AI will replace a lot of jobs and with the active weakening of social safety nets it will cause people to suffer unless something like UBI is implemented. The rich are working against any social safety nets and are making advances in weakening those programs. They are also hurting public education, public information systems, grant programs, and anything not geared toward private profit. The protectionism you mention is also causing a brain drain and labor shortage in the US through mass deportation efforts.
Robots are being used for war more and more - there are major advancement in this field right now. Right now one of the biggest things holding back crack downs on protests is that soldiers are people who can disobey orders and most don’t want to hurt their neighbors. If robots, which will be controlled by rich defense contractors as things stand, advance to a stage where they can be fully implemented in the field without need of operators - what is to stop them from being used on the population if protests occur contrary to wishes of the powerful. That’s why I am worried about robot advancement with a society where power dynamics are so skewed away from the majority.
The rich being in charge of allocation of resources through investment has only helped society in the ways they could also make it enriched themselves. Using the whims of narcissists to guide the allocation of resources in society has slowed advancement, not fueled it. It has slowed the addressing of the climate crisis - which fuel companies originally tried to hide, then created campaigns to misinform, and now outright bought politicians to slow the needed transitions. Private companies slowed advancement of the technology through proprietary focus over open source collaboration. Computer technology and the internet was built on public money and the wealthy did more to gate keep it for profit than they did to advance it. They’ve worked to hoard information in paid silos instead of widely distributing it in the interest of profit over advancement. Just because advancement happened, doesn’t attribute it to the rich. They only found ways to bend it to a capitalist system for profit. Open source projects prove the advances would have happened either way. I whole heartedly agree UBI is the way to go to keep us focused on advancement over this rat race capitalism that is mostly extractive from labor.
I’m not saying you are wrong entirely, things have improved in a lot of ways, but the power through wealth and technology the rich have been able to attain in the last 50 years is like nothing humanity has dealt with before. Mass surveillance alone makes resistance more dangerous for those who participate. Technology in the wrong hands has been used to manipulate markets, manipulate elections, manipulate society, and move society away from democratic rule. I’m not saying society hasn’t faced other technological challenges in the past, but you are clearly a smart person, you have to see that the scale and connectedness of today’s tech is a greater challenge than early industrialization or cotton gins. It allows for greater concentration of power with greater control of that power. Capitalism is just a bad system because it gives too much control to a minority of individuals over society. It needs to be in the hands of democratic choice, not the whims of individual self interest.
It’ll also create jobs. That’s what new technologies do. We’ve been using robots in the auto manufacturing industry, which replaced lower skill (and lower paid) jobs with higher skill (and higher paid) jobs.
If we ever get to the point where AI is more than a meme, in software development this means we’d end up with more architects and fewer “code monkeys,” so instead of working with syntax, they’d work with systems diagrams, and software engineering might look more like how CPU design works today (nobody works with individual gates anymore).
Like other times in history, the transition may be painful. Those who adapt will thrive, and those who don’t will chase fewer and fewer jobs.
They are also hurting public education, public information systems, grant programs, and anything not geared toward private profit
I assume you’re talking about the current administration in the US here. I think most of this is temporary since it’s largely being done via EO instead of legislation. Some of it I agree with, most of it I don’t.
Robots are being used for war more and more
Yeah, it makes war into even more of an economic battle than it was previously. I’m on the fence on the one, on the one hand, it should mean less death, but on the other hand, ruthless countries could use it to terrorize innocent people. But they do that regardless (see Russia in Ukraine and Israel in Gaza).
what is to stop them from being used on the population if protests occur contrary to wishes of the powerful
Presumably the rule of law.
It has slowed the addressing of the climate crisis
Eh, the climate crisis is a lot more controversial. Even if we agree on what the solution is, the economic impact needs to be considered to not ruin economies during the transition. Also, the countries most interested in making changes are not the main contributors, so why ruin your economy if your competitor won’t and will end up winning in trade due to less climate investment.
Open source projects prove the advances would have happened either way
While I’m a huge proponent of FOSS, I don’t think this is true. Most contributions to large FOSS projects are by full time employed devs, say people at RedHat, Google, etc.
Profit motive does a lot to focus development on things that sell. And companies like saving money, so a lot of propriety projects use FOSS components and even upstream changes to reduce their own workload.
FOSS projects are generally developed by a for profit company and released for the community to maintain. Look at projects like React, it started as an in-house tool and then generalized to something the community could use and maintain. Most of the more popular projects started that way.
UBI
I support something like UBI to encourage more entrepreneurialism from those who don’t have the skills needed to secure investment. I’d like to lower the bar for people to pursue their passions so we get even more cool stuff.
Capitalism is at the heart though, and profit is usually a necessary ingredient to turn an idea into a product. Without that motivation, it’ll remain a perennial personal project and likely go nowhere.
is like nothing humanity has dealt with before
I don’t think that’s true. Look at Standard Oil and other mega companies of the past, and look at kings and emperors before that.
