That is, shall we say, a champagne problem (a problem we want to experience). Mass life extension potentially unlocks compounding effects that can lead to some bootstrapping outcomes. Expertise can be deployed deeper and/or broader across more adjacent fields for ever increasing cross fertilization.
I don't know how it's in the US, but here in Europe where I live a ticket ranges between 16 to 20 Euro per seat. That's simply too much for most people.
Time is the real issue.
I'm in the UK and I'm at a point in life where I've got too many family orientated tasks. If I'm heading to the cinema it will be with family for a PG film (very few seem interesting to my child) or occasionally by myself to see a blockbuster (if they screen it for long enough for my free time to align with it).
They tried to turn a budget entertainment experience into a luxury media experience, in my mind, due to the expansion of home entertainment systems and screen sizes. It was the wrong half of the business to focus on. They should have improved convenience and the quality of their addons.
My grandfather in Buenos Aires used to book a double feature for the same reason. It was the only way he could get some sleep in the intolerably hot and humid summers there.
Here in the US (at least in my city), most movie theaters will charge $18-24 for a ticket to an evening show; the local indie/arthouse theater is a bit cheaper, at $15 for an evening show or $12 for a matinee.
The vast majority of the movies coming out of Hollywood currently simply aren’t worth that price to watch. Especially when you know that you can watch them on streaming usually within a year after release.
If COVID taught me anything it's that it doesn't matter where you go looking on the political spectrum, be it left or right, you'll always find enough people that are fine to be the judge, jury and executioner.
China said yes to all those things for Western money. They could've said no, they could've put in restrictions to lower their profits and improve conditions. Don't act like China is some poor puppy bullied around by the West.
>China said yes to all those things for Western money. They could've said no
Terrible argument. If it's not gonna be China, it's gonna be Vietnam, or Bangladesh, or Pakistan, or Sri Lanka, or whoever the rich west will deem fit to host their dirty industries at the most rock bottom prices so they can make a profit.
So again, is really all China's or $POOR_NATION fault, or the West's fault for constantly bidding the poor countries against each other in a race to the bottom in terms of human rights and environmental destruction for the sake of profit?
Just blaming the poor countries claiming that "well, the poor countries should just say NO to hosting the west's dirty industry", is incredibly stupid and short sighted.
Do you really think that China would not have industrialised if not for Western companies? Nothing about China's history shows that that's remotely true.
In fact, outsourcing was only possible because of the various industrial plans that China had put in place in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, all of which prioritised building equivalent capacity to what existed in the West and the USSR.
Moreover, China was destroying its environment in the 1950s already, long before it even allowed real trade with the West.
Let's treat countries as responsible actors in their own right, not as mere non-independent reactors to Western actions.
Not quite to the same extent, or nearly as late. China's Four Pests campaign, for instance, ran from 1958 to 1962 and was ecologically disastrous.
Meanwhile, in the US you already had strong conservationist movements starting up, leading to the creation of the EPA by 1970.
While China finally adopted some environmental protections in 1979, it wasn't until the late 1980s/early 1990s that they could override industrial development in key situations
While Ranch Hand was indefensible and US leaders should have been prosecuted for it, the scale of it is minuscule compared to the ecological damage of the Four Pests campaign.
You could say the same about Western countries. They could've said no, put in restrictions to lower their profits and improve their conditions. They are richer, so they're more capable of doing all those same things than a poor developing country like China used to be.
The purpose of this is to absolve China of any and all responsibility, and put maximum blame with the West. Apparently the West is in complete control of China.
'Mother' Gaia will wipe all complex life from this planet with 1 to 1.5 Billion years if her 'undisciplined' puppies don't find a way to leave this ball of dirt.
She's also got quite a lead with killing off 99.99999% of all species that ever lived, when compared to us.
Everyone hell bent on leaving is actually distracted from the real less immediately glamorous challenge, which is learning to sustain life and exercise restraint.
>Everyone hell bent on leaving is actually distracted from the real less immediately glamorous challenge, which is learning to sustain life and exercise restraint.
Unless you're willing to exterminate people who don't comply, the incentives are such that maintaining the status quo will give economic (and military) advantages.
Besides, over long time scales there's more to fear than a few degrees of climate change.
They’re probably referring to the earth getting enveloped by the sun in a billion or so years as it expands.
I still think you’re right though. The better plan is staying on earth. The trick is moving it outward as the habitable zone expands with the sun. Only have to convince humanity to sling a giant meteor just outside earth’s orbit every year for millions of years without messing up. What could go wrong?
Yeah in a billion years. We should figure out the common issues (tragedy of commons, etc) that will follow us wherever we go -- before we try to leave. A billion years is plenty of time to focus on that.
The earth hasn't always existed in its current state, or for that matter existed at all.
