Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@futurebird There's the idea that as long as everyone has "enough" in some sense, who cares about the Gini coefficient? But it's an unstable situation. The really big money-accumulators start throwing their political weight around to actually immiserate everyone else, and the poor in particular because they want no taxes, no regulations and cheap labor.

@futurebird I think what's disappearing is the sort of moderate-neoliberal sentiment that this level of wealth concentration is a necessary evil that we tolerate to enjoy the general boons of a dynamic economy. In the 1990s, say, I think that was actually a popular idea, even among people who didn't buy into the whole libertarian-right package.

@futurebird Anyway, seeing all four, I think it would not shock me to hear any of them expressed, but whether sometime said #3 or the others would at this point in history be an ideological marker.

@futurebird the preview of this cut it off to just the first 2 responses for some reason, which I think is conditioning the reply comments

@futurebird I see this sort of science-fictional "long-termism" as just a simple "no u" response to people complaining that hypercapitalist policy is eating our seed corn. "It is YOU who sees only the short-term; I care about humanity in the year 10,000!"

Sometimes they claim that a technological Singularity out of 1990s science fiction is coming soon and will sweep away the world we know, so it's actually not so long-term. Rapture of the Nerds.

I remember Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds pushing such ideas back in the 2000s. No, we don't need to limit carbon emissions, we need to go full throttle on production to hasten the Singularity that will fix everything with nanotechnology and the wisdom of superintelligent machines. Sure, Jan.

@kelson @futurebird I was reminded of the bit in "The Great Gatsby" where Nick encounters one of the guests at Gatsby's party marveling at the effort he went to to stock his library with books, but noting that he didn't bother to take the illusion *too* far--"didn't cut the pages".

@futurebird Ooh, I'd say leave the experience of cutting the pages to the kid-- you don't get the opportunity too often!

I think I only encountered that once-- it was a new book from some niche French publisher in the 1980s. Might have been Sartre.