[quote=scaredycat]in our evolution as a society, people are no longer seen as property — women and slaves. Can you imagine a future where certain things we all need are not seen as property either?

it seems self-evident that slaves are not property today, but of course it was kinda quirky and radical at the time.

In the future, might we not feel that way about trees? Air. Water. Animals. Maybe certain types of property rights — offshore drilling leases, for insatnce, but many others come to mind — will seem as crazy as having a property right in a shipment of people from Africa.

Can you imagine a future where the endgame of consume, own, destroy, profit is seen as being as insane as the idea that some people were property others got to own? Probably more insane in the sense of its unsustainability. Instead of simply destroying each other, we destroy the world, in the most efficient manner possible.

Trees don’t grow to the sky, because it’s not worth the extra effort. But money stacks do grow to the sky, there is no limit on man’s lust for wealth, and he’d cut down every tree in existence in a heartbeat to print the money for himself if he could….the richest man in the world, walking around with his oxygen tank, king of all he surveys.[/quote]

I think this will only happen when technology allows us to have all the material things we want or the perception thereof.

People will not evolve to that on their own accord.