turnip_burrito t1_j5bg75e wrote
Campaigning your local elected officials, if they exist, for more progressive policies to help workers displaced by automation.
jsseven777 t1_j5bilx7 wrote
This is really the key. At some point we have to figure out how to get politicians in who don’t put corporate quarterly profits first on every decision point. The productivity gains of the next 20 years should go to reducing the retirement age down to 30 and increasing retirement benefits to a reasonable standard of living.
Until that happens AI productivity increases will all go to people who at this point have already won capitalism and don’t need more, and a lot of people will find themselves without jobs who have no savings at all to fall back on.
MootFile t1_j5cfxty wrote
Politicians? Where we're going we don't need politicians.
Instead a revolution of engineers & technicians should take the lead.
AncientGreekHistory t1_j5e5egh wrote
That'd certainly be better. Anyone supporting any politician in high office right now is part of the problem. They're all cancers.
Shodidoren t1_j5jw67j wrote
I'm not sure politicians exist because they're needed
MootFile t1_j5jw8z1 wrote
Says them.
edit: I think I misread that. They exist by duping people.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bjfs9 wrote
pretty sure elon musk is gonna need a lot more than a couple hundred billion to build a mars colony, for the easiest example. (i don't actually think building a mars colony would even be productive but there's a lot of related space tech that may be highly relevant and it's also not really my place to say what other people do with money they earn in my worldview).
freeman_joe t1_j5bxpio wrote
Elon isn’t building anything. Scientists and engineers are. Elon has money nothing more or less. Nobody needs people like Elon we need more independent scientists and engineers.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5c09d1 wrote
> Elon has money nothing more or less
not true. he is actually technically competent and also mentally deranged in a way that has been useful in the situations he has found himself in (tho it did get him fired from paypal and has hurt him on many occassions as well... still john carmack tried to start a rocket company (armadillo aerospace), and he is an ENGINEER's ENGINEER, but he failed, and musk succeeded, cuz musk committed everything) > we need more independent scientists and engineers.
possibly true in the USA. in india or china, engineer is a dime a dozen.
you guys call yourselves elon haters but I have literally shorted tesla in the past (managed to survive tho lol). you know nothing XD
MootFile t1_j5cjl6i wrote
Why don't you go read what actual progressive engineers look like and advocated for. They're anti-capitalism and pro-scientism. Elon musk on the other hand, is one of the most wealthiest people on this Earth. And has spread anti-vaxx rhetoric.
Yes, electric vehicles are good. So is space colonization, brain chips, and vehicle automation. But all this was before Elon showed just how unhinged he really is.
Progress, is taking the means of production out of the hands of capitalists. And placing it in the hands of technicians, engineers, and scientists. Elon has not used his wealth to make this possible. Because he's a businessman.
​
And him being anti-leftist (which he is) is laughable when you look at the history of technology movements or the ideologies of utopian sci-fi authors.
His grandfather Joshua Haldeman, was a member in a left-wing movement known as Technocracy. So where do you think his ideas came from? Haldeman eventual left the movement for becoming "to communist" but still, technology enables the workers and musk is grifting off that.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/technocracy-incorporated-elon-musk
Howard Scott, Thorstein Veblen, Harold Loeb, M. King Hubbert, Jacque Fresco, H. G. Wells, Fred W. Taylor, Julian Huxley, etc. Read what they have to say about inefficiencies or improvement of mankind. Its more radical than Elon Musk's twitter verification.
MeiXue_TianHe t1_j5cs2s9 wrote
Makes sense. Considering in the end what matters is positive legacy or investments he did done in the right direction. Investing in space, AI, brain chips and renewable is already enough for one person.
If everyone could have similar impact then we be talking exponential chances across the globe. That's only possible currently with wealth. Because most things are expensive.
We must develop tools so they're no longer that expensive. And everyone can deploy gigaawatts of energy or make skyscrapers, crowdfund O'Neill cylinders or set up shop at Pluto.
Musk wouldn't be able to do what he does if not for modern technologies and infrastructure. in medieval times he'd be at best a patron of knowledge. So wealth alone isn't the key. It's the compounded exponentials.
