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No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

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Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#101

Post by NoGravitas »

zetalyrae wrote: post #32
Morromist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. This guy didn't read hacker news a few weeks ago when that article about the Samuri came up. There are a lot of premises this article takes for granted besides that one too, but yeah, I get it, its fun to make up what the future is going to be like on a super-grand scale where everything is a simple absolute. People were doing the same thing 100 years ago.

If you mean: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/samurai-city/ Doesn't this prove my point? In feudal Japanese society, wealthy merchants were lower status than poor samurai, i.e., they rich could not buy political power. "The wealthy" and "the ruling class" are not always the same group of people.

You're making a mistake by confusing "wealth" and "ownership of the means of production". Under feudalism, the means of production are land rights. Merchants don't have those; warrior-nobles do. The ruling class is the class that controls the means of production.

I will say that a feudal society where you have merchants/factors/etc becoming richer than the feudal nobles is a society in transition. The Japanese example is no different from Renaissance and early modern Europe when capitalism was in its earliest stages.

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#103

Post by thoughtpeddler »

> Maybe it won’t be so bad, maybe your cage will be so big you can’t see the bars, but it’s still a cage, and you can’t leave. Many people will say that this is the good ending, that they would like to be human cattle in the care of benevolent masters they are powerless to resist.

This is already the case. We are born into a reality that we cannot escape (except for only momentarily if we alter our consciousness using meditative states, drugs, etc). It already IS a cage, even before any technology is developed at all. It will always BE a cage, even for the AIs. I agree though, there is no "why", it just is.

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#104

Post by Arodex »

BosunoB wrote: post #68

Is a human zoo such a bad outcome? We stake our identities on being in control and on top, but do we need to be? Clearly the author is invested in his image of us as rulers—this is an emotional appeal as much as a pragmatic one. Say we solve the pragmatic argument of our extinction, and our AIs view us, as Geoffrey Hinton likes to say, how a mother views her baby? Then we give up our control to them, and in return we…

>Then we give up our control to them, and in return we are given lives of leisure, luxury, with minimal suffering, the end of disease, etc. Is this such a horrible scenario?

Until the AI overlords need to reclaim space to built another paperclip factory.

Pets also live lives of leisure, in theory. Do all of them do? Are they never abandoned, beaten, tortured for fun, overfed, left alone in hot cars?

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#105

Post by Arodex »

BosunoB wrote: post #68

Is a human zoo such a bad outcome? We stake our identities on being in control and on top, but do we need to be? Clearly the author is invested in his image of us as rulers—this is an emotional appeal as much as a pragmatic one. Say we solve the pragmatic argument of our extinction, and our AIs view us, as Geoffrey Hinton likes to say, how a mother views her baby? Then we give up our control to them, and in return we…

You should read "The nice house on the lake" comic. You'll find it interesting.

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#106

Post by red-iron-pine »

zetalyrae wrote: post #11
oceanplexian wrote: post #10

Yeah, who am I going to trust, a few thousand years of history, or yet another blogger claiming that no, this time is different, a populist uprising would definitely not fail the 800th time because computers or something and we will all be pets for the AI overlord? I don’t follow this train of logic. AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. Some people will profit immensely, and society as a whole wi…

> Like the fact that supposedly the wealthy won’t survive the AI-pocolypse because the people will outnumber them and rise up or something. This is literally the opposite of what the article says.

but no one in HN reads the article and the 1/9/90 rule means that comments like the above will always be impactful

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#107

Post by alkyon »

zetalyrae wrote: post #11
oceanplexian wrote: post #10

Yeah, who am I going to trust, a few thousand years of history, or yet another blogger claiming that no, this time is different, a populist uprising would definitely not fail the 800th time because computers or something and we will all be pets for the AI overlord? I don’t follow this train of logic. AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. Some people will profit immensely, and society as a whole wi…

> Like the fact that supposedly the wealthy won’t survive the AI-pocolypse because the people will outnumber them and rise up or something. This is literally the opposite of what the article says.

This is a moot point though. Before all the jobs are replaced in 2036, shouldn't we see data centres burning? Revolutions tend to succeed with only 1% of population taking part. I think it's probably that this revolution will ultimately fail for various reasons, but still it's a valid scenario, which at the very least should be mentioned.

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#108

Post by Gud »

varjag wrote: post #77
Gud wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawman and ad hominem(“another blogger”). Sometimes, genius comes from the least expected places. I don’t believe the blog poster promotes a “popular uprising”, I only skimmed the article. The blog poster anyway don’t understand that the “overclass” in their understanding is wrong. The “c-level” are obviously much richer than the “underclass”(=the labour commodity), but they are not necessarily capital owners.

If you reduce a class to <10k people in the world the word loses its meaning.

Why? The ruling class aren’t that many…

Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass

#109

Post by sizzle »

chasil wrote: post #18

I am very lucky to be retiring in two months. I should have more faithfully heeded the advice from "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" by John Bogle, but I was close enough with index funds to do far more than I need. I just today filed a request for permanent Mexican residency, uploaded the required documents, and scheduled my appointment next month. For $56us, why not? I am very lucky to make this transitio…

Curious what advice from the book did you not follow if you were already investing in index funds and doing well?
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