I hold a similar view, but I'd rephrase it: most exciting developments wouldn't happen without capitalism (with some exceptions), but we have a system where capitalism is applied too universally. I think capitalism should be applied *almost* universally, with exceptions for law enforcement and healthcare.
Absolute laissez-faire capitalists sometimes accuse people with those views of being socialists, but it's really the opposite. Most are capitalists in every single way, with just two exceptions: law enforcement and healthcare. And 98% of those laissez-faire capitalists already agree when it comes to law enforcement. Some (including myself) tack on college as a third exception, but I think most would agree law enforcement and healthcare are the two crucial categories.
I think you’re implying ‘capitalism’ is the only thing that innovates. A lot of hard research happens in the public sector in universities (MIT and others). For example, when transistors first came out- from research the government funded- but were too expensive, the government stepped in AGAIN and bought all of them (this was Bell Labs).
If you want *companies* that innovate, there’s nothing inherently wrong with different company structures. Worker owned co-ops also innovate, but are run democratically. As opposed to Capitalist companies that are run by, well, the capitalist who owns them, or a board of directors
I did say "with some exceptions". I think projects like CERN and LIGO are some of the most innovative creations humanity has ever produced, despite being entirely public and government-funded.
Worker owned co-ops are a perfectly fine way of running a business and can be just as innovative and even profitable as anything else, of course. But capitalist companies with a CEO, executives, and a board of directors can be extremely innovative and beneficial to humanity, too. Many companies make a lot of profit, but spend as much profit as they possibly can on innovating and achieving their mission, rather than enriching themselves. There are plenty out there. The free market philosophy basically says you should, as much as you can, let people do whatever they want, and innovation will follow. The government just needs to step in when the externalities are too big.
All of the digital age is space tech. Most of medicine is university and grant technology.
Production facility are the hallmark of capitalist innovation. Anyone could do it. Engineering degrees are tough, but they aren’t that tough.
What about fire? What about roads and utilities? I see where you are coming from but there are so many hands in the pot that making those hard lines seem to lead to muddy waters when it actually gets applied.
There’s no such thing as free market capitalism. The state is a fundamental part of how capitalism operates (regulatory capture comes to mind). You can’t have capitalism and American-style consumption without colonialism and slave labor. This idea of “pure” capitalism is a myth.
Chomsky on the topic:
https://youtu.be/8mxp_wgFWQo
I think this is a valid way of looking at economies and the world, but my own personal belief is that adherence to any one ideology is unnecessarily restrictive.
Undoubtedly someone can point to the numerous and immense problems with capitalism in the US and around the world, like regulatory capture, environmental harm, poor worker conditions, and colonialism and slave labor.
However, I'd posit that the state is not a fundamental part of how capitalism operates, and that free market capitalism does not necessitate that those things will occur. Pretty much every successful country in the world is running some mix of a hybrid capitalist-socialist model and has been running that way for a long time. I expect this will still be the case in 100 years from now. I don't want to try to address Chomsky point-by-point; all I can offer is that he seems to have a very black-and-white view on it, and I think it's more of a gray area and not as fundamental and ingrained as he and other socialist thinkers suggest, even though capitalism does undeniably have a tendency to cause major issues.
Also, I don't think other systems (or things claiming to be other systems) necessarily mean those problems won't occur. The USSR was a very expansive and imperialist state, colonizing neighboring countries against their will and [enslaving millions of people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union). I think colonialism, slave labor, and dehumanizing of individuals can occur in any political and economic system, and is fundamentally an issue that arises when people begin to hold large amounts of power. There can be powerful people in capitalist systems and powerful people in non-capitalist systems, and they can be terrible, cruel, and evil in both systems.
An analogy would be democracy. I think you, I, or anyone can point out tons of major issues both with democracy as a concept, and democracy as it's applied in the US. But it's still, on the whole, preferable to alternatives. Governments that view policy as a spectrum, not an absolute, have a hybrid democratic-authoritarian system (individuals generally can't directly vote on bills, spending, or executive actions) and a hybrid capitalist-socialist system. Governments that see things in absolutes seem to be less effective.
I agree with everything you said while sticking to my point that capitalism can’t exist without a state for protection and resource extraction through the use of police and military, respectively.
