and subject to runaway problems when things become unbalanced.But I digress.””””This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences . . . “”””It resulted in educational differences”” but if there was any attempt at intelligence breeding there is no indication that it succeeded.As for this great bifurcation during the 2020s? I don’t discount it completely. That’s ground zero for when the next singularity is due and it’s probably one dealing with full automation (on a level and scale we have never come close to before) which means that capital based earnings as a percentage of all earnings will grow dramatically causing a proportionate decrease in the percentage of wage based earnings. Other than changing the rules of the game”” the only way I know of to deal with it is to try to land on the side of that potential bifurcation that you would probably prefer to be on. Especially if LE comes within reach.”””
Here is something relevant to the question of how to avoid a caste system.evonomics(dot)com where-in-the-world-is-it-easiest-to-get-rich
This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences which were handed down through many generations.””Not at all convincing. Your cast may be more intelligent on average”” but this can be because of nutrition and education”” and have next to nothing to do with “”””breeding””””.”””
Is there any evidence at all that the megariches will be able to cut out everybody else with supertech? And how is the caste system of India in any way meaningful for the US and Europe?
As if that would work. Even now it only accomplishes the trash filling out the gap an massively out-breeding the rest.
The super rich won’t move to Mars. The trip is long and hazardous, the food selection will suck, there are no maids to clean the house, no chefs to cook the food, space is cramped, there are no golf courses, no country clubs, alcohol from Earth costs too much, and there is the omnipresent danger of sudden explosive decompression.
So you are saying that the super rich aren’t smart enough to breed?
That’s exactly right. Get it to where it to where there is enough, even after adjusting for inflation, that you will not be spending all the earnings, and you might be okay, even if LE becomes a thing and keeps you around in retirement longer than you ever expected. On the other hand, just saving enough to hope you die before it runs out seems like a terrible plan. The whole thing is kinda like getting your rocket up to escape velocity and, if you don’t do it now, it is only going to get harder and harder to do as time goes by, and wage-based earnings continue to drop as a percentage of total earnings.
The megarich own stock in businesses, and just need to keep track of which businesses are doing well, and moving funds appropriately. As businesses make more money due to automation lowering their costs, these people just sit back and rake in more money. A person working 60 hours a week at low wages cannot hope to make these investments, and probably wouldn’t have the time and expertise to make good decisions even if they could, so they will never become rich. Not to mention they have to pay higher interest rates on loans, PMI if buying a house, etc. Their best hope is the lottery, or sending a smart child thru college with a full scholarship.
If you’re wealthy enough to own a decent amount of stocks (401k or direct purchase), your value will grow. You will be getting a share of the companies profiting from automation. But if all your money comes from your salary/hourly wages and you live paycheck-to-paycheck, then your value will drop as your job becomes less valuable due to automation. So the possibility of bifurcation is very real.
The super rich won’t move to Mars. The trip is long and hazardous the food selection will suck there are no maids to clean the house no chefs to cook the food space is cramped there are no golf courses no country clubs alcohol from Earth costs too much and there is the omnipresent danger of sudden explosive decompression.
So you are saying that the super rich aren’t smart enough to breed?
That’s exactly right. Get it to where it to where there is enough even after adjusting for inflation that you will not be spending all the earnings and you might be okay even if LE becomes a thing and keeps you around in retirement longer than you ever expected. On the other hand just saving enough to hope you die before it runs out seems like a terrible plan.The whole thing is kinda like getting your rocket up to escape velocity and if you don’t do it now it is only going to get harder and harder to do as time goes by and wage-based earnings continue to drop as a percentage of total earnings.
The megarich own stock in businesses and just need to keep track of which businesses are doing well and moving funds appropriately. As businesses make more money due to automation lowering their costs these people just sit back and rake in more money.A person working 60 hours a week at low wages cannot hope to make these investments and probably wouldn’t have the time and expertise to make good decisions even if they could so they will never become rich. Not to mention they have to pay higher interest rates on loans PMI if buying a house etc. Their best hope is the lottery or sending a smart child thru college with a full scholarship.
