The U.S. isn't an entity capable of consideration. There's some wizard of oz style trickery going on here. If you pull back the curtain, you'll find a gaggle of corrupt bureaucrats pulling levers that control the illusion of the state.
Who wants money with surveillance and control built into it? Imagine a future where you post some wrongthink on social media and your dollar crypto wallet is automatically disabled by a precrime AI.
Well, it can get worse in the way you write but we must be careful right now. PayPal freezes accounts, states know every single bank transfer, credit cards companies ban some kind of businesses. Add more examples.
More unqualified leisure time isn't what most people want. Most people want meaningful connections to others. Watching T.V. for eight hours isn't going to make people feel good. Feeling connected and maintaining a sense of belonging is what is lacking in the modern world.
There are many more things competing for people's time and attention. Also, nationalism is waning in many places due to globalism. The Olympics is inherently a nationalistic event. If you don't buy into these artificial divisions of mankind, the whole flag-draped charade is nauseating. Not to mention the outright absurdity of the idea that national representatives competing against eachother in sports has any significance whatsoever.
For me, the precariousness of our time has made me sober up. I'm sick of spectacles. I want real answers and substantive initiatives that work towards solving the problems of our age. Not sports, not bread and circuses, for goodness sakes!
Uh, what? How did making blacks sit at the back of the bus improve economic efficiency? It may be argued that many legal systems, far from being a boon to economic productivity, actually hindered growth in many nations due to their use in oppressing underclasses for the benefit of a ruling "elite," i.e., rapacious predator class.
Reality isn't so nice and theoretically pure. People want power and they develop various systems to gain and secure their power.
"...because of the potential [of blockchain] to outpace any efforts to transition to zero-carbon energy production."
I think that even the most craven cryptocurrency and NFT buyers have yet to envision such exponential scenarios that 'blockchain' consumes resources at a clip that subsumes other greenhouse-gas activities like, flying, driving, HVAC, etc.
"There is of course another solution: We stop reinventing things like currency or certification until we have a proper plan [...] until humanity has figured out a way to generate all our energy cleanly, from solar, nuclear, and so on, would make more sense."
"There is of course another solution: We cease all human behaviors [...]".
People aren't getting as much exercise, sitting around more eating cheetos and drinking beer, doing more drugs and getting more depressed. I'm not suggesting that all of those are happening to everyone, but each of them is a risk factor and due to the pandemic they're occurring to different segments of the population at the same time.
We're not all in the same boat. If you want to change the system, you're going to have to fight the people invested in the status quo. Most people aren't interested in the "greater good," even though they may maintain this position publicly because it is considered antisocial to openly say "f** the plebs," but actions speak louder than words--by their fruits you shall know them. When we see things like rampant homeless and crushing debt, we know such things are being said in private.
It's time to put aside our idealism and don a cynical outlook. Our rose colored glasses are holding us back. We just need to make sure we don't become evil in the process.
What if I think freedom is the greater good? Maybe people just differ in their goals and priorities?
I think the current vaccination discussions are a good example. It used to be that society would accept sacrifices for freedom. For example they would deem thousands of traffic accident deaths acceptable in exchange for mobility, or send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to their death to fight for freedom.
Now many people seem to feel that every Covid death has to be avoided at all costs. Which is of course a valid opinion, but not a given truth, given that at other times, people were actually willing to pay the price of higher risk in exchange for freedom.
So neither group is necessarily wrong, in my opinion, they just thing different things are more important.
A good movie that illustrates it may be "I, Robot", when the robots tasked with protecting humans decide the best way to protect them is to lock them into their homes. Let's say we achieve that kind of technology, robots can take of everything, and humans are safest when locked away at home. Should we advocate locking everybody up?
> This is the kind of things that show how inviable is a market-led economy without proper regulation.
The medical industry is highly regulated. I can't just go open up a practice giving people stiches. I would need a whole slew of certifications in order to do so. That's why this situation in the US is so absurd. The market is regulated to limit the competition at the expense of the consumer.
It's a signal that people don't like what they are hearing. If the propaganda aligns with their interests, the majority will like it. It's not a good signal for gauging propaganda in my opinion.
Who wants money with surveillance and control built into it? Imagine a future where you post some wrongthink on social media and your dollar crypto wallet is automatically disabled by a precrime AI.
No thanks.