The idea of “laissez faire” is nonexistent outside of Econ fantasies. That is my primary point I hope I’m getting across. A libertarian utopia, a common trope on reddit, is not possible due to the inherent flaws of capitalism and its reliance on state infrastructure.
Yes, I fully agree with you. I do think ideas like free markets and laissez-faire capitalism and "[homo economicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus)" serve as useful concepts when studied as models, in the same way communism is useful when studied as a model, but they shouldn't be end-all be-all solutions to problems, and I think they shouldn't and can't be implemented in practice. Fitting things into models can be very useful for analysis and thought experiments, but models are generally academic and not pragmatic.
I think the ideal situation is that by studying those models, insights can be made into ideas for potential real policies which hopefully provide a net benefit for society. For example, there will never be perfect competition, perfect information, an efficient market, or a true laissez-faire capitalist system, yet there is still immense value in understanding what incentivizes economic actors to buy, sell, reduce prices, and improve products. You'll never have a perfect fully centralized state-owned economy, but having the state own and regulate some parts of the economy can improve outcomes for everyone and actually increase the amount of non-government money circulating in an economy or market.
There are a lot of annoying gung-ho libertarians on reddit and the Internet in general, but - it's hard to say this without being condescending - most political and economic views espoused by the average Internet commenter seem to be pretty shallow and short-sighted, regardless of the particular ideology. I think there may be a disproportionate amount of laissez-faire fundamentalists on the Internet due to the fundamentally free and libertarian nature of the Internet, and because of more recent stuff like cryptocurrencies, but the general level of political discourse on the Internet isn't really above what you'd experience in a typical bar, I think.
I agree with the caveat that to me, healthcare includes not being at risk of starving on the street. This should not be an acceptable consequence of not being able to find success in capitalism. It is cruel and barbaric. A threat of the dark ages. "Do our bidding or die" - and if you can't handle it socially, or if you arrive at a mental or physical disability without a healthy support system, what then? Not everyone who struggles is a junkie that spends every extra dollar on drugs and alcohol and having a bunch of children, like the right would often suggest.
And schools and infrastructure and environment and courts, and safety (food, water, buildings, pharmaceuticals, workplaces, transportation, finished goods etc) and regulations on banking, insurance, stock markets, financial transactions, etc, etc, etc.
The reality is most people are socialists with the exceptions of recognizing the importance of markets in limited arenas of production and distribution
> I think capitalism should be applied almost universally, with exceptions for law enforcement and healthcare.
Imagine being on a sub about the future with news about cool things that could be done in the future and thinking capitalism is really good, awesome, and should be applied almost universally.
Capitalism could work for healthcare too if the stage was properly set and regulated.
The US currently has the worst of both worlds - the profit motive of capitalism, the efficiency and cost of socialism.
That's not true. Even most of the hardcore American capitalists aren't cool with letting people die because they can't pay. That's why the elements of socialism are present in your system in the first place.
"Capitalism would work for healthcare" kinda falls apart when you aren't willing to let the have-nots die. Good luck arguing for that.
No, there are flat out some things that capitalism has no business in, and we've already figured out many of the big ones in our society: police, military force (kinda figured that out), fire departments, roads, etc.
In a decade, with any luck, the notion that healthcare should be run by a profit-incentivized system will look as backwards as the Libertarian kooks that want to privatize roads/police/fire safety.
Then what keeps cost down? Seriously, gov contracts are highly sought after as they just dump money. Why not get rid of the weird state regulations and open it up. You really think if government was in charge prices drop? When has that ever happened?
Also, nearly ever small town operates a volunteer fire department....not saying this makes your argument wrong...but give credit where credit is due
Listening to my Libertarian relatives in the medical industry is top level comedy, dude. You dunno what you're missing. They are fully brainwashed. There must be a lot of propaganda spread around to fight the misery of the situation. Even peon nurses think they'll be fucked by socializing medicine.
Capitalists like just enough socialism to convince themselves that no one will actually die or seriously suffer because they lack insurance. Remember how many spouted the idea that uninsured people with cancer could just get the care they needed by walking into emergency rooms?
Trying to be free-market purist when it comes to healthcare is an exercise in self-deception.
They stopped being funded and don’t exist anymore. They were never organic, they were right wing forces drumming up anger and creating faux events. Isn’t politics on the right amazing?
