4 ms·

One day, hopefully we'll be rich enough to do this and not have it be a mess. Fullly automated luxury space communism is the goal.

SiempreViernes 5y ago
Don't keep your hopes up, in the US military spending will keep eating most of all surplus, but on the upside you'll have the most genocidal nuclear weapons of all countries on Earth!
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Most of the tech we have is in some way due to military spending
  - BelenusMordred 5y ago
    US defense R&D is tiny compared to total expenditure. It's also falling dramatically. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-funding-falls-chinas-keeps-growing/163021/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-...
  - c21h30o2 5y ago
    Maybe spend more on civilian research then. Wouldn't it be cool if the government would spend trillions on researching cool new tech for improving society rather than destroying it?
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    Do you have some history of technology sources to back up this claim? Because even radar was first developed for the civilian setting before the military boosted its development tremendously to solve their WW2 related needs. I think a much better theory of technological development is that the military mainly funds engineering development of existing technology and doesn't stumble into truly new inventions faster than anyone else. A corollary to this is that most tech is not related to military spending because most spending is not military spending.
    - dragonelite 5y ago
      Silicon valley and western semi conductor supremacy was build by US military spending in ww2, 1950s and 1960s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo Its was only in the late 1970s that wallstreet got their money into silicon valley. Given the channel I did not do any fact checking and just assume the presentation is historically correct.
      - SiempreViernes 5y ago
        If we are to take that loose an interpretation of military funding (they invested in companies that did things for others later), I will also accept that because the military defines the state, everything that happens in a state can be counted as happening by military funding.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        Internet was from DARPA Turing machine was from WWII to crack Enigma NASA advances (including CPU chips) were from the Cold War I love private development such as SpaceX, but we'd be nowhere w/o developments we gained from warfare. Turns out you can really put your mind to something if it's life or death.
        SiempreViernes 5y ago
        Turing published his paper in 1936, so well before the war. The idea of a computer itself is usually set at the analytical engine by Babbage, whose main motivation was to aid with nautical navigation (a mainly civilian use). Even more fundamentally: the military picked up Turing after the war started, so they had a good idea of what he could so because of work he'd done for others than them. Granted, without the military we wouldn't have had the specific computers the military built, but in this context that is about as interesting as saying that without the military we wouldn't have had the innovation of the 150 mm high explosive shell. Likewise, Tsiolkovsky did his theoretical work in a log cabin because he wanted to reason about space travel. Robert H. Goddard invented the liquid fuelled rocket in the interwar years working largely alone and in any case without any military support. Again the military shows up after stuff is very clearly moving. Like, how is it surprising that an organisation that needs to pay for guns and the training of the people to use them would mostly invest in already existing prototypes?
- google234123 5y ago
  Defense is 10% of gov spending lol, and 0% of the multiple trillions in stimulus that was funded with debt.
  - occz 5y ago
    >and 0% of the multiple trillions in stimulus that was funded with debt. Yes? What does that have to do with anything? Did you think that the pandemic-related stimulus package should have gone to defense spending? If yes, please do motivate that - if no, why mention it at all?
- agent327 5y ago
  What 'surplus' is that? It appears to me there is a deficit running into the trillions, every single year. For comparison: the US military budget is apparently around 0.7 trillion.
bumbada 5y ago
Luxury and communism are opposites. Compatible words with communism are miserable, corrupt, genocidal or tyrannical. You can pick whatever you want.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  fully automated luxury communism is the ideal of a post- or late-scarcity society where goods are distributed equally (or universally accessible, a la Star Trek). You're thinking of Marxism-Leninism, which is just a dictatorship with extra steps.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Yes, ignore Marx, there is absolutely nothing to be learned from him. Just solve the work piling prisoners dilemma and you get the "utopia" part of communism (fair involvement of workers) for free.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      Marx only provided the critique of capitalism and said that historical materialism (the analysis of history as being contingent on material conditions, ie resource allocation) led him to believe capitalism would inevitably collapse into socialism and then communism through the proletariat winning class conflict. All the USSR shit is mostly Lenin, AFAIK.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Not even Lenin. Lenin ran the USSR as a mixed economy with heavy market involvement. It's Stalin that really defined the dysfunction of the later USSR.

