From Yuval Noah Harari, author of what is likely an interesting new book, Sapiens.
you should take into consideration the possibility that medicine in the 21st century will be elitist, and that you will see growing gaps because of that, biological gaps between rich and poor and between different countries. And you cannot just trust a process of trickling down to solve this problem.
There are fundamental reasons why we should take this very seriously, because generally speaking, when you look at the 20th century, it’s the era of the masses, mass politics, mass economics. Every human being has value, has political, economic, and military value, simply because he or she is a human being, and this goes back to the structures of the military and of the economy, where every human being is valuable as a soldier in the trenches and as a worker in the factory.
But in the 21st century, there is a good chance that most humans will lose, they are losing, their military and economic value. This is true for the military, it’s done, it’s over. The age of the masses is over.
Almost twenty years ago, I wrote essays, such as this one, on the differences between the industrial era and the post-industrial era. One of these differences is that in the industrial era everything was about “mass.” Mass production, mass consumption, mass warfare, etc. That is not so true now, and the social implications are large.
“medicine in the 21st century will be elitist, and that you will see growing gaps because of that, biological gaps between rich and poor and between different countries.”
We know how that story ends: Matt Damon puts on some kind of bio-tech Superman suit and takes the healthcare he needs (conveniently provided 100% by machines) by force, saving the day for all us common folk. It was called Elysium.
The weakest part of the sci-fi of that plot was that the healthcare was free. How did it benefit the wealthy to deny this of the masses? What would have made a better movie, better sci-fi, and probably would have required recasting the lead, would have been to imply that if the capital investment was left on earth it would have been destroyed by the masses. I wondered if this was the Straussian viewing at the time, but I doubt it.
Good gosh Sharlto Copley carried that film. There is sci-fi social commentary to be had. The analogy being that to protect what we think we have we’ll absolutely ravage anyone we think is threatening it (e.g. drone assassinations)
Apparently Chappie is a stinker too. There are movies in there. He should slow down.
“…would have been to imply that if the capital investment was left on earth it would have been destroyed by the masses.”
Couldn’t do it because uncouth person would point out that that was what happened when the Israelis pulled out of Gaza.
And one can barely blame them (at least I don’t) if they dismantle one PSST that has zero value in their respective equilibrium (a dysregulated society where property rights are not protected, partly the fault of Israel) to sell it off for parts to feed starving kids. That is where the movie conflict I proposed would be.
In other words, your civilzation-barbarism is showing 😉
“What would have made a better movie, better sci-fi, and probably would have required recasting the lead, would have been to imply that if the capital investment was left on earth it would have been destroyed by the masses.”
That, or if Jodie Foster’s coup attempt had succeeded.
I never quite understood that plot line. What are you going to do with a space colony if you ever catch one? Make the Earthlings even more miserable?
This could frame progressivism as a sort of overshoot on humanist value. As an aside, this makes the global warming hysteria somewhat puzzling to me because it doesn’t quite fit the oppressor-oppressed frame perfectly. Anyway, every day I listen to NPR and they have a story about some person down on their luck. It always starts out kind of framed in oppressor-oppressed verbiage. As the story goes on, it turns out the person is a high school dropout. They live in a terrible neighborhood. A couple bad marriages. Lots of kids. They speak…well…inarticulately. Lots of malapropisms. This never seems to dawn on the NPR storyteller, or at least they hide it well, or they’ve been so effectively conditioned that all diversity is good. It is kind of amusing to listen to the NPR planet money podcast where they have to dance around some of the economic issues that clash with the progressive humanism of their employer.
When the diversity bubble pops it is going to be just sad for everyone, perhaps most of all those of us who tell of it coming but nobody is listening.
Progressives are quite able to squeeze global warming into the oppressor-oppressed axis. The oil companies are the oppressors.
True. It just seems that on-net the rhetoric on global warming is anti-people, and poor people are the most people.
Maybe making net sense isn’t a requirement.
It has become apparent over the years that one of the main drivers of the global warming hysteria is the desire of the global ruling class to find a rationale for mandating massive wealth transfers from the developed world to the developing world (including major powers like China and India) and enforcing reduction of living standards in the West. We are now told that, unless we in the West submit to such measures, the world will end! This fits quite well into the oppressor/oppressed axis.
Yes, I got that too. Arnold explained that it isn’t about the logic of the position as much as the rhetoric.
Turns out I have been too charitable in assuming they actually believe it!
Andrew, they may not actually believe that world will end unless we do what they tell us, but they certainly do believe that, for whatever reason, the West should transfer wealth to the developing world. The elites of China and India eagerly expect us to send them our money forthwith. Of course, I’m sure the rich people in China and India are not worried about the end of the world but about enriching themselves.
Because it’s the radio station that comes in the best at home, I leave NPR on during the day for my dog. So it’s pretty much on that station all day, every day, even during the weekend ‘cuz I’m too lazy to keep moving the channel selector. The program that makes me really laugh is Bob Edwards’s Living on Earth. It’s a virtual caricature of the extremist wing of the environmental movement.
Or when Ryssdal’s morning Marketplace has Robert Reich spewing his redistributionist dreck and I’ll be screaming at the radio while brushing my teeth.
Your poor dog!
His dog is going to start framing everything in terms of am oppressor-v-oppressed paradigm.
If anyone is oppressed in my household, ’tis I. By his mere presence, my dog forces me to feed him, take him for walks, brush him, trim his nails, brush his teeth, clean his ears, play with him and keep him entertained. My word, I must even take him on my vacations!
In return, he graciously acquiesces in sitting and lying down when I politely request, and keeping me company overnight on the floor by my bed (he snores.)
Who is the oppressed, who the oppressor?
PS: my NPR station plays music during the middle 5 hours of the day when he’s listening. He tells me that it makes him feel more “cultured.” 🙂
PPS: nor has he indicated a yearning for thumbs (a la Enzo in “The Art of Racing in the Rain”) so that he might change radio channels!
We have to come to terms with the fact that the 20th century was an anomaly. A period when advances in medicine and sanitation were beating back the mortality controls, e.g., disease, infant mortality, war, famine, etc., on population but before the fertility controls, e.g., late marriage, abortion, easy birth control, kicked in to slow/stop population growth. The Welfare State was built on this transitory condition of expanding population.
“A low-pressure demography means that a society avoids the situation where extra resources are automatically absorbed by population expansion. As Malthus argued, the only force strong enough to stand against the biological desire to mate and have children, was the even stronger social desire to live comfortably and avoid poverty. ”
— Alan Macfarlane
Anyone looking at what gets the “left” excited these days sees this clearly.
Environmentalism, anti-GMO organicism, and NIMBYism are all about elite passions. Old-school worries about the poor and the workingman are passe, and we gotta keep lots of illegals around so we have plenty of low-paid guys to mow our lawns and clean our pools. We’ll also have “living wage laws” that can be ignored as we’ll have lots of illegals available to bypass them.
Even nominal concern for “the poor” is really about padding out the bureaucracy with lots of highly-paid jobs for elites.