81–90 of 96 posts
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Isn't the implication that salaries will go down, but your response is assuming the GP is naively thinking salaries will go up?
I re-read what I wrote, and I can't imagine that interpretation unless they don't understand who the "buyers" are in a "buyer's market"
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I re-read what I wrote, and I can't imagine that interpretation unless they don't understand who the "buyers" are in a "buyer's market"
Employers? Thus pushing wages down? Am I being stupid?
The problem isn't getting rid if people's jobs. Jobs are not inherently valuable. The problem is we have not built a society or economy where everyone can thrive regardless of their employment.
>The problem is we have not built a society or economy where everyone can thrive regardless of their employment. The way I'd read this sentiment is that the arrangement of society is ultimately arbitrary and if we could only choose a different system we could by truly free. I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly or not. That said, my impression is that people will not really be able to get away from something like…
We could have had (practically) limitless fusion energy if we had chosen to invest the money earlier. We could have had the fantastically cheap solar we have today decades ago. We could have had non-polluting electric public transit across the country instead of private cars.
The people with the power and hoarded resources to do so have consistently made decisions to preserve that status quo at any cost. Our leaders chose to abandon space, to continue burning fossil fuels, to dismantle and demonize public transit.
We could choose these things. It is absolutely within our capabilities as a species. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to manipulate you or simply lack the imagination. We could moonshot our way to post-scarcity in a decade or two. It's just that those with the power to make those choices have vast incentive not to.
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I'd go one step further: The problem is that we cannot build a fair and equitable socioeconomic capitalistic-driven society. Rather than complain about capitalism, I've written a near-future hard sci-fi novel that proposes and explores creating a society that doesn't rely on monetary capital to operate. My theory, which guides the plot, is that we have to look at the seeds of capitalism, namely food, and figure out h…
Do you mind sketching out the basic idea how to eliminate the change of currency for food? Sounds interesting.
By wholly automating food distribution, from seed to delivery, we eliminate the costs of high-quality, nutritious food, relying on volunteers for infrequent system maintenance. (This requires bootstrapping capitalism; I won't dive into the details here, because it would take a book ...)
Aside, that diagram is in the novel and was drawn about ten years ago.
I can't help but wonder if this is a bit like a few years ago when comedians were complaining that nobody was laughing at their jokes anymore. They realized that it was a mandate to figure out how to be funny again, because what was considered "funny" had changed. In this instance, and probably most instances of art/craft, copywriters need to figure out what is creative again, because what is considered "creative" ha…
The problem is that most copywriting is not and shouldn't be very creative. Often times it's just outsiders who know how to make public communication clear. The sad part is that the managers deciding on using AI are the ones who rarely understand what is good public communication - that's why they were hiring someone to help them with it. With AI they get some text that seems legit but the whole process of figuring o…
I'd argue this requires a great deal of creativity. It's how we got "1,000 songs in your pocket."
The problem is us, on the consumer side. We are in an era of content hyperinflation. That was true before AI became ubiquitous
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> The world changes We change the world. It's not happening to you; you're doing it. You're doing it right now with your parent comment - you're not an observer on the sideline, you're in the thick of it, doing it, your every action - my every action - has consequences. Who will we be in our communities and societies? > I have read pieces nearly a hundred years old saying this You can read pieces 100 years old talkin…
You’re shouting into the wind friend - My post even told you that would be the response “there’s nothing we can do” Humans are reactive and antisocial so the idea of a “common good” would require two things humans can’t do: Create sustainable commons and act as though we are all equal Any position that assumes it’s possible is not even aspirational it’s naive
> Humans are ... antisocial
The well-established facts are that Homo sapiens and related species are 100% social animals; we live in groups and do not survive alone. We're not like wolves or bears; chimpanzees live in groups, not alone in the jungle. Our means of living, surviving, and thriving are all built for doing it only in groups, including empathy, cooperation, and altruism - universal human traits. (We even like to talk with strangers from unknown locations whom we'll never meet!) Isolated humans suffer severe mental breakdowns, such as in solitary confinement (which is considered torture).
Why do people like to argue for social nihilism and isolation? It's hard to name any respected leader or scholar who has claimed it - among leaders, even the worst murderers claim to do it for social good. For some people arguing nihilism/isolation may be externalizing fear or trauma and especially a feeling of isolation, a very human and social thing way to process those things (though there are healthy ways). Sometimes people want to seem or feel more serious or stronger by saying something more dangerous or dark.
