This is an interesting take on post-scarcity. I haven’t read Biting the Sun, but from a quick look at the synopsis I can see how it (and your comment) echoes some of the things I’ve been thinking about.
From many different fields of study, approaching the problem from many angles, the optimal amount of stress is not zero. It is also not low. The optimum is moderate.
Is it really stress that these studies are measuring? I think of it more as struggle. Of course, stress is often correlated with struggle, but it doesn’t always have to be. I think the crux is that most of us need to feel like we are contributing to our society in some way, or at least that we are able to stand independently, and without some kind of struggle our accomplishments feel hollow. There are a lot of things that we can struggle against, though, and not all would be vanquished with an end to scarcity. Climbing a mountain would still be as satisfying, as would being the best football player in the town, or solving a really difficult puzzle.
What it comes down to, I think, is exactly the kind of thing which video games have been trying to optimise ever since they were invented; game balance. For a task to feel worthwhile it needs to be difficult, but not so hard that you give up on it.
I also believe that she got humanity correct in the story, and the overwhelming majority will devolve into endless orgies and drugs
The overwhelming majority? I am more inclined to think that these kinds of hedonistic pursuits would be a phase which people pass through as they mature, but as they lack that feeling of meaning most people would come out the other side looking for something more (with the option to dip back in to that hedonistic outlet whenever they want to). Unless, of course, the drugs in question are able to evoke that sense of meaningfulness within us, like LSD can.
That’s functionally no different than being the AI’s pet.
Whether or not we could be viewed as the ‘pet’ species of an AI probably comes down mostly to our capacity for self-determination. As long as we can over-rule the AI we should be okay, although if we get into the whole ‘superintelligent AI convincing us to care about non-issues so we can use our veto and feel empowered without actually conceding any power on things which it considers important’ there’s not really much hope for us. It’s worth remembering that many religious people derive satisfaction from their lives even though they genuinely believe that a god or gods are the ones truly in control of what happens to them.
I think the ability hypothesis is pointing out that Mary has propositional knowledge of colour but lacks procedural knowledge, and the acquaintance hypothesis is supposed to point towards what you are looking for in this essay; qualia. But, as you said, the explanatory quote you provided doesn’t exactly help.
What if, instead of Mary being released or given a fancy new tv, she is simply given a color wheel? It has no writing or other symbols, only the full spectrum of colors detectable by the human eye. She is an expert already so she will immediately know what it is, but could she tell you which side is blue? Would she associate the side that we call ‘red’ with ‘hot’?