If you’re wealthy enough to own a decent amount of stocks (401k or direct purchase) your value will grow. You will be getting a share of the companies profiting from automation. But if all your money comes from your salary/hourly wages and you live paycheck-to-paycheck then your value will drop as your job becomes less valuable due to automation.So the possibility of bifurcation is very real.
the non-uber rich can vote for a government that protects their interests and not those of Gates & co They do not even go to vote, they deserve to be kicked
The rich already believe they are different. This as cause them to have disdain for rest of the human race. Any more difference will cause them to exterminate the rest of the human race. Why tolerate the resource hogging vermin when the robots can do the work.
the non-uber rich can vote for a government that protects their interests and not those of Gates & co They do not even go to vote they deserve to be kicked
The rich already believe they are different. This as cause them to have disdain for rest of the human race. Any more difference will cause them to exterminate the rest of the human race. Why tolerate the resource hogging vermin when the robots can do the work.
Except it won’t. Today’s global death rate is already low enough that the difference from that to zero death rate isn’t huge. It’ll cause a moderate increase in the rate of population growth, but that’s it. And that’s only until birth rates drop further, which they’re likely to do anyway, and especially given longer life spans.
Except it won’t. Today’s global death rate is already low enough that the difference from that to zero death rate isn’t huge. It’ll cause a moderate increase in the rate of population growth but that’s it. And that’s only until birth rates drop further which they’re likely to do anyway and especially given longer life spans.
I look at it this way. Someone has to pay for the enormous research and development costs of anti-aging research. Why not let the rich pay for it and also reap the early benefits. They may also reap some undesirable side-effects. After 18 or 20 years, hopefully the bad effects will be better understood and the patents will be expired…..just in time for my 100th birthday.
I look at it this way. Someone has to pay for the enormous research and development costs of anti-aging research. Why not let the rich pay for it and also reap the early benefits. They may also reap some undesirable side-effects. After 18 or 20 years hopefully the bad effects will be better understood and the patents will be expired…..just in time for my 100th birthday.
You sure are optimistic. I’m 56 and don’t think any of this will happen in my lifetime.
You sure are optimistic. I’m 56 and don’t think any of this will happen in my lifetime.
You sure are optimistic. I’m 56 and don’t think any of this will happen in my lifetime.
I look at it this way. Someone has to pay for the enormous research and development costs of anti-aging research. Why not let the rich pay for it and also reap the early benefits. They may also reap some undesirable side-effects.
After 18 or 20 years, hopefully the bad effects will be better understood and the patents will be expired…..just in time for my 100th birthday.
Except it won’t. Today’s global death rate is already low enough that the difference from that to zero death rate isn’t huge. It’ll cause a moderate increase in the rate of population growth, but that’s it. And that’s only until birth rates drop further, which they’re likely to do anyway, and especially given longer life spans.
the non-uber rich can vote for a government that protects their interests and not those of Gates & co
They do not even go to vote, they deserve to be kicked
The rich already believe they are different. This as cause them to have disdain for rest of the human race. Any more difference will cause them to exterminate the rest of the human race. Why tolerate the resource hogging vermin when the robots can do the work.
The super rich won’t move to Mars. The trip is long and hazardous, the food selection will suck, there are no maids to clean the house, no chefs to cook the food, space is cramped, there are no golf courses, no country clubs, alcohol from Earth costs too much, and there is the omnipresent danger of sudden explosive decompression.
So you are saying that the super rich aren’t smart enough to breed?
That’s exactly right. Get it to where it to where there is enough, even after adjusting for inflation, that you will not be spending all the earnings, and you might be okay, even if LE becomes a thing and keeps you around in retirement longer than you ever expected.
On the other hand, just saving enough to hope you die before it runs out seems like a terrible plan.
The whole thing is kinda like getting your rocket up to escape velocity and, if you don’t do it now, it is only going to get harder and harder to do as time goes by, and wage-based earnings continue to drop as a percentage of total earnings.
The megarich own stock in businesses, and just need to keep track of which businesses are doing well, and moving funds appropriately. As businesses make more money due to automation lowering their costs, these people just sit back and rake in more money.
A person working 60 hours a week at low wages cannot hope to make these investments, and probably wouldn’t have the time and expertise to make good decisions even if they could, so they will never become rich. Not to mention they have to pay higher interest rates on loans, PMI if buying a house, etc. Their best hope is the lottery, or sending a smart child thru college with a full scholarship.