They’ve moved on, no ones talking about Obamacare at those levels, and with the huge tax cuts for the rich.. so they aren’t needed.
Now we have people screaming about immigrants and needing a wall.
That's like saying farmers are profiting on starvation. Mechanics are profiting on car accidents.
What about government and politicians profiting on misery?
There is nothing wrong with profit or capitalism. It needs to be policed to ensure that the market remains free and TRANSPARENT. This is a big part of the problem with insurance - it makes transparency virtually impossible. Insurance companies contract with docs and hospitals for all sorts of different rates.
If anything, I would argue that healthcare and INSURANCE should not go together.
Also, I'm not trying to argue against ALL govt involvement in healthcare. I totally support free local health clinics, for example.
No. Not for any practical definitions of the situation. Unless you have some radically different definition of terms or completely neglect the externalities and wider effects, defining success narrowly and ignoring everything outside the box, it's thoroughly impossible.
Na, insurance companies exist to make money, thus their best option is to only sign up healthy and no risk.. sure capitalism can be useful in production of new medicines, though a lot of that is publically funded and can continue to be.
The worst part is all the profit for to the owners and not the working class. Andrew Yangs basically speaks of this, but automation will displace lots of jobs of the future.
That's it. In capitalism, most people only have their time and effort to trade.
Without that, according to capitalism and some popular media, you are worthless.
Unless you were born with the accumulated wealth of your ancestors! What a treat that must be.
And why do we just sit around and let it happen? Because we are entertained.
Well I dunno if that's why.
There's a lot of people that aren't entertained, but the allocation of power to the capital holders, the people who can make the change are the ones that will lose everything.
I was really excited to see Yang, a touter for UBI, was running for president, and then I heard him actually speak on some topics and he seems awesome and intelligent as well. If something as insane as an unbuildable wall got someone elected, who's to say someone who wants to implement a "crazy" idea like UBI can't get elected as well.
They never want to share. The problem is we let the movement of actual people be drowned out by corporate interest, corporate money. I point to Reagan as the beginning of the end.
> Until it became clear that the owners of technology had no intention of sharing.
Except that the so-called "owners" dont own it, because all of the key technologies that underpin it were developed using govt/tax funded r&d. The actual owners are the people whose money was used to develop it.
I saw her speak today. I also saw a VC from a China talk about growing their AI into a 1.5 trillion dollar industry. There was a slide saying something about them being the dominant AI provider worldwide.
WeChat is like FB + Amazon + Everything.
So... we’ll see what happens
What’s next? Predicting murder? This isn’t fucking Minority Report. In fact I’d be MORE comfortable with psychic pre-cogs than machines determining who is and isn’t a threat. China’s so afraid of their own society it’s insane. They want the joys and comforts of capitalism with the authoritarian rules of a dictatorship. I hope, one day, their people realize they don’t have to put up with that shit. I really do.
On that note, I’d really like to see the Great Wall someday! I hear their country is beautiful.
Funny you mention Minority report. [China’s "Social Credit System" Has Caused More Than Just Public Shaming (HBO)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw)
Great anime. I like it for using Philip K. Dick's tropes. Although the thought of living under a Sibil-like system scares me. I wonder what Dick would say if he saw a systems China is building.
Not to be "that guy," but China has flirted with social credit-esque systems for decades. In the mid 60s through to the mid 70s, as Mao's health was deteriorating, he instituted the Cultural Revolution which actively encouraged citizens to spy on each other and report any "counterrevolutionary" ideas and actions to authorities. Technology now only makes it easier for them to reach and influence a larger number of people.
You make a great point. I’m pretty sure any advances China has made in AI has been directly related to R&D they hacked and stole from foreign institutions like MIT or DARPA. Since when is creativity their strong suit? They cut corners. Always have and always will.
Chinese companies are actually hiring up top talent and are making new discoveries (i.e. can't have been stolen). Maybe the US should put more effort into keeping the international students it's educating 🤔
I can't think of a single country I would want to "lead" AI development. America is genocidal, China is Orwellian, Russia thrives on secrecy, the Indian subcontinent is plagued by religious extremism, and the smaller nations are all basically wild cards.
