7 ms·

Please stop fantasizing about 'global revolutions'. Wealth redistribution movements can successfully happen within national borders, or even within tightly kni

Please stop fantasizing about 'global revolutions'. Wealth redistribution movements can successfully happen within national borders, or even within tightly knit groups of nations (say EU, or NAFTA). But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers, heck there won't even be any solidarity between Indian and African workers. China in particular violently suppresses unions because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing, which is exactly what happened. If AI is to replace white collar jobs, the outsourced white collar jobs (low precision, low criticality) will be the first to go. Replaced by one person in the home country doing the job of 5-10 in the past. This fact alone crushes any sympathy across borders.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers Why not? If post-covid economics has a theme, it's that things are more interconnected and more fragile than we expected. That fragility is also opportunity. I can imagine scenarios where overpaid tech workers in the US--rather than striking themselves--instead pay underpaid miners (in Africa, say) to strike, which cascades to hold up manufacturing, which cascades to harm their eventual target.
- anonylizard 3y ago
  Why would tech workers pay miners to strike (Lets ignore the insane difficulty of organising that for now)? Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. Software devs benefit from cheaper hardware, in the same way car companies benefit from cheaper oil. Car workers don't get paid better because oil prices go up, they get laid off. Also, most rare earth minerals are mined in China, China does not look kindly to foreign 'interference', such as labour organisation.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    I'd happily earn less knowing that the people working in literal mines to support my success felt less soul destroyed.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      Yes, there are altruistic reasons too. I'd like to say the same for myself, but it's not like I've put in the effort to find out how to actually help such people--and presumably those ways exist. But it even makes sense according to a colder, less human logic (which, regrettably, is often what matters). Like maybe I want to pressure the makers of a VR headset into letting me root it so that I can prevent it from streaming biometrics to the vendor. If I can delay the release of the latest headset versionin a way that causes the news about the delay to focus on how poorly certain workers are treated, I can later threaten to do it again if they don't give me what I want.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      How much less? 10% 50% 80%?
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        That would depend on my absolute income and my overall situation at any given time, just like the tax I pay to support society in my own country.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - jtr1 3y ago
    This is an interesting idea. I honestly hadn’t considered that we could contribute to strike funds in these countries. Seems like a thing worth organizing
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      I believe there are some Nigerian princes who would be willing to help you set up such a fund.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      I feel like a network of that sort would have applications all over the place. Perhaps this is a petty example, but whenever I'm asked to input a tip in a place where tipping isn't appropriate (like a drive-through fast-food restaurant), I'd like to tip $0.05 as a hint that I've contributed $5 to their strike fund (which they could use an app to later verify).
      - UncleEntity 3y ago
        Why not just boycott the places with abusive labor practices instead of some convoluted scheme that only signals your virtuous nature to the exploited employees. You know, like back in the day when people boycotted goods produced in Apartheid South Africa. Today, unless there’s an app for that…
        heavyset_go 3y ago
        Abusive labor practices are the norm in the food industry.
        __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        It's not about virtue signaling, do you think that giving them strings-attached money is going to make them like me? It's kind of a jerk move. It's about establishing communication directly with the workers so that you can circumvent potentially corrupt unions. As for general purpose boycotts, I don't think they're as effective as they used to be. Modern supply chains are too convoluted. It's easy to see somebody doing something that you don't like and engage with them directly about how you can help them stop. Mapping an evil to a change in your spending habits that prevents it... I'm sure there are cases where that's still possible, but I don't think it's the majority of them.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    Well it wouldn't be any old mine, it would be chosen in a way that deferentially impacts the operations of the company that you want to harm. Yeah, it's a negative sum game, but that's how threats usually work. Even though it might hurt their hand, people sometime punch other people if they're convinced that it'll hurt their target more than it hurts them. Income disparity would also be part of the calculation: 1) If there are V people with W average income each willing to pay X% of their their income to support Y other people while they strike and forgo their income of Z, then maybe you get more disruption for your buck by targeting part of the supply chain in a country where wages are lower. 2) If you're looking to make your target look scummy, targeting a more direct dependency might not be the right thing. You'd want to be funding a strike that should've happened anyway if only the people could afford it, not one that isn't justified. As for the "China does not look kindly" thing... don't get caught? We're disrupting here, of course we're going to upset people. That's the point.
