5 ms·

It's maddening to think that we have the material possibility of the sort of work week predicted by Keynes, but we have instead collectively chosen to create a

by Bakary 6y ago

It's maddening to think that we have the material possibility of the sort of work week predicted by Keynes, but we have instead collectively chosen to create a brutally competitive world where workers fight each other for the privilege of serving neo-feudal elites and where most labor is about skimming and redistributing the surplus rather than creating wealth. It's insane to me to see people who are proud of working themselves to the bone in jobs where they aren't even accumulating their own capital but building that of a noble, and/or where the job has no definable societal utility. You have some of the smartest people on Earth spending the entirety of their talent creating professional-grade skinner boxes or getting people to click on ads. The worst part is that it makes perfect sense from their individual perspective to accumulate as much as money as possible early on to escape this crab-bucket world. We were so close to escaping the nightmare of toil and scarcity and becoming free and instead we have built another form of self-inflicted nightmare.

JamesLeonis 6y ago
> Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 1848
netizen-9748 6y ago
How, exactly, is wealth created? Is it not all just skimming from other places?
- Bakary 6y ago
  For the purpose of the discussion, we could define wealth as anything that can improve the material conditions (and by extension, social) of human beings. Of course, this opens the debate as to which material conditions are desirable, but I'd say the possibility of not needing to work yet having your basic needs met is the main lodestar, the one aspect that would fundamentally change the nature of human life. In this case, it is clear that some human activity would cause a dramatic fall in our material conditions if not performed. Food and energy producers, raw material extractors and processors, doctors, waste disposers, builders, grocery store clerks and so on... Even if we take into account the wastefulness of our production, it is still the case that they would be sorely missed, and their sudden absence would bring about total collapse. We both consciously and unconsciously recognize this, as evidenced for instance by all the "essential worker" designations that have followed the pandemic in various nations. Comparatively, if all ad-tech workers, corporate lawyers, high-frequency traders and other such professions disappeared tomorrow we would collectively be hard pressed to notice unless it were pointed out to us. The skimming aspect is much clearer and obvious in their case, even if it's still an inevitably fuzzy boundary that could be argued about indefinitely. We could also make an argument referring to entropy and there being no free lunch but like solipsism it would be both technically true and useless at the same time.
  - netizen-9748 6y ago
    So which raw materials are actually necessary for human life? What happens when one area runs out? What is the rate limit of extraction in any given area? Should we consider other life besides human to be necessary? What do they need? I don't understand how doctors and farmers create wealth. A farmer is taking up a massive amount of land, that other species may need. A doctor helps people recover from illness and prevent illness, is it then just the extension of human life that we consider 'wealth'?
    - Bakary 6y ago
      >So which raw materials are actually necessary for human life? What happens when one area runs out? What is the rate limit of extraction in any given area? Should we consider other life besides human to be necessary? What do they need? These are all questions that we will have to determine the answer to in the coming decades. In fact, since technology changes at a rapid pace, we might not even have the beginning of an idea of what's possible right now, or whether collapse is inevitable. That said, we already have the technical capacities to house, feed, and clothe everyone. However, as far as I can see, various aspects of our society and nature and the inertia of history prevent us from doing so or even collectively wanting to do so. It looks as though the only way to get past that roadblock would be dramatically improved production and energy capabilities (including long-term sustainability) to the point where high living standards would happen as a secondary effect (as they have for our current living standards) >I don't understand how doctors and farmers create wealth. A farmer is taking up a massive amount of land, that other species may need. A doctor helps people recover from illness and prevent illness, is it then just the extension of human life that we consider 'wealth'? Depends how broadly you want to define wealth, but it's just an unnecessary semantic detail. Its boundaries are subject to debate, but even people who only define it according to the narrow sense of monetary exchange and transactions still implicitly recognize that these transactions are the means to an end. The nature of that end is also debatable, but most humans would agree that it involves a long and healthy life where your human needs are met for the most part. The precise delineation can vary from one culture to another, but these sort of instinctive constants remain. By definition, the idea of wealth and the notion of value will have to be human-centric, since other species don't have the possibility to plan their own continued existence or make a conscious decision to value some things over others. Even the supposedly altruistic route of attributing rights to other species is subject to this. Humans remain the only conscious guarantors of those rights, and the energy they expend protecting those species and arguing in their favor is a result of human needs that consider the environment and its protection as either indirectly or inherently valuable.

