Announcement
Collapse
Civics 101 Guidelines
Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!
Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less
Orwellian World of the Future
Collapse
X
-
"You'll own nothing and be happy" sounds more like an order than a prediction.
Then the very next slide says that you'll rent whatever you want, which begs the question: Who owns the products you're renting?Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
-
Originally posted by Ronson View PostNineteen Eighty Four just got that much closer.
I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
- 2 likes
Comment
-
Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post"You'll own nothing and be happy" sounds more like an order than a prediction.
Then the very next slide says that you'll rent whatever you want, which begs the question: Who owns the products you're renting?
Comment
-
Originally posted by Ronson View Post
However, much of the content of the video holds some truths. There will be large-scale human migration because of climate change and those refugees will need to be accommodated in other countries. The USA may not be the world's leading super power. However, all Empires fall and, given your past remarks about America First, the removal of the USA as the leading super power [and all the attendant demands and obligations that come with such a role], should please you. As for the comment "A handful of countries will dominate" that is already the state of affairs. So no change there.
Predictions for making synthetic organs is hardly dystopian. Likewise eating less meat - or meat that has been created in a lab [see here https://scienceline.org/2019/01/the-...ab-grown-meat/ and here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-created-meat] is hardly something to cause shivers of horror. We know that the western diet is far from healthy and we know that eating large amounts of meat [apart from the industrial cruelty to sentient beings] is environmentally destructive and is linked to various conditions such as heart disease and bowel cancer.
We also have to reduce our demand and need for fossil fuels. Using less power and using power more efficiently should be the goals of the future. I am not entirely sure if within the next nine years we will see Mars as a tourist destination but one assumes that eventually humans will step next door on to that planet. As for Western values, I am not entirely sure what the video intended by those. If it was referring to democracy, human rights, civil liberties, justice, equality, and tolerance these are constantly being tested. So, once again, no change there.
All that notwithstanding the comments prior to my own have been decidedly neurotic, one might even opine, paranoid. However, I suspect they were made by those who have not actually read Mr Blair's opus.
"It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so."
Sportin' Life
Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin
Comment
-
Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
I am not entirely sure what the content of the video has to to with Orwell's dystopian novel. Have you actually read Nineteen Eighty-Four? Or is it just a reference you employ for anything you do not care for?
However, much of the content of the video holds some truths.
There will be large-scale human migration because of climate change and those refugees will need to be accommodated in other countries.
The USA may not be the world's leading super power. However, all Empires fall and, given your past remarks about America First, the removal of the USA as the leading super power [and all the attendant demands and obligations that come with such a role], should please you. As for the comment "A handful of countries will dominate" that is already the state of affairs. So no change there.
Predictions for making synthetic organs is hardly dystopian.
Likewise eating less meat - or meat that has been created in a lab [see here https://scienceline.org/2019/01/the-...ab-grown-meat/ and here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-created-meat] is hardly something to cause shivers of horror. We know that the western diet is far from healthy and we know that eating large amounts of meat [apart from the industrial cruelty to sentient beings] is environmentally destructive and is linked to various conditions such as heart disease and bowel cancer.
We also have to reduce our demand and need for fossil fuels. Using less power and using power more efficiently should be the goals of the future.
I am not entirely sure if within the next nine years we will see Mars as a tourist destination but one assumes that eventually humans will step next door on to that planet.
As for Western values, I am not entirely sure what the video intended by those. If it was referring to democracy, human rights, civil liberties, justice, equality, and tolerance these are constantly being tested. So, once again, no change there.
All that notwithstanding the comments prior to my own have been decidedly neurotic, one might even opine, paranoid. However, I suspect they were made by those who have not actually read Mr Blair's opus.
Comment
-
I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
Comment
-
Originally posted by rogue06 View PostFor many of us here that are baby-boomers both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm were required reading in school. I even watched the 1954 film version of the latter in class at least twice.
- 1 like
Comment
-
Originally posted by Ronson View PostThey are admitted "predictions". Predictions aren't "truths," aside from being truthfully predicted.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostPossible but doubtful. Refugees tend to be motivated by politics rather than weather.
However, the fact remains that humans have always migrated and those migrations have been for a variety of different reasons such as pressure from other groups, a desire for land, the impact of warfare, freedom to live as they wish, and so forth. It even appears that climate change encouraged early migration out of Africa. https://www.sapiens.org/biology/early-human-migration/
Originally posted by Ronson View PostI don't want to see the US become militarily or economically weak.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostI just don't want it to play "world policeman" anymore. There's a difference.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostNo, that part is just laughable. Like predicting flying cars or travelling the galaxy by the 21st century.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostI'm nearly a vegetarian anyway. The "shivers of horror" is the suggestion that government was somehow going to be in control of diet.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostThat will come with the advancement of technology. Government can't force the issue.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostNot for several lifetimes.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostI understood that as an attack on western values.