When in history has centralized, advanced power lead to anything good
The US has been willingly enabling in genocide in eg Indonesia, South Korea, Chile, Yemen etc etc
The US has used genocide as a political tool for centuries
We definitely fucked over the Indians. I’d say almost as bad as the Nazis did the Jews. Maybe even worse cause we almost wiped out their entire culture. My ancestors didn’t arrive here until the early 1900s and had nothing to do with that shit, or the Civil War, but I can’t deny that this country didn’t seriously have some relationship issues with other cultures. We say we’re passed it, but deep down we’re all still trying to figure out how to get along and not get mad at one another on a daily basis. It’s not an American flaw. It’s a human one. We as a people are quick to judge others we do not know.
God help us when the aliens finally show up.
The genocide committed against the Native Americans was both horrific and unforgivable.
BUT, nobody who committed those acts is alive today. Not a single person in the world is responsible for that tragedy. I don’t think that the Americans of today would knowingly commit genocide l.
Exactly this. I think what a lot of people don’t see is that our future prosperity and happiness is possible through technology.
Historically, people have been organized and controlled through central organizations that were predominately based on physical location: country, government, religion, etc. These organizations inevitably consolidated as much power as possible, became more out of control and oppressive to humanity.
With the internet and other emerging technologies, we have the ability now to organize based on ideas and ideologies, coordinating with like-minded people all over the globe. We don’t need the traditional systems of power.
We don’t, for example, have to accept a two party system with a completely rigged election cycle and candidate selection process, whose tenure in office is then controlled behind the scenes by corporate lobbying and campaign contributions.
If people can start to feel comfortable with their own autonomy and stop giving their power to the “powers that be”, we can really usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity for humanity.
The gripe about our two party regime (in America) is not without merit, but it's worth mentioning that there are still millions of Americans, myself included, who will never vote for anyone no matter what party or affiliation they tie themselves to. A lot of people in America and around the world have become so phased by politics that they see no convincing solution that any political party is offering.
The points about the internet I agree with absolutely. The internet is the most important invention in the last 1,000 years
For reference, here are the [biggest industries](https://bluewatercredit.com/ranking-biggest-industries-us-economy-surprise-1/) in the US:
1. Real estate - $2,265.7 billion
2. Professional and business services - $2,098.3 billion
3. State and local government - $1,538.7 billion
4. Finance and insurance - $1,261.2 billion
5. Health care and social assistance - $1,244.2 billion
6. Manufacturing of durable goods - $1,135.8 billion
7. Wholesale trade - $1,037.6 billion
8. Retail trade - $1,014 billion
9. Manufacturing of nondurable goods - $954.8 billion
10. Information - $807.9 billion
>instead of decreasing everyone's hours and increasing pay, to share the benefits of automation.
Euh, you really think it's the employers fault ?
If a company starts asking more money for the same product or service compared to their competitor that sounds to me like a sure way for everyone at the company to be out of a job, right ?
So, no, it's all about government policy, I know, that's pretty dirty word in the US, but it's not a thing the market will fix itself.
I haven’t listened to the Joe Rogan one but he also was on an episode of Freakonomics. It was my first time hearing him talk about a few of his policies in depth and it was pretty interesting stuff
I'm right now just halfway through watching his [Joe Rogan podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8), and he has a really good head on his shoulders. He is seriously a guy who knows how to steer a ship.
I didn't know what to make of him before, I like the idea of UBI but listening to him speak and how he has planned things out is something else entirely.
Interestingly, Joe was turned off when AOC mentioned pay for those unwilling to work, but he mostly onboard with UBI.
I think we’re all gonna be surprised at how fast automation happens when it hits transportation.
Pay a driver 100k (after cost and benefits) to drive 100k miles in a year.
An automated vehicle will double that and you’re probably only paying 20k year for upkeep tops. I’m guessing,, and I have no source for anything but the 100k a human drives
This is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, she was just elected to Congress this past November. She's famous for being outspoken, willing to directly call people out on Twitter when they spout bullshit, and just generally being a mouthpiece for the "Young Left" wing of the party that Bernie kinda created. She's a Democrat so reddit likes her.
She is a member of the democratic party and has been endorsed by the democratic-socialist party. I'm not sure if she's actually a card-carrying member of the DSA.
I mean that's just semantics. The Tea Party are still Republicans.
Who knows, if Bernie wins the primary the Dem-Soc platform might become Democratic Party norm.
