Just Slow Down and Take a Breath

[Skabungus]

(02-11-2022, 05:55 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-11-2022, 12:53 PM)Skabungus Wrote: The future

3D printed, self-powered, houses.  They started rolling them out last year.  Very cost effective.

The office sector of the real estate industry will be retooled to subscription service office hubs and centers.  There will still be gleaming corporate headquarters, but no longer large campuses where all the ants go to work 9-5.  Remote work, with performance based on productivity, will be a default standard.

There will be no crazy truck drivers on the roads.  It's happening in Europe, and in Colorado, Arizona and California as we speak.  Freight trucks, trains and ships will be almost entirely piloted by AI.

Power utilities as we know them now will be eliminated or completely retooled.  Participation will be elective.

The place to eat will be at home, or at someone else's home.  You may order the food delivered, but the Artisan dining craze with a dine in eatery on every block will be gone.  Fast food will grow to fill the gap.  As it is now, I can order a full four star quality Indian dinner for me and my seven friends, delivered.  In. Rural. Michigan.  Look for that to expand.

The idea of a 40 hour work week will be over.  Many people will work less, and some might work more, but the structured "work week" will become less and less defined.  Productivity will be the defining feature.  If you produce, you get paid.  

Factory and distribution work will continue to be automated and channeled in a manner that eliminates jobs.

Healthcare will become a universal right.

Local government will grow in importance, and regional government will become more popular and relevant.  This will make the founding fathers smile in their graves, and the far left happy as well.

A universal base income COULD become a reality, but it is more likely that means tested subsidies and vouchers will make up the largest part of it with cash payments still frowned upon.

The death penalty will be gone.  State and federal prison systems will begin to shrink, with fewer inmates to hold, and a strong desire among the feds and the state to transfer responsibility downward onto local jurisdictions.  This will result in an growth of the deferral systems (drug court, vets court, domestic court, etc.) and community based corrections to reduce cost, and keep corrections dollars at work in the community.

I'm simply pointing out stuff that is currently happening and increasing.  I'm sure there are other things (like the great Sino American War of 2077) that I'm forgetting right now.

Do you see any effort toward reducing dependency on the auto as the only transportation choice for about 88 percent of the country?

And how about the future of personal escorting? When might the PTB finally wake up to the fact that  prohibition of this activity hasn't worked any more than it did with liquor a century ago?

I don't see us opting wholesale for public modes of transport as a replacement for the personal auto.  Instead, I see things shifting as they have been.  Less auto use, less auto dependence and less consumptive automobiles.  The same goes for airlines.  Less use.

I'd be the first to trade in my car for a bus/train pass, but let's be frank, I live 30 minutes from the nearest village, and an hour from any reasonable form of public transit.  Besides, I work from home, don't visit off the property entertainment venues and don't go shopping but every two weeks.  Building extensive infrastructure so we can have a bus in my neighborhood would be a gross misuse of public funds.

This isn't Europe, or Japan where everyone is crammed into giant, often merged metroplexes.  It's America which is spread out.  I see the auto as sticking with us, but in a much transformed state.  Don't forget, we're supposed to be getting flying cars in a couple years, so there's that.

As for hookers, I don't know.  It's pretty accessible now with the internet, and all the other modern conveniences like Lyft, Uber, burner phones, etc.  It's out there and accessible, if that's what you want/need.  Is it legal?  No (except in certain jurisdictions in NV). Should it be?  Yea, probably since then you could regulate against STDs, drug-related problems and human trafficking.  Will it be?  Probably not everywhere, but probably in more places than in the current climate.  Sex work is work, and should enjoy all the protections that a unionized worker enjoys (speaking as a unionized government professional myself) but they will have to organize themselves, or the IWW will have to organize them, because SEIU, UAW and all the other staples of labor wont touch that with a ten foot dildo.