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Look the bright side, automation is the reason everyone in the first world now live like the 1% of the third world, as well as the 1% from any human history. H

Look the bright side, automation is the reason everyone in the first world now live like the 1% of the third world, as well as the 1% from any human history. How to fiddling through the coming automation without unrest the society is the only question, before our next generation all live like the 1% of today's first world someday in the future. Automation, not war, should be the only force to propel civilization and living standard. Instead of minimum wage, minimum welfare would be a feasible answer to the future.

noir_lord 13y ago
The thing that worries be sounds like something out of a bad dystopian sci-fi novel. What if the super rich are the ones who get the most advantage out of the automation and use it to keep the rest of the poor under control, I'm talking Ghetto's with automated riot control. I'd think such things where unthinkable but if you look at the history of a company like Nestle nothing would surprise me.
- rayiner 13y ago
  I used to worry about this, but these days my thinking has evolved. Technology has been evolving towards more and more concentrated destructive power, yet human societies have evolved towards more and more freedom (modulo bumps in the road). Why hasn't the opposite happened? The reason is precisely because of the destructive power of modern technology. It makes the dystopia in your example inherently unstable. That automated riot control is one "super rich" person with a conscience (or a clever hacker!) away from being used to destroy the oligarchy it is designed to protect. In contrast, it used to take a great warlord to challenge a despotic king, back when war meant marshaling vast numbers of men and horses.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  People seem to ignore the idea that the super rich and the automated production will get as far away from the democratic masses as possible. They won't bother controlling them or setting up a welfare system, they'll just leave them to scrape by however they can. Fully automated enterprises will have huge incentives to avoid the taxing power of large states. They don't need a workforce, remember. A robotized manufacturer would set up in some small, possibly autocratic state. How are the unemployed masses going to get their subsidies when the taxable productivity is on some small island in the pacific?
  - bcoates 13y ago
    That's not how taxes work. You can tax anything you can get your hands on. Unless this hypothetical robo-island has a mercantilist military capable of ensuring access to markets by force, the states would just tax the goods or resources moving in or out.
  - avmich 13y ago
    Easy. Just make some problems getting the products of those automated enterprises to the market. Like, 90% tax.

noir_lord 13y ago

The thing that worries be sounds like something out of a bad dystopian sci-fi novel. What if the super rich are the ones who get the most advantage out of the automation and use it to keep the rest of the poor under control, I'm talking Ghetto's with automated riot control. I'd think such things where unthinkable but if you look at the history of a company like Nestle nothing would surprise me.

rayiner 13y ago
I used to worry about this, but these days my thinking has evolved. Technology has been evolving towards more and more concentrated destructive power, yet human societies have evolved towards more and more freedom (modulo bumps in the road). Why hasn't the opposite happened? The reason is precisely because of the destructive power of modern technology. It makes the dystopia in your example inherently unstable. That automated riot control is one "super rich" person with a conscience (or a clever hacker!) away from being used to destroy the oligarchy it is designed to protect. In contrast, it used to take a great warlord to challenge a despotic king, back when war meant marshaling vast numbers of men and horses.
a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
People seem to ignore the idea that the super rich and the automated production will get as far away from the democratic masses as possible. They won't bother controlling them or setting up a welfare system, they'll just leave them to scrape by however they can. Fully automated enterprises will have huge incentives to avoid the taxing power of large states. They don't need a workforce, remember. A robotized manufacturer would set up in some small, possibly autocratic state. How are the unemployed masses going to get their subsidies when the taxable productivity is on some small island in the pacific?
- bcoates 13y ago
  That's not how taxes work. You can tax anything you can get your hands on. Unless this hypothetical robo-island has a mercantilist military capable of ensuring access to markets by force, the states would just tax the goods or resources moving in or out.
- avmich 13y ago
  Easy. Just make some problems getting the products of those automated enterprises to the market. Like, 90% tax.