Happy Mind: The Philosophy and Science of Happiness

Richard Power describes the world in 2030 as he imagined it would be in his novel Mistica, the first of a planned science fiction trilogy which attempts to anticipate developments during the 21st Century.

 

Domestic environment

The world in 2030 was in many ways unchanged since the end of the 20th Century. Most people lived in houses built before 2000; roads, pavements and gardens had changed little; tables, chairs, beds, cutlery and flooring were often several decades old; food was essentially the same. Of course novel products were available. New houses could be assembled from light prefabricated units, easily replaced or re-arranged if a change in architectural design was needed. Furniture could also be made from lighter, softer, more flexible materials, or seeded with useful devices such as network sensors or local information stores. As well as traditional food you could experiment with artificial meat or alcohol-free wine. But these novelties were not yet majority tastes: by and large people kept to cheaper traditional products that worked almost as well.

 

 

One of the reasons why people often focus on direct charity instead of longer-term advocacy is that the results of charity are certain. A person can immediately see pets being taken care of when she volunteers at an animal shelter; it's less clear that she'll actually prevent animal suffering by handing out a few leaflets on factory farming. Yet, I think the latter option is the better of the two. Indeed, in this essay, I'll argue that high-risk, high-payoff projects can often be ethically optimal and that small probabilities deserve greater consideration than they are usually afforded.