That doesn't necessarily strike me as accurate, you have a lot of interests you're dedicated to, like the amount of time and effort you put into your cooking/recipes and sharing that information with others, you're not doing that because you get anything out of it beyond your enjoyment of the process, the food, and sharing the information, right?
Funnily enough, this is something I've studied in detail! And yes, it
is nuanced. The takeaway is:
People generally do not do well without outside pressure
Simple example:
celebrity overdoses. The typical cycle:
1. Go from waiting tables to being a zillionaire
2. Steady work evaporates due to erratic film schedules, world tours, etc.
3. Get bored, stay up late, drink, do drugs, overdose
A small sample of ~600 famous people:
en.wikipedia.org
More recently:
* Matthew Perry
* Heath Ledger
* Philip Seymour Hoffman
* Coolio
* DMX
* Lil Peep
* Whitney Houston
* Amy Winehouse
So two discussion points from there:
1. Types of utopia
2. Types of people
The basic utopia levels are:
1. Universal Basic Income: Everyone is given enough for a baseline good life
2. True Equality: AI & robotics-support lifestyle freedom (robo-farms & job automation)
3. True Utopia: Star Trek-style with Replicators for food & goods and jobs are no longer
required)
Starting at the baseline: there are estimates that nearly 50% of jobs could be automated by AI within decades. But even now, the need for Universal Basic Income is VERY real. Or rather "UBR" (Universal Basic Resources). I'm a HUGE supporter of that idea because I feel that everyone deserves:
1. A safe place to live (including safe structurally)
2. An education
3. Access to good food
4. Meaningful employment
5. Real healthcare
6. A minimum wage that is a TRUE minimum required to live by yourself in a healthy & realistic way
America doesn't truly understand that the power of the nation comes from the
quality of its people. If your population is:
1. Uneducated
2. Poor
3. Sick
Then you start to lose your global edge as a competitive nation. UBR is a great solution because it gives everyone an equal playing field:
1. You can live without financial stress
2. You can eat well & access required medical aid to be healthy
3. You can further your education if desired
But at the same time, it removes the risk of people becoming welfare recipients without justification, because jobs & paychecks are still required. The next level up is using AI & robotics to create a more equal society.
Disclaimer: as someone who is deep into AI & has started working with robotics professionally, I honestly don't see this EVER happening because everything on earth is
specific (like trying to use a Ferrari to go off-roading).
But, assuming that AI & robotics take over, I don't see that ending well for humanity, because human greed
always creates a pyramid system. Communism is wonderful
in theory: everyone works, everyone shares, everyone profits! It aims to solve the major core issues:
1. Poverty
2. Inequality
3. Worker exploitation
However, in
practice:
1. It KILLS motivation
2. It ruins marketplace efficiency
3. Power gets consolidated (as always) at the top of the pyramid
The theory of communism has two fatal flaws. It assumes that:
1. Leaders won’t abuse power
2. People will cooperate fairly
In reality:
1. As computer guys, we all know that systems can
exploited. Somebody just won a
$1.5 billion-dollar bet on oil stock trade just
5 minutes before Trump's announcement. Seems a little fishy!
2. Different people have different ambitions, values, and incentives
So that leads into the three basic types of people:
1. Purpose-driven: Energetic people like Picard who want to explore & make stuff. These people are going to do
whatever they want anyway; stuff like UBI simply removes the friction in the middle.
2. Comfort-seekers: UBI & entertainment. Trust-find kids, drop-out NEET kids, etc.
3. Status chasers: People who want attention (celebrities, influences, pro athletes who love the limelight, etc.)
A "True Utopia" is risky because we would fully remove the economic incentives that drive people into action (doing better for yourself & your family, hitting the jackpot from building a business around a great idea, etc.). Historically, human beings have generally not done very well when placed in those types of situations. However, the problem isn't that "unlimited access = laziness" (re: WALL-E), it's
incentive design! This is where it starts to get interesting:
1. We know from various studies & systems, such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, that (1) different people are driven by different reasons, and (2) people respond different based on the situation they are in (fighting for survival vs. self-actualized),
2. The communism system had many issues, largely because they replaced the
wrong incentive: they replaced
market incentives with
state-controlled ones. This stifled innovation & reduced the impact to the reward center in their brains because why bother with extra effort if you gain nothing from it?