    - anonylizard 3y ago
      Lets just say you need to understand a bit more about the difficulties about 'organizing people' You are sounding like those businessmen who think building a facebook or programmer just requires hiring some contracted programmer for a few months. And organizing people across national/linguistic borders is instantly 10x harder. Across long causality chains, 1000x harder. Its like trying to build an app that can run on hardware from the 90s to modern iOS to windows XP. The only company on the planet that can do that is Palantir, and they aren't very profitable.
      - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        I'm not saying I can pull it off, I'm just saying that "solidarity between these groups will never happen" is hard to justify. We've only been doing this whole widespread-global-communication thing for a few decades, who knows what'll happen in the next few.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    > Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. Global solidarity has more benefits than drawbacks. Plus strikes only last so long, then if successful the workers get better pay. But this is unlikely to lead to higher hardware costs - instead it will just be lower profits for the capital owners. The cost of raw materials is not determined by labor costs, but by global markets - owners just collect the difference between costs and prices for themselves.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    > Why would tech workers pay miners to strike (Lets ignore the insane difficulty of organizing that for now)? Why would anyone donate to help anyone else? I've contributed to strike and organized labor funds because it can help others improve and make meaningful changes in their lives. > Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. I doubt many people are pro-miner brutality and exploitation because it might make electronics a bit cheaper.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    > Software devs benefit from cheaper hardware No they don't? For a start hardware is a miniscule cost at most software companies, but even asides from that, its not like programmers would be paid more if that cost was lower. They are paid exactly as little as the boss can get away with. If the company you or I work for literally doubled its profits we'd walk away with like a small bonus at most, maybe some small improvement in options if you're lucky enough to get those
- pyuser583 3y ago
  American unions avoid Mexican unions like the plague. Mexican unions are very corrupt, and even being near them would expose American unions to insane legal liability. I see the same problem with regards to Africa. Corruption is … an issue.
  - zx8080 3y ago
    Seems that the old one "Divide them to conquer separately" always works.
    - anonylizard 3y ago
      Its because often unity is worse than division. Unity allows easy spreading of disease and corruption, cancer cannot spread between different people. If a union in one country is corrupt, it won't automatically affect the unions in another country. China was a united entity against the mongol invasion, didn't work out very well, because you take out the center, the rest collapses. Europe was deeply divided, and just because your neighbouring castle surrendered, doesn't mean you will. Because you are the local noble who owns the land, rather than some bureaucrat employed by a distant emperor.
      - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
        > China was a united entity against the mongol invasion, didn't work out very well, because you take out the center, the rest collapses I am sorry, is this like troll logic? The entire history of war is large and powerfull empires bullying smaller ones. This is so silly I am not even sure how you can argue this. Like did USA fight world war 2 as 50 seperate armies, one for every state?
        anonylizard 3y ago
        I'm not sure what 'entire history of war' you are reading. Did you only read 19th century history or something? If large empires always had an advantage, then you would see endless snowballing, and only end up with mega-empire-blobs, and one-world-government. That is not the case. You have period of imperial blobbing, and also period of intense fracturing. Europe fractured after Rome, because smaller polities were much easier to maintain, with fewer layers of bureaucracy to feed. The small Frank kingdom (that only owned half of France) was able to fend off the great Jihad from the Umayyads that had crushed the Visigothic Spain. Whereas if you took out Rome, or the Chang-An of China, the rest of the empire would be paralyzed and unable to act.
- htag 3y ago
  Why not? Language barriers. Cultural differences. Exploitative history. Low trust. Geographic distances. I think words like Never and Any are too strong, but I don't think we'll see high enough levels of solidarity to form an international labor union for at least 30 years. We seem closer to commercial nuclear fusion power plant.s.
- Aunche 3y ago
