SarahC: I do like the idea of living by your own strength somewhat though… a sense of helplessness and lack of skill is incredibly demoralizing.
Alicorn: I don’t want to stop people from doing that; I just don’t really find it appealing and object to enforcing it
SarahC: actually, I often think that for me and a large number of people I know, the biggest negative factor in our lives is awareness that we’re not good at much.
Alicorn: I’m good at some stuff. To do that stuff, I like to use tools. I don’t want to eat bugs for fifty years in a fake savannah while I work out how to fire ceramics so I can cook.
SarahC: oh. yeah. that’s undeniable.
Alicorn: Alicorn-who-has-to-live-by-her-own-strength has to get PHENOMENALLY bored before she ever picks up a flute again. She sings, when she wants to make music, because she hasn’t come around to finding whittling interesting yet.
And this is sad for Alicorn-who-has-to-live-by-her-own-strength.
This was probably a joke, but: This strikes me as not much better. It’s still “I have to do something largely unrelated before I can do what I actually wanted to do.” Imagine you had a flute-playing competition, but only those who were also good singers could enter! The best specialized flute-players might not be able to enter at all.
Then you don’t have to sing. But you do have to do something else. Or if all you want to do is play the flute, then you get a flute at the beginning and all your other rewards come from flute-playing. The rules of the universe can be adapted to individuals without being chosen by individuals.
Alternatively, visit the ancient order of music monks who, after completing a series of arbitrarily difficult challenges, will reward you with a flute.
This mostly sounds like loss aversion versus current abilities. The proposed temporary states don’t seem objectively that bad! Would Alicorn-by-her-own-strength having to cook as she does now rather than eat at nine star restaurants, or play music on a flute rather than be given access to future, superior instruments, sound so bad?
I can see what you mean by ‘objectively bad’, but don’t see why anyone should care about the concept.
Also, I think that you have too low of expectations for a utopia—both of your sentences were pleas that such a state of being would be acceptable, but I don’t think that’s what we should be going for here. Compromises can be made later if and only if they must.
I’m not that interested in how “objectively bad” eating bugs for fifty years is. (Let alone spending centuries domesticating my own bananas and setting up my own deep sea fishing expeditions.) I don’t think they’re reasonable prerequisites.
I cannot decipher your last sentence; please rephrase.
I cannot decipher your last sentence; please rephrase.
Instead of comparing eating bugs to eating modern food, compare eating modern food to eating futuristic super-perfect food. The difference is roughly comparable but the latter may be more emotionally accurate.
More emotionally accurate how? Is the idea that we get to keep our existing tools and only have to make new ones ourselves? Or that I shouldn’t feel as grossed out by eating bugs as I do so here’s something not-gross to think about?
More the former, at least for those of us from Old Earth for whom losing our standard of living would be traumatic, but also the latter in that eating bugs wouldn’t be gross if you were used to it and also eating actual genetically-uncharted plants that were grown in actual biological dirt might look just as disgusting from a far-future perspective.
I believe that one is supposed to complete a singing quest so as to gain access to flutes.
This was probably a joke, but: This strikes me as not much better. It’s still “I have to do something largely unrelated before I can do what I actually wanted to do.” Imagine you had a flute-playing competition, but only those who were also good singers could enter! The best specialized flute-players might not be able to enter at all.
Then you don’t have to sing. But you do have to do something else. Or if all you want to do is play the flute, then you get a flute at the beginning and all your other rewards come from flute-playing. The rules of the universe can be adapted to individuals without being chosen by individuals.
I adore the phrase “gain access to flutes” and I have no idea why.
This one time in a band camp...
I think it’s about time I actually watched that movie.
Alternatively, visit the ancient order of music monks who, after completing a series of arbitrarily difficult challenges, will reward you with a flute.
What if the monks fail to complete the series of arbitrary difficult challenges?
This mostly sounds like loss aversion versus current abilities. The proposed temporary states don’t seem objectively that bad! Would Alicorn-by-her-own-strength having to cook as she does now rather than eat at nine star restaurants, or play music on a flute rather than be given access to future, superior instruments, sound so bad?
I can see what you mean by ‘objectively bad’, but don’t see why anyone should care about the concept.
Also, I think that you have too low of expectations for a utopia—both of your sentences were pleas that such a state of being would be acceptable, but I don’t think that’s what we should be going for here. Compromises can be made later if and only if they must.
I’m not that interested in how “objectively bad” eating bugs for fifty years is. (Let alone spending centuries domesticating my own bananas and setting up my own deep sea fishing expeditions.) I don’t think they’re reasonable prerequisites.
I cannot decipher your last sentence; please rephrase.
Instead of comparing eating bugs to eating modern food, compare eating modern food to eating futuristic super-perfect food. The difference is roughly comparable but the latter may be more emotionally accurate.
More emotionally accurate how? Is the idea that we get to keep our existing tools and only have to make new ones ourselves? Or that I shouldn’t feel as grossed out by eating bugs as I do so here’s something not-gross to think about?
More the former, at least for those of us from Old Earth for whom losing our standard of living would be traumatic, but also the latter in that eating bugs wouldn’t be gross if you were used to it and also eating actual genetically-uncharted plants that were grown in actual biological dirt might look just as disgusting from a far-future perspective.