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[Helgoland]

You buy these:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

for fifty cents per piece? You might want to look at this bridge I'm selling, then...

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Ya...
I think my life would be much more productive without it but like every other teenager I'm addicted to talking to people
bleeeehhhhhhh

I hated talking to people as a teen.

talking to friends
I live in the middle of nowhere and by that I mean texting my friends.
I have to be doing that constantly or else there is something in the back of my head telling me and urging me to text .-.
teens at my school seem to have this problem

[Reelya]

You buy these:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

for fifty cents per piece? You might want to look at this bridge I'm selling, then...

With everyone having access to 3D printing the concept of "cheap disposable cup" like that wouldn't even make sense anymore. You could produce durable mugs as needed instead of buying those, then you don't need to keep buying them.

Sure there are times now that it makes sense to buy stacks of those, but if everyone could make solid mugs for a couple of cents of materials then it wouldn't make a lot of sense to keep buying those and throwing them out.

[Bauglir]

@CaptainMcClellan

I suppose the question to ask is, what alternatives do we have? Maybe your assessment of the future is spot-on. Perhaps you don't have much of a chance of fixing it. I don't know, I'm not qualified to answer these questions. I'm kind of a lousy oracle. What I do know is this - if you give up and just let the world float on by, you're certainly right. I guess you'll have the satisfaction of being able to say, "I called it!" I don't know about you, but that sounds to me rather more pointless than to die trying to fix it. What would be a satisfactory "point", anyway? It seems a bit strange to hang your hopes on an imaginary future that depends on a chaotic world you have no basic control over going just the way you expect. Wouldn't it make more sense to define yourself by what you do, and by the choices you make?

And if the measure is what you do, not the end result, what's the decision you'd prefer?

[Helgoland]

With everyone having access to 3D printing the concept of "cheap disposable cup" like that wouldn't even make sense anymore. You could produce durable mugs as needed instead of buying those, then you don't need to keep buying them.

Even better: One could produce such durable cups once in sufficient quantity and make them suitable for re-use by removing the unwanted substances that have been deposited on them during their use. We have the technology.
(It's called washing up.)

Or one could, y'know, simply buy durable mugs - that's possible even today; 3D printing wouldn't change their use in the slightest. 'Cheap disposable cups' have niche applications that won't be filled by 'slightly more expensive durable and re-usable cups' - mostly such applications involve not getting the cups back.
And even for more durable cups, the same argument about economics of scale applies. It's not like the producers of cheap durable cups are getting filthy rich off of what they do - hooray for free markets!

[miauw62]

there's no point worrying about stuff you can't change, and doing so will only impede you in improving stuff that you CAN change.

[Lagslayer]

there's no point worrying about stuff you can't change, and doing so will only impede you in improving stuff that you CAN change.

Sometimes you need to focus on what you can't change, or you may never get the means to change it. And considering this is potentially an existential crisis for the entire species, we, collectively, really need to figure this out.

[SirQuiamus]

But ideas out of left field - DF, or early rap music, or the stuff Aphex Twin does, won't be produced by software anytime soon, if ever. I think it's far more likely that programmers and creative types will simply have more advanced tools in the future, that games will be a product of a sort of symbiosis between man and machine.

It's extremely easy to write a program that generates Aphex Twin-style ambient or breakcore, and with a convincing speech synthesizer, a computer could easily top LL Cool J -- musically, at least. DF is a pretty interesting example, since all the actual content is procedurally generated (although the system was designed by a superior creative mind).

EDIT:
@McClellan.
The best way to resolve an Existential Crisis is to realize that the crisis is yours and yours alone -- it's part of your life and something you simply have to go through, alone, like the rest of us. Being capable of feeling visceral Existential Angst is the essence of being human (according to Heidegger, at least), and that's obviously not something a machine is going to figure out anytime soon _{(oh shut up, Marvin.)} You say that your life won't have a purpose if the inhumane new society refuses to give you one, but really, that's how the modernists felt like a hundred years ago. I have no idea what your purpose in life is going to be, but my current purpose is to enjoy getting drunk and playing vidya gaems _{(...also a tough job for any current machine).}

EDITEDIT:
That video sounded like something I read on Wired several years ago, it was just more pessimistic and limited in its scope. I'm personally more inclined to see the automatization of labour as a second nth chance for socialism: Humans are generally unwilling to work for "the common good" within an impersonal mass society, and doubly so if they receive no additional compensation for their work (Soviet Union, I'm looking at you). This is not a problem for machines, however, and I see no reason why the robot revolution could not be followed by a socialist revolution of equal magnitude. As Reelya already pointed out, a dramatic decrease in the cost of labour (combined with a dramatic increase in unemployment) could cause the market economy to collapse because the prices of manufactured goods would get hammered according to supply and demand -- all the way down to the cost of raw materials -- putting an end to the capitalistic accumulation of surplus value.   