  >I can imagine scenarios where overpaid tech workers in the US--rather than striking themselves--instead pay underpaid miners (in Africa, say) to strike, which cascades to hold up manufacturing, which cascades to harm their eventual target. I don't think you've considered the logistical difficulties of what you're describing. It's not like Panasonic has a list of all of the cobalt miners that were part of their supply chain. They themselves have no idea where their cobalt comes from, as they get it through several layers of middlemen. At the root of this supply chain are people like an man who feeds orphans, but forces them to collect peculiar-looking rocks, which he sells to the local warlord's nephew for $2 per hundred pounds. It's not exactly a place that's ripe for unionization. Even could pay somebody to strike, they really have no incentive to do so, as they'd rather earn even more money by not striking and you have no way to keep any individual person accountable. Also I struggle to see how a worker revolution in Tanzania is going to spread to China, which then trickles down to tech workers. Keep in mind that the GDP per capita of the world is only a 1/10th of what an entry level SWE makes at a FAANG. At some point where workers in developing countries get richer, that's going to affect the quality of life of tech workers.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> won't even be any solidarity between Indian and African workers. China in particular violently suppresses unions How are these two points related? > because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing Oh dear, no. In particular English speaking westerners really struggle to assign correct motivations, they. struggle to imagine different thinking processes. Opressive governments like China and Russia has three properties One - any act of spontaneous self organisation by the population is dangerous. In Russia the police raaids chess clubs and charities that plant trees. Why? Because fuck em, some weirdos organising by themselves, without approval, how dare they. two - they are paranoid - what if this organisation X is actually a front, organised by my political enemy? Remember, we are deeppy cynical here, noone organises for a common good, people only organise if someone is concocting a plan for gain or profit three - any civil motion os percieved as disorder. If you are a governor in a opr3ssive regime, and you dont want to interveine in manufacturing dispute, you will have people above you calling you, asking why do you have a mess in your region. Why cant you do your job. So if you run a genuine charity in Russia, you get raided by police immediately -you might be seen as a threat. But if you run a fake charity, and in fact just steal all the donations, then police doesn't really care. The throughts about 'our manufacturing is not competitive if we allow strikes' is not the top concern
- anonylizard 3y ago
  It is absolutely true that China hates unions because it is form a organisation outside of the parties control. It hates organised religion, NGOs, or even apartment strata/bylaw level organisations. However, they also do hate labour regulations. They only accepted 5 day weeks because of the WTO, and they absolutely no not enforce it. The CCP genenuiely believes that harsh working conditions and hours is critical to China's success.
  - gmerc 3y ago
    So they hate the same things as Peter Thiel
    - 3y ago
nyc_data_geek1 3y ago
The International Workers of the World beg to differ.
- UncleEntity 3y ago
  The Wobblies are such a joke that there was talk about taking them over around 20 years ago by just getting enough people with your similar mindset to join. Like the 4chan raiders before the 4chan raiders. I forget the amount of people it would have taken but it was laughably low.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    The IWW is much less marginal today than it was 20 years ago. It’s still quite small as umbrella unions go, though.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      Speaking as a member, in terms of actual unionized workplaces affiliated with it, it's still extremely marginal. In terms of membership in general, it has grown considerably in the past few years, but most of the new members are those who were (further) radicalized by the contemporary US politics and seeking like-minded folk in general, not specifically to organize. Thing is, people who try to organize generally expect some immediate gains out of it, which generally favors large established unions who "play by the rules". IWW is a strongly ideological union and has things like an explicit ban on no-strike clauses in its constitution, which makes it much harder to write a collective bargaining agreement for a workshop that employers are willing to accept. Burgerville Workers Union is a recent example of an IWW success story that broke down over this issue.
gmerc 3y ago
Your grasp of history is a bit weak. What do you think caused the cold war? You think the communist bloc happened on a backdrop of happy workers? Why you think Germany had and still has strong pro labor conditions? Because there was legitimate fear of German workers choosing communism
- somedude895 3y ago
  > the communist bloc happened on a backdrop of happy workers Were workers happy in those countries? Likely no. Was it their populations that chose Communism? No. It was mainly imposed upon countries by Russian imperialism. The cold war was a power struggle, not a struggle between different peoples who chose different ideologies. You can see that in how quickly the Warsaw pact disintegrated after the Soviet Union lost their grasp on those countries, and in how much many of the ex-SU / Warsaw Pact peoples now hate Russia, except for the countries that were taken over by authoritarians.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    There were many attempted communist revolutions around Europe in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. In most cases, large parts of the working class had decided that their own country was the enemy that had to be destroyed. They had no loyalty to the state, but they found natural allies in revolutionary communists in other countries. You are talking about much later events.
    - somedude895 3y ago
      Emphasis on attempted. We also had a wave of red terrorism around the world in the 70s, which led to nothing but grief. Ultimately, what improved workers' rights in the West was a democratic process. In Latin American countries you get governments swinging from populists on the left and on the right constantly. But either way, I don't see any communist revolution coming about anytime soon, even in very undeveloped countries, many of which already lived under some sort of communist dictatorship in the past, or at least live close enough to one to know it didn't do any good.
