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by goatlover 1751 days ago
Reminds me of Family Guy's Amish prayer where the period between 1815 and 1835 was just the right amount of technology for God's approval. Not too little, not too much.

Where does society draw the line? It was okay to grow to this point (or 20 years ago or whenever the arbitrary dividing line was), but now we need to stop? Why not 100 years from now or 500? Maybe if we stop now we won't get to a post scarcity world where aging has been cured. Maybe we won't terraform Mars. Who knows what might be possible.

Or more simply, do we stop growing and make life harder on the developing world? Or is it okay for them to grow to this arbitrary point and then stop with us? What if the solution to climate change comes about from technological progress due to economic growth over the next 30-50 years?

1 comments

The Amish do not simply reject all technology past a particular date. Instead, they collectively decide on whether their community will use any particular new technology, based on whether they believe it will best serve the needs of the community.

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/09/02/21...