Live data from Hacker News

Just own the damn robots

thereformedbroker.com

221–230 of 356 posts

Re: Just own the damn robots

#221

Interesting article but I think the premise that workers are buying tech stocks because they fear automation is incorrect. Gallup found 13% of Americans thought that their jobs would soon be replaced by automation[1]. In fact you usually find more people worried about immigration than automation[2]. Maybe people /should/ be more concerned about automation but they just aren’t right now. [1]: http://news.gallup.com/po…

I think the reason people are not excited is because we are seeing stock market growth without seeing much economic growth. That's unsustainable.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not just seize the means of production? I wonder if anyone has tried that before. I guess I will go read a history book and find out.

It's depressing how many people aren't interested in understanding how and why communism failed, and what we can learn from that. The conclusion is always just "capitalism and communism are the only two systems that exist; communism didn't work; therefore capitalism is the best and only way to run things."

I think it's helpful to look at it in terms of control vs. freedom. Communism means more state control of people, capitalism means less.

In these terms, what if capitalism is simply the natural outcome of x amount of freedom? Therefore, shifting away from capitalism means shifting toward either anarchy or communism (even if both of those options are far away in absolute distances).

This makes it hard to discuss things calmly and rationally, of course: Few people want actual anarchy, and few people want actual communism, but a move in either direction is a move toward one of them, even if it's not intended to go all the way. And if you do move one way or the other, some of those few people who do want to go all the way will try to capitalize (ha) on the opportunity.

Incidentally, this may be an argument for leaning more toward capitalism, i.e. toward less state control: because people as a whole will never agree on a single course of action, and because there will always be those among us who want to achieve more power and wealth for themselves at others' expense, leaning toward less state control reduces the potential damage and power/wealth accumulation that "rogue" actors can achieve.

Or, to put that another way, it reveals an inherent weakness of leaning toward more state control: that power corrupts, and humans desire power, therefore using the force of law to concentrate power in the hands of fewer people (ultimately backed by the use of force, as all government power is) results in more corruption, and therefore results in more suffering for those not in power. Capitalism certainly causes suffering as well, as the robber barons demonstrated many years ago, but at least that suffering is not enforced by the state--it merely arises opportunistically, and each instance is temporary and localized, not permanent and universal.

Of course, globalism greatly increases the scale of that localization, which demonstrates that theories about economics, government, etc. must be revised and kept current with the times. Our governments and economies are largely built upon ideas whose foundations were laid centuries ago, before any of today's technologies could have even been conceived of. For example, the American Founders could not have foreseen the kinds of rapidly changing, global corporations that exist today, and so we should expect their ideas to have some vulnerabilities which may be exploited by newer technology (to think in infosec terms).

Anyway, if you are wanting to move away from capitalism and not toward anarchy, you necessarily are moving toward less freedom and more state control. I think the important point to note is that state control of economic means cannot be isolated from other facets of life. It necessarily influences all other parts of life, for the economy is that from which human sustenance flows.

To look at it another way, capitalism allows for greed, which has very negative effects--but it also accounts for greed, which is part of human nature, and which motivates. Specifically, it accounts for it by allowing everyone to be motivated by it. In contrast, giving the state more control concentrates the greed in fewer people, by law. And I think it's better to allow the evil of greed to be evenly distributed (which does not guarantee the even distribution of wealth, health, or happiness, but allows it to be pursued), than to use the force of law to concentrate it in fewer people, expecting them to rein it in for the sake of the greater good, because that fails to account for human nature--it's essentially a GIGO system.

Food for thought. :)

Re: Just own the damn robots

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not just seize the means of production? I wonder if anyone has tried that before. I guess I will go read a history book and find out.

It's depressing how many people aren't interested in understanding how and why communism failed, and what we can learn from that. The conclusion is always just "capitalism and communism are the only two systems that exist; communism didn't work; therefore capitalism is the best and only way to run things."

