Why the future isn't all that bleak

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

in a world of extreme productivity how can it not be that a lot of people are not particularly materially valuable. If you're in the privileged position of being materially productive then why not give a little bit. You are scared and insecure that's why, and I don't blame you there are lots of people just like yourself out there.

[don]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

This would be my conclusion as well... provided we don't hit a resource constraint first. It takes a lot of energy to make and operate machines. The machines are only a good deal so long as energy is cheap. On the other hand, living creatures work pretty well off of a solar-power fuel cycle. I'm inclined to vote with Don about how the rise of the machines could end, if we don't have some breakthroughs in energy technology.

My only comment is that it won't be the "few who remain productive" that subsidize everyone else, so much as "the few who own the machines". Taken to an extreme (and after much political turmoil, as ownership of the machines is transferred) I think this ends in "workable" economic communism -- or something much like it -- wherein the people own the machines through the state, and each citizen is due a share of the national production. I say "workable" because one glaring problem with economic communism is that when outcome is divorced from work and risks taken, productivity and innovation suffer. But if the machines are doing all the labor and innovating, the machines could run the economy at the maximum level of productivity which could be technically achieved, distributing the unearned results equally to their human masters, without need for a profit motive. Right up until the cyborg revolution.

But Cow is right that once human labor has negligible economic value, our entire system falls apart.

This entire enterprise is dependent on cheap air shipping. Take that out of the equation and is it viable? I have serious reservations. On-Time inventory will someday be an anachronism.

On the labor/machine front, early Asimov is an interesting cultural artifact. One of the favorite Sci-Fi questions was- what would Americans do with all their free time? Asimov, surprisingly, omitted the class factor.

[ViC78]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

This would be unfortunate, in my view. I hope we can we find a new ethos, a new cultural emphasis. See further a good talk by Spencer Wells at The Unforeseen Cost of Human Civilisation. Our natural resources are limited, but our common labor is declining in value.

Thanks, I guess I misunderstood your previous post. I thought that you had in mind, an alternate means to the same end (redistribution of wealth and work/leisure in a world of value-less labor), as opposed to centralization of power to decide this.


Edit: This is a fascinating discussion, because just the other day, I realized that my father would not have a decent paying job today because of his limited abilities. He used to do clerical work for an electric utility company, which has been completely automated today. Now, some would say that, he should have re-trained to operate this new software. However, we have to realize that not everybody is capable of this. In fact, as more and more jobs are getting automated now, a decent paying (not to live luxuriously, but not live paycheck-to-paycheck) job requires abilities which a growing number of people just do not possess. A sobering thought, and as ASH says, I feel lucky that my labor is still valued.

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

If it doesn't destroy us in the transition its awesome. You don't need money. Everything can eventually almost be 100% automated from production to distribution. Demand will drive everything.

[ASH]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

You are scared and insecure that's why, and I don't blame you there are lots of people just like yourself out there.

That's rather off-putting, because it asserts that my position derives from weakness of character, and does not admit that there could be a valid moral or philosophical basis for my attitude.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to giving a little bit. The social problem is that as the economic value of ever larger portions of the population drops below the level required to maintain a 'first world' standard of living, the amount that high-earners must contribute increases. In the limit where no one is working, and nothing is produced by the labor of an individual, there is no moral problem with redistribution because none of the production is tied to the merit, ability, or labor of the individual. However, we're in an awkward grey area where the wages of labor still reflect merit and ability, but (arguably) the profits of some portion of capital do not.

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

where do think the world is heading regarding productivity? Where do you think the world should head with regards to productivity? Are there necessary social, institutional changes in transition? Personally I think its massive, much of the legal system and gaols will be redundant for one (if there is a more equal distribution of productivity).

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

and sorry I'd really like not to be offensive, its my lack of skill...and south african upbringing I'm sure.

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

If you're worriedabout the world falling apart without carrot incentives, check out some scientific research on the subject posted by Rajiv

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...ight=motivates

and also by me earlier that got much less of a response


http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...ght=incentives

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

Capitalism and politics is based on power, crude and arbitrary and little changed from thetimes of old inmy opinion, matching the crudeness of sticks and carrots that are promoted as the only practical way to manage the economy and society. Technology and revolution in social organisation is an opportunity to approach something more civilised in my mind.

[jacobdcoates]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

There are many people, myself included, who find such a world terrifying. We are already dealing with the consequences of 100 years of modern technology and progressive ideals. The dysgenic trend will destroy us.

One might argue that 100 years of modern technology and "progress" have already turned us into machines of sorts; valued only for what we produce to be consume by others and divorced us from ourselves as human beings. Crying

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

wWhen are you guys going to realise that there is no such thing as reward comensurate with contribution in this world.

The MIT guys who invented Kiva would probably disagree with this statement.

Perhaps I was a little rash about saying this is the end of money. It isn't. Money == Accountability. The end of accountability will likely be the end of the human species.

Rather, what is valued by money will change. Rather than things like manufacturing or retail, it will be things like going to school and getting good grades, teaching, spreading goodwill. That kind of thing.

[marvenger]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx


Marx had a special concern with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labour power. He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, including labor, that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labor—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt.
Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels' point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). Thus, while such ideas may be false, they also reveal in coded form some truth about political relations. For example, although the belief that the things people produce are actually more productive than the people who produce them is literally absurd, it does reflect (according to Marx and Engels) that people under capitalism are alienated from their own labor-power.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

Have you ever considered how strange the concept of McDonald's is? You have an angry Filipino woman serving you your happy meal while a pimply faced teenager unpacks the burgers from a box and flips them on a grill. This could all be done much better with a vending machine ( look at the lines at your "fast food" place at lunch time). The only reason that there are any employees at all in the place it that people actually like the service. Think about it. It was ripe for automation 30 years ago. Employees are a social construct. Employers want to hire them, Employees want to work there, and customers want to see them ( and are willing to pay for the privilege ). It is incredible. McDonald's is like the symbol of America. A thousand years from now when the constitution has crumbled to dust, people will remember Ronald McDonald. Weep for America. The thing that defines fast food is this ( arguably ) irrelevant labor to create cardboard food.

[MarkL]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

Technology has ALREADY eased life for most of the Western world and it will continue to do so. In both Europe and the USA millions live off the dole, and still eat better, are entertained better, travel better than anybody except the very rich of 100 years ago. Even the homeless only need to scratch up 3 or 4 bucks a day to eat and the rest of us have comparative wealth in our health, houses, cars, travel, and lifestyles that makes our grandparents lives look darn unappealing.

Technology will continue to do this as well. Socially there will be required changes, just as there have been changes in the last 100 years. The oil crash will result in dramatic changes to travel. It may result in those that are only motivated by hunger and the associated need for paycheck becoming unemployed and living off Welfare. But hey... is living off the dole, with free health care, having a full stomach and playing on the TV and Computer really such a bad life compared to Cholera, 16 hour days of physical labor and death at 50? I say... technology rocks!

Most wont' take advantage of the freedom technology brings us. This is just human nature! Most don't today! Anybody can grab a backpack and bum $300 and fly across the Atlantic and work their way across Europe.. but how many do? Anybody can learn anything from the internet today... but how many do? But for those that are inspired and motivated the freedom technology brings will be empowering

[Rajiv]

Re: Why the future isn't all that bleak

See also this talk by Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.- first the 10 minute speeded up one, and then the longer talk itself

The longer talk

Then there are the 2% of us where these mirror neurons are suppressed, and they are the subject of the book "Political Ponerology."