No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
borretti.me
No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
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Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#2I wonder if the author has ever played Diplomacy. You have to fight the perennial sense that you have nothing and can be replaced. All your opponents have to do is band together against you. A similar generalization to OP would say everyone loses. And it would be wrong. This post shows the dangers of over-generalization more than anything else. The state isn't just about war. Each person in the line of dominoes the author has set up doesn't just care about what the author thinks they care about. In particular, people have agency and can run cartoon thought experiments like this and react to them. Billionaires won't just sit around and not develop military power, for one. We already have billionaires owning satellites in large numbers and creating geopolitical consequences. You better believe they have cards to play. And hopefully so does everyone else.
I have no idea what that looks like, because if I did I wouldn't be here commenting on HN :D But I suspect some people will play their cards well and get some luck, and come out on top, just like some people have always done.
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#3[deleted]
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#4[dead]
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#5I wonder if the author has ever played Diplomacy. You have to fight the perennial sense that you have nothing and can be replaced. All your opponents have to do is band together against you. A similar generalization to OP would say everyone loses. And it would be wrong. This post shows the dangers of over-generalization more than anything else. The state isn't just about war. Each person in the line of dominoes the a…
I agree with your last sentence, but its prophetic value depends on exactly what you mean by “people”.
Some people will indeed play their cards well and come out on top, but they won’t be made out of meat.
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#6FTA:
"And who will stop this? Sam Altman? How many divisions does he have? The state doesn’t let corporations own nuclear weapons or fighter jets, it won’t let them have access to autonomous AI weapons either."
Elon Musk's SpaceX. He could land a large rocket wherever he wants, it's basically a missile.
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#7FTA: "And who will stop this? Sam Altman? How many divisions does he have? The state doesn’t let corporations own nuclear weapons or fighter jets, it won’t let them have access to autonomous AI weapons either." Elon Musk's SpaceX. He could land a large rocket wherever he wants, it's basically a missile.
Then the FBI raids his home and arrests him. Thereafter, no more rockets.
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#8I wonder if the author has ever played Diplomacy. You have to fight the perennial sense that you have nothing and can be replaced. All your opponents have to do is band together against you. A similar generalization to OP would say everyone loses. And it would be wrong. This post shows the dangers of over-generalization more than anything else. The state isn't just about war. Each person in the line of dominoes the a…
> Billionaires won't just sit around and not develop military power, for one.
I argue against this here: https://borretti.me/article/on-vulgar-materialism
Of course I don't expect a single post to erase a huge divergence in worldview about the relationship between money and power, but that's my argument.
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#9I read about 60% of it and skimmed the rest and my conclusion is:
Man, I just. don't. care.
Why should I worry about this hypothetical future dystopia, which seems to me incredibly unlikely to come to pass, rather than the glaring and terrifying current dystopia being enacted by Donald Trump in the USA?
Re: No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass
#10Yeah, who am I going to trust, a few thousand years of history, or yet another blogger claiming that no, this time is different, a populist uprising would definitely not fail the 800th time because computers or something and we will all be pets for the AI overlord?
I don’t follow this train of logic.
AI will go no differently than the Industrial Revolution. Some people will profit immensely, and society as a whole will benefit but it might be a bumpy road getting there. But if it did go wrong for some reason, Feudalism is more plausible than the other scenarios presented.