3. Humans need
well-aligned incentives, not necessarily purely
economic ones.
This means that incentives are structural, not optional. Therefore:
A viable “utopia” wouldn’t remove incentives - it would re-engineer them.
Which loops back into UBR. As you know, one of my favorite things is good system design. A
functional utopia would require, at minimum:
1, A guaranteed baseline to remove desperation
2. Which means safe housing, daily nutrition, and required healthcare would be default citizen rights
3. Which means no one is forced into :survival labor", which then removes BAD incentives (crime, exploitation, etc.)
It must also intentionally preserve difficulty, because otherwise the core way the human pysche operates is disincentivized. That means it must also, somehow:
1. Not eliminate incentives
2. Not eliminate competition
3. Not eliminate status differences
So in practice:
1. WALL-E is what happens when incentives disappear
2. Star Trek works because the incentives
evolved (but really only works if you are a purpose or status-driven type of person)
3. No one has
actually figured out how to do this due to system exploitation & due to different desires in different people (ex. ~15% of people suffer from severe personality disorders such as psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, etc.), so there's not a magic "one size fits all" system because humanity exists on a
spectrum
UBR is neat because removing
fear doesn’t automatically remove
motivation. So here's where we pivot into the second part of this discussion!
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Prior to switching to IT, I worked in the career field helping to connect people to more fulfilling jobs. Financial insecurity plays a HUGE role in people's lives (re: Malow's pyramid), but
beyond that, most people need the "pressure formula":
1. Purpose
2. Structure
In the form of:
1. Goals
2. Challenges
3. Social roles
That could mean a job, being a parent, maintaining systems, discovering new stuff, being a caretaker, etc. In practice, that means:
1. People don't need
jobs (assuming money is meaningless in an AI-dominated future)
2. People need
roles (MEANINGFUL roles!)
We have a TON of data about what generally happens to people in different unstructured & purpose-free scenarios. Three actively-studied scenarios are:
* Long-term unemployment
* Retirement without planning
* Sudden wealth cases
The common outcomes are
predictable:
* Boredom
* Depression
* Loss of direction
* Addiction
* Self-destructive behavior
Given my exposure to a variety of people in a variety of situations over the years, I learned some pretty interesting things about things like productivity, happiness, and happiness. So feathering in
The fictional Star Trek universe where people are free to do whatever they want to find fulfilment is an utter lie because:
1. Human beings need motivation
2. Human greed is prevalent
And your response:
I entirely reject this hypothesis. Money is not required for motivation. We do have Linux. People climb mountains because they want to.
Both are correct:
1. Human beings NEED motivation & human greed exists
2. Money is NOT required for motivation
This is because we know that:
Human beings thrive on incentive structures
And also:
People exist on a spectrum
This is where things take an interesting turn. First principle:
The reality is that very few people are ever 100% truly stuck 100% of the time for their entire lives.
Second principle: perfection is NOT REQUIRED to get started! Or encoded into a practical application:
Make it exist, then make it better!
This is where the "Lie of Utopia" as a universal panacea comes into play: (very basic groupings)
1. Some people need "mountains" to climb
2. Some people are couch potatoes (wazzup!)
3. Some people need social recognition
Here's the thing tho:
1. There ARE people in very dire circumstances (war, extreme poverty, debilitating medical issues, etc.). But even within that, many of these are temporary situations (otherwise humanity ceases to exist). And really, these are the people who need the MOST help from society!
2. "Waiting for the perfect time to start" is a fantasy. We can get started at ANY time & at ANY level, even if it's just online research!
