[HN Gopher] The decentralization of the real world: an Unruly th...
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       The decentralization of the real world: an Unruly thesis
        
       Author : simonebrunozzi
       Score  : 12 points
       Date   : 2023-11-21 10:14 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mirror.xyz)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mirror.xyz)
        
       | AlexandrB wrote:
       | > Food will be produced on your rooftop.
       | 
       | > Energy will be produced right next to it.
       | 
       | > Objects will be printed on demand, as needed and in your garage
       | (or close by).
       | 
       | > We will reduce our materials use.
       | 
       | > We will reuse everything we can.
       | 
       | > We will recycle everything else.
       | 
       | To me, this really has echoes of:
       | 
       | > In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon
       | forests around the ruins of Rock feller Center. You'll wear
       | leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll
       | climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And
       | when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying
       | stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned
       | superhighways.
       | 
       | Which is Tyler Durden's vision of the future from _Fight Club_.
       | 
       | And just like that vision, this only works if you reduce human
       | population by 90% or more. If I live in a condo, I don't have a
       | rooftop to grow food. Do I starve?
       | 
       | Edit: It's also funny that this is listed as a point.
       | 
       | > We won't rely on government incentives and massive corporations
       | deciding what we should eat. Fiat food is over.
       | 
       | If you want to eat "locally" (food produced on your rooftop),
       | prepare to limit your food choices a lot more than any government
       | or corporation would/could. No more bananas, mangos, pineapples,
       | chocolate, coffee, etc. if you live anywhere near the 49th
       | parallel for example.
        
         | vacuity wrote:
         | Also, the Earth can theoretically sustain a few more billions
         | of humans if we become vegetarians (vegans?), but with our
         | current population, we can't support everyone living like the
         | average American. Americans also aren't impacted by the early
         | degradation of the climate as much. There isn't incentive for
         | Americans and other highly developed countries to greatly lower
         | their own living standards, but it's either that or a culling.
        
           | thegrim33 wrote:
           | There's literally millions of square miles of completely
           | unused land across the world. There's absolutely no reason we
           | couldn't theoretically support a higher standard of living
           | for everyone that currently lives, from a technological
           | perspective.
        
         | hyperthesis wrote:
         | Division of labour creates wealth... that's not distributed.
         | 
         | BTW The origins of basic supermarket foods is amazing: e.g.
         | potato, corn, avocado are from the Americas. What did Europeans
         | used to eat - cabbage and turnips?
        
         | holmesworcester wrote:
         | With enough fusion generator, water, lighting, robots, building
         | materials, and seeds, you can grow all of that stuff pretty
         | easily anywhere. Maybe you'd even be able to download and print
         | the seeds.
        
       | swatcoder wrote:
       | "Decentralization of the real world" is a euphemism for the
       | collapse of global diplomacy and modern Westphalian nations
       | (territorialism, violent conflict), the disolution of their
       | mature institutions (law, medicine, education, travel
       | protections, etc) and the lifestyles they enable.
       | 
       | Now, we might be headed that way and the far side of the
       | transition might be heavenly (for some), but it's probably wise
       | to keep in mind that the historical "pendulum swings" between
       | centralization and decentralization don't tend to go smoothly.
       | Too much reliance on the euphemism makes it easy to forget.
        
         | meheleventyone wrote:
         | On the plus side this article is absolutely the cringiest,
         | crypto-bro take on the idea so completely unlikely to go
         | anywhere except a collapsing seastead.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-21 23:03 UTC)