Vision of Post Consumerism/Capitalism 200 Years from Now | Hacker News Reader

Vision of Post Consumerism/Capitalism 200 Years from Now

gibson.ws

9 pointsbodegajed5 comments

I get what most people mean with "post capitalism" but if there's one thing I think that will stay with us humans that has to be the need for capital.

We may eliminate the need for food, water and shelter but we will still crave "value" in 200 years, only that it will be a lot more abstract, human connection, human intelligence or something else but it will be there.

That is a good point and had to think about if humans are like this by nature or were they been nurtured by the current society. So here is what I came up with this is like comparing present society to the 18 century where back then stuff isn't much available and so there is interest elsewhere for that dopamine hit of owning that new xbox http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html So my guess is in the future the next dopamine hit will not be from acquiring new xbox but from other people (friends just hanging out all day) of the egalitarian and collectivism will be the result after almost a catastrophic scenario of depleting the earth of natural resources

Sure, but my point is that we would still put a "capital" on it, we've done it since well... forever really, you wanna be around that "desirable" person while avoiding the "undesirable" the only thing I think that will change in the future is that we will probably figure out much more complex (by our standards) socialization and "social intermingling".

Which will I think solve some of our current short comings of socialization but also add a very concrete layers of socialization.

ok so I get it now, what is desirable to humans 200 years into the future is that I don't really know but there are some factors that humans are for years, are naturally attracted to young and healthy and we don't like decaying things.

So currently we are putting capital on undesirable things for a solution to that and let's say a skilled plastic surgeon or a hiring several very skilled technicians for a project.

And for my vision has this empowered people to make desirable things without capital because of the collectivism movement that originated from diy youtube videos and open source would provide shared technology of automation and cooperation.

Will think about some more about how future humans socialize, very interesting

Nono, sorry if I'm confusing you.

The part about "desired" and "undesired" is more from how we within society like to create social constructs which dictates what, why and when something should be acceptable and desirable.

So the original point you said was correct, however my attempt was to essentially clarify it, but it seemed to have veered into a bit off-ish (it is true we desire young & healthy, but I would assume we got the reverse age tech in 200 years).

What I meant with desirable & undesirable is purely social based, there's popular and unpopular, there's kind and mean and lastly smart and dumb.

What I predict is going to be the case is that after we've eliminated all material "capital" there will still be a huge need for "social" capital. This social capital could be a very big driver for the next foreseeable future, afterall we humans are suppose to be "unique".

And consequentially this social capital COULD actual create some form of material capital again (think about how our culture has been reshaped in what is desirable, fashionable and "aesthetically authentic"), a good example is how the global cultural phenomenon of "growing by yourself" is making a comeback even though previous generations looked down on it.

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