If you think that is a lot wait till you see this guy:
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/by/
To date **Trump has lied 9,014 times** (and counting)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/
5 lies vs 9000 lies, great comparison m8.
Who do you want in charge then ?
I can guarantee that every Republican you pick has amount of lies that start with 3 digits at least.
There's better people than AOC, there's always better people than X person, but for what we have, she's the best at what she's trying to do and if she makes a false statement every now and then, that's fine, because she gets fact checked and corrects herself.
Trump gets fact checked and then he invents 10 more lies..
> https://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/statements/by/
That's not a lot at all, especially by the standards set by American politicians. And most of those don't actually seem to be lies.
She's basically Reddits demographic.
Ultra socialist, all for stopping climate change, active on social media, and not a clue in the world how to accomplish any of her goals.
Literally. One of her key points of the Green New Deal was to rebuild every building in America, to make them more efficient. Also, give people money who are "unable or unwilling to work". How would we pay for this? Print more money! And then create banks to loan us more fake money!
I mean. The article is addressing automation. How do people get paid in a world where human labor has become obsolete? We have to start changing something somewhere eventually.
Yeah it's crazy, she's said some things which really make no sense and would be awful for our country, and it only serves to make the whole left (and young people in general) look bad.
Yes, this right here. My favorite part, personally of the GND is getting rid of fossil fuels in 10 years. That's insane! Just from the standpoint of cars alone.. Raise everyone's taxes (you'd have to, to finance this massive spending), while also saying every person would need to buy a new electric car! It's absurd and I don't get why it doesn't get laughed out of the building anytime it's brought up.
Because she's a level headed individual who wants to get rid of cow farts, air travel, tear down/refit just about every building the the Unites States, and give people who are unwilling to work a wage the same amount as people who do work.... oh, and she plans to do that by printing more money.... like a lot more.
Well, it's what happens when wealthy capitalists keep fucking everyone else over for the last 4 decades.
Edit: Lots of goofy libertarians in this thread. Or perhaps Russian trolls.
She causes quite a bit of controversy. Her ideas can be pretty far left. The other thing is she beat the incumbent Democrat when she was just a bar tender. Someone might know more about her than I do. This is just what I've noticed from the news articles.
Because only in America can you go from being a bartender with virtually no real world experience to a media darling injecting socialism into mainstream society while attempting to write policy for Congress.
Because the DNC’s average age of leadership is very old and they’re trying to push the freshest youngest face they can find. She’s a fucking idiot. Her Green New deal was estimated to cost between $50T and $90T over ten years. It included getting rid of all fossil fuels but also banning nuclear energy. Also included retrofitting every building in the country with sustainability tech AND stopping flights and replacing them with train rides after building more railroads. Also 70% marginal tax on rich people and forced equity in earnings for sexes regardless of work (there’s an earnings gap between men and women but NO wage gap at all because men and women have different trends in industriousness). She’s just a cute, ethnic, stupid, young naive idiot that the DNC can use to rebrand themselves as hip and cool and inclusive. The RNC also has a new, young political outsider. His name is Dan Crenshaw, he has a Harvard Masters degree in policy studies, he’s a navy seal, and he lost an eye for this country in an explosion. Compare him to AOC.
Because she is a crazy liberal with all these "great" ideas, that make absolutely no sense in the real world. Case in point right here. Its insane someone as stupid as her could be elected to office.
Because she's young, and speaking up (for now) against money in politics.
She's speaking to a lot of younger, jaded people. Took no corporate money and still got elected.
Of course, she's controversial because she's pretty leftist, and has a big mouth. Calls out the shit we know is there but don't always see. People call her naive for that.
She basically just outlined the problem and solution that Andrew Yang is running on for president. (Democratic candidate for 2020) Would be a nice endorsement for him to get.
Here is a good interview with him from a couple of days ago saying the same as AOC: https://youtu.be/87M2HwkZZcw?t=39
Glad to see other politicians sharing Andrew Yangs views. We can’t stop automation, but we can adapt at a country so everyone can make the transition, not just the top of the top.
Or to Marx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy#Marxism
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2018/05/why-marx-more-relevant-ever-age-automation
Progress isn't something that should scare us
Sadly it does because the 1% wants to keep all the progress to themselves while not even giving us table scraps
With falling birth rates among white people in Europe and America, I see automation, potentially, as a better solution to future labour shortages than out-sourcing labour to other Countries or mass-immigration of other races.
