3 ms·

Being made obsolete by technology is nothing new (see the Luddites). But regardless of how replaceable any individual is, we're still in a human society. Maxi

Being made obsolete by technology is nothing new (see the Luddites). But regardless of how replaceable any individual is, we're still in a human society. Maximizing profits by laying off humans can work for a while, and systems can rebalance, but if prevailing dynamics collectively lead to a large percentage of the population being "unemployable", then the political situation will become very explosive. People need to feel some purpose in life. Once things destabilize to a certain point, the global productivity that allows for the enormous compute power behind modern tech and AI will come crashing down pretty fast. Sure, there are authoritarian scenarios to worry about, but I have a hard time convincing myself that tech enables authoritarian control beyond what was possible throughout history.

fullshark 4y ago
Why? Tech enables a small group of people to have extreme power/leverage. In the case of military/control you don’t even need the labor class to serve in the military in large numbers anymore for global supremacy.
- dasil003 4y ago
  For all the leverage the US has militarily, what control did it actually exert in Afghanistan? What about Russia in Ukraine? War and occupation is one thing, but I'm speaking more of the consent of the governed. Do you think the billionaire class can keep hoovering up all the economic gains as jobs are automated based solely on their self-interested narrative of capital ownership? What happens when unemployment hits 20%, 30%, 50%? Are they going to send drones against the populace? Even in China, the CCP's policies only work as long as they deliver a certain measure of prosperity to the people. Propaganda and police brutality can only take you so far before the people have had enough.
- junofan 4y ago
  Yeah, I’m fairly certain things will be fine. Everyone’s consuming curated propaganda on their phones every single day. The little people won’t be doing much.
warent 4y ago
It feels like part of this may be some needed mental shift from a scarcity mindset to a prosperity mindset. My mind always goes to the very optimistic, Utopian world in Star Trek, where humans have identified that we can afford for people to stop working for the purpose of survival (the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and instead start working just for the personal challenge and growth. Not saying we're there yet, but with so many jobs rapidly becoming obsolete by machines, it seems to me to be the direction we're going. Rather than meaninglessness, joblessness, poverty, homelessness, I hope society can shift into this paradigm that automation could mean the exact opposite: empowerment to more freedom. This is probably a very scary perspective for many capitalists! The majority of people actually do want to work, they just don't want to work for the sake of work itself. A huge benefit of capital is that it means we don't really have to trust each other at a high level, because fundamentally our incentives all align around survival which money is a tool to survive. One day maybe we can make a world where there is more trust in each other; that just about everyone wants to do the best that we can with the exception of a small number of malignant personality disorders that is the minority. This new trust will enable some amazing doors to open up.
- monkeydust 4y ago
  You should read Trekonimics if your into this way of thinking.
  - warent 4y ago
    interesting! thank you, I'll check it out
sawyna 4y ago
One would think people would have more freedom and will explore life far more than today and get into philosophical stuff. But the reality is messy. Imagine a single individual who leads quite a busy life and yearns to have some free time to be more "free" and do things that matter. You know what happens when that person gets whole lot of free time? They are not sure about what to do and it takes a lot to start doing something new. If this happens on a large scale, I'm really not sure that it'll make the world a better place to live. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but people would have ample lot of time to do more useless political stuff like manipulate, influence others for their own gain. There's this anime called Log Horizon which kind of plays this scenario out. Everyone gets stuck in this metaverse sort of game where people generally come for fun. Once stuck, people start killing each other and doing random things because they don't know what to do. There's no purpose in their "life".

fullshark 4y ago

Why? Tech enables a small group of people to have extreme power/leverage. In the case of military/control you don’t even need the labor class to serve in the military in large numbers anymore for global supremacy.

dasil003 4y ago
For all the leverage the US has militarily, what control did it actually exert in Afghanistan? What about Russia in Ukraine? War and occupation is one thing, but I'm speaking more of the consent of the governed. Do you think the billionaire class can keep hoovering up all the economic gains as jobs are automated based solely on their self-interested narrative of capital ownership? What happens when unemployment hits 20%, 30%, 50%? Are they going to send drones against the populace? Even in China, the CCP's policies only work as long as they deliver a certain measure of prosperity to the people. Propaganda and police brutality can only take you so far before the people have had enough.
junofan 4y ago
Yeah, I’m fairly certain things will be fine. Everyone’s consuming curated propaganda on their phones every single day. The little people won’t be doing much.

warent 4y ago

It feels like part of this may be some needed mental shift from a scarcity mindset to a prosperity mindset. My mind always goes to the very optimistic, Utopian world in Star Trek, where humans have identified that we can afford for people to stop working for the purpose of survival (the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and instead start working just for the personal challenge and growth. Not saying we're there yet, but with so many jobs rapidly becoming obsolete by machines, it seems to me to be the direction we're going. Rather than meaninglessness, joblessness, poverty, homelessness, I hope society can shift into this paradigm that automation could mean the exact opposite: empowerment to more freedom. This is probably a very scary perspective for many capitalists! The majority of people actually do want to work, they just don't want to work for the sake of work itself. A huge benefit of capital is that it means we don't really have to trust each other at a high level, because fundamentally our incentives all align around survival which money is a tool to survive. One day maybe we can make a world where there is more trust in each other; that just about everyone wants to do the best that we can with the exception of a small number of malignant personality disorders that is the minority. This new trust will enable some amazing doors to open up.

monkeydust 4y ago
You should read Trekonimics if your into this way of thinking.
- warent 4y ago
  interesting! thank you, I'll check it out

sawyna 4y ago

One would think people would have more freedom and will explore life far more than today and get into philosophical stuff. But the reality is messy. Imagine a single individual who leads quite a busy life and yearns to have some free time to be more "free" and do things that matter. You know what happens when that person gets whole lot of free time? They are not sure about what to do and it takes a lot to start doing something new. If this happens on a large scale, I'm really not sure that it'll make the world a better place to live. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but people would have ample lot of time to do more useless political stuff like manipulate, influence others for their own gain. There's this anime called Log Horizon which kind of plays this scenario out. Everyone gets stuck in this metaverse sort of game where people generally come for fun. Once stuck, people start killing each other and doing random things because they don't know what to do. There's no purpose in their "life".