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Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

jacobin.com

11–20 of 69 posts

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#11
What did I just (halfway) read? This person is incoherent and rambling, raptured with their own brilliance.

There may be solid points in there, I will never know. I automatically cannot take anyone as serious who writes this way. They do not want to be taken seriously. They want to be congratulated on their keen observations.

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overproduction of what? Not of houses. Not of medical services (it takes forever to get an appointment). Yes, maybe there was/is overproduction of software nonsense, but I don't think that's overproduction overall in the economy; rather it's a misallocation.

Of course of houses. Houses are the best example - they can be built for invested money, then bought as an investment, closing the loop. The fact that you can't afford one is secondary, there are thousands of empty houses anywhere, their prices are just kept high by the incoming capital.

USA housing starts is collapsing.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST

It's no wonder why house prices are so high when we are (inadvertently) cutting housing supply.

USA production of houses needs to be twice as much compared to 50 years ago to keep up with population growth... But we've lost housing production in recent years, not gained it. We are moving in the wrong direction.

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There's plenty of debate on why housing starts is declining. I don't care too much of the details though, the focus needs to be a concerted effort to reverse the trend and fix our country wide housing problem

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#13

Varoufakis is one of the few that accurately describes the situation we find ourselves in. We'd do well to heed his warnings.

The core derangement of the current zeitgeist is the bravest truth tellers* are the most marginalized people, conflated with fringe conspiracy theorist wingnuts. Perhaps it is a result of "digital hallucinations" filter bubble reality bifurcation such that there is essentially no apparent common context or stable community with which to discover and relate to other people, and secondly, the unreasonable simultaneous…

I like Zizek's thoughts on ideology to further explain why things are the way you describe.

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#14

What did I just (halfway) read? This person is incoherent and rambling, raptured with their own brilliance. There may be solid points in there, I will never know. I automatically cannot take anyone as serious who writes this way. They do not want to be taken seriously. They want to be congratulated on their keen observations.

[deleted]

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overproduction of what? Not of houses. Not of medical services (it takes forever to get an appointment). Yes, maybe there was/is overproduction of software nonsense, but I don't think that's overproduction overall in the economy; rather it's a misallocation.

Of course of houses. Houses are the best example - they can be built for invested money, then bought as an investment, closing the loop. The fact that you can't afford one is secondary, there are thousands of empty houses anywhere, their prices are just kept high by the incoming capital.

Maybe that's true in some places, but where I live empty houses are rented/purchased immediately

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#17
I have listened to Bezos pontificate about how he’s leading us to a future where trillions will live in the solar system on space stations and take vacations to earth for a glimpse of the life they could have enjoyed if they were privileged. I don’t want any part in that.

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#18
post #6

The fundamental flaw in this argument is that it does not account for every corporation that came before tech. What about RCA, GE, Westinghouse? What about US Steel, what about Standard Oil, what about AT&T. IBM, Intel have already started to fall. What makes this crop of companies any different than all the ones that has come before them. Nothing. The singer sewing machine came out at 125 bucks per unit. The annual…

Did you not read the article? The premise is that the current tech giants are effectively only wanting to set up situations where they can extract rents. This is different from making sewing machines in a competitive market, or even in a monopoly. I think the argument has problems for other reasons - there's still lots of innovation going on, for example - but I think there is a line to be drawn between current vc pr…

The people can write whatever laws they want. We are also slowly sliding toward innovating with the overall system. Wealth can be redistributed with the flick of a wrist.

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#19

What did I just (halfway) read? This person is incoherent and rambling, raptured with their own brilliance. There may be solid points in there, I will never know. I automatically cannot take anyone as serious who writes this way. They do not want to be taken seriously. They want to be congratulated on their keen observations.

You may lack the background reading to understand him, but he is certainly not incoherent.

Re: Are We Transitioning from Capitalism to Silicon Serfdom?

#20
post #19

What did I just (halfway) read? This person is incoherent and rambling, raptured with their own brilliance. There may be solid points in there, I will never know. I automatically cannot take anyone as serious who writes this way. They do not want to be taken seriously. They want to be congratulated on their keen observations.

You may lack the background reading to understand him, but he is certainly not incoherent.

I do not disagree that I may lack sufficient background for this. It was clearly written for "those in the know," people who already share a common viewpoint and vocabulary, and only differ on minor nuance. A bit like getting a bunch of mechanics to argue about cars.

In this regard, the writing is definitely rambling and incoherent. It's one big mutual academic exercise (I am avoiding the use of a sexual term here).

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