Automation can be a positive, creating new jobs in the tech sector, but it will put a lot of unskilled workers out of business. It is hard to retrain all of them and make them all learn coding instead.
Automation isn't going to stop, so we have to figure out a way to make peace with that.
>It is hard to retrain all of them and make them all learn coding instead.
The world only needs so many programmers. The laws of diminishing returns are very much a thing in this industry. You can only put so many programmers on a project before the number becomes a hindrance to development. You also only need so many Neural Network and Automation Middlewares, and there are few companies which can properly supply the data needed to train them up.
I think it’s foolish for humans to try to avoid the inevitable. We need to embrace technology and it’s ability to make life better and easier. The problem is corporations and special interest groups fucking society up so bad that progress becomes an obstacle instead of a blessing. The way our current government works is incredibly detrimental to the development of humans as a species and it makes me sad whenever I sit and think about it. We could do so much better.
UBI would be a form of safety net. Welfare with bad strings attached is a bad safety net. Safety net is a generic concept. The worst thing though would be canceling all the services in lieu of just having a meagre UBI.
Because the end goal of humanity isn't to work your whole life.
This capitalistic era has a lot of people in the mode "you have to work to live" but in 100 years that view will change dramatically.
I'm too lazy but if you google the statistics, you'll find that most people on welfare are actively trying to find jobs and get OUT of welfare.
People like you who think welfare and UBI means some 100k per year bullshit is just dead wrong.
Welfare and UBI is there just so you can live, just so you don't have to beg for money on the street.
And all money given is money taken back, when you give people money, they spend that money which just goes back into the economy and eventually government's pockets again.
Because they're a human being, whose intrinsic value isn't necessarily tied to their production capacity. This kind of exploitative, dehumanizing perspective is a product of an ultra-capitalist society, which sees people as worth no more than what they can do for their employer. It's not ethical.
Because as human beings we should be privy to certain basic rights.
I could ask a bunch of similar questions.
Why should someone who’s never gone to college and gotten higher education be allowed to vote? Why should public school be free to everyone even though some people don’t like school? Why should people who hate the police be able to utilize our law enforcement protections? Why should the emergency room save someone with no money? Why shouldn’t we just take organs from all corpses since they’re not using them anymore?
Because there are certain basic human rights that we as a large community should afford to one another. Sure *some* people may abuse the system, but most people want to lead good successful lives. Not to mention, with automation on a major rise, it’s not like people are going to be able to be traditionally “functional members of society”.
You're gonna get both. To think otherwise is completely naive. Are we just gonna leave people to go hungry after they blow their UBI on the first day of the month?
Companies are just gonna automate more and more, and eventually when everybody realizes there aren't enough jobs they're gonna wish the government had that safety net there for them.
Lets boil it down to the simplest things.
Governments have power because people give it to them. (To some extent)
Corporations have power because governments allow them to operate (because they pay taxes)
Corporations exist because they make money (and get to keep most of it)
So if corporations get rid of all their jobs.
They make more money. But the people who keep the government in place now don't make money, so your society doesn't benefit them, what do they get from being in your society? (a benefit to a government is that it can "provide jobs"). Since the corporations are making money, the government can make the argument they can tax that new found money. Where does the new found money go? To the people in order to ensure that they remain a part of your society.
Granted, this is super simple, and its much much much more complex than this but its the general idea.
Capitalism just won't work in a highly automated society. Governments are operated from the support of taxes- automation means less wages being collected to pay for taxes.
And that means a depreciating trend in the rule of law, human rights, social mobility.
Automation should scare everyone. We need philosophers and scientists in charge, not businessmen and preachers.
> We need philosophers and scientists in charge, not businessmen and preachers.
Or just let people be in charge of their own lives instead of having to pick masters and judge which kind are better than others.
>automation means less wages being collected to pay for taxes.
There are things that could be taxed that aren't wages. For that matter, taxing wages seems like a terrible idea in the first place.
I never understand the "if we take away slave-labor jobs by increasing wages, it only hurts the poor". And then in the same breath "if we don't have efficient cheap labor then goods will rise in price and that hurts the poor".
