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Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots

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

#161

Post by nabla9 »

ctlby wrote: post #127
nabla9 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's similar to the argument that luddites have always made and they have always been wrong. Industrial revolution resulted malnutrition and deterioration of absolute living standards. It took almost hundred years from the start of the industrial revolution before real wages started to grow. You can see it from the historical records. The height of enlisted men in Britain decreased. Luddites were mostly right. The…

> It took almost hundred years from the start of the industrial revolution before real wages started to grow. Even the most pessimistic view suggests that real wages grew, especially after the conclusion of the Napoleanic Wars. [1] > The real benefits from industrialization were realized after hard political changes. The real benefits of industrialization were immediately realized via mass production of widely desire…

>Of course you do. The rise of the managerial and professional classes is a direct consequence of the Industrial Revolution.

Not without political changes. Nobody is saying that industrial revolution did not bring middle class or reduce poverty. It's just that whole society must change and that includes new politics, new laws protecting their new rights, etc.

Some examples:

- 1819: Factory Act limited child working hours to 12 hours per day.

- 1832: any man owning a household worth £10 or more was allowed to vote,

- 1867: some working men were allowed to vote.

- 1874: Maximum weekly working hours per worker: 56.5 hours per week.

- 1918: all men over 21 and women over 30 were able to vote.

And that brings us back to the issue. Automation changes things and laws, rights and whole society must change.

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

#162

Post by asift »

aninhumer wrote: post #111
asift wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Free market capitalism is the epitome of creative thought. It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. It's a doctrine that says you are free to engage with others however you want so long as you respect their autonomy and freedom to make their own decisions. If someone wants to start a voluntary socialist commune, they have the freedom to do so within a free market. Unfortunately for as…

>It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. Of course it is. It's a limiting doctrine that says "you may use the resources allocated to you within the property system, and no others". This idea that property rights aren't a form of coercion is one of the most tiresome aspects of libertarian rhetoric. Capitalism is a very effective economic system, and that efficiency often affords people mor…

It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means. (E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.)

I'll agree that there are many ways in which the status quo contains injustice as it relates to claims of ownership, but that's entirely different than calling the system of private property coercive. I also don't think there is one objective standard for what confers just and unjust title (i.e., I think this is an emergent social convention rather than some clearly definable concept), but that again is an entirely different topic.

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

#163

Post by asift »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #128
warfangle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There sure was a whole lot of force and coercion behind social security.

We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.

There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.

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

#164

Post by dragonwriter »

asift wrote: post #163
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.

There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.

> There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net

Social Security is not even in theory aimed at providing a general social safety net, so its not surprising that there are better means if that is your goal.

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

#165

Post by aninhumer »

asift wrote: post #162
aninhumer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not a limiting doctrine that says you can only do this or that. Of course it is. It's a limiting doctrine that says "you may use the resources allocated to you within the property system, and no others". This idea that property rights aren't a form of coercion is one of the most tiresome aspects of libertarian rhetoric. Capitalism is a very effective economic system, and that efficiency often affords people mor…

It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means. (E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.) I'll agree that there are many ways in which the status quo contains injustice as it relates to claims of ownership, but that's entirely different than calling the system of private property coercive. I also don't th…

>It's only coercive when you adopt some backwards conception of what coercion means.

If I try to use particular resources, the system will use violence to stop me. If you claim this isn't coercion, then I think it is your conception which is backwards.

>(E.g., The rapist claims they are being coerced because they can't do whatever they please with other peoples' bodies.)

Yes, the prevention of crimes is indeed a form of coercion.

This only sounds strange if you start with the assumption that coercion is inherently bad. If instead you recognise coercion as a necessary consequence of conflicting desires, you can start to discuss what coercion is justified.

Now I think property has shown to be a very effective economic system, and that using coercion to enforce it is therefore entirely justified. But it's still coercion.

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

#166

Post by igorgue »

forgottenpass wrote: post #99
arbuge wrote: post #2

With all due respect to Stephen Hawking, whose expertise in theoretical physics is undoubted, how would he be in a position to "confirm" this?

With all due respect to Stephen Hawking, whose expertise in theoretical physics is undoubted, how would he be in a position to "confirm" this? Yeah, the physicist is out of his depth on capitalism. Just ask the forum full of computer nerds and wantrepreneurs!

Hahaha, that was amazing. It's always the problem here, nobody can just read and shut up. Everyone thinks starting a startup makes them the smartest guys in the room.

I told my friend: "Hacker News: The place where people can call bullshit to someone as smart as Stephen Hawking..."

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

#167

Post by ArkyBeagle »

asift wrote: post #163
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We adjusted to it and I don't know anybody who makes a coherent case for it not making everyone better off, so long as we can figure out the accounting for the temporary, "pig in the python" problem looming.

There are lots of coherent cases against Social Security. For instance, there are far better ways to achieve the desired ends of providing a social safety net. My favorite would be eliminating all other forms of welfare and adopting a basic income.

A basic income sounds to my ear like an expansion of Social Security, at least conceptually.

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

#168

Post by ArkyBeagle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #147
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Debt is an artifact of finance, not of capitalism. If some genius tomorrow announced a way to have money creation without the attendant debt overhang, we'd do that instead.

Capitalism would still be exactly the same. Debt precedes capitalism by... the entirety of human history.

The map is not the territory and accounting and finance are technologies that attend to productive enterprise, not the enterprises themselves.

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

#169

Post by sametmax »

Gabriel_h wrote: post #90
sametmax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be very hard to implement a capitalism with even distribution. By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else. So you need mechanisms to always redistribute the capital to avoid this problem and balance the system. But capitalists will battle these machanisms to gain efficiency, and you will be in a rate race…

"By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else." I agree with the first sentence but the second assumes the economy is zero-sum. This is only true to a certain extent within some domains, like ownership of physical land.

Not I don't money is zero zum. But in the end, what you can exchange for it is. The current virtual nature of money has nothing to do with it, it's just yet another mecahnisme to accumulate capital, in the form of the potential of things you can acquire represented by a number. This potential is virtual, and moving, it's a (broken) mecanisme, but the things you can buy with it are not.

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

#170

Post by cbeach »

arethuza wrote: post #132
balfirevic wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm interested that you associate socialism with regulation and restriction - I guess as I'm from the UK I tend to associate it with service provision, particularly the NHS which is an avowedly socialist endeavor (and a pretty successful one at that). A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan NB I agree about yo…

"I'm enjoying the irony of American Sanders supporters lecturing me, a former Soviet citizen, on the glories of Socialism and what it really means! Socialism sounds great in speech soundbites and on Facebook, but please keep it there. In practice, it corrodes not only the economy but the human spirit itself, and the ambition and achievement that made modern capitalism possible and brought billions of people out of poverty. Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism. Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely. But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd." --Garry Kasparov
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