A nation of slaves • Hacker News Board

Re: A nation of slaves

#241

Post by mitochondrion » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 3:57 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #167

mitochondrion wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Zeus himself descends from Mount Olympus and says to you, "I am going to reestablish slavery in society. I will select slaves by lottery, and when it's all over most of the population will be held in the bonds of slavery. No one will remember a time before slavery. It will be as though it has always existed. I will never let slavery be abolished again. I give you, and you alone, the choice to be free or enslaved."…

What does this have to do with anything? I could answer the question as you ask it (of course I would choose to be free), but I don't see how it's relevant to this discussion, because in the real world, slavery is not dictated by Zeus, it is enforced by some humans on other humans.

Let me rephrase:

For much of history, civilizations and other groups of people took conquered peoples as slaves to support the conquerors' lifestyles. The slaves served as the cheap energy that today has been supplanted by fossil fuels.

Our Western lifestyle is predicated upon these fossil fuels in much the same way that prior societies' lifestyles were based upon slavery. Slavery has undesirable characteristics that we (being dependent on it no longer) are free to scorn the evils of.

Fossil fuels also have undesirable characteristics: they're polluting the atmosphere, polluting the water, and releasing boatloads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Sea levels are rising, coral are dying, and storms are projected to continue increasing in magnitude. Perhaps you've heard the economics saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. And there's absolutely nothing we can do to convince anyone else to stop using fossil fuels. If you're anything like me (and other normal humans), you ignore the costs associated with your actions and continue to use fossil fuels for transport, for food, and for electricity to power your electronic gadgets. To change your lifestyle would require severe unpleasantness.

*edit for clarity

Re: A nation of slaves

#242

Post by erichocean » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

chadwickthebold wrote: post #171

erichocean wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have no choice but to work or be discarded, then, when the value you can provide via work is less than that required to maintain your life, you have no choice but to attempt to indenture yourself. And failing that, you're truly, completely fucked. Work or be discarded? Really? Most people have, you know, other people in their lives. Hell, 20% of the country at any given time is children, and they don't work…

Are you aware of the history of the U.S. before 1865?

Sure, under tyranny, all sorts of evil shit are possible. The parent is explicitly non talking about slavery, or situations like indentured service where you start there. I thought that was obvious.

The parent was talking about situations where you work in a free-ish market for a period of time, then can't work (for whatever reason) and then posits that these people will be discarded—as if that's the only option, or even, the most reasonable or likely option. It isn't.

I can't think of a single culture that fits the OPs premise and description of what happens to people that can't work. Can you?

Re: A nation of slaves

#243

Post by infinite8s » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #175

conanbatt wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BI requires lots of experimentation, cant go from 0 to BI nationwide in one day. The "wealth creation" argument is flimsy, but recognizing that the consequences of BI are unknown is not. Also, i found this phrase really upsetting: "A society that is paying more for its basic needs is a poorer society" It would have been a perfectly applicable argument against abolishing slavery. I can assure you that all low-end jobs…

"It would have been a perfectly applicable argument against abolishing slavery." It would have been wrong, though; slavery is an abuse of power to force people who could otherwise be very productive members of society to do relatively low-value tasks. I'm pretty sure most historians agree that slavery was either not a net economic win, or on its way to not being an economic win, by the time it was abolished. You then…

The whole reason for the recent resurgence in BI is the realization that automation is fast removing that bottom rung of scut jobs. Obviously, BI won't work if nothing replaces the unpleasant jobs that no one would be incentivized to do anymore.

Re: A nation of slaves

#244

Post by foobarqux » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 5:33 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #225

foobarqux wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Since about 1960 productivity has gone up but (middle class) incomes have gone down. The fraction of a family's expenditures have become dominated by the basics, not by the amenities you cite.

Which basics are you referring to?

Housing. Health insurance. Second cars (because women now need to work).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&t=15m40s

also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&t=9m15s

Re: A nation of slaves

#245

Post by pdonis » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 7:35 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #239

pdonis wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was talking about improving the property of "ability to create wealth" for people who are under-served by the current system. Ok, cool, we're in agreement.

Hey... and thank you, pdonis, for typing out the arguments I was making in shorthand notation. I salute your stamina and patience. :)

No problem, thanks for the kudos! :)

Re: A nation of slaves

#246

Post by pdonis » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 7:44 PM UTC

mitochondrion wrote: post #241

pdonis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with anything? I could answer the question as you ask it (of course I would choose to be free), but I don't see how it's relevant to this discussion, because in the real world, slavery is not dictated by Zeus, it is enforced by some humans on other humans.