Regardless, as I said, our discussion isn't idle speculation. We are actors; our words have impact; we are responsible for the impact we have on the people around us, our communities, our world. Again, who will we be?
I don't want to speculate or cross bounderies, but if you feel that dark and isolated I have good, but challenging news: Despite what some loud voices of the time say - people relentlessly seeking power and saying anything, no matter how absurd, to get it - we are social, humans have good instincts (and bad ones), and we thrive by embracing the good ones.
Freedom and democracy trust in our good instincts (which must be why its enemies promote nihilism), and have produced societies unmatched in freedom, justice, prosperity, and safety. Part of that is the ability to cooperate on a large scale - a consequence of building on good instincts: look at NATO, an alliance held together by its values, by trust and cooperation, and the most powerful military force in the world by far.
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You’re shouting into the wind friend - My post even told you that would be the response “there’s nothing we can do” Humans are reactive and antisocial so the idea of a “common good” would require two things humans can’t do: Create sustainable commons and act as though we are all equal Any position that assumes it’s possible is not even aspirational it’s naive
Look at all the things that have been done and are done. I can look at my life, as can most others (and hopefully, you too). If that's not your experience, I promise you there is far better out there - not perfect, but good and better. > Humans are ... antisocial The well-established facts are that Homo sapiens and related species are 100% social animals; we live in groups and do not survive alone. We're not like wol…
You are 100% correct. I was collapsing a concept too far for the metaphor. The more precise way I should have days it was:
“Humans aren’t eusocial”
It’s going to require the whole of humanity to shed the tribal affiliations in order to survive the transition to the post human world. The human species can’t expand our cortexes fast enough to becoming eusocial and so can be modeled as antisocial on the scale necessary to maintain anything but the remnants of a species.
Also to be clear I don’t personally feel in a dark or whatever place that you’re describing. I am a beautiful family and thriving friend groups and extremely engaging work I’m actively causing all of this to happen so I’m telling you this is a warning not because I’m trying to argue with you I’m telling you what’s happening and you should do something to prevent it.
I’m simply saying if you desire for the plurality of humanity to be the primary driver for action on the planet, then humans need to organize at the scale required to manage the global externalities of the machine automation wave that is going to absolutely decimate the majority of the population inside capitalism.
That is not my opinion that is a fact of life and until people recognize that it’s going to be a absolute bloodbath both metaphorically and literally between capital powered by robotic forces/ labor and the rest of people who have no work and are unable to survive in such a society.
Why don’t we see it in the aggregate job data? Could it be that people sometimes lose jobs for “reasons” but that’s just the normal flow of the economy? Until there’s some effect on actual unemployment rates I wouldn’t be worried.
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> The world changes We change the world. It's not happening to you; you're doing it. You're doing it right now with your parent comment - you're not an observer on the sideline, you're in the thick of it, doing it, your every action - my every action - has consequences. Who will we be in our communities and societies? > I have read pieces nearly a hundred years old saying this You can read pieces 100 years old talkin…
You’re shouting into the wind friend - My post even told you that would be the response “there’s nothing we can do” Humans are reactive and antisocial so the idea of a “common good” would require two things humans can’t do: Create sustainable commons and act as though we are all equal Any position that assumes it’s possible is not even aspirational it’s naive
That technology advances and that causes issues is inevitable, but we can't go back. What we can do is work towards adapting the world as it develops into something we want.
If you took my post to mean there is nothing we can do then perhaps you missed the phrases "address the problem of job loss" or "we will need a societal change" or "this needs to be addressed".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re shouting into the wind friend - My post even told you that would be the response “there’s nothing we can do” Humans are reactive and antisocial so the idea of a “common good” would require two things humans can’t do: Create sustainable commons and act as though we are all equal Any position that assumes it’s possible is not even aspirational it’s naive
There is totally something you can do. There are so many things you can do. The only thing that you can't do is go back to the way things were. That technology advances and that causes issues is inevitable, but we can't go back. What we can do is work towards adapting the world as it develops into something we want. If you took my post to mean there is nothing we can do then perhaps you missed the phrases "address th…
I totally agree.
> That technology advances and that causes issues is inevitable
That such things happen is inevitable. But we can control how it advances, and what issues and trade-offs we face.
See above regarding 'inevitability'. It also strikes me as a way to avoid making a specific claim and supporting it - it's like invoking a higher power.