cabalamat 3y ago
> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers If you're a US worker you have an interest in workers in other countries being well paid, so that that they do not undercut you on price. > China in particular violently suppresses unions True > because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing I suspect the main reason is that independent unions would represent a separate locus of power, which would be a threat to the Communist party's rule.
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
'Global revolution' was very unlikely in 1870 mostly due to communication speed/bandwidth (telegraph), was made unlikely in 1970 by CIA, United Fruit Company, and various other similar organizations with murderous leaders across the world. However, global revolution in 2070 is almost a certainty, too many things are getting aligned, to name some: - climate change: water wars have already started, but they are not yet visible [1] [2], once we get past 2 degrees warmer world we will have unprecedented weather all day, all night. What kind of "border patrol" can stop 3 billion 'immigrants' [3]? A murderous one, sure. - good-enough statistical learning to automate 99.99% of jobs (from the current 3.32 billion jobs, by 2070, very hard to say what is not automate-able, but let's say around 300,000 people (1.5 Microsofts) continue to have jobs looking after the robots that make robots that make robots). - ridiculous biotech advancements: from forgetting cancer ever existed to limb regeneration [4], it's all on the pipeline for the next 20-30 years. - even greater financial consolidation: we will see the $10 trillion company in the next 5-7 years (probably Microsoft), meanwhile BlackRock, Vanguard, and friends will get even bigger, soaring past $100 trillion AUM in 10-12 years (currently at ~$20 trillion, BlackRock + Vanguard + State Street). Are there really any borders if everything is owned/controlled by one company? The future, as it was in 1870, and in 1970, no matter how many veins Ronald Reagan and acolytes burst, will always be socialism or barbarism. Don't get me wrong, I 100% bet on barbarism, your species doesn't deserve socialism. Nevertheless, the global revolution will come, too little, too late, but just in time to leave this planet in the arms of a better caretaker, one without 4 billion years of history caring only for the local glucose gradient. [1] "2021, Syria Water Crisis: Up to 40% less drinking water after 10 years of war", https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-water-crisis-40-less-drinking-water-after-10-years-war https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-wate... [2] "April 2023, Utah’s Great Salt Lake risked disappearing. Unprecedented weather is bringing it back", https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/utah-great-salt-lake-drought-snowfall https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/utah-great-s... [3] "January 2023, A dire forecast: Scientists used AI to find planet could cross critical warming threshold sooner than expected", https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/global-warming-critical-threshold-climate-intl/index.html#:~:text=Temperature%20rises%20over%202%20degrees,into%20%E2%80%9Cchronic%20water%20scarcity.%E2%80%9D https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/global-warming-crit... [4] "2022, Acute multidrug delivery via a wearable bioreactor facilitates long-term limb regeneration and functional recovery in adult Xenopus laevis", https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2164 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2164
kindawinda 3y ago
You seem like the type of lizard who doesn't like opinions that differs from their species.
27fingies 3y ago
> Please stop fantasizing about 'global revolutions'. why? we are on a prominent site in an industry that likes to speak of “changing the world.” Or is that just a euphemism for “I want to make myself rich”?
Juliate 3y ago
> But there will never be any solidarity between say ... There is international solidarity between people, because they understand each other, are in the same classes or have the same ideas/ideologies. Between far-right people, across Europe and US and Russia and everywhere. Between workers, whatever their political taste, because they are in the same class in society. Between white-collars all around the globe (they even meet a lot). And on and on. Be assured that if there's a working promise to unite a group of people worldwide, that aligns with their respective interests, whatever that is, and they have the means to coordinate, why would they refrain? That's even the whole basic premise of the United Nations, for peace.
Juliate 3y ago
> If AI is to [...] This fact alone crushes any sympathy across borders. But who will power, own and regulate AI in your opinion? If AI is to have any impact on society, it's just a tech, it will just move the lines, people will move with them, and solidarity likewise.
dukeyukey 3y ago
> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers You'd be surprised - dock workers across the Western World started to refuse to offload Russia-originated cargo after they invaded Ukraine. Cross-national action is difficult, but not impossible. Obviously this is a different situation, but it shows cooperation at that scale can happen.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers Why not? If post-covid economics has a theme, it's that things are more interconnected and more fragile than we expected. That fragility is also opportunity. I can imagine scenarios where overpaid tech workers in the US--rather than striking themselves--instead pay underpaid miners (in Africa, say) to strike, which cascades to hold up manufacturing, which cascades to harm their eventual target.