by Bakary 6y ago

JamesLeonis 6y ago

> Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 1848

netizen-9748 6y ago

How, exactly, is wealth created? Is it not all just skimming from other places?

Bakary 6y ago
For the purpose of the discussion, we could define wealth as anything that can improve the material conditions (and by extension, social) of human beings. Of course, this opens the debate as to which material conditions are desirable, but I'd say the possibility of not needing to work yet having your basic needs met is the main lodestar, the one aspect that would fundamentally change the nature of human life. In this case, it is clear that some human activity would cause a dramatic fall in our material conditions if not performed. Food and energy producers, raw material extractors and processors, doctors, waste disposers, builders, grocery store clerks and so on... Even if we take into account the wastefulness of our production, it is still the case that they would be sorely missed, and their sudden absence would bring about total collapse. We both consciously and unconsciously recognize this, as evidenced for instance by all the "essential worker" designations that have followed the pandemic in various nations. Comparatively, if all ad-tech workers, corporate lawyers, high-frequency traders and other such professions disappeared tomorrow we would collectively be hard pressed to notice unless it were pointed out to us. The skimming aspect is much clearer and obvious in their case, even if it's still an inevitably fuzzy boundary that could be argued about indefinitely. We could also make an argument referring to entropy and there being no free lunch but like solipsism it would be both technically true and useless at the same time.
- netizen-9748 6y ago
  So which raw materials are actually necessary for human life? What happens when one area runs out? What is the rate limit of extraction in any given area? Should we consider other life besides human to be necessary? What do they need? I don't understand how doctors and farmers create wealth. A farmer is taking up a massive amount of land, that other species may need. A doctor helps people recover from illness and prevent illness, is it then just the extension of human life that we consider 'wealth'?
  - Bakary 6y ago
    >So which raw materials are actually necessary for human life? What happens when one area runs out? What is the rate limit of extraction in any given area? Should we consider other life besides human to be necessary? What do they need? These are all questions that we will have to determine the answer to in the coming decades. In fact, since technology changes at a rapid pace, we might not even have the beginning of an idea of what's possible right now, or whether collapse is inevitable. That said, we already have the technical capacities to house, feed, and clothe everyone. However, as far as I can see, various aspects of our society and nature and the inertia of history prevent us from doing so or even collectively wanting to do so. It looks as though the only way to get past that roadblock would be dramatically improved production and energy capabilities (including long-term sustainability) to the point where high living standards would happen as a secondary effect (as they have for our current living standards) >I don't understand how doctors and farmers create wealth. A farmer is taking up a massive amount of land, that other species may need. A doctor helps people recover from illness and prevent illness, is it then just the extension of human life that we consider 'wealth'? Depends how broadly you want to define wealth, but it's just an unnecessary semantic detail. Its boundaries are subject to debate, but even people who only define it according to the narrow sense of monetary exchange and transactions still implicitly recognize that these transactions are the means to an end. The nature of that end is also debatable, but most humans would agree that it involves a long and healthy life where your human needs are met for the most part. The precise delineation can vary from one culture to another, but these sort of instinctive constants remain. By definition, the idea of wealth and the notion of value will have to be human-centric, since other species don't have the possibility to plan their own continued existence or make a conscious decision to value some things over others. Even the supposedly altruistic route of attributing rights to other species is subject to this. Humans remain the only conscious guarantors of those rights, and the energy they expend protecting those species and arguing in their favor is a result of human needs that consider the environment and its protection as either indirectly or inherently valuable.