Latest Tweets:
“This isn’t going to be a world that feels rich, any more than today’s middle class EU or USA feels wealthy, until you compare the average standard of living to that of previous centuries. We evaluate our status by referring to our neighbours; if none of our neighbours are starving and homeless, starvation and homelessness drop out of the attributes we measure ourselves against. If everyone has a cornucopia machine, then mere possession of physical property (that isn’t hand made or bespoke or of historic interest) stops being a status signifier. If we have flexible humanoid robot servants then employing a cook or a gardener stops being a status signifier. And so on. By the standards of 1811, or 1911, we’re almost all extremely rich: we don’t get polio or smallpox, we don’t have to go hungry or sleep 12 to a room, we have running water and indoor heating and lighting, and many of us own our own private automobiles. In such a post-developed world, we can reasonably say that the normal and average standard of living should approximate that of today’s 1%: everyone has not merely the bare necessities (which today too many people do not) but a level of provision for basic needs that approximates to today’s wild luxury, and which should encompass the cost of trips into low earth orbit at equivalent cost to a trans-Pacific business class ticket today.”