All his unhinged pandering to political extremism and irrelevant ideologies (such America's culture wars) show a facet of weakness in present society; most people aren't ready for full technocracy. They still yearn for petty conflicts, identity based rivalry and old styled political mindset.
Technocracy is by far the best option for mankind. And the toughest one since it requires systemic change in how politics is viewed; not anymore as identity or as popularity contest.
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5dc7j8 wrote
> progressive engineers look like and advocated for. They’re anti-capitalism and pro-scientism.
Engineers are well known for being morons outside of their field. Pretty ironic being “pro-scientism” and being against evidence based economic policy
> Progress, is taking the means of production out of the hands of capitalists.
Why is that progress?
> And placing it in the hands of technicians, engineers, and scientists.
And thereby making them capitalists themselves. What a big brain move. Anyways, pretty much every tech company gives equity as a form of compensation with most of the early employees (mostly all scientists and engineers) became very wealthy if the company is successful.
> Elon has not used his wealth to make this possible. Because he’s a businessman.
And has a masters in Physics, which means he is a scientist owning the means of production
> a left-wing movement known as Technocracy
Singapore is an actual technocracy and is very right-wing
MootFile t1_j5dh2hp wrote
>Engineers are well known for being morons outside of their field. Pretty ironic being “pro-scientism” and being evidence based economic policy
Reality seems to disagree with this point considering our society is built off the wonders of science & engineering.
>Why is that progress?
Because they've created new technology? Which fixes problems, thus progress?
>And thereby making them capitalists themselves. What a big brain move. Pretty much every tech company gives equity as a form of compensation with most of the early employees (mostly all scientists and engineers) became very wealthy if the company is successful.
Being a worker doesn't make you a capitalist. Although Marxists do call scientists "petite bourgeoisie"
>And has a masters in Physics, which means he is a scientist owning the means of production
A dictatorship lacks perspectives of other people. One scientist in charge would obviously fail. The big idea is that everyone whos educated or trained in technical occupations would be making decisions together. Aimed at removing the inefficiencies and waste of capitalism.
>Singapore is an actual technocracy and is very right-wing
Singapore has nothing to do with the movement and is not a technocracy. Neither is China.
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5e1wfz wrote
> Reality seems to disagree with this point
Really? Being an engineer doesn’t automatically make you an expert in a different field from your own
> Because they’ve created new technology? Which fixes problems, thus progress?
And how is giving them the means of production automatically progress
> Being a worker doesn’t make you a capitalist.
Only the scientists and engineers owning capital would make them the capitalists
> The big idea is that everyone whos educated or trained in technical occupations would be making decisions together.
That’s how every business works, especially tech companies. Teams make decisions together
> Singapore has nothing to do with the movement
All policy in Singapore is crafted by experts in their field. Even in China, all the politburo members (the guys in charge of the country) have STEM degrees. Xi for example is an Industrial Engineer
AncientGreekHistory t1_j5e5kvo wrote
This entire sub-thread is a wonderful illustration of how ideology is cancer. You're just arguing over which of your cancers is worse.
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5h1kkl wrote
I am a pragmatist and don’t really have an ideology beyond improving my country
Frumpagumpus t1_j5d3kj8 wrote
science was great until they invented peer review and transformed it into a public institution.
science has done almost nothing in decades. computer science on the other hand... why do you think stephen wolfram bailed on physics?
vaccines were big pharma ;_; lol. i dont even like them (i hate intellectual property (chinese have almost made clean energy transformation possible by ignoring the f*** out of intellectual property making solar cells and batteries cheap as dirt) but u gotta hand it to them they did that
(just look at r/science it's a joke)
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5d8cbv wrote
This is the most ignorant thing I have read in a week
Frumpagumpus t1_j5deh3i wrote
i may have been exaggerating slightly.
still, it used to be a lot more efficient of a system, than it is now.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5d58kj wrote
another thing I would say is science/bayes theorem by itself is really no basis for any kind of moral philosophy. it has problems almost as bad as religious appeal to power/authority. not to mention is/ought problem.
freedom or fairness might be. so i think as bad as NAP principle is libertarians at least make a good faith effort whereas scientism doesn't even start from any kind of grounding.
pursuit of truth is somewhat interesting as well, though i think pursuit of falseness is equally interesting, as well as pursuit of computational complexity i guess XD (but that's a level deeper than just empirical experimentation)
MootFile t1_j5dc8wa wrote
What do you mean by morals.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5de98i wrote
capitalism = capital can be acquired through free trade
you seem to be positing that "pro scientism" will somehow distribute capital via a means other than trade, some form of distribution, which would presumably require making some kind of moral judgement of the form person y deserves amount of capital z.
but i don't see how scientific method has anything to do with making such moral judgements.
