Aluminium, Sex, and Robots

[elfs]

Over at Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner writes:

During the early 1800s aluminum was considered the most valuable metal in the world. This is why the capstone to the Washington Monument is made from aluminum, and also why Napoléon III himself threw a banquet for the king of Siam where the honored guests were given aluminum utensils, while the others had to make do with gold.

Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust but... separating it out is a complex and difficult task. In 1886, electricity liberated aluminium from ore. Suddenly everyone on the planet had access to ridiculous amounts of cheap, light, pliable metal.

When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible. Yet the threat of scarcity still dominates our worldview.

It's funny how Dubner makes a point about metal that slots in, at a strange angle, with what I've been saying about pornography and technological solutions to desire. Love and Sex (as opposed to masturbation) are surprisingly scarce resources; people go through their whole lives wishing they had more.

I've long said that sex technology has begun to satisfice: it suffices at satisifying desire long enough to abate the consequences of untrammeled lust. States with unhampered access to internet pornography have lower rape and sexual violence statistics than those where access is more limited. This technology for sufficing will only get better.

"Seen through the lens of technology, love and sex are not truly scarce; they're mainly inaccessible" is an interesting enough idea that maybe it deserves a few stories written about it.

Comments

[atheorist.livejournal.com]

Love-and-Sex accessing technology might look like matchmaking that really works.
Existing matchmaking technology (websites mostly) seems to run into the Paradox of Choice,
where people who see 'plenty of fish in the sea' automatically become pickier and less happy with their eventual pick.

This might be related to the 'can I ask you a question?' problem,
where we don't have a great solution to finding out whether someone can be interrupted immediately except interrupting them.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Really? It's spelled exactly as it's pronounced!