@Neenz none, and to ask for better spelling is not an attack on any person, more a defense of our language

@Neenz I think we should slowly evolve toward better ways while preserving the core principles that have been shown to work.

I.Q. is a measure of intelligence compared to the norm
Therefore 100 is actually 100% of normal human intelligence. 90 means a person is 10% below the normal level. 110 means a person is ten percent above the average human level of intellligence.
Being more than 30% above the norm qualifies a person for membership of Mensa.
The vast majority of humans fall into the 95 to 105 range.

@Petter "The vast majority of humans fall into the 95 to 105 range." My point is that persons in that I.Q. range are the ones who wish to do repetitive jobs, not "problem solve" as the original poster suggested.

@dahermit I don't know much about that category of person. All my life I've been a problem creator, and developer of solutions to which there is no known problem!

@Neenz You did not answer my question...where is the land that is teaming with game and other resources so that the 7.3 billion people can live by hunting/gathering instead of an organized society (that is, a government)?

@Neenz Your "new" solution would have to include drastically reducing human population. "Green" environmental living does not take into account that with wind, solar, tide, wave power, the turbines, distribution, etc. of such "green" technologies relies on very -environmental manufacturing and mining. All that "clean" energy produced by wind and solar in places like Denmark has only shifted the negative environmental burden of mining iron, coal mining (steel production uses coal for coke), copper, smelting, manufacturing to the other countries. Therefore, efforts to use clean energy, etc., can only slow the rate of warming not stop it.

So we would prefer that people die so that everyone can live an American lifestyle? With technology, we should be able to find ways to ease many people's lives without asking 5.5 billion people to die off first.

@maturin1919 Okay. I nominate you first.

@UpsideDownAgain We are preferring that people suffer which is happening. I said American - US lifestyle. I lived in Europe for 15 years and had a good lifestyle and not the carbon footprint that we have now. I now live on an island with a lower than average footprint. The people who are asking people to die are those that refuse to lower their footprint. I also, strongly feel, more would be willing to do so if they didn't, at the same time, see the country importing people who are actually here to increase their footprint.

In the end most of the suffering and deaths will come from future generations. In the real world resources are limited and we have run out. I, for one, would prefer death over a lifetime of suffering. Again, technology is not a panacea for what ails us. My big question is simply, why. Why do we need to keep adding more and more humans to this planet???

@JackPedigo I wonder how much suffering you have actually experienced. I just finished Man's Search for Meaning which discussed those who gave up in the middle of all that suffering and those who didn't. If you have never been through a great deal of suffering, then you can't say for certain that you would prefer to die. Most of the suffering people in the world have the ability to end their lives if they wanted. If avoiding suffering was really that important, we wouldn't need to worry about population levels at all. But for whatever reason, human beings and all living things, will most often struggle for life even through horrific suffering and often it's those who have endured great suffering who value life the most.

If other people value their lives and want to keep living I don't believe we should be meddling with them. The problem of overpopulation will work itself out one way or another, problems always do, and most likely without the catastrophes some people predict.

@UpsideDownAgain We are on two completely different topics. This is about the natural world not the world of humans. If we don't (and we don't) obey Mother Natures rules we will perish and there will be a lot of pain and suffering to those ends. All the previous wars would be nothing compared to the extinction of our species. It is happening now and will only escalate. No one can talk about my or even another's suffering especially when they know little of another.

My late partner (there was a lot of suffering losing this amazing person) asked her 2nd grade students: "What's more important people or dirt"? Even though we may lose the idea too many of us still place Homo Sapiens in the center of the world. We'd do best to recognize our true place. The road to our survival will end with our hubris and so it should.

@Neenz It sounds like you are talking about the technocratic principals, which is why I am confused, because they put humanity above nature. The world is ours to do with it what we please, and that typically means destroying it so that humans can live better lives. Nature doesn't care about us, it never has and it never will, so we might as well take it all apart and reassemble it to be better for us.

@Neenz I am NOT talking about killing people! I am talking about destroying nature so that people can live longer happier lives.

I have read about the venus project, which is heavily influenced by technocratic principals, and frankly I think its just a pipe dream. It has a lot of problems which are unaddressed in his works.

1. In a resource based economy, how do luxury items such as art have value? In a traditional economy, things are priced at whatever people are willing to pay. People highly prize art, so it is worth a lot. In a resource based economy, the value of a painting is worth the parchment and pigment it is made of.

2. How do you value services? In a resource based economy, the value of services, typically the kind of jobs that can not be easily automated and require high degrees of situational intelligence is hard to define. If an electrician installs a light switch, a job that is nearly impossible to automate what is the value of his work? The switch and wire have an obvious value, but what of the work itself? Should the electrician get paid the same as a social media influencer? If so why?

3. Circular cities have been tried and they don't work the way you would expect, in particular they don't reduce traffic, aid in navigation, and they don't tessellate ( circles don't fit together like squares do ) which means they can't grow easily. In Jacques Fresco's work he proposes that once a city reaches its maximum population limit that a new city be created, which comes with it's own problems such as forcible relocation, family separation, and maybe even genocide.

