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And for what?

For a planet which gets warmer and warmer.

When did you became that compliant?

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..you good bro? Anyway, things are improving but that doesn’t mean people can’t have a say in what tradeoffs they are willing to accept in return for progress.

A lot of progress has externalities and the benefits and downsides of progress are rarely equally distributed.

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Uhhh, I don't know what you're reading, but the comment I was replied to was complaining about the "subscription economy" and not having enough time to watch movies as evidence why life is getting worse.

> A lot of progress has externalities and the benefits and downsides of progress are rarely equally distributed.

The vast majority of humanity has benefited from progress, compared to most decades and certainly centuries in the past. So I don't really know what your point is here?

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Of course life now is better than 100 years ago.

But do you really think life has been getting better in the last 10 years say?

Do you think trickle down economics works?

Are you happy with the way things are going under this administration, which favours those BILLIONAIRES you mentioned, but couldn’t really give a damn about the rest of us or the commons?

Are you OK living in a future where there are zero checks and balances and the .1% fully controlling and owning the political and policy space, i.e. the return to the Robber Barons era?

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> But do you really think life has been getting better in the last 10 years say?

Uh, yeah. My TV's much better, my video games are better, programming is easier and more fun with these new AI options added on top of better frameworks than we had in the past, there are way more restaurants serving better food, way more great shows and movies, there's mainstream awareness of the ills of social media, I can take driverless taxis around my city, I can tap to pay pretty much everywhere, wayyyyyy more of my friends work remotely. I'm 40 now, and myself + most of my friends + family are making more money now than we were at 30.

> Are you OK living in a future where there are zero checks and balances and the .1% fully controlling and owning the political and policy space, i.e. the return to the Robber Barons era?

You sound like you've been reading a bunch of gloom and doom scenarios. Get offline. Go outside. Touch grass. Breathe. People are still going out to eat at restaurants, they're still playing intramural sports, they're still going to the beach with their friends, they're still watching plays, they're still visiting family and hosting movie nights. Stop reading so much negative news that's telling you the sky is falling and that everything is going to shit.

Of course there are massive problems and inequities we're solving, of course! But that's always been the case. Relax. Breathe. Put it in perspective.

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All those things are not necessities of life. Food, shelter and energy have become more expensive and poverty rates have barely shifted and are currently getting worse.

Your response is basically 'Works on my machine!'.

And speaking of touching grass; what do you think the recent change of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) under this administration will mean to our commons?

I'll tell you, it means the new rule will make it easier to legally destroy wildlife habitats. And this on top of all the climate protection policies this administration is eagerly rolling back, because solar is woke or something. I guess you're OK with that too, since it doesn't impact you (yet).

Even though living standards have improved in the last 100 years overall, it's not a guarantee it will continue like that, if we let the Robber Barons take full control again.

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> Of course there are massive problems and inequities we're solving, of course! But that's always been the case. Relax. Breathe. Put it in perspective.

You're just not someone who has to deal with these problems. Are we solving them? Not sure what you're being that of.

> Get offline. Go outside. Touch grass. Breathe. People are still going out to eat at restaurants, they're still playing intramural sports, they're still going to the beach with their friends, they're still watching plays, they're still visiting family and hosting movie nights.

I suggest you stop touching grass and go and talk to a few less fortunate people. Maybe that can broaden your perspective

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> You're just not someone who has to deal with these problems. Are we solving them? Not sure what you're [basing] that of.

Almost every major measure of human progress and prosperity over time?

What are you basing your doom and gloom beliefs on?

> I suggest you stop touching grass and go and talk to a few less fortunate people. Maybe that can broaden your perspective

I would wager my perspective is much broader than yours. Being so anxious and pessimistic that you only focus on the negative, to such a degree where when people point out real positive progress you feel COMPELLED to say something negative, doesn't mean you have a broad perspective. It just means you're miserable.

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10 years ago I couldn’t buy self driving, zero pollution, zero maintenance supercar for next to nothing.
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Which self driving supercar is that?

But I'm not talking about luxuries like super cars that most people couldn't afford.

I'm talking about the necessities of life. Food, shelter and energy have become more expensive and under this administration's policies it's not getting any better.

Poverty rates have barely improved and under this administration desire to reduce SNAP budget heavily, what do you think this will do to child poverty rates?

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The one that drives millions of people every day
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>watching their children die from easily curable infections, enduring routine tooth extractions without anesthesia, working six-day weeks around lethal machinery, watching entire neighboring towns slowly starve to death in famines, living in huts that were crawling with insects, subject to the brutal whims of whoever their local thug ruler happened to be with no human rights at all, and often being enslaved by the millions and worked to death in brutal conditions. Those softies just couldn't possibly imagine how truly hard we have it today.

A significant portion of the human populace still lives like this in various degrees today. You are just blind to it because you'd rather live in your delusion for comfort.

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What's your point? Progress is not perfection. There will always be human suffering. Acknowledging that there's progress is not the same thing as ignoring the fact that there's suffering. I don't know what sort of cult mindset got everybody to believe that those are the same thing, but it's horrible and delusional and incredibly illogical.
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I think the point is: some people will be left behind while reaching the described space era, just like the way it happened with many previous leaps and left behind those populations that are suffering from now-easily-curable diseases. And this time around, it seems like only a minority that are billionaires will be able to move forward, and we all will be left behind.

I believe it should’ve been possible to not leave so much people behind and so much behind. Requiring those at the front to not leave people so far behind (and forcefully funneling away their riches if they do) would’ve been enough.

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Life is better for the poorest in society than it's ever been, thanks in large part to the nonstop proliferation and cheapening of technology in the past 200 years, esp. the past 100. I can't for the life of me understand why you people are so focused on trying to drag down the top when you could be focused on further bringing up the bottom. It's just such a miserable negative perspective on life, like crabs in a bucket.
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> And this time around, it seems like only a minority that are billionaires will be able to move forward, and we all will be left behind.

I don't think this is true. Of course, rich people will always benefit the most from any technological advances. But there is no indication that the average Joe will be worse off in say, 20 years, compared to today. Medical advances alone coming down the pipeline will likely tip the scales towards future average Joe being better off compared to today. If I have to make a choice, for example: do I want to cut the deaths from diseases by half and fill the sky with Starlink satellites, or do nothing? I am picking the better medicice and Starlink-filled sky.

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dude i dig your sarcasm and i agree with your point
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