anonylizard 3y ago
Why would tech workers pay miners to strike (Lets ignore the insane difficulty of organising that for now)? Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. Software devs benefit from cheaper hardware, in the same way car companies benefit from cheaper oil. Car workers don't get paid better because oil prices go up, they get laid off. Also, most rare earth minerals are mined in China, China does not look kindly to foreign 'interference', such as labour organisation.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  I'd happily earn less knowing that the people working in literal mines to support my success felt less soul destroyed.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    Yes, there are altruistic reasons too. I'd like to say the same for myself, but it's not like I've put in the effort to find out how to actually help such people--and presumably those ways exist. But it even makes sense according to a colder, less human logic (which, regrettably, is often what matters). Like maybe I want to pressure the makers of a VR headset into letting me root it so that I can prevent it from streaming biometrics to the vendor. If I can delay the release of the latest headset versionin a way that causes the news about the delay to focus on how poorly certain workers are treated, I can later threaten to do it again if they don't give me what I want.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    How much less? 10% 50% 80%?
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      That would depend on my absolute income and my overall situation at any given time, just like the tax I pay to support society in my own country.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- jtr1 3y ago
  This is an interesting idea. I honestly hadn’t considered that we could contribute to strike funds in these countries. Seems like a thing worth organizing
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    I believe there are some Nigerian princes who would be willing to help you set up such a fund.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I feel like a network of that sort would have applications all over the place. Perhaps this is a petty example, but whenever I'm asked to input a tip in a place where tipping isn't appropriate (like a drive-through fast-food restaurant), I'd like to tip $0.05 as a hint that I've contributed $5 to their strike fund (which they could use an app to later verify).
    - UncleEntity 3y ago
      Why not just boycott the places with abusive labor practices instead of some convoluted scheme that only signals your virtuous nature to the exploited employees. You know, like back in the day when people boycotted goods produced in Apartheid South Africa. Today, unless there’s an app for that…
      - heavyset_go 3y ago
        Abusive labor practices are the norm in the food industry.
      - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        It's not about virtue signaling, do you think that giving them strings-attached money is going to make them like me? It's kind of a jerk move. It's about establishing communication directly with the workers so that you can circumvent potentially corrupt unions. As for general purpose boycotts, I don't think they're as effective as they used to be. Modern supply chains are too convoluted. It's easy to see somebody doing something that you don't like and engage with them directly about how you can help them stop. Mapping an evil to a change in your spending habits that prevents it... I'm sure there are cases where that's still possible, but I don't think it's the majority of them.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  Well it wouldn't be any old mine, it would be chosen in a way that deferentially impacts the operations of the company that you want to harm. Yeah, it's a negative sum game, but that's how threats usually work. Even though it might hurt their hand, people sometime punch other people if they're convinced that it'll hurt their target more than it hurts them. Income disparity would also be part of the calculation: 1) If there are V people with W average income each willing to pay X% of their their income to support Y other people while they strike and forgo their income of Z, then maybe you get more disruption for your buck by targeting part of the supply chain in a country where wages are lower. 2) If you're looking to make your target look scummy, targeting a more direct dependency might not be the right thing. You'd want to be funding a strike that should've happened anyway if only the people could afford it, not one that isn't justified. As for the "China does not look kindly" thing... don't get caught? We're disrupting here, of course we're going to upset people. That's the point.
  - anonylizard 3y ago
    Lets just say you need to understand a bit more about the difficulties about 'organizing people' You are sounding like those businessmen who think building a facebook or programmer just requires hiring some contracted programmer for a few months. And organizing people across national/linguistic borders is instantly 10x harder. Across long causality chains, 1000x harder. Its like trying to build an app that can run on hardware from the 90s to modern iOS to windows XP. The only company on the planet that can do that is Palantir, and they aren't very profitable.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      I'm not saying I can pull it off, I'm just saying that "solidarity between these groups will never happen" is hard to justify. We've only been doing this whole widespread-global-communication thing for a few decades, who knows what'll happen in the next few.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  > Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. Global solidarity has more benefits than drawbacks. Plus strikes only last so long, then if successful the workers get better pay. But this is unlikely to lead to higher hardware costs - instead it will just be lower profits for the capital owners. The cost of raw materials is not determined by labor costs, but by global markets - owners just collect the difference between costs and prices for themselves.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  > Why would tech workers pay miners to strike (Lets ignore the insane difficulty of organizing that for now)? Why would anyone donate to help anyone else? I've contributed to strike and organized labor funds because it can help others improve and make meaningful changes in their lives. > Making hardware more expensive, directly and negatively harms software developers. I doubt many people are pro-miner brutality and exploitation because it might make electronics a bit cheaper.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  > Software devs benefit from cheaper hardware No they don't? For a start hardware is a miniscule cost at most software companies, but even asides from that, its not like programmers would be paid more if that cost was lower. They are paid exactly as little as the boss can get away with. If the company you or I work for literally doubled its profits we'd walk away with like a small bonus at most, maybe some small improvement in options if you're lucky enough to get those