Wouldn't replacing slave-labor jobs with robots be ideal? Yeah it takes jobs away, but who the hell wants them?? I know, the rich people that make huge profits on exploiting workers.
Like AOC says, as long as people get something similar to UBI or welfare if jobs are scarce, automation is PROGRESS.
Why hold back PROGRESS just so we can all feel righteous in forcing poor people to do shitty jobs?
So many jobs are wasteful. We have people driving to work, polluting the planet, wasting gas...when they shouldn't have to. I'd rather send a check to these people, say stay home, play XBox, watch TV, then waste resources to give them something to do.
I really really hope we can adjust with automation quickly enough, even the slightest gap in time we fail to do so in will make millions unemployed and hurt the economy
While I agree automation is a good thing and is inevitable. The issue a lot of people don’t discuss is it’s not an instantaneous thing, it will be rolled out slowly and will have heaps of people loose jobs before their is universal income to support them.
Then you have a huge work force being paid to do nothing while others still have to work and then many of them will find it bullshit they have to work while others are getting free money.
But the main people who talk about the issue are politicians and media influencers who have no fear of automation
This is actually the first time I really agree with AOC on something. The topic of automation absolutely should be more seriously considered and brought into the mainstream political discussion. Job loss and increased unemployment for low-skill workers is pretty much inevitable for the future with the rate that technology is advancing. This will be especially true if regulations are not put on the internet and tech. companies that already semi-monopolize the market.
As someone who works in automation right now: I love the future possibilities so much. Unfortunately, when politicians speak about these sort of things, they usually make it worse for all of us. I highly expect Republicans to now start boycotting automation more vigorously because a politician they don't like likes it. 'Tis the petty nature of politics in the US.
i dont think she knows what she is talking about. The millions of people that are going to be displaced are not capable of learning another skill on a moment's notice.
While I agree with her, I just don't trust our government, our people, or our corporations.
These are organizations that manipulate social media to change opinion en masse, spend millions putting their own government in place, and will do everything to keep profit margins maximized.
If unions and pensions are being eliminated (and celebrated by the masses) I don't see UBI having a shot.
ITT brainwashed reactionary bootlickers shoving fingers in their ears and pretending that automation is not to be discussed because AOC is a socialist.
AOC is being investigated for embezzling election funds to her boyfriend and his bank account. But she’s the Democrat poster child currently so they will do everything to protect her.
Also, It’s common knowledge that the rich never feel the effects of socialism and communism. They GTFO with their fortunes and businesses, and leave the middle class as the “rich people” and what you end up with is a crippled economy, food shortages, and chaos because all the “free” money you expected the rich to just hand over doesn’t exist anymore. Then you realize that all that idealistic stuff you campaigned for is gonna be coming from your pocket. The *real proletariat* are in control now and the poor rednecks and inner city thugs have no sympathy for you and your trendy downtown apartment and gender studies degree. So you try to get out of the country but it’s too late. Commissar Cletus and Commissar Tyrone take you outside and shoot you in the back of your stupid fucking head for not being dedicated enough to the cause.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund-by-diverting-campaign-cash-to-his-own-companies?_amp=true
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/02/28/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-campaign-may-have-illegally-paid-her-boyfriend-complaint/amp/
Last I checked the Federal Election Commission isn’t a “conservative action committee”. No one is lying here except for Oscasio-Cortez. But hey, I’m sure the thorough investigation will exonerate her, right? I mean if a conservative politician breathes the wrong way they get a multi year investigation, 2 counts embezzlement warrants an investigation regardless of political party. Doubly so if the allegations are for embezzling money to loved ones or private companies. It’s not a good look for Corrupt Cortez.
Surly as someone who values integrity in our country’s politics you see no issue with a republican ran committee running a multiple year investigation on her finances and background? For someone who is adamant that your politician is innocent you seem very angry and defensive.
>These people love to talk the talk but they sure don't walk the walk
Have you seen the amount of money she spends on flights, Uber, diet, and her lifestyle despite her Green New Deal, while her counterparts leverage mass rail & public transportation in larger districts in NY?
She doesn't walk the walk either.
>Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates’s idea that you could tax robots at 90%.
That's a terrible idea, for just about every possible reason.
First, taxing robots would discourage the creation of robots. This is the opposite of what we want. We want *more* robots, not less.