[Bohandas]

This is why I rapid-fire between nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism depending upon how I feel on that particular day.

What about Cosmicism?

[CaptainMcClellan]

For productivity, I've been gradually culling "crapfeeds" from my online life. Stick timewasting sites into the windows host files to redirect to nothing. I'd have to log into the admin account to change the settings so it's an effective block that reminds me to do something more productive. I also wrote a thread-culling script for bay12, it removes threads that I posted in only once from my "unread replies" page, so i only see topics I'm actually interested in.

I culled my facebook friends down to just close actual friends and relatives. Then, I recently decided to literally unfollowed everyone and everything in my facebook newsfeed. I don't even get any status updates now, so I basically have Facebook entirely at a point where I'm in control of what I view, without distractions from stuff I don't need to see.

For bonus points, use adblock, so even the intentional distractions get pushed aside.

[Spehss _]

I think my life would be much more productive without it but like every other teenager I'm addicted to talking to people

My first reaction is to get into a big rant about how this is a godawful stereotype and it's this mentality in our society that not only demonizes introverts or people who just don't talk much, but also alienates and demonizes loners who may not have anyone to talk to and feel isolated and are only further isolated by having this stereotype thrust upon them and being rejected by their peers for being "abnormal" because they don't "talk to people enough" and rant rant rant ow muh trigger shrek yo privilege.

But that seems in poor taste. And multiple other people have already responded to this stereotype. Instead I'll put it in witty teenspeak.

#notallteensyo

[miauw62]

I think my life would be much more productive without it but like every other teenager I'm addicted to talking to people

My first reaction is to get into a big rant about how this is a godawful stereotype and it's this mentality in our society that not only demonizes introverts or people who just don't talk much, but also alienates and demonizes loners who may not have anyone to talk to and feel isolated and are only further isolated by having this stereotype thrust upon them and being rejected by their peers for being "abnormal" because they don't "talk to people enough" and rant rant rant ow muh trigger shrek yo privilege.

But that seems in poor taste. And multiple other people have already responded to this stereotype. Instead I'll put it in witty teenspeak.

#notallteensyo

this is pretty much my opinion too. nicely said.

[SirQuiamus]

I think my life would be much more productive without it but like every other teenager I'm addicted to talking to people

My first reaction is to get into a big rant about how this is a godawful stereotype and it's this mentality in our society that not only demonizes introverts or people who just don't talk much, but also alienates and demonizes loners who may not have anyone to talk to and feel isolated and are only further isolated by having this stereotype thrust upon them and being rejected by their peers for being "abnormal" because they don't "talk to people enough" and rant rant rant ow muh trigger shrek yo privilege.

But that seems in poor taste. And multiple other people have already responded to this stereotype. Instead I'll put it in witty teenspeak.

#notallteensyo

But you do like talking to people -- you are doing it right now. Most of us are spambots, I'll give you that, but there are a few humans on Bay12.

EDIT: I understand that there's a huge difference between cyberspace and meatspace, and to be honest, I haven't had any real meatspace friends since early childhood, but still:

#HumanNature #SocialAnimals, dood.

FAKEDIT: And that's absolutely no reason to discriminate against loners.

[SirQuiamus]

stupid doublepost IGNORE

[CaptainMcClellan]

I think my life would be much more productive without it but like every other teenager I'm addicted to talking to people

My first reaction is to get into a big rant about how this is a godawful stereotype and it's this mentality in our society that not only demonizes introverts or people who just don't talk much, but also alienates and demonizes loners who may not have anyone to talk to and feel isolated and are only further isolated by having this stereotype thrust upon them and being rejected by their peers for being "abnormal" because they don't "talk to people enough" and rant rant rant ow muh trigger shrek yo privilege.

But that seems in poor taste. And multiple other people have already responded to this stereotype. Instead I'll put it in witty teenspeak.

#notallteensyo

No bro. He wasn't trying to do that at all.

Also, warning everyone. INCOMING LARGE POST HAM!