What do you think of this description of life in a 1st world country (written from a 3rd world perspective)?

Question

CREDIT TO: http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/a-day-in-the-future/


I awake in bed. I’m warm and safe, like every morning. Outside it is twenty below zero, but from inside my home winter seems far away.

As I rise and stretch, I notice I’m sore. Not from tending the fields though. I have no fields. Some unseen person does all the field-tending for me. Sometimes I forget that there’s any field-tending going on at all.

I buy all my food — I wouldn’t know how to grow it or hunt it. Three or four hours’ pay gets me a week’s worth. It’s a pretty good arrangement. I’m thirty years old and I’ve never gone a day without food.

My soreness is actually from my leisure time, not work. I spent yesterday sliding down a snow-covered slope with a board attached to my feet. After that I was pretty worn out, so I went to a friend’s house, drank beer that was wheeled in from Mexico by another person I never met, and watched a sporting event as it unfolded in Philadelphia.

I don’t live in Philadelphia, but my friend has a machine that lets us see what’s happening there. I have one too. Almost everyone does.

The sun won’t rise for another hour, but I don’t need to light a fire or candles. I have artificial ones, mounted on the ceiling. Hit a tiny switch and I can see everything, any time of day.

I bathe while standing. The water comes out whatever temperature I like.

I use a few machines in my kitchen to get my breakfast ready. It takes about five minutes. Toasted buckwheat groats with raisins, almonds, dates and sunflower seeds. I don’t know where it came from but I’d be surprised if it was from anywhere near here.

As I eat, it occurs to me that my co-worker has a machine I might need to use at work today, so I want to make sure he brings it with him. We work about ten miles from my home, and he lives about ten miles from me, but that’s no problem. I’ve got a device that lets him hear my voice from that distance. Wherever he is, I can talk to him.

One minute later I’ve solved that problem, and forgotten about it.

I put my dishes into another machine, which will clean them for me while I’m away at work.

I get dressed and leave. My destination is ten miles in the distance and I’ve got twenty-five minutes, which is plenty of time, because I won’t be walking.

I get into my most expensive machine. It’s actually quite miraculous, but I forget that all the time. It allows me to sit in a comfortable chair, sealed from the elements, while it propels me at incredible speeds.

Just like my home, I can make it any temperature I wish inside. I don’t have to exert any real effort to make the thing go. I use my hands and my toes to control it.

I don’t know quite how it works, but it’s powered by a liquid I can buy pretty much anywhere. For two hours’ pay I can buy enough of it to transport myself hundreds of miles from here. I can transport hundreds of pounds of whatever I want, and even listen to long-dead musicians singing and playing instruments while I do it. I remain sitting comfortably the whole time.

So I hurtle myself to my workplace, which is well beyond the horizon, looking from my house. There, I do what a corporation asks me to, for most of my daylight hours. It’s not that tough really.

I hurtle home in the same manner, without really thinking about it. I make dinner for myself, and eat. Then I turn on one of my favorite machines. It’s about the size of a book.

It has a glowing window inside it. A single page. But I only need one page because its contents change at my command. Sometimes there are words, sometimes photographs, sometimes both. The photographs can move and talk.

The stuff in the book can be written by anyone in the world, even as I’m reading it. There’s more in that book than I could ever read. It provides me with unbelievable advantages. Anything I don’t know, I can find out in a few seconds.

I can get instructions on how to do pretty much anything that has ever been done. I can summon complete histories of almost any person or culture you could name, expert opinions on anything at all, unlimited advice, unlimited entertainment, unlimited information. I can buy pretty much anything from where I’m sitting, and have it brought to my door.

I can even write anything I want and publish it myself. I don’t need permission or credentials. The whole world could read it.

These are true superpowers, only we don’t call them that because they’re completely normal. Almost everyone has access to this kind of power. Yet somehow many people complain of boredom, or of not having enough power.

I know it sounds pretty good. Ease and power are everywhere, for almost everyone. But there are downsides.