I think it’s pretty much the same as always, just with bigger markets and more transparency.
Capitalism is just a bad system because it gives too much control to a minority of individuals over society.
I don’t think that’s true. Democracy sounds like a great idea until you take a closer look. At one extreme is Hitler, and then there are people like Trump that are somewhere on the bad part of that spectrum.
I think government works best when it’s separate from the economy. You think things are bad now? Let people like Musk and Bezos run the government and we’ll see what bad really looks like. Or even worse, give Trump complete control of the economy.
People will elect populists, and populists are the worst people to run an economy.
I think politicians should be as removed from the economy as possible. Limit what they can do and you’ll limit the effectiveness of lobbying efforts. Things like antitrust shouldn’t be defined by legislatures, but by juries setting precedent. Have the legislature lay the ground rules and courts flesh out minutia. Instead of that, we currently have executives setting policy, and that’s worse than both.
Democracy works well on smaller scales, like in a company. For anything larger than that, we need representatives, and the larger scale that gets, the more likely they’ll give in to corruption.
Agree to disagree then. Even your answers show economies leave people behind in favor of profits which are entirely made up structures. I believe the benefit of people and society should supersede the power of individuals and capitalism will always give too much power to minority interest. Rich people show time and again they don’t care what happens to the rest of us if it means they thrive. Capitalism rewards our worst instincts of greed and ruthless competition. You can’t expect a system that exalts the most ruthless actors to take care of those who don’t have the same advantages. Socialism and collective action has always been the main source of gains for the majority in capitalist systems. You just have to look at the early labor movements of the early industrial age to show how ruthless the owner class is towards it’s workers when worker well being goes against their profit lust.
I believe in prioritizing personal liberty, which means encouraging our worst instinct of greed and channeling it for the betterment of society. I believe wealth redistribution needs to be a core part of that to help those who fall through the cracks and ensure everyone can live with dignity, but that inequality is essential to properly motivate people to be productive.
I believe in georgist and related tax policies, meaning:
hefty taxes on property (should result in a very progressive tax system)
relatively low cap on inheritance (say, $50M? Maybe even $10M?) to discourage dynasties, property outside of that is auctioned and proceeds
hefty carbon and related pollution taxes
low or no income and consumption taxes
excess taxes are redistributed to the people (say, as a form of UBI or Negative Income Tax)
unrelated to Georgism - no corporate protections after a certain size; corporate protections should only apply to smaller businesses
Basically, you pay for the resources you exclude others from using, and you return the majority of it upon death. Society as a whole owns those resources, so this works as a form of rent paid to the people.
Government regulation should be minimal, and governments should only step in for things like anti-trust. Most “regulations” should be precedent established by the courts with a jury, whether through lawsuits against individuals within a corporation or the corporation as a whole (latter should be more rare).
I believe this system does a good job at correcting the negatives of capitalism while preserving its benefits.
AI will replace a lot of jobs and with the active weakening of social safety nets it will cause people to suffer unless something like UBI is implemented. The rich are working against any social safety nets and are making advances in weakening those programs. They are also hurting public education, public information systems, grant programs, and anything not geared toward private profit. The protectionism you mention is also causing a brain drain and labor shortage in the US through mass deportation efforts.
Robots are being used for war more and more - there are major advancement in this field right now. Right now one of the biggest things holding back crack downs on protests is that soldiers are people who can disobey orders and most don’t want to hurt their neighbors. If robots, which will be controlled by rich defense contractors as things stand, advance to a stage where they can be fully implemented in the field without need of operators - what is to stop them from being used on the population if protests occur contrary to wishes of the powerful. That’s why I am worried about robot advancement with a society where power dynamics are so skewed away from the majority.
The rich being in charge of allocation of resources through investment has only helped society in the ways they could also make it enriched themselves. Using the whims of narcissists to guide the allocation of resources in society has slowed advancement, not fueled it. It has slowed the addressing of the climate crisis - which fuel companies originally tried to hide, then created campaigns to misinform, and now outright bought politicians to slow the needed transitions. Private companies slowed advancement of the technology through proprietary focus over open source collaboration. Computer technology and the internet was built on public money and the wealthy did more to gate keep it for profit than they did to advance it. They’ve worked to hoard information in paid silos instead of widely distributing it in the interest of profit over advancement. Just because advancement happened, doesn’t attribute it to the rich. They only found ways to bend it to a capitalist system for profit. Open source projects prove the advances would have happened either way. I whole heartedly agree UBI is the way to go to keep us focused on advancement over this rat race capitalism that is mostly extractive from labor.
I’m not saying you are wrong entirely, things have improved in a lot of ways, but the power through wealth and technology the rich have been able to attain in the last 50 years is like nothing humanity has dealt with before. Mass surveillance alone makes resistance more dangerous for those who participate. Technology in the wrong hands has been used to manipulate markets, manipulate elections, manipulate society, and move society away from democratic rule. I’m not saying society hasn’t faced other technological challenges in the past, but you are clearly a smart person, you have to see that the scale and connectedness of today’s tech is a greater challenge than early industrialization or cotton gins. It allows for greater concentration of power with greater control of that power. Capitalism is just a bad system because it gives too much control to a minority of individuals over society. It needs to be in the hands of democratic choice, not the whims of individual self interest.
