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Remember from the perspective of someone in the 1950s, a managed scientific communist system could be more efficient in the same way scientifically managed asse

Remember from the perspective of someone in the 1950s, a managed scientific communist system could be more efficient in the same way scientifically managed assembly lines replaced craftsmen. So in a lot of capitalist countries there was a constant fear that the communist system might actually be better and thus should be compromised with. Once the info about actual state of affairs in communist systems was revealed, it was no longer seen as a threat.

hnfong 4y ago
btw, Yuval Noah Harari repeatedly warned that advances in informatics and AI might actually solve the problem of central planning. The Soviets tried to do central planning without the means to transfer and process information cheaply. They didn't even have Excel (or Lotus 1-2-3 for that matter). If they failed only because the tools weren't good enough, it might be due for a comeback especially when AI systems could now plausibly take over those roles...
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  Why is it a warning, wouldn’t it be a good thing if we could more efficiently allocate resources than the current system? And aren’t most corporations centrally planned economies on the inside?
  - Ieghaehia9 4y ago
    It's a warning if it isn't accompanied by great democratization, because the planned economy concentrates a lot of power in the hands of the planners. Some proponents of planned economy (e.g. Cottrell) suggest that elected democracy should be replaced by sortition for just that reason. Or perhaps there are technical ways to make planning less centralized, say some kind of federated system with freely available real-time production data, where a new producer can decide what group of existing producers to join.
- hnbad 4y ago
  Incidentally, Cybersyn[0] promised to achieve that goal of automating central planning. Of course we never found out if it would have worked out as the system was destroyed during as part of the heavily US-backed coup replacing socialist Allende with the fascist Pinochet[1]. There are legitimate concerns surrounding the level of surveillance and automation necessary for such a system but they seem hollow from the present sociopolitical context where surveillance and automated decision making is normalized as part of the capitalist system rather than an aspirationally socialist one. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Amazon is the new Cybersyn - and Walmart was it before Amazon. What do you think they're using all those hyperscale datacenters for? Central planning, that's what. (Except that if you don't like Amazon or Walmart's plans, you can just shop elsewhere. The plan for Cybersyn was that it would be your robot overlord - no alternatives allowed.)
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >If they failed only because the tools weren't good enough Anyone who claims that hasn't observed Soviet Union or Russia long enough. The failure was 99% due to "human element" not due to sophistication or not of some planning element.
theironhammer 4y ago
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hnfong 4y ago

btw, Yuval Noah Harari repeatedly warned that advances in informatics and AI might actually solve the problem of central planning. The Soviets tried to do central planning without the means to transfer and process information cheaply. They didn't even have Excel (or Lotus 1-2-3 for that matter). If they failed only because the tools weren't good enough, it might be due for a comeback especially when AI systems could now plausibly take over those roles...

meheleventyone 4y ago
Why is it a warning, wouldn’t it be a good thing if we could more efficiently allocate resources than the current system? And aren’t most corporations centrally planned economies on the inside?
- Ieghaehia9 4y ago
  It's a warning if it isn't accompanied by great democratization, because the planned economy concentrates a lot of power in the hands of the planners. Some proponents of planned economy (e.g. Cottrell) suggest that elected democracy should be replaced by sortition for just that reason. Or perhaps there are technical ways to make planning less centralized, say some kind of federated system with freely available real-time production data, where a new producer can decide what group of existing producers to join.
hnbad 4y ago
Incidentally, Cybersyn[0] promised to achieve that goal of automating central planning. Of course we never found out if it would have worked out as the system was destroyed during as part of the heavily US-backed coup replacing socialist Allende with the fascist Pinochet[1]. There are legitimate concerns surrounding the level of surveillance and automation necessary for such a system but they seem hollow from the present sociopolitical context where surveillance and automated decision making is normalized as part of the capitalist system rather than an aspirationally socialist one. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Amazon is the new Cybersyn - and Walmart was it before Amazon. What do you think they're using all those hyperscale datacenters for? Central planning, that's what. (Except that if you don't like Amazon or Walmart's plans, you can just shop elsewhere. The plan for Cybersyn was that it would be your robot overlord - no alternatives allowed.)
KptMarchewa 4y ago
>If they failed only because the tools weren't good enough Anyone who claims that hasn't observed Soviet Union or Russia long enough. The failure was 99% due to "human element" not due to sophistication or not of some planning element.

theironhammer 4y ago

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