3. Yes, a True Utopian society would usher in a new era of human prosperity and opportunity, but...
we can already get started right now, TODAY!
I said "interesting turn" because the core truth I was exposed to at my job in the career field was:
Your attitude controls your life.
To me, attitude has 3 components:
1. Mindset
2. Moral agency
3. Persistence
Mindset comes from American psychologist Carol Dweck, who discovered that in any given situation, we tend to have one of two mindsets:
1.
Fixed mindset ("I can't & here's why")
2.
Growth mindset ("I will be persistent in finding a way despite the inevitable obstacles")
We can
choose to have a growth mindset, even when things seem impossible! Next, I don't really believe in "free" agency as much as
moral agency, which is "the ability to choose better or worse options in any given situation". The third part is
persistence:
1. Compounding interest as the "most powerful force in the universe"
2. As described by the concept of "Grit" by author Angela Duckworth: the core measure of success isn't talent or perfection, but rather, simply
sticking with progress over time!
These were really the core problems I ran into when trying to help people improve their job situation:
1. They were determined to have a fixed mindset because they felt emotionally compelled to do so for a variety of reasons ("horrible rich people", "the world is an awful place", "happiness doesn't exist", etc.)
2. They were determined to choose worse options for themselves, for a variety of reasons: bad habits, anxiety, low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, etc.
3. They refused to do simple, silly things & be flexible, or rather "try new things & chip away at them slowly but persistently over time". I 100% understand this because I suffer from non-OCD perfectionism due to low mental energy & a strong built-in big-picture "macro" worldview (I am pretty good at large system design, but VERY BAD at simple, consistent daily execution LOL).
Things like being willing to take night classes, to take OJT to move up at their company, to being willing to apply for new jobs at other companies, etc. were difficult concepts for people to embrace because everyone wants
more & wants
better without having to
actually change lol (that's the human condition right there!!).
The scary thing about life on earth is how very true this statement is:
Your perception determines your reality.
So in practice:
1. No one is really "stuck forever"
2. Progress is made in bite-sized pieces over time
3. Our willingness to create a personalized "incentive structure" is the hidden engine that shapes our lives!
I happen to have a couple of tools for that!
1.
How to do some life planning
2.
How to get some stuff done every day
In practice:
1. It is our job as individuals to add goodness into our lives
2. Denial is free
3.
Energy rules the universe
Essentially:
1. We are free to improve our lives
2. But
actual progress requires structure (energy, choices about what to do, how to enforce consistent execution via environmental design, etc.)
Because again:
1. Yes, a Star Trek Utopia would be AWESOME!
2. But we still have to
get started & chip away on whatever it is we want to do
3. ...which we can
already start doing, right now, today!!
Where there is a will...
there is a way!
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So far:
1. Hey, more would be better for everyone
2. People are motivated by more than just money
3. But we also REQUIRE structure for progress (no engine = no forward progress! and different people require different engines!)
So again, we can all
already start doing things to make progress towards what we
really want to do! Even if they're small, silly, basic, etc. steps in the right direction! The rule of the universe is
0 + 0 = 0! Outside of really tough time-specific circumstances (war, extreme poverty with no welfare safety net, extremely disadvantaged people, etc.), there are
always opportunities for those who are willing to try!
I've had the opportunity to work with thousands of people during my job in career assistance (in America, where we are
incredibly fortunate to have
lots of assistance options & safety nets) & it always 100% of the time boiled down to people's attitude of willing to be
persistent, to start small, slowly, and
imperfectly, and to ask for help, as opposed to buying into negative feelings & choosing to quit (I'd argue that stuff like depression & PTSD is often even
harder than crappy circumstances because you can lose the will & energy to
fight to do better).
Again:
the reality is that very few people are every 100% truly stuck 100% of the time for their entire lives. For perspective, having spent entirely
too much time in hospitals, the scariest thing I've ever personally witnessed is "locked-in syndrome", which is where you're in a waking coma for the rest of your life. Less than 20% of these patients show any meaningful movement recovery in the first year & can only move their eyes.
