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Stephen Hawking says we should be more frightened of capitalism than robots Who is behind robot? capitalism
by conn01 9y ago
Stephen Hawking says we should be more frightened of capitalism than robots
Who is behind robot?
capitalism
- Flavius 9y agoI guess we just need some good ol' communism to fix this problem.
- arkades 9y agoMaybe? Kind of? I'm extremely pro-capitalism, but free market economics does rely on a number of assumptions being met in order to function, and only maximizes utility functions for those participating. If you build a market that violates those assumptions (e.g., massive consolidation of supply) and effectively excludes people from participating (by reducing total volume of work amenable to human intervention), capitalism ... just doesn't work. Wrong tool for the job. Traditionally we either regulate operations to make them better fit free market assumptions, or regulate outcomes. Whether that looks like communism is a secondary discussion, though if you consolidate supply heavily enough, then yes, you end up with some central supplier choosing what to produce and how to allocate it for all those people that have no resources to create meaningful demand.
- eb3c90 9y agoI think we can make supply distributed (given micro manufacturing/recycling etc) so even if it is less efficient for a community to do it than something more centralised they still have some autonomy. See my profile for my website if you are interested where I am coming from.
- arkades 9y agoI meant centralized in terms of ownership/control, not geographic placement. The current trend towards winner-take-all automation and resultant oligarchy.
- eb3c90 9y agoSo do I. Consider the technological extreme of open source manufacturing. A set of tools like repraps, that that can really make themselves (and computers etc)
- maxxxxx 9y agoIt's pretty sad that whenever someone criticises capitalism that people immediately shout "communism" to kill the debate.
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoIt's ultimately humans behind the robots. So what we should really be wary of is the values and assumptions of those who develop the robots. >"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered." -Dr. King
- kazinator 9y agoYou cannot take away property rights and still claim that people are considered important. (Didn't King notice the word rights in property rights?)
- ashark 9y ago> (Didn't King notice the word rights in property rights?) What's that supposed to prove?
- vkou 9y agoCapitalism, Communism, Socialiasm, and Collectivism all have property rights. They are structured somewhat differently, but they all recognize that some things can be owned, and some cannot. You can't build a consistent legal, or ethical system from the first principle of "Property rights are the most important right."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wu-ikkyu 9y agoHe didn't say "take away property rights"
- kazinator 9y agoYes; but rather that they aren't more important than people. Well, that is actually silly because under the right circumstances, it could be that the property (or any other) rights of person A are more important than all of person B as such. It's just trivially true when A = B (A and B are the same person). No right attributed to A is more important than A him or herself.
- tome 9y agoStephen Hawking should stick to saying things in his area of expertise. I wouldn't expect Bernie Sanders, Slavoj Zizek or Elon Musk to start making pronouncements about black holes.