Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots • Hacker News Board

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#111

Post by aninhumer » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

asift wrote: post #54

kingkawn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how deeply this community has internalized the importance of creative thought your analysis is pretty limiting to any new possibility being possible.

How? Free market capitalism is the epitome of creative thought. It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engage with others however you want so long as you respect their autonomy and freedom to make their own decisions. If someone wants to start a voluntary socialist commune, they have the freedom to do so within a free market. Unfortunately for as…

>It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that.

Of course it is. It's a limiting doctrine that says "you may use the resources allocated to you within the property system, and no others".

This idea that property rights aren't a form of coercion is one of the most tiresome aspects of libertarian rhetoric.

Capitalism is a very effective economic system, and that efficiency often affords people more freedom than the alternatives, but it is still fundamentally a system of coercive constraints, as indeed any economic system must be.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#112

Post by fennecfoxen » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #109

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. What? Capitalism did not create poverty or famine - it inherited it, and then swiftly solved it. The industrial revolution, if anything, obliterated it from the Western world. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the p…

Have you actually read any muckrake pieces of that time? The industrial revolution brought about the redunancy of weavers who were skilled workers that were brought to poverty[1]. 1. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook...

And everyone who was not a weaver (most of the population, and mostly not skilled workers) could now afford unthinkable luxuries in their daily life, like a second or third shirt (lightly used).

I think this has been posted around here before: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#113

Post by SimpleXYZ » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

asift wrote: post #84

saulrh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. As a demonstration, compare our current production situation to the production situation as of, I don't know, a thousand years ago. It used to be the case that 90% or more of the population was dedicated to food production. Right now, something like 2% of the population is dedicated to food production. By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need.

>By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need. Except we don't live by their standards -- we live by our standards. And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more. That's why it's ridiculous to assume we will ever have "everything we need".

Not really. Machines don't care if you instruct them to build a Ferrari or a Toyota. There's no difference in robot labor. After that, all that's left is resources, and sending robots to mine outer space isn't a deal-beaker either.

AI + Space = everything we need

Machines have been labor saving entities since the invention of the wheel. Inevitably, one day they will perform all labor.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#114

Post by tomp » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #73

asift wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. When you start with ridiculous premises, you're going to reach ridiculous conclusions.

In parent's defense, I believe that needs are endless and there is always a tiny motion that can be rationalized away or a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it (think iphone a decade back). Unless we reach the singularity, there will always be the need for something. And if you think of needs as something as abstract as "power over the universe" (which is still a limited resource, even after the s…

> a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it

> machines produce everything we need

There's a difference between need and want. People want iPhones, but they don't need them, so they can decide themselves whether working more is worth it.

On the other hand, people need food. The only choice is work or die, which isn't really a choice. There is an infinitely large jump between extremely cheap food and free food (and energy/shelter). As food gets cheaper, wages decrease as well, so you still need to work about as long to survive. When/if food becomes free, people won't need to work any longer.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#115

Post by mtbcoder » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #105

nabla9 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's similar to the argument that luddites have always made and they have always been wrong. Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. It took almost hundred years from the start of the industrial revolution before real wages started to grow. You can see it from the historical records. The height of enlisted men in Britain decreased. Luddites were mostly right. The…

> Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. What? Capitalism did not create poverty or famine - it inherited it, and then swiftly solved it. The industrial revolution, if anything, obliterated it from the Western world. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the p…

Malnutrition, abysmal living standards, etc certainly have not been "swiftly solved" or obliterated. These are battles we are still facing today, even in Western societies.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#116

Post by branchless » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #109

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. What? Capitalism did not create poverty or famine - it inherited it, and then swiftly solved it. The industrial revolution, if anything, obliterated it from the Western world. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the p…

Have you actually read any muckrake pieces of that time? The industrial revolution brought about the redunancy of weavers who were skilled workers that were brought to poverty[1]. 1. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook...

I think the main problem is workers lacked choice due to access to alternative means of employment due to land enclosure laws.

Had they been able to choose between say farming and working 12 hour shifts in bad conditions they would have looked at the risk/reward. As it was the choice was work or starve. Wages are therefore set at subsistence levels rather than at the floor set by the alternative.

Land enclosure created unemployment. Employers were not bidding against one another to secure workers, they were in a dutch auction with labourers to "save them".

Similarly today due to very high land prices we cannot work selectively (unless you earn a lot). Were land prices to be suppressed I think we would see people choose to work less which would put pressure on employers who would have to hand over to workers a greater share of the value they produce.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#117

Post by ikeboy » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

From 2015.

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#118

Post by Overtonwindow » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

"In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that."

-Milton Friedman

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#119

Post by balfirevic » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #93

cbeach wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the "dilute form of communism" I was referring to. Socialism is not a "new possibility." I concede, though, that nationalised health and defence has major benefits.

My extremely humble suggestion is merely that acknowledging that a "free market/capitalistic" approach works best for many things and a "collective/socialistic" approach works for other things and stop pretending that its all of one or all of the other.

I think the main difference between the moderate supporters of free market vs. moderate supporters of socialistic approach (who are not pure libertarians or pure socialists) is the question of the default.

"Socialist" would say: "It looks like all-around outcome might be better if this thing is regulated or restricted - so let's do that".

Free market supported would say "let's not mess with people's freedom unless it is clear that not intervening in this particular instance is overwhelmingly harmful".

For what is worth, I think many people favoring state intervention have a hard time making distinction between "I don't like this thing" and "this thing should be forbidden or restricted".

Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

#120

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #109

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. What? Capitalism did not create poverty or famine - it inherited it, and then swiftly solved it. The industrial revolution, if anything, obliterated it from the Western world. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the p…

Have you actually read any muckrake pieces of that time? The industrial revolution brought about the redunancy of weavers who were skilled workers that were brought to poverty[1]. 1. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook...

Of course they were brought to poverty. They were obsoleted by technology.

The link you provide proves my point readily:

> Since population was increasing in Great Britain at the same time that landowners were enclosing common village lands, people from the countryside flocked to the towns and the new factories to get work.

At the time, Europe's population was increasing 300% per century, whereas in prior eras the population increase was around 3% per century.

Why was the population increasing so rapidly? Because capitalism was enabling the disenfranchised poor to survive for the first time. Obtaining household goods was becoming less of a struggle, people were living beyond the age of 40, and famine was no longer a daily reality for most.

The societal changes that occurred due to the industrial revolution were significant and immediate; of course there were issues dealing with this change. It was the most potent moment of change the modern world has ever seen - a culmination of the ideology of the Renaissance paired with the technology of the times.