Because we’re used to ease, we don’t deal with unease particularly well. We are addicted to machines and the powers they provide. Sometimes it’s hard for people to even have lunch without one of them using a machine to talk to somebody who isn’t at the table.

Answer 1

I agree with you, that sometimes its difficult to talk to someone without using a machine. Not because they are far away but because we are so used to talking to them through machines that we have lost some social skill. There are downsides, but there are also advantages. We don't have to walk 20 miles for food and water. But if we want to run/walk 20 miles, we can buy ourselves some nice pair of shoes to do so. We've lost curtain skills, but we've gained many, such as how to cook using an oven, how to drive a car, how to use a computer,etc. I don't consider these things superpowers, and though I use my computer everyday, I can live like a 3rd world person at the drop of a hat. I come from Haiti, and I didn't have any of the fancy machines you speak of. I am used to finding other sources of entertainment besides a computer or a laptop. I am used to finding food/water, without using machines.



Humans are very adaptable and that is why we are at the top of the food chain. You don't give us enough credit. The 1st world country has just adapted to the advances in technology. given enough time, we would be able to live without these technologies, because you see, the will to live is one of the strongest things in the world. If one wants to live, one will find a way to manage.

Answer 2

This can be a simplistic and even foolish argument. To claim that any person "takes knowledge" of one other by developing mutual improvement is a naive, might be socialistic, assumption that every one benefits must be symmetrical and equal consistently in the relationship. Speaking about "percent" of price is naive when the impetus to the value construction comes from outside. Probably, a 3rd world country begins out with out a capital, unskilled labor, no technological know-how and inefficient agriculture. A primary world nation is available in to invest in either the labor pool or the herethofore undeveloped ordinary assets of the goal, often the latter being first. Of course the investment is initially superb to the primary-world country ( despite the fact that the payoff may just, nonetheless, be decades off into the future ) or else it could have no incentive to make it. However, it creates jobs and advantage-sharing within the case of royalties on the natural resources or taxes on the goods produced. In not an excessive amount of time, the stability of power starts to shift and the proprietor of the ordinary resources exercises sovereign ability to change the character of the contracts and even to nationalize the assets or the industries concerned. One sees that capital has in the end been gathered within the 1/3-world country, technology has been transferred, jobs were created and the population given abilities and or else trained to requirements coming near international ones. Eventually, the vigor resides within the (hitherto) 1/3-world country as it becomes extra sophisticated and starts to compete independently. Even when the relationship begins out as a colonialist one, ultimately the colony will get enough vigour to claim its rights and demand either equality or extra. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy, robust country but would never have developed its oil resources ( or even identified they were there ) had it now not been for first-world international locations coming in and delivering to buy concessions, then hire them and, finally, provide them as much as Saudi country wide ownership. The U.S. Began out as a colony, was once given ( or took ) technology from the mum country ( e.G. Textile equipment for brand spanking new England and pineapple crops for Hawaii, to cite two disparate examples ) and in the end decided it didn't just like the "break up" supplied by means of Britain and got its independence. India, likewise, and is now a developing world monetary power. China was surely exploited for the duration of its historical past ( the compelled importation of opium being regularly the most egregious illustration ) but is now vying to become World vigor #1 or 2.

Answer 3

It is easy to see through everyone else. I wonder if that high powered reflective ability can focus within and alter the course of things from there where the problem of coordination in such ways with the social equilibrium pose a problem such as the one you expressed. You probably can. But have you done so or are you, like me, just going along with the status quo enjoying life at this level too tired to try anymore to reach higher more complexly subtle levels of understanding?

Answer 4

I think it's quite accurate and more than a bit unsettling.



I know only a person from a 1st world country could say this, but... sometimes I really do think I would be happier living in a 3rd world country.



We're kind of in a stupor here. The numb is nice, only until you become aware of it.

Answer 5

Pity you reached your word-limit! :(



This is pretty accurate account of a day in Modern Lives. But why say 'written from a 3rd world perspective'. That's not needed.



This could help debaters constantly arguing about role of machines/technology and their effects on Man...



Interesting!