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Well, his argument is very logical and grounded in evidence. Hypothetically, robots could cause a problem but capitalism is currently tearing the fabric of soci

Well, his argument is very logical and grounded in evidence. Hypothetically, robots could cause a problem but capitalism is currently tearing the fabric of society apart due to wealth inequality. When I first saw this article, I said this to myself, "But robots...but matrix...but terminator" a few hours later, I realized the grounded logic he is conveying. Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people. People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai).

BerislavLopac 11y ago
I've always found this logic quite flawed: we have capitalism, and we have wealth inequality, therefore capitalism causes wealth inequality. As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality, so replacing it with something else wouldn't really change much. It's been tried numerous times, and none of those experiments managed to solve the issue of wealth inequality in a sustainable way. Capitalism is far from being an ideal system, but it works, and replacing it can cause only more pain for everyone. I can see the appeal of blaming it for everything; it's a handy scapegoat, "the devil we know" -- but I haven't seen many realistic proposals what should replace it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- azth 11y ago
  > As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality Check out the Islamic perspective on economics and finance. It sets certain restrictions, while keeping many things open to the requirements of the society: no interest, shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor, etc. while still allowing the opportunities to acquire wealth. It was during the days of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz[0] that it was reported that there were no more poor people left to take Zakat[1], because everyone did their duties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
  - BerislavLopac 11y ago
    So how sustainable was that?
    - azth 11y ago
      It is unfortunate that you see today in many Muslim countries branches of (international) banks that deal in usury and interest. This is due to globalization, and the willingness of the rulers to allow anything the West wants. There are Islamic alternatives to many of traditional interest based transactions. Unfortunately there is still quite some debate around them, as there does not seem to be any sense of urgency or proper funding being provided to push for that, given that many people are lax, and accept the status quo. What there is _no_ debate about, is that dealing in usury (e.g. savings accounts, or taking an interest bearing loan) is prohibited Islamically. Certain exemptions are made to people that have this as their only alternative, other than being thrown out on the street if they can't pay their rent for instance. However, this is only reserved for dire situations, and some people take this too far, and think that they can be exempted, whereas they cannot. It is the responsibility of the community to provide for the poor first and foremost. I would need to look up to see where this shift started to happen, but I would not be surprised if it started to take place at, or around WWI (that's when a lot of other problems started to happen in the region). If that turns out to be the case, then yes, it is quite sustainable that it lasted for over 1250 years.
  - SixSigma 11y ago
    World population in 700AD is estimated at about 200M, the current combined population of the six largest cities.
    - azth 11y ago
      Yes, and? Does that give an excuse to exploit most of them (which is what usury, interest, insurance, etc. are), only to have a few benefit? As I pointed out, Islamically, the rich people of the community would be responsible to aid the society. A tremendous amount of wealth is in the hands of a tiny, tiny minority of the population. They can put their money in interest bearing accounts and bonds, and live purely off of interest. This is exploitative, and not fair, and makes the problem worse.
- zardo 11y ago
  I would say we have a problem with inequality in the "real existing capitalist democracy". That doesn't mean we have to abandoned capitalism to fix it, it just means that the particular form of economy+government we have is not as good as we like. I would expect we'll get a lot further trying to make it better, than starting from scratch. It's also a lot more likely to happen. Waelth inequality is probably going to be very hard to eliminate, wealth distribution follows zipfs law, which suggests that inequality is the stable configuration and equality will tend to fall apart.
jarboot 11y ago
>Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people. People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai). I think there's a big difference between gun regulation and drone/ai regulation. If in 20 years we have drones that could patrol a location and can use some sort of force on targets it deems a threat, this technology that you own and are responsible for could kill people while you sleep. With guns, you hold it and you pull the trigger. With automated drones, you could be out of the way of danger entirely and making decisions based on the drone's camera output, or even have the drone make these sorts of decisions while you are away. Of course, this is all hypothetical and we've never accurately predicted the future of most technologies, but the issues of drones and ai being used for lethal purposes already have the potential to be larger issues than guns. You wouldn't need to mobilize an army if you could buy as many "troops" as you could afford.

BerislavLopac 11y ago

I've always found this logic quite flawed: we have capitalism, and we have wealth inequality, therefore capitalism causes wealth inequality. As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality, so replacing it with something else wouldn't really change much. It's been tried numerous times, and none of those experiments managed to solve the issue of wealth inequality in a sustainable way. Capitalism is far from being an ideal system, but it works, and replacing it can cause only more pain for everyone. I can see the appeal of blaming it for everything; it's a handy scapegoat, "the devil we know" -- but I haven't seen many realistic proposals what should replace it.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
azth 11y ago
> As far as I am aware, every single economical system in history has produced wealth inequality Check out the Islamic perspective on economics and finance. It sets certain restrictions, while keeping many things open to the requirements of the society: no interest, shared risk, the population is responsible for the poor, etc. while still allowing the opportunities to acquire wealth. It was during the days of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz[0] that it was reported that there were no more poor people left to take Zakat[1], because everyone did their duties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_II [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
- BerislavLopac 11y ago
  So how sustainable was that?
  - azth 11y ago
    It is unfortunate that you see today in many Muslim countries branches of (international) banks that deal in usury and interest. This is due to globalization, and the willingness of the rulers to allow anything the West wants. There are Islamic alternatives to many of traditional interest based transactions. Unfortunately there is still quite some debate around them, as there does not seem to be any sense of urgency or proper funding being provided to push for that, given that many people are lax, and accept the status quo. What there is _no_ debate about, is that dealing in usury (e.g. savings accounts, or taking an interest bearing loan) is prohibited Islamically. Certain exemptions are made to people that have this as their only alternative, other than being thrown out on the street if they can't pay their rent for instance. However, this is only reserved for dire situations, and some people take this too far, and think that they can be exempted, whereas they cannot. It is the responsibility of the community to provide for the poor first and foremost. I would need to look up to see where this shift started to happen, but I would not be surprised if it started to take place at, or around WWI (that's when a lot of other problems started to happen in the region). If that turns out to be the case, then yes, it is quite sustainable that it lasted for over 1250 years.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  World population in 700AD is estimated at about 200M, the current combined population of the six largest cities.
  - azth 11y ago
    Yes, and? Does that give an excuse to exploit most of them (which is what usury, interest, insurance, etc. are), only to have a few benefit? As I pointed out, Islamically, the rich people of the community would be responsible to aid the society. A tremendous amount of wealth is in the hands of a tiny, tiny minority of the population. They can put their money in interest bearing accounts and bonds, and live purely off of interest. This is exploitative, and not fair, and makes the problem worse.
zardo 11y ago
I would say we have a problem with inequality in the "real existing capitalist democracy". That doesn't mean we have to abandoned capitalism to fix it, it just means that the particular form of economy+government we have is not as good as we like. I would expect we'll get a lot further trying to make it better, than starting from scratch. It's also a lot more likely to happen. Waelth inequality is probably going to be very hard to eliminate, wealth distribution follows zipfs law, which suggests that inequality is the stable configuration and equality will tend to fall apart.

jarboot 11y ago

>Currently, robots/ai are like the gun issues of today. Guns don't kill people. People do and legislating gun control is sticky (so is regulating ai). I think there's a big difference between gun regulation and drone/ai regulation. If in 20 years we have drones that could patrol a location and can use some sort of force on targets it deems a threat, this technology that you own and are responsible for could kill people while you sleep. With guns, you hold it and you pull the trigger. With automated drones, you could be out of the way of danger entirely and making decisions based on the drone's camera output, or even have the drone make these sorts of decisions while you are away. Of course, this is all hypothetical and we've never accurately predicted the future of most technologies, but the issues of drones and ai being used for lethal purposes already have the potential to be larger issues than guns. You wouldn't need to mobilize an army if you could buy as many "troops" as you could afford.