I never thought about that before, but this is definitely a way to speed up anything - literally change the destination reference to look more like the the piece in work.
I dunno, maybe we should work on our social decision making process as well, not just on technology. Progress is a function of both and we seem to be leaving the social one behind.
Maybe we should be working to transition to a kind of direct democracy, or a more evolved form with the help of technology. Leaving all the power in the hands of a few doesn't seem to do much good in the long run...
Or maybe we should count on Elon to do this as well, as he promised, once he becomes king of Mars...
The thing is that one may expect that intelligence would change things, but apparently it doesn't. It's just another tool on the predator's toolbelt. But somehow I just can't settle with this, it seams there should be a middle way..
Elon Musk is the complete opposite.
I think the former really has no right to say anything about the latter.
Humans have been wrecking havoc various environments ever since Neolithic. Although there's no definitive proof, there are strong suggestions that they were at least contributing to the disappearance of the Mega-fauna, for instance.
Examples of small human settlements in small islands are very characteristic, IMHO. Everywhere it happened, endemic birds where usually eradicated very quickly.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recently_extinct_birds
The root problem of all is that we discount too much the future, so we don't value enough the long-term effects of anything (votes, policies, environment, etc.). This is something instinctive and natural to us as humans, and it takes us a lot of mental effort to be rational to the e.g. LessWrong et al. ideals, to the point that we can't be indefinitely rational, just for brief moments of attention. Our irrationalities govern us.
This is indeed a fault of the whole species.
Which is exactly the problem. Nobody is going to follow a leader preventing them from buying 7 different iPhones even though you probably only needed one.
Which is a simplification, but the middle class is completely dependent on economic growth. Both as consumers, but mainly as workers.
I think there is a lot of hope for change though, I mean, automation is going to make 60% of the current workforce obsolete over the next 20 years. With that comes a need for change.
http://qz.com/536483/why-its-compeltely-ridiculous-to-think-...
"""...we live on a planet that is perfect for us, and we seem to be unable to prevent ourselves from making it less and less habitable. We’re like a bunch of teenagers destroying our parents’ mansion in one long, crazy party, figuring that our backup plan is to run into the forest and build our own house. We’ll worry about how to get food and a good sound system later. Proponents of Mars colonization talk about “terraforming” Mars to make it more like Earth, but in the meantime, we’re “marsforming” Earth by making our atmosphere poisonous and annihilating our natural resources. We are also well on our way to making Earth one big desert, just like Mars."""