pyuser583 3y ago
American unions avoid Mexican unions like the plague. Mexican unions are very corrupt, and even being near them would expose American unions to insane legal liability. I see the same problem with regards to Africa. Corruption is … an issue.
- zx8080 3y ago
  Seems that the old one "Divide them to conquer separately" always works.
  - anonylizard 3y ago
    Its because often unity is worse than division. Unity allows easy spreading of disease and corruption, cancer cannot spread between different people. If a union in one country is corrupt, it won't automatically affect the unions in another country. China was a united entity against the mongol invasion, didn't work out very well, because you take out the center, the rest collapses. Europe was deeply divided, and just because your neighbouring castle surrendered, doesn't mean you will. Because you are the local noble who owns the land, rather than some bureaucrat employed by a distant emperor.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      > China was a united entity against the mongol invasion, didn't work out very well, because you take out the center, the rest collapses I am sorry, is this like troll logic? The entire history of war is large and powerfull empires bullying smaller ones. This is so silly I am not even sure how you can argue this. Like did USA fight world war 2 as 50 seperate armies, one for every state?
      - anonylizard 3y ago
        I'm not sure what 'entire history of war' you are reading. Did you only read 19th century history or something? If large empires always had an advantage, then you would see endless snowballing, and only end up with mega-empire-blobs, and one-world-government. That is not the case. You have period of imperial blobbing, and also period of intense fracturing. Europe fractured after Rome, because smaller polities were much easier to maintain, with fewer layers of bureaucracy to feed. The small Frank kingdom (that only owned half of France) was able to fend off the great Jihad from the Umayyads that had crushed the Visigothic Spain. Whereas if you took out Rome, or the Chang-An of China, the rest of the empire would be paralyzed and unable to act.
htag 3y ago
Why not? Language barriers. Cultural differences. Exploitative history. Low trust. Geographic distances. I think words like Never and Any are too strong, but I don't think we'll see high enough levels of solidarity to form an international labor union for at least 30 years. We seem closer to commercial nuclear fusion power plant.s.
Aunche 3y ago
>I can imagine scenarios where overpaid tech workers in the US--rather than striking themselves--instead pay underpaid miners (in Africa, say) to strike, which cascades to hold up manufacturing, which cascades to harm their eventual target. I don't think you've considered the logistical difficulties of what you're describing. It's not like Panasonic has a list of all of the cobalt miners that were part of their supply chain. They themselves have no idea where their cobalt comes from, as they get it through several layers of middlemen. At the root of this supply chain are people like an man who feeds orphans, but forces them to collect peculiar-looking rocks, which he sells to the local warlord's nephew for $2 per hundred pounds. It's not exactly a place that's ripe for unionization. Even could pay somebody to strike, they really have no incentive to do so, as they'd rather earn even more money by not striking and you have no way to keep any individual person accountable. Also I struggle to see how a worker revolution in Tanzania is going to spread to China, which then trickles down to tech workers. Keep in mind that the GDP per capita of the world is only a 1/10th of what an entry level SWE makes at a FAANG. At some point where workers in developing countries get richer, that's going to affect the quality of life of tech workers.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> won't even be any solidarity between Indian and African workers. China in particular violently suppresses unions How are these two points related? > because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing Oh dear, no. In particular English speaking westerners really struggle to assign correct motivations, they. struggle to imagine different thinking processes. Opressive governments like China and Russia has three properties One - any act of spontaneous self organisation by the population is dangerous. In Russia the police raaids chess clubs and charities that plant trees. Why? Because fuck em, some weirdos organising by themselves, without approval, how dare they. two - they are paranoid - what if this organisation X is actually a front, organised by my political enemy? Remember, we are deeppy cynical here, noone organises for a common good, people only organise if someone is concocting a plan for gain or profit three - any civil motion os percieved as disorder. If you are a governor in a opr3ssive regime, and you dont want to interveine in manufacturing dispute, you will have people above you calling you, asking why do you have a mess in your region. Why cant you do your job. So if you run a genuine charity in Russia, you get raided by police immediately -you might be seen as a threat. But if you run a fake charity, and in fact just steal all the donations, then police doesn't really care. The throughts about 'our manufacturing is not competitive if we allow strikes' is not the top concern

