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You mean someone who understands the complexities of the markets and the financial system wasn't convinced by Marxism with robots? I can't imagine why.

by boona 9y ago

Findeton 9y ago
But it has a new flavour! Planned economy is cool again! (apparently).
rbanffy 9y ago
Maybe he meant someone who is deeply indoctrinated into a set of core assumptions cannot be convinced those assumptions can be changed.
- cholantesh 9y ago
  Why not consider the possibility that Fresco's core assumptions and arguments are flawed? Both can be true.
dang 9y ago
Please don't post snarky swipes here. If you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14423470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14423470 and marked it off-topic.
- boona 9y ago
  First, a comment that promotes Marxism or Nazism or any of heinous ideologies should be met with a certain harshness. We tried that in the 20th century, and considering the 100+ million dead people (most of it due to Marxism), I think it's fair to say that that was a bad turn in human history. Second, considering that the comment I was replying to contained snark i.e. "atheist trying to convince the pope about his convictions", I'm not sure why you focused on mine. In the future, please be consistent with your application of warnings. You wouldn't want to members to believe that you're ideologically driven rather than promoting open intellectual discussion.
ue_ 9y ago
It's worth noting that Fresco wasn't a Marxist, and the Venus Project has tried to distance itself from the Marxists. It's also worth noting that a Communist society as Marx envisioned it takes great advantage of automation anyway, but rather than being used to cut costs in the short term, it's used so that people have to work less on the whole, leaving more time for intellectual fulfillment. And please let's not pretend that Marxian economists are economically illiterate, which seems to be the point you're making.
- Findeton 9y ago
  Let's replace politicians, engineers and doctors with software! That's Fresco. It's also crazy.
- boona 9y ago
  > the Venus Project has tried to distance itself from the Marxists It has sure tried, but it can't, because it's Marxist at it's core, and it therefore shares it's same inherent problems. It can't calculate properly properly for one, and whether the heads of those systems are politicians or programmers, the failure points are the same. > please let's not pretend that Marxian economists are economically illiterate Marxism from a logical perspective, will fail because it can't calculate. Soviet economists had a joke that went "We'll take over the entire world, but not New Zealand so we can know how much things cost". To that point, remember that when China was communistic, they had brought in thousands of Sears catalogs so they could allocate their resources correctly. These are things we take for granted today, but it's an attribute of economic freedom. From an empirical perspective, Marxist economic systems have failed catastrophically in all of the 20th century. The direct result of which has been a drastic drop in living standards to starvation. Soviet Russia, China, and even North Korea had to allow at least pockets of free markets for people to survive. So while I'm not saying that Marxists economists are economically illiterate, they have a lot to account for. And from what I've read from Mr. Fresco and the Venus Projects, including debates I've listen to, they don't seem to have an answer to these questions. Edit: For more on the calculation problem you may want to look up "The Use of Knowledge in Society" by economist Friedrich Hayek. Incidentally, Jimmy Wales has stated that that paper was central to how the wikipedia project is managed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Societ...

You mean someone who understands the complexities of the markets and the financial system wasn't convinced by Marxism with robots? I can't imagine why.

by boona 9y ago

You mean someone who understands the complexities of the markets and the financial system wasn't convinced by Marxism with robots? I can't imagine why.

Findeton 9y ago

But it has a new flavour! Planned economy is cool again! (apparently).

rbanffy 9y ago

Maybe he meant someone who is deeply indoctrinated into a set of core assumptions cannot be convinced those assumptions can be changed.

cholantesh 9y ago
Why not consider the possibility that Fresco's core assumptions and arguments are flawed? Both can be true.

dang 9y ago

Please don't post snarky swipes here. If you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14423470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14423470 and marked it off-topic.

boona 9y ago
First, a comment that promotes Marxism or Nazism or any of heinous ideologies should be met with a certain harshness. We tried that in the 20th century, and considering the 100+ million dead people (most of it due to Marxism), I think it's fair to say that that was a bad turn in human history. Second, considering that the comment I was replying to contained snark i.e. "atheist trying to convince the pope about his convictions", I'm not sure why you focused on mine. In the future, please be consistent with your application of warnings. You wouldn't want to members to believe that you're ideologically driven rather than promoting open intellectual discussion.

ue_ 9y ago

It's worth noting that Fresco wasn't a Marxist, and the Venus Project has tried to distance itself from the Marxists. It's also worth noting that a Communist society as Marx envisioned it takes great advantage of automation anyway, but rather than being used to cut costs in the short term, it's used so that people have to work less on the whole, leaving more time for intellectual fulfillment. And please let's not pretend that Marxian economists are economically illiterate, which seems to be the point you're making.

Findeton 9y ago
Let's replace politicians, engineers and doctors with software! That's Fresco. It's also crazy.
boona 9y ago
> the Venus Project has tried to distance itself from the Marxists It has sure tried, but it can't, because it's Marxist at it's core, and it therefore shares it's same inherent problems. It can't calculate properly properly for one, and whether the heads of those systems are politicians or programmers, the failure points are the same. > please let's not pretend that Marxian economists are economically illiterate Marxism from a logical perspective, will fail because it can't calculate. Soviet economists had a joke that went "We'll take over the entire world, but not New Zealand so we can know how much things cost". To that point, remember that when China was communistic, they had brought in thousands of Sears catalogs so they could allocate their resources correctly. These are things we take for granted today, but it's an attribute of economic freedom. From an empirical perspective, Marxist economic systems have failed catastrophically in all of the 20th century. The direct result of which has been a drastic drop in living standards to starvation. Soviet Russia, China, and even North Korea had to allow at least pockets of free markets for people to survive. So while I'm not saying that Marxists economists are economically illiterate, they have a lot to account for. And from what I've read from Mr. Fresco and the Venus Projects, including debates I've listen to, they don't seem to have an answer to these questions. Edit: For more on the calculation problem you may want to look up "The Use of Knowledge in Society" by economist Friedrich Hayek. Incidentally, Jimmy Wales has stated that that paper was central to how the wikipedia project is managed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Societ...