Once day the earth will almost certainly cease to exist and intelligence will have to find a new home of some kind. We have probably got a couple of billion years though if we are careful and I have no idea what intelligence will evolve to over that timeframe.
Definitely not the solution. Ending capitalism for some other form of economy is the only way in my opinion. Not that I don’t think people should be rewarded for the products and services they offer just that the incentive to make cheap shit and sell an upgrade every year is definitely harmful to our earth. The problem I see is I don’t know what type of economic solution there is that would fit.
I think the tools to solve the challenges of waste, environmental damage etc. already exist within the framework of capitalism. Mostly they are just unpopular and seen by many as a government overreach.
1. taxes that force corporations and individuals to pay for the negative externalities / social costs of their actions
2. regulation (e.g. stop allowing planned obsolence, mandate the right to repair etc.)
3. government spending into R&D, incentives and subsidies for renewables etc.
Anyway, my point is that the issue is basically one of co-ordination and political will. It obviously doesn't help that many Americans (and Australians too for that matter, where I live) don't accept the basic facts of the situation (before we can even discuss solutions).
>Anyway, my point is that the issue is basically one of co-ordination and political will
Again, what does "political will" mean? What are you going to do to those that disagree? Lock them up? Exterminate them? What is the solution to force people to do your bidding, and has it ever worked?
I assume they mean convince enough people to implement the proposed policies that they can fix things through normal, legal means. "Forcing people to do your bidding" normally consists of winning elections and then implementing and enforcing legislation. This is how we force people who want to shoplift, cheat on their taxes, or murder to do our bidding. It doesn't work perfectly, but it only has to work well enough.
Theft is also a problem of political will. If people would just not steal, the problem of theft would be solved. For some definition of "solution", it is a solution. But not a useful or realistic one. It's just not going to happen in any reasonable timeframe. Only if human nature itself changes in some distant future. Same thing applies to environmental damage.
I have yet to hear of an economic model that humans have discovered which is better than free market capitalism.
The issue isn't the cheap junk; it's the demand for the cheap junk. Things would be far more sustainable if people focused on reducing their consumption habbits, as producers would be run out of business.
The free market is probably the best we are going to get, but we need to address some of its known failure modes: externalities, monopolies, and the imbalance of power between employers and employees.
Externalities: any negative externality upon an involuntarily third party can become illegal via law. This can cover things like littering, servitude, etc.
Monopolies: the free market has yet to produce a monopoly that increases prices for consumers if there isn't a natural monopoly. The gov deals with allocation of naturally constrained resources such as radio frequencies.
Imbalance of power: just save more. Save enough so you can wake up comfortable with the idea that you were fired overnight. It dissolves any power imbalance when your boss needs you as much as you need the income.
Luckily we have 1 to 1.5 billion years to figure out how to survive outside of this ball of dirt... (cataclysmic asteroids and other similar events notwithstanding)
You need focus and direction in any media. Books, movies, games, etc.... they all need it.
The first NPC that you encounter with such freedom of interaction is interesting, the 45th will be annoying and you'll just want to get to the point. The holodeck of Star Trek is often brought up as an excellent example of AI generated interactions, but people seem to be forgetting that the stories we see unfold on TV aren't random interactive stories. They're scripted stories written by show's writers.
Unless you want to make a simulation without a real goal, I don't see how this could lead to fun and interesting gameplay past the first hour. Realism is, always will be, a bad gameplay pillar just for the sake of it.
There is a group of orc kids running around in Orgrimmar, and sometimes they run around you and are very annoying, why can't I just trip one.
I had a friend who didn't want to fight against the Lich King. When we finally got to him in the raid, at the start of the fight he kneeled in front of him and died (caused us unnecessary wipe, but.. was cool).
I am not thinking about 'AI generated interactions', and I think the AI can create compelling story that you go through. Kind of like in Sword Art Online or Shangri-La Frontier's quests.
It surely can generate something better than the old "Fetch this item and come back" quests, but I wouldn't say the possibilities are endless, so eventually you would get bored of the same repeating AI quests the same way as you do now.
Good storytelling is hard and AI is not some magic bullet that can just solve it for good. But it can help raise the floor of the unimportant side quests.
Some of the best writing and experiences I've ever had gaming have never come from the ability to do random acts that are worthwhile to noone.
> I had a friend who didn't want to fight against the Lich King. When we finally got to him in the raid, at the start of the fight he kneeled in front of him and died (caused us unnecessary wipe, but.. was cool).
It can also easily mean they were willing on taking risks, like using unproven techniques, skirt close to minimum safety requirements or even ignore certain rules, just so it would look prettier.
This has little to do with "how toxic our culture is", but more "how social media is engineered to enable toxicity".
We see the problems with large scale social media in every culture, and the issues are the same everywhere.
The question should be raised if humans can actually deal with large scale social media. Perhaps, just like gambling, it should be outright banned or strictly enforced to comply with heavy restrictions