If you’re wealthy enough to own a decent amount of stocks (401k or direct purchase), your value will grow. You will be getting a share of the companies profiting from automation. But if all your money comes from your salary/hourly wages and you live paycheck-to-paycheck, then your value will drop as your job becomes less valuable due to automation.
So the possibility of bifurcation is very real.
It hardly requires a conspiracy of rich people anymore than the “intelligent” actions of an ant colony require real intelligence.
Most people . . . strike that . . . Most people that are successful, act in their own interests, exploiting opportunities as they may. Anyone that has played a few board games knows this. If a game’s rule become too wildly unbalanced, such that the same people win every time, then the other people stop playing. Can’t really do that in real life but the first thing is to know the rules. They are all out on the web for free yet I suspect a lot of people complaining about wealthier people have’t bothered to make themselves “financially literate.”
Beyond that, we can still let the system get too far out of whack. Part of the problem in the US is Article V of the Constitution which makes it almost impossible to amend the rules by which we live. Hard is good, impossible is bad. This is because an inability to change at all makes us inflexible and subject to runaway problems when things become unbalanced.
But I digress.
“This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences . . . ”
It resulted in educational differences, but if there was any attempt at intelligence breeding, there is no indication that it succeeded.
As for this great bifurcation during the 2020s? I don’t discount it completely. That’s ground zero for when the next singularity is due and it’s probably one dealing with full automation (on a level and scale we have never come close to before) which means that capital based earnings, as a percentage of all earnings, will grow dramatically, causing a proportionate decrease in the percentage of wage based earnings. Other than changing the rules of the game, the only way I know of to deal with it is to try to land on the side of that potential bifurcation that you would probably prefer to be on. Especially if LE comes within reach.
Here is something relevant to the question of how to avoid a caste system.
evonomics(dot)com where-in-the-world-is-it-easiest-to-get-rich
“This did result in intelligence breeding and education differences which were handed down through many generations.”
Not at all convincing. Your cast may be more intelligent on average, but this can be because of nutrition and education, and have next to nothing to do with “breeding”.
Is there any evidence at all that the megariches will be able to cut out everybody else with supertech?
And how is the caste system of India in any way meaningful for the US and Europe?
As if that would work. Even now it only accomplishes the trash filling out the gap an massively out-breeding the rest.
“Free markets” are not quite as free nor quite as efficient as we make them out to be: I can think of at least three ways to regulate access to indefinite life extension for the masses, and at least one argument to justify restricting this access (essentially governments will argue they cannot cope with the mass of pensioners). That said, it’s not necessary that this access will be restricted like use of nuclear tech has been; but it could well be.
Exactly. If the 0.01% ever do start to conspire among themselves, the first step will be to stop having TV shows and movies that depict their fantastic lifestyles.
Once the proletariat are left with media that tells them the captains of industry live lives much like their own, except with slightly larger houses and cars, then everyone will stop grumbling.
Alternative explanation is that this has already happened, and the REAL story is that the uberwealthy have palatial estates on Mars featuring unicorn centaur servents and play asteroid billiards for the ownership rights to new exoplanets.
They’ll sell contraceptives too. They’re sneaky like that.
Unless they figure out that it would lead to extreme overpopulation.
Happiness is relative.
Things are only desirable if you have something the others don’t have.
I think that has been scientifically shown.
What happens next is predictable.
Just remind them they can opt out. They don’t have to live any more than they want to.
Why that’s precisely what a servant of the great evil would say!
Well I tells ya that the uber-uber-rich will make their BTC selling life extensions and other aftermarket third party modifications to people who are not uber-rich.
Because we’ve seen this story before. Like 10,000 times before.
Do people buy the idea that if the Ur (uber-rich) don’t have strong motives to let ‘the masses’ live longer, healthier and smarter, they will conspire together to prevent that? From what I can see, the Ur compete heavily with each other to grab a bigger share of the pie – and one common way they do that is to offer the masses a better deal than the others.
The old fear of the rich and powerful becoming existentially different from the rest of the populace.
As if free markets haven’t shown again and again that such advancements eventually become commonplace services and commodities, with the exception of truly scarce resources like land in privileged spots and intangible social and positional goods (e.g. your family, acquaintances and connections).
The only problem I see is the hysterics trying to prevent these advances just because of this unfounded fear.