Originally posted by Ronson View PostAgain, the connection to 1984 was mostly regarding the idea that 'government will control you and you will be happy.'
Perhaps you are leaping to conclusions."It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so."
Sportin' Life
Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin
Comment
-
Originally posted by Ronson View Post"You'll own nothing - and you'll be happy." It appears the World Economic Forum took this English-language video down but left up the Spanish-language version.
We won't own anything, but we can rent food, ostensibly we return the rental through the sewage system.
There are always predictions of US downfall, much like there will always be an alien battle ship or Corellian death ray ready to destroy life on earth.
Medical science has enough issues dealing with the China virus. Maybe by 2030 Lord Fauci will figure out whether masks work or not.
Still waiting on that flying car...
Comment
-
Originally posted by Ronson View Post
The elitists, I guess. The Politburo.
"Are your papers in order, citizen? It would be a shame if you could no longer rent the home you live in."Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
- 2 likes
Comment
-
You didn't build that.
I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
Comment
-
Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View PostI think we can be reasonably certain that, as this century unfolds, we will witness increasing human migration caused by climate change and those migrants/refugees will need to be accommodated.
You are confusing terms. The term refugee in the broadest sense may define "a person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc" The "etc" of course covering a variety of reasons. A political refugee is what I suspect you were thinking of.
However, the fact remains that humans have always migrated and those migrations have been for a variety of different reasons such as pressure from other groups, a desire for land, the impact of warfare, freedom to live as they wish, and so forth. It even appears that climate change encouraged early migration out of Africa. https://www.sapiens.org/biology/early-human-migration/
Given the size of the USA I do not envisage its economy weakening, although that will, to some extent, depend on the vagaries of capitalism which, left unfettered, will always opt for the cheapest work-force and the highest profits. As for its military, that will also depend on domestic decisions. The scaling down of the US military after 1917 with increased Isolationism coupled with the serious economic problems of the late 1920s and into the 1930s is a case in point.
If the USA ceases to be the world’s policeman will domestic views still require/accept a large military? Again, the period after 1917 shows how the US military was scaled down. Will US citizens still want their tax dollars spent on a huge military if America First becomes the predominant political viewpoint?
Yet synthetic organs are already being developed and used. https://futurism.com/neoscope/artifi...lants-obsolete. The accompanying video is fascinating.
The market is consumer driven and if more people become “nearly vegetarian”, totally vegetarian, or, like our friend Gondwanaland, vegan then the demand will fall and meat production will drop.
Government can play an instrumental role in providing incentives for technological advancement and of course legislation.
Some might disagree on the time factor but my question would be who would want to go there anyway?
The ones I listed?
Yet your video prediction makes no mention of government. It simply states "You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy."
Perhaps you are leaping to conclusions.
Comment
-
Originally posted by Ronson View PostNineteen Eighty Four just got that much closer.
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." -George Orwell, Why I Write
If you are genuinely concerned about the idea that the elites will own everything and the average person will own nothing and be told to be happy about it (and I sure am concerned about that!), then you are concerned about inequality increasing in our society.
It is therefore really important to support political policies that will promote more equality, and stop the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We are, unfortunately, well on the way to being a society in which the average person owns nothing - since lots of people are heavily in debt, the proportion of people who have zero or negative net wealth in our society is getting pretty large. Inequality in our society is becoming a bigger and bigger problem, and unfortunately the way its trending now, the OP description might well come true.
Hence it is really important for societies to explore new ways of limiting and preventing this inequality and new ways of transferring wealth from the ultra-rich to those who have none. As well as to re-examine what methods have worked in the past. Piketty's work has demonstrated that within the Western world there was a period of much greater equality from ~1945-1985, compared to the periods around it, which coincided with much greater tax rates on the rich, much more powerful trade unions demanding higher wages for employees, and much more active government regulation of the economy. We know what types of methods can work.
But inequality is now getting so extreme that perhaps more extreme solutions are required - wealth taxes on the rich (or on property and shares) funding a universal basic income for all might be a better way to go.Last edited by Starlight; 12-06-2020, 03:42 PM."I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
"[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein
Comment
Related Threads
Collapse
Topics | Statistics | Last Post | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Started by CivilDiscourse, Today, 09:58 AM
|
4 responses
13 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Stoic
Today, 10:30 AM
|
||
Started by little_monkey, 03-27-2024, 04:19 PM
|
16 responses
194 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by One Bad Pig
Yesterday, 11:55 AM
|
||
Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
|
53 responses
419 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Mountain Man
Yesterday, 11:32 AM
|
||
Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
|
25 responses
114 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by rogue06
Yesterday, 08:36 AM
|
||
Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
|
33 responses
198 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Roy
Yesterday, 07:43 AM
|
Comment