[deleted]

Re: Just own the damn robots

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communities today where a large percentage of people live on government aid are not the equivalent to the country as a whole on basic income, and government aid now imposes multiple work and reporting requirements that help prevent people on government aid from pursuing creative endeavors. No, if you want to look at basic income, look at the children of the wealthy, who never have to work. Most still pursue education…

The difference between basic income and the children of the wealthy is the spectre of the money disappearing. Only the most short-sighted of the wealthy do not realize that there are many ways in which their wealth could dry up. This provides an impetus to use the money constructively while you have it, because it might not be around forever. Basic income does not give the same drive. You can watch TV all day, doing…

The rich could easily survive forever off the modest guaranteed interest of their fortunes.

But if you want more from life than sitting at home and watching TV all day, you have to take some initiative.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#225
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the proposed solution is to buy stocks of the U.S. technology giants: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

The largest market cap companies in a given decade, overwhelmingly tend to be under-performers in the following decade. It's a trend that has repeated decade after decade. Many of these types of companies - AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL, FB - have pulled a massive share of their future returns forward (which is what happened to Microsoft, stagnating its stock for ~15 years). In 2007 the largest companies were: Exxon, GE, Microso…

"Is Amazon going to grow into a $2 trillion market cap over the next ten years? No, there is zero possibility of that happening."

I would suggest that that's a bold statement.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#226
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There also numerous examples of failed mass uprisings. If you can throw enough robots at the problem, the 0.1% would have nothing to fear.

We don't need uprisings. We just need to own the damn robots. When high automation comes, it's not going to be only the rich that own robots. As an analogy, take smartphones - there are 5 billions of them in use in 2017. Almost everyone can have the best phone today, or one that was as good as the best from a couple of years ago. There are going to be cheap and useful robots for everyone, 3d-printed, open sourced des…

I hate to be dystopic, but what happens when a futuristic Unabomber gets a hold of 3D-printing, self-replicating robots and programs them to kill? Will we all be walking around with our own 3D-printed bodyguard robots, programmed to watch and destroy any other robots that look hostile? Or will the first bad actor's robots destroy everyone else's (or everyone else)?

> Then everything will cost only as much as raw materials.

Seems like one would want to own the raw materials, then. But if the evil Dr. Robotico's robots can kill the owners and take their quarries, then what? Does he rule the whole world? Are we in a race to robot armageddon?

Man, that Paperclips game is starting to seem more and more prescient.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#227

Reads like this are slowly convincing me not to buy into the world of mortgages and debt and to just live the rest of my life paying for everything in cash. I tried to buy a house last year with my wife but the market exploded where I live and suddenly houses were 40% more expensive from last year. So we still rent, which makes me feel incomplete. Like I'm kind of failing my duty of bringing the Canadian Dream to my…

This depends on where you live? In London monthly rent is higher than the cost of paying for a mortgage so it makes financial sense have a mortgage even if the final sale price of the house is 0.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#228

A certain amount of compute capacity should be given with citizenship to each individual. It is fixed. You get to use that capacity however you want: some on your phone, some on your laptop. If you want to run an internet business that uses a lot of compute capacity, then you'll need to rent it from other individuals and consolidate it under your control.

It sounds really silly, but that might actually be the only way to prevent a few bad actors from taking over the world with killer robots. Of course, enforcement would be a problem.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#229

Reads like this are slowly convincing me not to buy into the world of mortgages and debt and to just live the rest of my life paying for everything in cash. I tried to buy a house last year with my wife but the market exploded where I live and suddenly houses were 40% more expensive from last year. So we still rent, which makes me feel incomplete. Like I'm kind of failing my duty of bringing the Canadian Dream to my…

What? Haven't you been listening to the central banks? Inflation is abysmally low, we gotta pump up prices to get the economy going. With such low inflation, it's impossible that housing prices increased 40% within one year. /s

I don’t think house prices are included in the consumer price index. Most governments tie social security payouts to CPI and are therefore motivated to change the CPI calculation method to minimize the rise.

If you dig down into what they actually measure all common economic indicators (GDP, PPP, CPI, ...) are B.S. They’re there to pretend that economics is a science, while in practice it’s more of an art, or a quackery, depending on your disposition.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#230
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There also numerous examples of failed mass uprisings. If you can throw enough robots at the problem, the 0.1% would have nothing to fear.

That's a big if, given the vast range of subversive strategies available.

Most of which require communication which is being heavily surveilled. Afaik, uprisings, even mass uprisings are directed by few well-connected individuals. If you can single those out early enough in the process...
Post reply on HN