Comment by fennecbutt

I came back to agree that we should be eating a lot less meat than we do, I'm guilty of it too. We didn't eat meat all day every day as we evolved; if we love it it's because it was scarce and we need to create an artificial scarcity by choosing not to indulge (the same goes for fats, sugars etc in general).

As for the other responses regarding AI. I think that AI could very well become the best thing to ever happen to our species, if we were ready for it but we are not by a long shot.

Regarding wastage: AI research is just fine imo, but corpos have gotten their parasite hooks into the technology and as per usual are more interested in making money right now rather than when it's appropriate. Energy and water use would not be a problem if everyone & their mum weren't desperately seeking VC funding for a technology they know nothing about.

Regarding culture: besides the obvious capitalisation of capitalism doing capitalism things, we aren't ready in a cultural sense either; our tribalism and social structure is incredibly juvenile. They say that civilisation first started when one human tended to the wounds of another human and took care of them while they healed. From what I see of the world around me we have gone backwards - we call this civilisation? UBI would just be one step in a long list of cultural change required to prepare for AI.

Our deficiencies are long and complex to solve. The only solution that I see is that one day we do crack AGI. And that "it happens" and turns out to be banevolent in that it forces us to be good. Because we have to be forced to; we are selfish and will never vote in each other's interests.