3 ms·

You're panicking. We're gonna be fine. We've done lots of automation before, and we all benefited immensely. Just chill and deal with problems as they come up.

danaris 9mo ago
The "problems that come up" will be people homeless and starving. I'm 100% with stego-tech that I think we should address the major, glaring concerns that come with greater automation before that happens. Because I care about my fellow human beings, and do not want them to suffer.
- fluoridation 9mo ago
  People starving en masse because there was no work to do anymore and no way to get paid, despite there being plentiful food, is something that has never happened. If the amount of money on the consumer side of the food economy were to shrink significantly, what should happen is that the price of food should also go down until people can buy food again. The stock has to move no matter what, otherwise it spoils.
  - danaris 9mo ago
    And if the price that those people can afford is $0, because ClaudeGPTPilot MegaAGI took all their jobs? What then? There is a price below which no farmer is going to sell, regardless of whether they have another buyer. What you're saying effectively amounts to "come on, there's no way they'd actually let people starve in the streets! That's something that could never happen these days." Think about whether there might be other things that "could never happen these days" that are happening right now, in various places in America.
    - fluoridation 9mo ago
      If we're talking about huge groups, like thousands, of people having no money for food, it would behoove the government to pay for that food, just to avoid a revolt. Just as a matter of self-preservation.
      - danaris 9mo ago
        Yeah? And do you think this government is likely to do that?
        fluoridation 9mo ago
        By "this government" you mean Trump's administration? If so, then to answer your question, I need to presuppose that there's going to be such a massive revolution in automation within the next three years (already a dubious proposition IMO) that intervening with food aid is going to be a concern for the US's federal government. We're talking millions of people across the US who might start rioting because they need to eat. That's the scenario you want me to consider? I don't know what the logistics might be, but if the state governments let their local situations fester to that degree it might be too late to do anything federally.
  - spwa4 9mo ago
    Didn't that happen during most/all of history? There was never much of a problem growing more food, there just wasn't any reason to. In Victorian England for example, it would have been easy to grow way more food and build way more housing, the government used violence to prevent it to enforce property rights of huge landowners (that then lost anyway, well, except the royal family of course)
    - fluoridation 8mo ago
      Re-read what I said. >People starving en masse [...] despite there being plentiful food Not "despite there being plentiful food production capacity". No, it has never happened that people starved in great numbers while the food stores were replete. That's a fantastical scenario. Famines only happen when there is no food, or no food nearby. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you have hungry people on one side of a wall and food on the other, the wall will tend to become permeable until equilibrium is achieved. Money and violence (or aversion to it) are not factors in that equation.
switchbak 9mo ago
That’s just faith though. And I see no driving reason to trust in your faith. We’ve never seen anything remotely close to this kind of upheaval. This kind of techno-optimism makes sense in the very young, but seems painfully naive once you’ve been around the block a bunch of times. There are no adults in the room driving this. There’s weird ultra elite people driving this forward with their competitive megalomaniacal egos. And we’re stuck in a game theoretic landscape where it’s effectively an inevitable race to a max AI future. None of this is a recipe for a stable or prosperous future. If this wild accelerated future ends up being a utopia, I’ll be jazzed to eat my words. I just haven’t seen any utopias unfold in my life, and I’m skeptical of those who tell me to chill and embrace the chaos.
- stego-tech 9mo ago
  This. Look, I've got enough things challenging my actual faith that I just cannot deal with piling on more so that the pro-AI camps don't have to do some critical thinking or basic empathy. Those with the means have an obligation to help those without. It's basic cooperation. It's how humanity made it this far.
- munksbeer 9mo ago
  > We’ve never seen anything remotely close to this kind of upheaval. I bet that has been said hundreds of times already through history. I agree with the other poster, this will most likely be a good thing for mankind overall. I'm excited for the future.

danaris 9mo ago

The "problems that come up" will be people homeless and starving. I'm 100% with stego-tech that I think we should address the major, glaring concerns that come with greater automation before that happens. Because I care about my fellow human beings, and do not want them to suffer.

fluoridation 9mo ago
People starving en masse because there was no work to do anymore and no way to get paid, despite there being plentiful food, is something that has never happened. If the amount of money on the consumer side of the food economy were to shrink significantly, what should happen is that the price of food should also go down until people can buy food again. The stock has to move no matter what, otherwise it spoils.
- danaris 9mo ago
  And if the price that those people can afford is $0, because ClaudeGPTPilot MegaAGI took all their jobs? What then? There is a price below which no farmer is going to sell, regardless of whether they have another buyer. What you're saying effectively amounts to "come on, there's no way they'd actually let people starve in the streets! That's something that could never happen these days." Think about whether there might be other things that "could never happen these days" that are happening right now, in various places in America.
  - fluoridation 9mo ago
    If we're talking about huge groups, like thousands, of people having no money for food, it would behoove the government to pay for that food, just to avoid a revolt. Just as a matter of self-preservation.
    - danaris 9mo ago
      Yeah? And do you think this government is likely to do that?
      - fluoridation 9mo ago
        By "this government" you mean Trump's administration? If so, then to answer your question, I need to presuppose that there's going to be such a massive revolution in automation within the next three years (already a dubious proposition IMO) that intervening with food aid is going to be a concern for the US's federal government. We're talking millions of people across the US who might start rioting because they need to eat. That's the scenario you want me to consider? I don't know what the logistics might be, but if the state governments let their local situations fester to that degree it might be too late to do anything federally.
- spwa4 9mo ago
  Didn't that happen during most/all of history? There was never much of a problem growing more food, there just wasn't any reason to. In Victorian England for example, it would have been easy to grow way more food and build way more housing, the government used violence to prevent it to enforce property rights of huge landowners (that then lost anyway, well, except the royal family of course)
  - fluoridation 8mo ago
    Re-read what I said. >People starving en masse [...] despite there being plentiful food Not "despite there being plentiful food production capacity". No, it has never happened that people starved in great numbers while the food stores were replete. That's a fantastical scenario. Famines only happen when there is no food, or no food nearby. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you have hungry people on one side of a wall and food on the other, the wall will tend to become permeable until equilibrium is achieved. Money and violence (or aversion to it) are not factors in that equation.

switchbak 9mo ago

That’s just faith though. And I see no driving reason to trust in your faith. We’ve never seen anything remotely close to this kind of upheaval. This kind of techno-optimism makes sense in the very young, but seems painfully naive once you’ve been around the block a bunch of times. There are no adults in the room driving this. There’s weird ultra elite people driving this forward with their competitive megalomaniacal egos. And we’re stuck in a game theoretic landscape where it’s effectively an inevitable race to a max AI future. None of this is a recipe for a stable or prosperous future. If this wild accelerated future ends up being a utopia, I’ll be jazzed to eat my words. I just haven’t seen any utopias unfold in my life, and I’m skeptical of those who tell me to chill and embrace the chaos.

stego-tech 9mo ago
This. Look, I've got enough things challenging my actual faith that I just cannot deal with piling on more so that the pro-AI camps don't have to do some critical thinking or basic empathy. Those with the means have an obligation to help those without. It's basic cooperation. It's how humanity made it this far.
munksbeer 9mo ago
> We’ve never seen anything remotely close to this kind of upheaval. I bet that has been said hundreds of times already through history. I agree with the other poster, this will most likely be a good thing for mankind overall. I'm excited for the future.