Let me rephrase: For much of history, civilizations and other groups of people took conquered peoples as slaves to support the conquerors' lifestyles. The slaves served as the cheap energy that today has been supplanted by fossil fuels. Our Western lifestyle is predicated upon these fossil fuels in much the same way that prior societies' lifestyles were based upon slavery. Slavery has undesirable characteristics that…

Ok, this makes things a lot clearer.

> You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative.

Depends on the alternative. If the alternative is a much lower standard of living, you're right, there's no way you're going to convince a significant number of people to choose that alternative. (You and I are both providing evidence of that just by having this discussion in this forum.)

OTOH, if the alternative is using non-fossil-fuel sources of energy to maintain our standard of living, I'm all for that. I think the chief obstacle in the way of that is people's unwillingness to accept that any source of energy will have some undesirable characteristics. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies to any way of achieving a standard of living beyond bare subsistence.

So the goal can't be to find an energy source that has no undesirable characteristics; the best we can do is to find sources that have less net undesirability, so to speak, than fossil fuels--just as fossil fuels have less net undesirability (by a very large margin, IMO) than slavery. There are at least two such sources that I can think of that have the potential of supporting a first world standard of living: nuclear, and solar done right.

Re: A nation of slaves

#247

Post by pgeorgi » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #196

pgeorgi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because such subcultures are self-selecting - why would a Wall Street banker (of which most seem to be terribly motivated) become part of such a group? There are a number of experiments (eg. across Africa) where a BI-like model made relatively desolate towns flourish. Basic Income needn't provide luxuries- as long as it eliminates the threat of physical harm out of the job market (thus allowing everyone…

> There are a number of experiments (eg. across Africa) where a BI-like model made relatively desolate towns flourish. Can you provide citations? I've suggested this kind of experiment as a proof-of-concept for BI, but I've never actually heard of it being done except for That One Neighborhood In Montreal or wherever it was.

http://www.globalincome.org/English/BI-worldwide.html points to various projects. I think I was specifically thinking of the BIG project in Namibia

Re: A nation of slaves

#248

Post by mcv » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 10:30 PM UTC

mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

> One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure.

Well, it is certainly good to do something good for society. But it doesn't necessarily have to be paid. Plenty of volunteer work might give more purpose and dignity than some of the more meaningless and tedious jobs.

But it turns out that, according to Dutch law, it's sometimes possible to be banned from doing specific kinds of volunteer work if you're unemployed. If it's something that could be a paid position, you're not allowed to do it for free in you receive unemployment benefits. No, you're forced to sit at home and do nothing.

Re: A nation of slaves

#249

Post by mitochondrion » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #246

mitochondrion wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me rephrase: For much of history, civilizations and other groups of people took conquered peoples as slaves to support the conquerors' lifestyles. The slaves served as the cheap energy that today has been supplanted by fossil fuels. Our Western lifestyle is predicated upon these fossil fuels in much the same way that prior societies' lifestyles were based upon slavery. Slavery has undesirable characteristics that…

Ok, this makes things a lot clearer. > You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. Depends on the alternative. If the alternative is a much lower standard of living, you're right, there's no way you're going to convince a significant number of people to choose that alternative. (You and I are both providing evidence o…

I totally agree with what you've said, although I personally think that in terms of long-term misery that fossil fuels have the potential to be just as damaging as slavery.

Re: A nation of slaves

#250

Post by mitochondrion » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 11:32 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #234

Executor wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SuGRgdJA_c . We will see an increase in automation for jobs that we didn't expect to be so. The speed of this transformation depends on our creative and technical ability. If you think that work defines you, read up about the Puritans in America. They had an extreme motto that 100% of your waking life must be allocated to work. You could say they are the only religious…

> If you think that work defines you [...] I don't, and I've never implied that. > We will see an increase in automation for jobs that we didn't expect to be so. We've seen increases in automation for hundreds of years, yet there was never a depletion of jobs for people. There's more jobs now that there has ever been before (not talking about short time scale here). Industry automation has led to the creation of the…

Surely you can see the endgame here. Amazon employs 1/3 as many people per dollar of revenue as Walmart does. Imagine a world where Walmart automates itself to a level comparable to Amazon. Lo! Watch as 1,452,000 jobs melt away!

And that's just one company. Sure, it's the biggest one. Sure, they're probably jobs nobody would do given better alternatives. All the same, those are now 1,452,000 fewer people employed in a world replacing human capital with physical capital.