4. There is a seeming lack of governance in his model society. He envisioned a world where people would just do what they would because they would, however history has shown us that this never works out quite as intended. If people only have to work a few hours a day to get everything they need, how do you prevent people from using the rest of their time in self destructive ways? He is of the impression that only petty crimes exist, things like theft, homeless loitering, and harassment. These would go down, but what of sever crimes such as murder, rape, and drug violence? Such a society has no defense against nor controls for these crimes.

@Neenz Please explain to me how a RBE would solve our problems, and please be specific about how you think it should work and how that would be enforced and maintained.

If all the goods, products and services were distributed evenly among the global population, everyone would have about $13,500. Under the Venus project, that would be the wealth of everyone regardless of occupation, age, or ability. How is that fair? Why should a doctor get paid the same as a youtube commentator? If you would use that "great computer in our head" you would never think this was a good idea, because the only ways to make it work would be either a massive population cull or severe expansion of resource consumption. There is no winning strategy under the Venus projects RBE.

@Neenz I'm not looking for an argument, I'm looking for answers. If you can't provide me with any, I have to assume you have no plan. I try to think rationally about these types of things because I see people getting caught up in this grand dream and running head first into it with no thought, and then it turns out to be just that, a dream.

I hate fiat currency as much as the next person, don't get me wrong, and I do use bitcoin whenever possible. ( Sadly, this isn't often enough ) I don't think that a tribe based society like those actual cashless societies you mention are viable on a global scale, because we need to have a way to gauge the amount of social credit an individual possess within a society. That's the first question a RBE would have to answer, and it happens to be the hardest.

Would all resources be distributed equally on a global scale? ( meaning everyone would get an equal share of all the food produced, iron mined, wacky inflatable arm waving auto advertising props (you know what I mean ), and everything in between? See how impractical and ridiculous that all sounds?

In the Venus project resources were to be distributed via a computer designed for that particular task. This comes with all sorts of potential problems related to AI that I will ignore for now and we will assume that the AI is somehow perfectly competent, incorruptible and trustworthy. How would the AI determine how much everyone deserves, and how is that better than our current model? Centrally planed economies come with all sorts of problems such as the stifling of innovation, the gradual loss of efficiency, and of course huge bureaucratic burden. An AI may solve some of those problems, but not all of them.

There is a lot of work that needs to be completed before RBE can be implemented, maybe even several lifetimes worth of careful thought and planning.

https:// C: Run/programs/pop_controls/weapons_enable/weapons_systems.exe

weapons_systems.exe ---------- SystemsCheck
All systems online. No issues detected.
https:// C: Run/programs/pop_controls/set_modes.exe
set_modes.exe ---------- Remove excess population > True
set_modes.exe ---------- Remove unauthorized aggression > True
set_modes.exe ---------- Remove all sentient life > False
set_modes.exe ---------- Remove non sentient life > False
https:// C: Run/programs/pop_controls/weapons_enable/weapons_systems.exe
>weapons_systems.exe ---------- RunPopControls
>weapons_systems.exe/RunPopControls? (( Y)es / ( N)o )?
>

@HappyKillbot C: run programmes/ select individual.
Repeat loop.
C: run programme/test sanity. (true/false)
If true: end if.
If false: issue Ak7.
End if
If " nobody left" exit loop
End repeat loop
C:run programme/ happy days.

@avron ,
good one. although, i doubt if many here get it.

@callmedubious, @kodimerlyn Is this nature's blind experiment with "survival" by intelligence?
Rather than sheer bulk, as in the reptile epoch, intelligence can create a dominant species, but is excess intelligence a negative attribute?
Or does survival need the intelligence to escape the rubbish tip and populate other planets and moons?
It is a fascinating subject for discussion.

@avron, @kodimerlyn, @callmedubious Nerds of the world, UNITE!!!

@Petter ,
so far as the intelligence of the human race is concerned it is insignificant b/c we are at the mercy of much larger & more powerful forces.

@Petter ,
i wish i could be optimistic but i see an Orwellian future.

@callmedubious The effects of which we are learning to alleviate.

@Petter ,
how can you alleviate stupidity? the evil sociopaths will have their way.

@callmedubious Not alleviate stupidity - alleviate the effects of powerful forces.

@Neenz It's not intelligence that is the central attribute but the use of reason. Way too often we rely on emotions to deal with issues and that will be our downfall. It always has been.

i remember reading how rosy our future would be b/c of tech decades ago.
doesn't matter how much tech advances so long as greed prevails then i don't see the lot of the avg citizen improving. in fact it's gotten demonstrably worse in the last few dacades.

@Neenz i know you meant human brains. i was talking about human life in a different context. i stand by what i said.

g

@Neenz i doubt it

@Neenz And it will happen only when this comes to pass.

@Neenz well for a start we have to all be on the same page in the entire world and drop all religion and share and help all life on earth get balace. the really rich need to be way more humble and sharing and governments main goal by far right from now is to help the earth and naturally cut back population by having one child between each couple for a few generations till theres only a billion humans. give back to nature three quarters of all out infestructure to nature and much more to help animals rather than ourselves so much. i just don't see that happening but i would be interested in your essay none the less xx . we need nature but it does not need us at all.

@Neenz not kill even though humans still do which is part of the problem but naturally cut population by having way less children as a species.