anonylizard 3y ago
It is absolutely true that China hates unions because it is form a organisation outside of the parties control. It hates organised religion, NGOs, or even apartment strata/bylaw level organisations. However, they also do hate labour regulations. They only accepted 5 day weeks because of the WTO, and they absolutely no not enforce it. The CCP genenuiely believes that harsh working conditions and hours is critical to China's success.
- gmerc 3y ago
  So they hate the same things as Peter Thiel
  - 3y ago

nyc_data_geek1 3y ago

The International Workers of the World beg to differ.

UncleEntity 3y ago
The Wobblies are such a joke that there was talk about taking them over around 20 years ago by just getting enough people with your similar mindset to join. Like the 4chan raiders before the 4chan raiders. I forget the amount of people it would have taken but it was laughably low.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  The IWW is much less marginal today than it was 20 years ago. It’s still quite small as umbrella unions go, though.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Speaking as a member, in terms of actual unionized workplaces affiliated with it, it's still extremely marginal. In terms of membership in general, it has grown considerably in the past few years, but most of the new members are those who were (further) radicalized by the contemporary US politics and seeking like-minded folk in general, not specifically to organize. Thing is, people who try to organize generally expect some immediate gains out of it, which generally favors large established unions who "play by the rules". IWW is a strongly ideological union and has things like an explicit ban on no-strike clauses in its constitution, which makes it much harder to write a collective bargaining agreement for a workshop that employers are willing to accept. Burgerville Workers Union is a recent example of an IWW success story that broke down over this issue.

gmerc 3y ago

Your grasp of history is a bit weak. What do you think caused the cold war? You think the communist bloc happened on a backdrop of happy workers? Why you think Germany had and still has strong pro labor conditions? Because there was legitimate fear of German workers choosing communism

somedude895 3y ago
> the communist bloc happened on a backdrop of happy workers Were workers happy in those countries? Likely no. Was it their populations that chose Communism? No. It was mainly imposed upon countries by Russian imperialism. The cold war was a power struggle, not a struggle between different peoples who chose different ideologies. You can see that in how quickly the Warsaw pact disintegrated after the Soviet Union lost their grasp on those countries, and in how much many of the ex-SU / Warsaw Pact peoples now hate Russia, except for the countries that were taken over by authoritarians.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  There were many attempted communist revolutions around Europe in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. In most cases, large parts of the working class had decided that their own country was the enemy that had to be destroyed. They had no loyalty to the state, but they found natural allies in revolutionary communists in other countries. You are talking about much later events.
  - somedude895 3y ago
    Emphasis on attempted. We also had a wave of red terrorism around the world in the 70s, which led to nothing but grief. Ultimately, what improved workers' rights in the West was a democratic process. In Latin American countries you get governments swinging from populists on the left and on the right constantly. But either way, I don't see any communist revolution coming about anytime soon, even in very undeveloped countries, many of which already lived under some sort of communist dictatorship in the past, or at least live close enough to one to know it didn't do any good.

cabalamat 3y ago

> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers If you're a US worker you have an interest in workers in other countries being well paid, so that that they do not undercut you on price. > China in particular violently suppresses unions True > because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing I suspect the main reason is that independent unions would represent a separate locus of power, which would be a threat to the Communist party's rule.

ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago

'Global revolution' was very unlikely in 1870 mostly due to communication speed/bandwidth (telegraph), was made unlikely in 1970 by CIA, United Fruit Company, and various other similar organizations with murderous leaders across the world. However, global revolution in 2070 is almost a certainty, too many things are getting aligned, to name some: - climate change: water wars have already started, but they are not yet visible [1] [2], once we get past 2 degrees warmer world we will have unprecedented weather all day, all night. What kind of "border patrol" can stop 3 billion 'immigrants' [3]? A murderous one, sure. - good-enough statistical learning to automate 99.99% of jobs (from the current 3.32 billion jobs, by 2070, very hard to say what is not automate-able, but let's say around 300,000 people (1.5 Microsofts) continue to have jobs looking after the robots that make robots that make robots). - ridiculous biotech advancements: from forgetting cancer ever existed to limb regeneration [4], it's all on the pipeline for the next 20-30 years. - even greater financial consolidation: we will see the $10 trillion company in the next 5-7 years (probably Microsoft), meanwhile BlackRock, Vanguard, and friends will get even bigger, soaring past $100 trillion AUM in 10-12 years (currently at ~$20 trillion, BlackRock + Vanguard + State Street). Are there really any borders if everything is owned/controlled by one company? The future, as it was in 1870, and in 1970, no matter how many veins Ronald Reagan and acolytes burst, will always be socialism or barbarism. Don't get me wrong, I 100% bet on barbarism, your species doesn't deserve socialism. Nevertheless, the global revolution will come, too little, too late, but just in time to leave this planet in the arms of a better caretaker, one without 4 billion years of history caring only for the local glucose gradient. [1] "2021, Syria Water Crisis: Up to 40% less drinking water after 10 years of war", https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-water-crisis-40-less-drinking-water-after-10-years-war https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-wate... [2] "April 2023, Utah’s Great Salt Lake risked disappearing. Unprecedented weather is bringing it back", https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/utah-great-salt-lake-drought-snowfall https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/utah-great-s... [3] "January 2023, A dire forecast: Scientists used AI to find planet could cross critical warming threshold sooner than expected", https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/global-warming-critical-threshold-climate-intl/index.html#:~:text=Temperature%20rises%20over%202%20degrees,into%20%E2%80%9Cchronic%20water%20scarcity.%E2%80%9D https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/global-warming-crit... [4] "2022, Acute multidrug delivery via a wearable bioreactor facilitates long-term limb regeneration and functional recovery in adult Xenopus laevis", https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2164 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2164

kindawinda 3y ago

You seem like the type of lizard who doesn't like opinions that differs from their species.

27fingies 3y ago

> Please stop fantasizing about 'global revolutions'. why? we are on a prominent site in an industry that likes to speak of “changing the world.” Or is that just a euphemism for “I want to make myself rich”?

Juliate 3y ago

> But there will never be any solidarity between say ... There is international solidarity between people, because they understand each other, are in the same classes or have the same ideas/ideologies. Between far-right people, across Europe and US and Russia and everywhere. Between workers, whatever their political taste, because they are in the same class in society. Between white-collars all around the globe (they even meet a lot). And on and on. Be assured that if there's a working promise to unite a group of people worldwide, that aligns with their respective interests, whatever that is, and they have the means to coordinate, why would they refrain? That's even the whole basic premise of the United Nations, for peace.

Juliate 3y ago

> If AI is to [...] This fact alone crushes any sympathy across borders. But who will power, own and regulate AI in your opinion? If AI is to have any impact on society, it's just a tech, it will just move the lines, people will move with them, and solidarity likewise.

dukeyukey 3y ago

> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers You'd be surprised - dock workers across the Western World started to refuse to offload Russia-originated cargo after they invaded Ukraine. Cross-national action is difficult, but not impossible. Obviously this is a different situation, but it shows cooperation at that scale can happen.