MootFile t1_j5df5yl wrote
Utilitarianism tries to frame it into a science based measurement.
Scientism is about solving problems. People starving is a problem. Morals are up to the community.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5eh5e7 wrote
it seems to me the incidence of effective altrusists is higher amongst ultra high net worth individuals than ordinary people.
(and objectively they seem to have achieved quite a lot e.g. bill gates&rotary club vs polio)
jsseven777 t1_j5bjmb2 wrote
He can’t run Twitter. He’s not building a Mars colony. Could you imagine him banning people from the colony and yeeting them into space for questioning his decisions?
bobbib14 t1_j5doszy wrote
Like Josh Gad in Avenue 5!!!!
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bjr48 wrote
lol twitter has cut like over half it's staff and it still hasn't fallen over yet. haven't even really seen fail whales for the most part.
pretty sure their user base has grown
that's a big success from a corporate point of view
edit in response to edit and no i wouldnt want to live on mars (and especially not under musk government) or work for elon musk but I'm not bent on commandeering his money lol (in particular I think if you do commandeer it, it will be in such a way that sets up a bunch of perverse incentives and you'll probably waste almost all of it worse than musk would, by a lot)
wealth tax bad, land value tax good, also land value tax basically taxes "unjust wealth" (maybe eliminate copyright and do pigovian tax like carbon tax and cig tax and their might not even be much if any unjust wealth)
jsseven777 t1_j5bl6ca wrote
Yup, a business has its revenue from advertising fall 40%+ and you call that a big success from a corporate point of view.
Why do people always defend billionaires. Every penny of their fortune comes from paying a person below a living wage. We are past the point that capitalism doesn’t need all of us to work anymore, and over the next 10 years if we don’t start pulling people out of the workforce by lowering the retirement age and increasing retirement benefits to a living wage the unemployment rate is going to skyrocket.
If we want a mars colony it should be run by the government like any other city. You want corporate cities now? What kind of propaganda have you been watching?
It’s not commandeering his money, it’s fixing our society so it’s not possible to steal quality of living from people anymore. We are capable of providing a living wage.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bles2 wrote
the government are the baddies. along with landowners©right&ip holders.
billionaires in modern society have paper fortunes. the wealthiest don't even have physical wealth at all almost, all they have is control of the corporations whose profits they drive, there is nothing for you to take from them... except for control.
and once you take that control and hand it over to the government, you will live in squalor.
(source - observation, on the contrary you are the one who is drinking in propaganda, media, including social media, harps on all your talking points 24/7 lol)
jsseven777 t1_j5bmvmf wrote
The government part was my literal point. You are the one who brought up Elon. Lol. And no, you don’t live in squalor from consumer protection and worker protection laws. That’s not true.
There are lots of countries with better standard of living than USA that have more vacation days, health care, strong minimum wages.
Capitalism tells you every day that doing anything to hurt corporate profits will lower your standard of living while you sit there with a literal low standard of living.
Amazon workers pee in bottles. I’m pretty sure a world where they get proper break is possible. If Jeff Bezos won’t give his employees bathroom breaks what makes you think he will help take care of all the workers that get laid off when all of his fleets flip to self-driving cars?
It’s amazing that people defend billionaires. Do you own your own home? Do you make a living wage? Do you have a six month cushion if you lose your job? If you can’t answer yes to these three questions then why do you defend this?
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bpshp wrote
i also think it's REALLY telling the very first question you ask is do you own your own home?
who do i think are the baddies? well, homeowners mostly lol. landowners in general but that's mostly homeowners and the government, with a little bit of bezos and gates sprinkled in (but only a little)
homeowners interests are not compatible with any kind of productivity. (free example, it KILLS labor mobility)
jsseven777 t1_j5br2vs wrote
Homeowners are bad, but landlords are good? I can’t even imagine how one might twist logic to get to this conclusion… and a home can be a condo in a skyscraper too. You don’t need to monopolize a plot of land here. People should own their homes. You are advocating for feudalism here.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5br76u wrote
NO. Landowners are bad. including homeowners. and also banks (banks effectively own land from issuing mortgages).
