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Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

gmalandrakis.com

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Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#411

Post by generic92034 »

everyday7732 wrote: post #403
chrsw wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are enough people in the same boat that I would think the future would tend to support families, maybe with a bit of struggle, above all else. No matter how good computers get at devaluing labor or how expensive housing gets, kids still need to eat, learn and grow.

A need does not get filled simply because it exists. If society is no longer necessary and participating within the economy then society can't provide a safety net for kids. It's like walking in the desert assuming you will reach water soon because you are really thirsty. Nature doesn't care about human needs and will allow you to die of thirst.

But does human nature allow one member of the caravan having (a lot of) water, while everyone else goes thirsty?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#412

Post by mothballed »

bluGill wrote: post #410
mothballed wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those people were able to do it without debt which made it far less precarious. I have equally pessimistic view of the future so I built my house one piece of wood at a time with cash. I bought a piece of shit car with cash. I've never used debt, I just got all the things I have by buying shit cars and shit land and slowly slowly making things better until I have nice things. For much of the youth, this is i…

Their existence was even more precarious because they were one crop failure from starvation. They couldn't save food for long, and even if they tried an army is likely to come and take it all (if mice didn't get it first). Dept is bad, but it isn't nearly as bad as the things they dealt with.

Most people worry more about what they'll do if they survive than what they'll do if they die to the point I don't think "what if we all die" even barely registers in the calculation of whether to have kids. IF you all starve it's all a moot point. In even an African village everyone who wanted a house could just build it on the copious land available with whatever materials you could find-- I would assert having a home is more precarious now than even medieval or even pre-historic times as the regulations and law will banish you to the street today if you just build whatever you can afford to build as was done in practically all times before.

I don't spend much time worrying about what I'll do for my kids if the nuclear apocalypse happens. I would still have kids if it was 90% chance of the apocolypse, whereas I'd probably not have kids if there were a 30% chance I make just enough to survive but not so much I can pay child support and I sit in a jail cell while everyone around me does nothing but rags on me for being a deadbeat and failure of a father.

Note: Also, except for the first few years, having kids made your situation less rather than more precarious in the agrarian age

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#413

Post by malfist »

trolleski wrote: post #374
dominicrose wrote: post #320

It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…

They make it impossible to predict on purpose. The more the population is disoriented the better for the ultra rich, paradoxically it maximizes control. It is a hostile act of course, but as always they're at war with you but you are not at war with them. Choose offline communities, organize, organize, organize. Peacefully, constructively, remember a coordinated general strike is much more dangerous to them than your…

Who is "they" in your story?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#414

Post by bluGill »

soco wrote: post #397
moffkalast wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the neat part, you don't. At least as far as the younger generations is concerned there is no future for us, even if you don't include climate change. Laying flat / quiet quitting, etc. movements are not accidental.

Where is this obsession with predicting the future comping from? Did humanity ever predict the future?`Yet it somehow thrived, brought us here and enabled us to complain about the lack of fortune-telling.

You cannot predict details of the future, but you can make enough predictions for reasonable purposes. The sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Between December and February next year it will drop below freezing, and snow. The weather will support a garden most summers (enough rain, not too hot or cold), but only if I'm planing specific plants that do well in my climate, there are some foods that will never work where I live and so I can predict the future enough to risk planting them.

Most people thinking about predicting the future are asking for either more details which we cannot give, but the trend is good enough and nobody thinks about it.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#415

Post by shellkr »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #79

The idea of a consumer based economy has always appeared dumb to me. The reason why the masses should consume is to motivate them to work. And the reason why having a large amount of people working is that human work has been producing a surplus basically since the dawn of civilization. This surplus is partially shared but tend also to "trickle up", contrary to some weird beliefs, as can clearly be seen almost everyw…

[flagged]

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#416

Post by nisegami »

Quinner wrote: post #9

For an article that starts off asking us to examine our assumptions and not make leaps of logic, it goes on to make some absolute whopper assumptions, like that governments (Western governments especially, for some reason), won't do anything to address the problems the article is raising, that they'll instead abandon democracy entirely and resort to police and military oppression, and that massive unemployment and po…

Is this supposed to be sarcastic?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#417

Post by bluGill »

captainbland wrote: post #404
jameslk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason why the masses should consume is to motivate them to work. The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Everyone wants more > But if you imagine a sci-fi world where machines can build and do everything humans can do, the concept of a human-centric economy would be pointless. There’s a number of obstacles I can think of to get there, in a human governed world, where humans make…

> The masses work because they want to consume For many millennials and younger working people a huge bulk of income is taken up by housing. There's also a cliff edge of jobs when you transition from full time to part time, it's only rarely possible to find part time work which pays enough to sustain living costs. This leads to a situation in which people have to work full time in order to meet basic conditions of li…

They choose to live on part time income. You can have roommates which greatly reduces your cost of housing. You can eat "steak and lobster", or "rice and beans". Not everyone buys streaming subscriptions, and not just the Amish are doing without.

I wouldn't choose most of the above either, which is why I have a full time job.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#418

Post by euehe »

mordae wrote: post #276

> Money is an example. Really, what is money? A piece of paper? Some metal? Some number on a computer? Could you put your finger on what money really is, especially in the modern world? Debt owed to central bank. Enforced by State via taxation and confiscation of property if you do not pay up. People seek it because they need to pay the said taxes and/or believe other people will seek it to pay theirs, including in a…

“ Debt owed to central bank”

Wrong.

Many of the comments here on economics and finance are so wrong it’s actually hilarious. I need to go wipe my brain clean after reading some of these.

What’s next - fractional reserve banking? Also wrong

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#419

Post by bluGill »

chadgpt3 wrote: post #362
georgeecollins wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone wants more John Maynard Keynes thought people might eventually work only a few hours per month because the growth in productivity would allow only a few hours of work to cover consumption. He did not imagine that people would want their own cars, their own lavish houses filled with appliances, extensive wardrobes, fancy food. As a westerner you do not feel like you live an opulent lifestyle but compared to…

The real killer is the lowest possible rent in the city. You can't opt out of that without exiling yourself.

You can opt out by having roommates.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#420

Post by doctorwho42 »

bluGill wrote: post #414
soco wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this obsession with predicting the future comping from? Did humanity ever predict the future?`Yet it somehow thrived, brought us here and enabled us to complain about the lack of fortune-telling.

You cannot predict details of the future, but you can make enough predictions for reasonable purposes. The sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Between December and February next year it will drop below freezing, and snow. The weather will support a garden most summers (enough rain, not too hot or cold), but only if I'm planing specific plants that do well in my climate, there are some foods that will never work where…

And within your examples lie the rub, we are losing the ability to predict or rely on those weather patterns which have served our species for the past 10,000 years.

Hell, some of the largest civilization upheavals and collapses were due to localized climate disruptions (sometimes planet wide). Volcano in place (a) erupted and the temperature dropped enough to impact growing cycles, etc

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