But even then...you would be AMAZED at the resiliency of the human spirit! Over 60% of these people are able to use eye-tracking technology to type on tablets. We're starting to get better BCI's (brain-computer interfaces) & are up to nearly 10% prevalence. As crazy as Neuralink is, it's
really, really amazing for improving people's quality of life!
Anyway, money would
absolutely open doors for billions of people, but in terms of one-on-one personal-progress discussions, it's often used as a "whataboutism" excuse to quit. There are
always things we can do to get started &
stay engaged in making progress every day, no matter HOW minor!
I've distilled some of the lessons I learned over the years about jobs in the post below. My job was very specific:
To help people find their niche
Which, again, really means "meaningful role" as opposed to "dreadful job we have to slog through until we die" lol. Which is VERY different for everybody:
This is my starting stack for
anybody, in
any living circumstances,
anywhere in the world:
1. Do you deserve to be happy? (we risk self-sabotage if we don't believe that we deserve to be happy)
2. Do you want to live a happy life? (there is a cost: happiness requires
effort)
3. Adopting self-honor (this is the simple, boring work required to
actually make it happen)
Essentially:
1. Happiness is a
state of living, not pure unadulterated joy 24/7.
2. Circumstances do not dictate happiness (re: "Man's Search For Meaning", and re: extreme situations like wartime survival, which are not
steady states of living)
3. Simply put:
happiness is a choice that requires effort & exists outside of temporary circumstances, outside of depression, etc.
In light of that:
1. People can already choose to be happy based on their attitude & moral agency. It is critical to note that this does not magically solve depression, health issues, poverty, violence, etc.
2. By & large, people are never 100% truly
stuck in life.
3. We are free to choose to try, to be persistent, to start with humble beginnings, to choose to make progress on things in our lives. Roughly 40% of the world lives in moderate poverty &
still find ways to get stuff done, work on projects, make a positive contribution, and be happy!
Which means:
The fictional Star Trek universe where people are free to do whatever they want to find fulfilment is an utter lie
Because:
We are already free to add more to our lives!
Yes, if people insist that the ONLY way for them to be happy is to:
1. Be a millionaire
2. Who lives in a mansion
3. And drives a Ferrari
Then sure, that's not magically available for everyone. But we all know that's just an excuse:
1. We all get to
choose what level of happiness we want to achieve & maintain in our lives
2. Therefore, “Happiness is a choice that requires effort” is incomplete: Happiness is a choice of
direction that requires
ongoing effort, because we don't get to control everything that happens to us or every feeling we feel.
I've thought about this a lot over the years:
1. I've struggled with severe clinical depression for most of my life
2. I've struggled with low energy & poor health for most of my life
3. Quitting feels better than ANYTHING sometimes, lol
But eventually I realized that no one is stopping me from:
1. Choose to act better than I feel
2. Choosing to engage at SOME level in the things I want to pursue, even when things aren't "perfect"
3. Choosing to
keep trying even when I didn't feel like it, didn't want to, and didn't care (full disclosure, I am still VERY BAD at this hahaha!)
As I got deeper into the career placement field, it really became very clear there were two primary levers:
1.
Alignment (GPS direction)
2.
Attitude (ride quality)
Essentially, alignment sets your life path, whereas attitude determines how you
experience it (mindset, moral agency, and persistence). Both of these require accepting
full responsibility for our personal happiness in life - not because things are
perfect, but because:
1. We are willing to define what we really want
2. We are willing to have a good attitude about it
Anyway:
1. I suspect a majority of the population would not do well (i.e. become couch potatoes) in a Star Trek utopian society because human motivation exists on a spectrum & we generally require structure to make progress
2. ...because we can already get started doing stuff anytime we want & then chip away at it over time.
3. UBR would be A+! And for the record, I am
100% down for experiencing Utopia just to see how it plays out!! haha
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk! Show notes:
