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I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
by mjevans 10y ago
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
- visarga 10y agoUp until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
- dhdhfjsjgh 10y ago>Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation? Have you tried buying land recently without signing yourself into debt for the rest of your life to a bank? How did it go? Not to mention that self sufficiency would imply a major cut in the standard of living for most people, for largely no good reason. It would be far more preferable just to reduce the concentration of capital in too few hands than for the rest of us to live like it's 1850 again.
- pavanred 10y agoAgree, I sometimes wonder how much of this is just a manifestation of our fear of the unknown. Consider, the world before the internet when the postal services was doing all the heavy lifting for communication. Once we got internet, a huge chunk communication was replaced by email etc. But, it also gave rise to eCommerce, on demand delivery services etc. And, the same postal services companies are doing better than ever before.
- occamrazor 10y agoBecause the population density was much lower back then.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 10y agoHow will we get our iPhone 17s?
- adrianN 10y agoBecause self-sufficiency provides a much lower standard of living than what you can get with trade and specialization.
- dagw 10y agoTrue when dealing with a human workforce. Not convinced it's equally true when dealing with an automated workforce. That being said, I don't see why self-sufficient villages is something to strive after even it could be done efficiently.
- mcv 10y agoIf efficiency is not an issue, I definitely think self-sufficiency is something worth striving for. Makes you less dependent on outsiders. You're not suddenly in trouble when you get isolated, and because you don't strictly need anything from the outside, outsiders hold no power over your village, making it less likely to be exploited in unfavorable deals. Self-sufficiency would go a long way to addressing structural inequality.
- enraged_camel 10y agoIt's not about efficiency, but about variety. Life gets pretty mundane when you have to eat the same damn foods for every meal.