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

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

#141

Post by alanwatts » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #122

mtbcoder wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The concepts of malnutrition and abysmal living standards, on their own, are proof to the contrary. Prior to the industrial revolution, most human beings faced these realities. Today, a tiny fraction of individuals deal with these issues.

Sure, relatively speaking but in considering the population explosion since the industrial age, there are more people in absolute numbers living in poverty. As shown by the demographic economic paradox, poverty and overpopulation are closely related in a negative feedback cycle of exponential proportions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

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

#142

Post by mtbcoder » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #122

mtbcoder wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The concepts of malnutrition and abysmal living standards, on their own, are proof to the contrary. Prior to the industrial revolution, most human beings faced these realities. Today, a tiny fraction of individuals deal with these issues.

I'm not suggesting that progress has not occurred or that many of us are not better off, but to definitely say that we've swiftly solved or obliterated mass poverty, malnutrition, etc is ridiculous and callous to say the least. Again, these are issues we are still fighting today.

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

#143

Post by maxxxxx » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #119

arethuza wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

"Free market" people are very happy messing with people's freedom if it suits them. Just look at IP laws. The "free market" people were also very happy to get bailouts during the financial crisis in 2008. They wont as much state intervention as everyone else.

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

#144

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

branchless wrote: post #140

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that be a capitalistic move to suppress land prices?

Land value tax. It's actually extremely capitalistic in my opinion. It trims the fat of speculators, forces people to use land effectively or pay the price and in general cuts out dynastic wasters. http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/ Can't reply to you - one of the mods has disabled my ability to post (haven't posted in an hour and get "you're submitting too fast"). Or perhaps the thread has been closed down. Wh…

I think you've mistaken "capitalistic" for "good"; each of your points is a way in which LVT is not capitalistic, even if it is a way in which it is desirable.

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

#145

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

brbrodude wrote: post #131

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…

You should study more history dude, that's a very broad point to be making for a period of 300 years against 5000 years that comes before, it's quite clear you haven't given the rest much thought. Stop being shallow, please. From yesterday: http://quillette.com/2016/02/15/the-unbearable-asymmetry-of-...

LOL. Just because you put 'please' at the ass-end of your sentence doesn't forbid it from being useless, out of place, idiotic, or rude. Did you miss the population rates I leveraged in my other response? I've actually provided evidence for my claims, though they should have been well-understood already by this audience. What's your excuse for not offering a shred of evidence for or against what I've written here, besides calling it 'shallow'?

The article you're quoting, if anything, works towards my point not against it. Academia has run rampant with the false belief that capitalist events like the industrial revolution were on their whole exploitative. Entire sub-genres of academic study exist to explore on micro-levels events of injustice which often times are greatly exaggerated. Did you ever conceive of that being shallow?

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

#146

Post by thatswrong0 » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #125

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

Your claim is that capitalism solved poverty and didn't create any instances. I'm pointing to an instance where people became impoverished because they were rendered redundant from capitalism. That's all I'm saying. You seem to be arguing against something that isn't my point.

I think it's pretty obvious they meant poverty as a whole, in which case you're just being pedantic.

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

#147

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #136

branchless wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution needs to be understood in the context of land enclosure laws. Workers had no choice. That is what allows employer exploitation: work for me or starve. This is why the USA had slavery - there was abundant land. In the UK the UK was the plantation with land enclosure. This is why now we feel exploited by "capitalism". Banks are flooding the world with fiat money as private debt primarily again…

The US inherited an existing slave regime from the Caribbean. It entailed exactly the same cognitive dissonance required of soldiers in the British Empire as described by Orwell in "Burmese Days". So it looks Mercantilist to me. I don't hold that debt is inherent to what we consider capitalism. I run the risk of a "no true Scotsman" fallacy with this, but debt is something we have because of path dependence, not beca…

Debt jubilees would be directly contrary to the capitalist conception of property; insofar as it features them, a society has broken with capitalism.

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

#148

Post by dmichulke » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #114

dmichulke wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, you're right and I would even add one case:

The things that people think they need. Be it plain consumerism or something cultural or social like honor, an iphone, a beautiful wife, a car for boys to impress girls or to go to work, a marriage before losing virginity.

In each of the above cases need in the survivalist sense and need in the subjective sense cannot be more different.

One will have a hard time arguing that those people don't need what we think they don't need.

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

#149

Post by kolbe » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #137

kolbe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a robust criticism of Piketty, then I'd rather you present that. You're going out on quite a limb calling the greatest living physicist "niave" while he's parroting one of the most highly-regarded economists, and your support for that insult thus far is rather flimsy.

The article makes no mention of Piketty. It does however mention the "new Dark Ages of modern Feudalism" and that societies "are still living inside the 'Matrix' of this culture" which is naive hyperbole; my reference was to the article not Professor Hawking. However, being a skilled physicist means nothing about one's understanding of economics, and any physicist could tell you this. It is very dangerous to just tak…

I'd say it's significantly more reliable to assume Hawking knows more than an anonymous internet poster who throws insults around and pretends they're arguments.

All I'm saying is that if you want to go toe to toe with a brilliant and respected man, come to the fight with some real arguments.

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

#150

Post by tomp » Tue, Mar 01, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

alanwatts wrote: post #126

tomp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There already exists a renewable surplus of food, water, and shelter but so much of it goes wasted every year. So poverty is not a problem of production but of distribution.

I disagree. The issue is that for production of food and energy, we still need labor. A lot of this labor is low-paid (supermarket workers, truck drivers, fruit pickers, butchers ...). If you make food free, you won't be able to motivate these low-paid workers any more, so noone will work on food production, so food production won't be free any more.