But, in an ideal world, probably most people would rent from a "building owner", yes. (because all land rent would be paid directly to the government and any excess after basic functions like public infrastructure and military spending paid out as ubi) (practically speaking, you would have to still have some private land wealth at least at first so you could get a market price for land rent).
In fact, our current system is basically feudalism. Barons (banks&boomer homeowners), guilds (american medical assocation, the bar association, professors&peer review), and serfs (amazon workers). Combined with fascism (federal bureaucracies and public schools and public/private parternships like microsoft, amazon, and lockheed martin).
this all works okay, but it could be a lot better. but if you just totally socialize the corporations idk how you can predict anything but catastrophe. whoever is in charge of distributing the wealth will take their cut and give it out in such a way it will only misalign incentives. incentives are obviously really important.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bn16m wrote
countries with better standard of living than USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
Luxembourg *
Liechtenstein *
Singapore *
Ireland *
Monaco *
Qatar *
Bermuda *
Isle of Man *
Switzerland *
Norway
United Arab Emirates *
basically you need oil wealth or to be a tax haven
i agree US healthcare is a shitshow, but it would be way better if it was a free market... also USA ppl are obese partly cuz we have to drive everywhere cuz of zoning regulations, cuz government (which we kind've vote for... sort of, but that's just the tyranny of democracy (which i think is better than autocracy for the record, but I would prefer it if every country had open borders and we could easily switch between countries)
Do you own your own home?
No, and I think home ownership is by far the most toxic part of pretty much every society. We should NOT encourage home ownership. homes are a huge freaking time sink. and you do NOT want to have everyone voting for their land to appreciate. that is why we are in the mess we are in.
Do you make a living wage?
yes
Do you have a six month cushion if you lose your job?
yes
jsseven777 t1_j5bnfsa wrote
Your own article says it’s a bad measure. That doesn’t account for inequalities in distribution which was the entire point here.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bp7vm wrote
> This is why GDP (PPP) per capita is often considered one of the indicators of a country's standard of living,[3][4] although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income
far from "it's a bad measure"
nathanielKay t1_j5e2mdx wrote
Ah, true. Its the worst measure.
If I have a billion dollars, and you have a thousand friends with nothing, GDP says we're all millionaires.
Yeah nah, one of us is doing fine, the other 999 are living in abject squalor. Which is to say, almost everyone.
Also, there is already a formula for determining QoL, with a dozen or so markers, and the US usually places around 16th or so.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5eh1iu wrote
huh, that sounds awful similar, except it puts slightly more emphasis on egalitarianism over raw industrial capacity...
everything_in_sync t1_j5fs15c wrote
Not sure why you're being downvoted, that's exactly how China works. No separation from corporation and government.
Frumpagumpus t1_j5bp1nc wrote
> advertising fall 40%+
temporarily cuz a bunch of leftist controlled corporations (which you seem to hate corporations?) are trying to cancel him lol
AllCommiesRFascists t1_j5d7jrz wrote
> Why do people always defend billionaires.
Correcting misinformation is bad if it is against undesirable people now?
> Every penny of their fortune comes from paying a person below a living wage.
Labor theory of value BS. This has been debunked over a century ago
> We are past the point that capitalism doesn’t need all of us to work anymore
We are not at that point. Maybe by the end of the decade though
> If we want a mars colony it should be run by the government like any other city.
The people on the Mars colony will form their own government, likely a direct democracy since the population will be so low
> We are capable of providing a living wage
Every westerner makes a living wage. You guys are so privileged and don’t realize it
DisasterDalek t1_j5ce5mp wrote
Being able to retire at 30 would be great, but damn if I'd be a bit pissed spending all of my good years working some crappy job retiring at 65 when the gen-whatever gets the good life
civilrunner t1_j5c49z2 wrote
That and campaign for allowing more housing developments, control of land and preventing development making housing unaffordable is one way wealthier people are already hurting the majority.
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