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Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

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Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#291

Post by Nevermark »

We already see this happening.

As more and more people become super-rich, that class of individuals spends more and more conspicuously, but it doesn't trickle down.

The loop through resource identification, extraction, processing, manufacturing, and delivery only needs two things: resources ownership and automation. One person by themselves could conceivably operate that economy.

This is no different from any hermit or commune at any time. Just a richer more technological hermit and a more geographically distributed commune.

Another perspective: If 99.9% were slaves only given enough to eat and work, would there be an economy? Yes. If the slaves were replaced by automation would that stall the economy. No.

There

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#292

Post by AngryData »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #274
AngryData wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a supreme delusion that robots and turrets can defend you against any large mass of angry or hungry humans. Until you can field an robot army that supremely outnumbers humans, im betting on the larger group of clever little shit humans. And if shit gets bad enough small grenade or bomb type EMPs do work, provided you aren't relying on electronics yourself and aren't worried about pissing off everyone in…

> I think it is a supreme delusion that robots and turrets can defend you against any large mass of angry or hungry humans. It's a supreme delusion that it can't. Military tech isn't in the 19th century anymore.

What are robots and turrets going to do that humans couldn't do in their place even better? Humans have yet to invent a wall that can't be broken.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#293

Post by blks »

jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #127
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…

> Everyone wants more Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat and would be much, much happier for it. Unfortunately that option isn't available to me, nor to most people.

Can you survive and support your family on just 40% of your current income?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#295

Post by blks »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #139
wyldfire wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics, or ... capital. Look at the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin economies for an example. Instead of being a democratic mining economy where spare cycles are used, only companies which invest capital to find semiconductors from the latest process node combined with facilities and inexpensive electricity benefit from mining. Only the next Standard Oil / Amazon / Google will benefit from the people-free economy.

No, you don’t feed machines with bitcoins or any kind of currency, you feed them with Joules, Iron, Copper, rare earths etc.

Machines don’t exist by themselves, someone owns them.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#296

Post by toasty228 »

blks wrote: post #293
jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone wants more Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat and would be much, much happier for it. Unfortunately that option isn't available to me, nor to most people.

Can you survive and support your family on just 40% of your current income?

50% of the people in my country earn less than 40% of my salary, so surely it's possible...

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#297

Post by toasty228 »

jameslk wrote: post #143
jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone wants more Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat and would be much, much happier for it. Unfortunately that option isn't available to me, nor to most people.

> Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat Most people wouldn’t be content to live in one room huts with thatched roofs and no hospitals or antibiotics. There might be some that do, but most prefer having more things and “better” lives. If we kept progressing, we’d look back at the era we live today and consider it just as primitive

It's always the choice between flying cars and living in a hut made of cow dung, right? No in between is conceivable by the human brain, either boundless growth or the Neolithic

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#298

Post by imtringued »

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…

>The idea of a consumer based economy has always appeared dumb to me.

Ok let's play devils advocate and remove consumption from the economy. Now it's all investment.

You go to work and build an AI datacenter and then never turn it on.

You then think yourself, well if nobody is going to use it, I don't have to keep building AI datacenters! You stop building AI datacenters.

You then realize, you still have all the parts and materials to build AI datacenters, but you don't need them either.

You demolish the semiconductor fabs, since there is nothing to do with the chips.

You also remind yourself that housing is a consumer good. Construction materials are unnecessary, so you shut down the quarry mining them and demolish your house.

Now back to being a "homeless" farmer growing crops. It is time to harvest, you wake up in the morning, but you get a realization. Eating is consumption! If you don't eat, you don't have to tend the farm.

You decide to consume what's left of last year's harvest, refuse to harvest this year's crops, go back to sleep and avoid doing the backbreaking work.

A month later the harvest has spoiled on the field, your food has run out and you're starving to death, while thinking to yourself how stupid the consumer based economy is.

>Machines don't need to be motivated to work, they just need energy, materials and obeying to whoever controls them.

That sounds a whole lot like consumption to me.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#299

Post by gkaivida1 »

imtringued wrote: post #298
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…

>The idea of a consumer based economy has always appeared dumb to me. Ok let's play devils advocate and remove consumption from the economy. Now it's all investment. You go to work and build an AI datacenter and then never turn it on. You then think yourself, well if nobody is going to use it, I don't have to keep building AI datacenters! You stop building AI datacenters. You then realize, you still have all the part…

It seems like you missed the point of the comment above and the article. A consumer-based, capitalist economy makes the implicit assumption that humans are necessary to produce goods and services... It is inherently cyclical. The economy is incentivized to feed and tend to a consumer-class because the consumers contribute to the production of value.

Complete automation allows us to turn that circle into a kind of arrow, where there is no incentive to keep human consumers within the value loop. Whoever controls the automation controls where that arrow goes.

That control can come in forms---fully-autonomous weapons, a surveillance state---which complete break the average person's typical understanding of the concept and incentives of "The Economy"

Or... I'm just an idiot, and I'm making too many assumptions or missing something.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#300

Post by qsera »

danaris wrote: post #290
qsera wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but you have to pay for the privilege too... You are not considering the fact that if there are robots to do everything, then they won't be interested in you paying them. This applies to the programs that you listed as well. The equation changes completely when automonos robots do everything. >now they have the means to not only control production + its consumption but also have the military means to enforce it. Tel…

> The equation changes completely when automonos robots do everything. Yes, but how it changes depends entirely on who owns the robots. There is zero current evidence that benevolent governments will own the robots, and huge evidence that self-centered wealthy billionaires (and trillionaires!) will own them. In such a case, the response to "the robots will make everything" isn't "so give it away to the people for fre…

>There is zero current evidence that benevolent governments will own the robots,

But that is up to the people and their governments to decide. You seem to miss the fact that governments are made by people and for the people, and not made by the billionaires. Even a billionaire have a single vote.

Government can outlaw the private ownership of combat autonomous robots if that is what the people want.

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