My opinion on the future of social change:

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My opinion on the future of social change:

Postby deanmullen on 2012-09-05T22:09:00

In this topic/article I am presenting my view on the future of social change and why I believe this will happen.

I believe the ultimate goal of social change in our civilization (per se) is to reach a stage were suffering is abolished for all sentience on planet earth and machines run & rule our civilization for us in a utilitarian manner. I figure it's where progress is in the long-term heading to since progress generally shows evidence of moving closer and closer towards a utilitarian civilization (the abolition of slavery, racial equality in society, racial equality in power (election of obama), exc.) Not to say that those steps are directly utilitarian but they seem to be the steps to lay down the foundations of a logical & morally rational paradigm which will probably lead to a utilitarian civilization if progress continues.

In my opinion as long as progress continues as it has for the past few centuries (noting there are obviously fluctuations) then it will very likely lead to a utilitarian civilization. Here is my view of the steps to such a civilization:

1. Legalization of Marriage-equality (mostly from c. 2000s to 2040s)
2. Fur farming outlawed (c. 2010s to 2050s)
3. Animal-act circuses outlawed (c. 2020s to 2060s)
4. In-vitro meat brings down the conventional meat industry (c. 2030s - 2050s)
5. Fall of religion (c. 2050s - 2100s) [Note: even in a post-religious world, spirituality & theism will probably remain)
6. Decline of dairy [perhaps a rise of somesort of in-vitro dairy] (c. 2040s - 2080s)
7. Robots take over repetitive tasks (c. 2050s - 2080s)
8. Virtual Universe [Collection of virtual worlds is est.] (c. 2050s - 2080s)
8. Degree of rights for cetaceans & great apes (c. 2080s - 2110s)
9. Rise of virtual cities (c. 2070s - 2100s)
9. Degree of rights for mammals in general (c. 2100s - 2120s)
10. Degree of rights for sentience in general (c. 2110s - 2130s)
11. Prisons are replaced by ethical rehabilitation centres (c. 2110s - 2120s)
12. Vast migration into virtual cities (c. 2110s - 2120s)
13. Robots take over remaining jobs (c. 2120s - 2130s)
14. People migrate into personalized virtual worlds (c. 2120s - 2130s)
15. Computer generated emotions offers an end to suffering (c. 2120s - 2130s)
16. Political transition to Utilitarianism (c. 2130s - 2150s)
17. Power is transitioned from humans to robots (c. 2140s - 2160s)
18. Suffering is abolished for humans (c. 2150s - 2170s)
19. Inter-stellar nano-robots launch to explore the stars (c. 2150s - 2200s)
20. Suffering is abolished for all sentience (c. 2160s - 2180s)
21. Cities & urban areas are destroyed & replaced by computers to keep our "neo-civilization" moving on (c. 2160s - 2180s)
22. Forest's are destroyed & other land areas to be replaced my computers (c. 2170s - 2190s)
23. Oceans are drained and replaced by computers (c. 2200s - 2300s)
24. Entire Earth is under absolute control of our neo-civilization (c. 2250s - 2500s)
25. The Neo-civilization joins a coalition of other civilizations (c. 2250s - 2500s)

Though these dates are generally thrown in for the fun and one could give or take a good few more decades, this is my view on how things will go if we don't destroy ourselves or degrade and go backwards as a civilization. Please tell me your view on my predictions and what you believe progress may bring.

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Re: My opinion on the future of social change:

Postby peterhurford on 2012-09-06T02:22:00

No superintelligent AI?
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Re: My opinion on the future of social change:

Postby Hedonic Treader on 2012-09-06T08:37:00

I think superintelligent AI was implied by the robots doing all sorts of things.

I appreciate the vision, but of course it's fantasy, not prediction. I can see no rational basis for making them as predictions. Clearly some trends are there, such as (small) increases in animal welfare standards, but there's no fundamental reason to project them arbitrarily into the future - they could reverse, e.g. if the most useful warfare algorithms create suffering as a byproduct.

Some predictions, like migration to virtual cities, make sense from a resource efficiency perspective, so I think there is some reason to assume they might happen. Others like space colonization are things that people today would do if they had the technology, so it's reasonable to assume that they will once they do. But things like 16 or 24 seem like ideological wish fulfillment to me, not sound predictions about future politics. There might just as well be a non-utilitarian totalitarian singleton that cares only about a small powerful subset of sentients who run the show and inflict suffering on others or just waste resources like no total utilitarian would. Or permanent fragmentation of civilizations between factions of non-compatible goals who co-exist more or less peacefully.
"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient."

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Re: My opinion on the future of social change:

Postby CarlShulman on 2012-09-17T10:56:00

I am presenting my view on the future of social change and why I believe this will happen.


This is more like a sci-fi sidebar to mention a number of things you would like to happen. The specific timelines are very strange (the order of the technological developments doesn't seem to be based on a coherent model of their difficulty, and which technologies enable or imply others, likewise with the ordering of policies), it's a wild prediction to think that ideological utilitarianism as such will be the dominant official ideology without some strong new evidence, and prediction 25 assumes that there are very nearby alien civilizations (within a few hundred light years) that we haven't detected and haven't colonized Earth without any explanation.

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