SiempreViernes 5y ago

Don't keep your hopes up, in the US military spending will keep eating most of all surplus, but on the upside you'll have the most genocidal nuclear weapons of all countries on Earth!

hunterb123 5y ago
Most of the tech we have is in some way due to military spending
- BelenusMordred 5y ago
  US defense R&D is tiny compared to total expenditure. It's also falling dramatically. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-funding-falls-chinas-keeps-growing/163021/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-...
- c21h30o2 5y ago
  Maybe spend more on civilian research then. Wouldn't it be cool if the government would spend trillions on researching cool new tech for improving society rather than destroying it?
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  Do you have some history of technology sources to back up this claim? Because even radar was first developed for the civilian setting before the military boosted its development tremendously to solve their WW2 related needs. I think a much better theory of technological development is that the military mainly funds engineering development of existing technology and doesn't stumble into truly new inventions faster than anyone else. A corollary to this is that most tech is not related to military spending because most spending is not military spending.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    Silicon valley and western semi conductor supremacy was build by US military spending in ww2, 1950s and 1960s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo Its was only in the late 1970s that wallstreet got their money into silicon valley. Given the channel I did not do any fact checking and just assume the presentation is historically correct.
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      If we are to take that loose an interpretation of military funding (they invested in companies that did things for others later), I will also accept that because the military defines the state, everything that happens in a state can be counted as happening by military funding.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Internet was from DARPA Turing machine was from WWII to crack Enigma NASA advances (including CPU chips) were from the Cold War I love private development such as SpaceX, but we'd be nowhere w/o developments we gained from warfare. Turns out you can really put your mind to something if it's life or death.
        SiempreViernes 5y ago
        Turing published his paper in 1936, so well before the war. The idea of a computer itself is usually set at the analytical engine by Babbage, whose main motivation was to aid with nautical navigation (a mainly civilian use). Even more fundamentally: the military picked up Turing after the war started, so they had a good idea of what he could so because of work he'd done for others than them. Granted, without the military we wouldn't have had the specific computers the military built, but in this context that is about as interesting as saying that without the military we wouldn't have had the innovation of the 150 mm high explosive shell. Likewise, Tsiolkovsky did his theoretical work in a log cabin because he wanted to reason about space travel. Robert H. Goddard invented the liquid fuelled rocket in the interwar years working largely alone and in any case without any military support. Again the military shows up after stuff is very clearly moving. Like, how is it surprising that an organisation that needs to pay for guns and the training of the people to use them would mostly invest in already existing prototypes?
google234123 5y ago
Defense is 10% of gov spending lol, and 0% of the multiple trillions in stimulus that was funded with debt.
- occz 5y ago
  >and 0% of the multiple trillions in stimulus that was funded with debt. Yes? What does that have to do with anything? Did you think that the pandemic-related stimulus package should have gone to defense spending? If yes, please do motivate that - if no, why mention it at all?
agent327 5y ago
What 'surplus' is that? It appears to me there is a deficit running into the trillions, every single year. For comparison: the US military budget is apparently around 0.7 trillion.

bumbada 5y ago

Luxury and communism are opposites. Compatible words with communism are miserable, corrupt, genocidal or tyrannical. You can pick whatever you want.

beaconstudios 5y ago
fully automated luxury communism is the ideal of a post- or late-scarcity society where goods are distributed equally (or universally accessible, a la Star Trek). You're thinking of Marxism-Leninism, which is just a dictatorship with extra steps.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Yes, ignore Marx, there is absolutely nothing to be learned from him. Just solve the work piling prisoners dilemma and you get the "utopia" part of communism (fair involvement of workers) for free.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    Marx only provided the critique of capitalism and said that historical materialism (the analysis of history as being contingent on material conditions, ie resource allocation) led him to believe capitalism would inevitably collapse into socialism and then communism through the proletariat winning class conflict. All the USSR shit is mostly Lenin, AFAIK.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Not even Lenin. Lenin ran the USSR as a mixed economy with heavy market involvement. It's Stalin that really defined the dysfunction of the later USSR.