Utopia's scaffolding: What civilization took from us, I think we will get back.
techno-anthropology.blogspot.com
techno-anthropology.blogspot.com
The project that began with the "Fable of the Bees may be of even less practical relevance in the future. The reason is that the technologies and social interactions of the modern economy increasingly depart from these canonical assumptions. Direct noncontractual interactions with positive feedbacks arise increasingly in modern economies, as information-intensive team production replaces assembly lines and other technologies more readily handled by contract, and as difficult to measure services usurp the preeminent role -- as both outputs and inputs --- once played by measurable quantities like kilowatts of power and tons of steel. Danny Quah (1996) calls the modern system of production “the weightless economy.” The key characteristics of the information-intensive economy are generalized increasing returns, with near zero marginal costs in many cases, along with the fact that most information is either not subject to complete and enforceable contracts, or will be inefficiently allocated if it is. ...
The information-intensive economy of the future may more closely resemble the economy of the mobile foraging band in human prehistory, rather than the economy of grain and steel that displaced it. Pursuing good ideas with practical applications is a costly and uncertain project, much like hunting large game. Success is rare, but its fruits are immensely valuable. The private appropriation of the prize is both difficult to accomplish and socially wasteful, for the foregone benefits to the those excluded from access to the prize far outweigh the gains to the individual appropriator to be had by excluding others. A new drug or a new software application is not so different in this respect from an antelope. Thus it is not surprising that the system of prestige and norms of sharing in some parts of the modern information-intensive economy -- those involved in open source software, for example -- in many ways parallel the culture of the foraging band. (page 500)
That's a very naive view. The prevalent mentality is "If you can make me $2000 by working 20 hours, then you can make me $5000 by working 50 hours. Why should I settle for $2000 a week if I can get $5000 a week?"
How do you envision technology changing that mentality?
If automation and efficiency could bring most people to the point where they could hit this point of diminishing returns at 20 hours a week, I think we'd find more (though not all) people opting for that kind of life.
You're also making an assumption about which variable will be influenced by "automation and efficiency", as you put it, and how it will be affected. Throughout the human history, the technology has helped us overcome obstacles and "optimize" our lives. Where before you would need to invest significant effort to overcome an obstacle, now you have technology to do it for you. What's the consequence of that? The human effort that was previously needed to overcome that obstacle has become devalued. In other words, technology is more likely to make someone's work obsolete than to allow them to lay back and enjoy having a 20-hour work week. Simply put, whenever technology simplifies a part of your work, you either get more work or you're out of work.
It's not that I wouldn't like having a 20-hour work week. It's just that I don't think technology is going to solve that.
As for life in the metropolis, we're a little less well adapted to us.
And I agree that the city is (speaking emotively and not scientifically here) especially brutal. And yet strangely inescapable. I've adopted Emerson's strategy of living in the countryside in the orbit of a great city, and descending on it from time to time.
Others (like Robert Wright (and me!)) think that civilization meant net net gain, even if we lost some really important things.
I don't mean to say that civilization is evil. I only mean to say that it looks like we want some of our own lifestyle back, and it looks like we're steering the ship that way.
Personally I believe that a portion of the Australian outback (and any other country with room for it) should be set aside for people who want to live hunter-gatherer lifestyles. The primary purpose would be to stop the Australian Aborigines from complaining about the whole European-settlement thing (as in "fine, you want to go back to the way things were before? Here ya go!") but it would be open to anyone of any race who felt like living there. Only two conditions:
a) Nothing goes in except the people who want to live there, who can take nothing except a loincloth and one day's food supply.
b) Nobody comes out except by giving two months' notice (this stops people from being able to leave to get medical treatment).
We could start with a few thousand acres and let it grow if it actually becomes popular.
On point (a), really?!? Is that what the natives there wore? That sounds rather unkind of you.
Of course anyone going onto my hypothetical reservation would take with them a lot of knowledge unavailable to the true stone age folks, but not much can be done about that.
As for clothing, a loincloth would be on the modest side:
Source: Jared Diamond covers this in "Guns, Germs and Steel". Excellent book.
So yes, there comes a tipping point where agriculture becomes the most attractive option, and when that happens, humans begin the sequence that causes them to lose a few important things and gain a lot of great things.
And strangely, it looks like we're getting some of the things we lost back.