It’ll also create jobs. That’s what new technologies do. We’ve been using robots in the auto manufacturing industry, which replaced lower skill (and lower paid) jobs with higher skill (and higher paid) jobs.
If we ever get to the point where AI is more than a meme, in software development this means we’d end up with more architects and fewer “code monkeys,” so instead of working with syntax, they’d work with systems diagrams, and software engineering might look more like how CPU design works today (nobody works with individual gates anymore).
Like other times in history, the transition may be painful. Those who adapt will thrive, and those who don’t will chase fewer and fewer jobs.
I assume you’re talking about the current administration in the US here. I think most of this is temporary since it’s largely being done via EO instead of legislation. Some of it I agree with, most of it I don’t.
Yeah, it makes war into even more of an economic battle than it was previously. I’m on the fence on the one, on the one hand, it should mean less death, but on the other hand, ruthless countries could use it to terrorize innocent people. But they do that regardless (see Russia in Ukraine and Israel in Gaza).
Presumably the rule of law.
Eh, the climate crisis is a lot more controversial. Even if we agree on what the solution is, the economic impact needs to be considered to not ruin economies during the transition. Also, the countries most interested in making changes are not the main contributors, so why ruin your economy if your competitor won’t and will end up winning in trade due to less climate investment.
While I’m a huge proponent of FOSS, I don’t think this is true. Most contributions to large FOSS projects are by full time employed devs, say people at RedHat, Google, etc.
Profit motive does a lot to focus development on things that sell. And companies like saving money, so a lot of propriety projects use FOSS components and even upstream changes to reduce their own workload.
FOSS projects are generally developed by a for profit company and released for the community to maintain. Look at projects like React, it started as an in-house tool and then generalized to something the community could use and maintain. Most of the more popular projects started that way.
I support something like UBI to encourage more entrepreneurialism from those who don’t have the skills needed to secure investment. I’d like to lower the bar for people to pursue their passions so we get even more cool stuff.
Capitalism is at the heart though, and profit is usually a necessary ingredient to turn an idea into a product. Without that motivation, it’ll remain a perennial personal project and likely go nowhere.
I don’t think that’s true. Look at Standard Oil and other mega companies of the past, and look at kings and emperors before that.
I think it’s pretty much the same as always, just with bigger markets and more transparency.
I don’t think that’s true. Democracy sounds like a great idea until you take a closer look. At one extreme is Hitler, and then there are people like Trump that are somewhere on the bad part of that spectrum.
I think government works best when it’s separate from the economy. You think things are bad now? Let people like Musk and Bezos run the government and we’ll see what bad really looks like. Or even worse, give Trump complete control of the economy.
People will elect populists, and populists are the worst people to run an economy.
I think politicians should be as removed from the economy as possible. Limit what they can do and you’ll limit the effectiveness of lobbying efforts. Things like antitrust shouldn’t be defined by legislatures, but by juries setting precedent. Have the legislature lay the ground rules and courts flesh out minutia. Instead of that, we currently have executives setting policy, and that’s worse than both.
Democracy works well on smaller scales, like in a company. For anything larger than that, we need representatives, and the larger scale that gets, the more likely they’ll give in to corruption.
Agree to disagree then. Even your answers show economies leave people behind in favor of profits which are entirely made up structures. I believe the benefit of people and society should supersede the power of individuals and capitalism will always give too much power to minority interest. Rich people show time and again they don’t care what happens to the rest of us if it means they thrive. Capitalism rewards our worst instincts of greed and ruthless competition. You can’t expect a system that exalts the most ruthless actors to take care of those who don’t have the same advantages. Socialism and collective action has always been the main source of gains for the majority in capitalist systems. You just have to look at the early labor movements of the early industrial age to show how ruthless the owner class is towards it’s workers when worker well being goes against their profit lust.
I guess we’re opposites then.
I believe in prioritizing personal liberty, which means encouraging our worst instinct of greed and channeling it for the betterment of society. I believe wealth redistribution needs to be a core part of that to help those who fall through the cracks and ensure everyone can live with dignity, but that inequality is essential to properly motivate people to be productive.
I believe in georgist and related tax policies, meaning:
Basically, you pay for the resources you exclude others from using, and you return the majority of it upon death. Society as a whole owns those resources, so this works as a form of rent paid to the people.
Government regulation should be minimal, and governments should only step in for things like anti-trust. Most “regulations” should be precedent established by the courts with a jury, whether through lawsuits against individuals within a corporation or the corporation as a whole (latter should be more rare).
I believe this system does a good job at correcting the negatives of capitalism while preserving its benefits.