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Jacque Fresco has died

nytimes.com

81–90 of 113 posts

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#81
This guy basically reinvented communism and gave it a fancy name and apparently city designs. What's so special about this, honestly?

I'm all for more people supporting socialism (even under a weird name), but I never understood the point...

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#82
It's interesting to note that Jacque, while definitely a little out there on execution, has been warning us about the effects of automation for 50 years. His proposed solution of a planned economy will not work, but his vision of what the future will look like when we have robotics and automation as the main future forces of economy are spot on.

He also envisioned centralized (and distributed) computing and governmental computing systems, something that will have widespread implementation within the next half century.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In many ways like work-life balance, times are worse than the middle ages. Is this actually established? It's my understanding that the work-leisure dichotomy didn't really exist in medieval Europe. Also, considering how much of the fruit of your labour ended up supporting local and distant aristocracy, I can't imagine mental health being particularly high for a lot of people.

Anthropologists seem to agree* that hunter-gatherers (our ancestors, but also ones living in modern times) worked a little less than 8 hours a day. * For source, I've seen Yuval Noah Harari and Peter Gray writing about it.

GP specifically mentions the middle ages, though; I think 8 hours would have been considered pretty light by then.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropologists seem to agree* that hunter-gatherers (our ancestors, but also ones living in modern times) worked a little less than 8 hours a day. * For source, I've seen Yuval Noah Harari and Peter Gray writing about it.

GP specifically mentions the middle ages, though; I think 8 hours would have been considered pretty light by then.

It would have been light in some parts of the year, but long in others. In addition to natural seasonality in agricultural work, simply the availability of light limits many kinds of labor until you have something better (both in light quality and resource, including labor, cost for the light provided) than firelight.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP specifically mentions the middle ages, though; I think 8 hours would have been considered pretty light by then.

It would have been light in some parts of the year, but long in others. In addition to natural seasonality in agricultural work, simply the availability of light limits many kinds of labor until you have something better (both in light quality and resource, including labor, cost for the light provided) than firelight.

Makes sense - sounds like a lot of trades today, albeit a bit better (maybe) because you had one client and they provided for you during the off season.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#86
post #81

This guy basically reinvented communism and gave it a fancy name and apparently city designs. What's so special about this, honestly? I'm all for more people supporting socialism (even under a weird name), but I never understood the point...

I think this is an oversimplification. Its not likely that this planned economy would ever work in the first place, and he readily acknowledges this. However, he got us thinking about cybernetics and automation way before anyone else.

Also, he accurately predicted driverless cars and the connection between wireless communication, computing, and avoidance sensors!

"We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design."

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#87

the fire consumes all the fuel that it receives. Although his concepts look nice on paper I dont understand what the solution is to stop people to breed exponentially. And then we are back to the same problem we have now.

> what the solution is to stop people to breed exponentially

In developing nations, large families are used as a kind of social security. Developed nations with good social security have population growth rates below replacement (modulo immigration). The best way to curb population growth is through universal education and long term economic well being.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Overall, yes. 2) Citation needed. 3) Correct, they react to stimuli. I agree with you on the blank slate theory and that Fresco was not up to date on this. Genetics has an impact on skull formation, brain tissue, etc.

>Overall, yes So the creatures who invented the conceptual framework of reason and logic have no way to use reason and logic. Got it. >Citation needed Here's one example of his opinions on reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQcYZpY9JI0 >Correct, they react to stimuli. If humans didn't have a capacity for reason, then observing stimuli wouldn't mean anything and we wouldn't be able to transform observation to con…

> So the creatures who invented the conceptual framework of reason and logic have no way to use reason and logic. Got it.

Correct. Perfect example would be Casinos, a person knows the hard odds are against them but continues to not use logic and reason. Perhaps our individual concepts of the words "reason" and "logic" are not synced, thus causing the disparity.

> Here's one example of his opinions on reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQcYZpY9JI0

I must have misunderstood your original stance on this. I believe we are actually in agreement on this topic. What part of this video do you disagree with?

> If humans didn't have a capacity for reason, then observing stimuli wouldn't mean anything and we wouldn't be able to transform observation to concepts. His example was people accidentally making a camera obscura by having a hole in the wall. Without reason, you...

In his example of the hole in the wall, you claim it was not by accident and that they were purposely looking for the intended output in the configuration? It seems the information Jacque was attempting to convey was that through observation and "accidental" tries, output is generated. Edison and Tesla did the same exact thing, only difference being Tesla narrowed his "accident" tests down to less cases. It all comes down to if-statements. If a hand "accidentally" covered the hole, the picture disappears... then another if-statement executes in their mind... if another object obscures the frame, what happens? Everything evolves from these "accidents".

> 1. Wouldn't be able to conclude that it was even the hole in the wall causing the effect > 2. Would be equally likely to attribute the image to the act of a divine power

-Yes, what we call Science -Yes, what we call Religion

> And his failings on blank slate theory are not on the genetics side of things, but on human behavior. Much like the conception of the new socialist man, his thinking relies on behaviorism.

Behavior is mutable. Genetics plays a large factor as well. We both seem to agree that the blank slate theory is blown out of the water. His thinking can seem to rely on behaviorism, but more aptly he would refer to it as "operational conditioning".

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#89

the fire consumes all the fuel that it receives. Although his concepts look nice on paper I dont understand what the solution is to stop people to breed exponentially. And then we are back to the same problem we have now.

By understanding the reason why people have many kids to begin with:

-To help you when you get old?

-Because my religion says so?

-My parents had many kids, so that seems natural

It all comes down to numbers. What is the ceiling number for the carrying capacity of humans on this planet?

Seems like an important question for the next 5 generations of people.

Re: Jacque Fresco has died

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Please rate the better world: World A (has food) or World B (does not have food). Money isn't magic. Its an abstraction. Remove it and possessions become currency. So if your better world does not make "money" (read: food, water, shelter, doctors, raw materials, etc.) then your "better" world will kill all of its inhabitants.

It's obvious that money is not a sufficient abstraction for resources and/or the usage of money eventually leads to world b. The "money system" is killing whatever resources it's supposed to represent.

> It's obvious that money is not a sufficient abstraction for resources and/or the usage of money eventually leads to world b

Citation needed...

We had "resource based economies" for hundreds of thousands of years. In that time, millions starved to death.

Clearly a hidden variable exists... North Koreans starve under a monetary system. Americans waste billions of pounds of food every year under a monetary system. How could money be responsible for both outcomes? Surely there are alternative explanations.

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