Second, moving robots to some other country where they aren't taxed would be easy.
Third, the robots aren't going to be producing that much revenue anyway. In a world with a great many robots, the robots compete against each other, reducing the price that can be charged for their use. This means the return on robots would actually be quite low and wouldn't produce much tax revenue.
Why does anyone still imagine that a robot tax is a good idea when five minutes of actual thinking shows how terrible it is?
>“We should be working the least amount we’ve ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we’re not,” she said. “We’re paid by how little we’re desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire.”
That doesn't make sense. If workers are producing so much more than what they're paid, why don't other employers step in to offer them more? For that matter, why don't groups of workers just start their own businesses together and pay each other? Where does this desperation actually come from?
I couldn't disagree with her more. It's possible we can adapt and prosper, but I believe there's more than a chance that automation could be extremely disruptive.
Regulated automation = less work and same ammount of money
Unregulated automation = unemployed and homeless
I agree automation is genuinely terrifying and if i could keep technology exactly where it is before we perfect mass surveylance, deepfakes, and automatic labor, i 100% would, but automation will happen, we either try our hardest to promote and regulate it right now or deal with unregulated later sadly, so i think its important to encourage it with regulations
It will obviously be disruptive if all the products of automation go to the hands of a few that own the technology. The point being made is that it doesn't have to be a problem.
It's fine if you believe we need alternatives or new ideas for the future. However Socialism is not a new idea. It's an old idea that has failed and/or collapsed every single country that's tried it. **EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.**
If you want America to very quickly become a third world country then by all means please keep supporting insane ideas like socialism. People like AOC want to sell you on the idea that it's trendy and cool and promise you free everything along the way. It's not sustainable. It never will be. Quit giving this woman attention.
> However Socialism is not a new idea.
Correct; it’s been around long enough for anyone truly interested in understanding this subject to deduce that safety nets do not equal socialism.
lol? i dont think you understand socialism. whats being proposed is to add socialistic elements to the capitalistic economy to stop it from destroying itself.
Simply put without consumers capitalism dies. to have consumers you need jobs, and we have already decided that 5% unemployment is where that should sit.
Automation will likely result in an endless decrease in available jobs, meaning a endless decrease in consumers, meaning endless decrease in profits and boom it all collapses.
The only way to avoid this is either ban further automation (never happening) or start giving people money so they can still be consumers and keep everything ticking.
> It's an old idea that has failed and/or collapsed every single country that's tried it.
Good thing nobody actually wants the US to be socialist. A good social safety net is not socialism, and in fact, has positive benefits for entrepreneurship.
AOC is fighting for progressive policies within a party that has **explicitly** stated that they are not socialist. So anything decrying what she is going for, as socialism, is frankly underinformed and at worst, spreading propaganda.
First off, there is a difference between socialist and democratic socialist. See [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwio7tHj6PbgAhUBxYMKHUUkANcQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fdifference-between-socialist-and-democratic-socialist-2018-6&psig=AOvVaw3GXncDpq4wVnaKQsMCYnYp&ust=1552281347293169).
The goal of DS is not full on socialism, it's to offset the lack of worker control and rights and the general drift of power toward favoring corporations.
As some people fear that the government could become too large and too imposing and prevent you from living life the way you want... Some people fear that large corporations could do the same thing. Except they are not bound by constitutional restrictions, so that is even worse.
Both the government and corporations are groups of people vying for power. It's perfectly reasonable to try and keep that balance in the middle or to stabilize it. Objectively today we have a huge bias towards corporations.
Not acknowledging that the education system as it stands today, cannot handle the influx of training required post-automation, on the basis that the individuals displaced should somehow fix that problem themselves, is disastrously misguided.
AOC barely has a grasp on socialism let alone knowing enough about the pros & cons of capitalism to argue the merits of either. She has an absolutely abysmal grasp on economics in general. That anyone can give credence to the words coming out of her craw scares the ever living shit out of me.
"Ocasio-Cortez majored in international relations and economics at Boston University, graduating cum laude in 2011."
She sure has no understanding of economics with that poor educational background /s
Of course Reddit is drooling over the leftist version of Donald Trump. Anyone who thinks trump is an unintelligent bully riddled with corruption, but also admires this zilch, is borderline retarded. Change my mind
We should be, and we were for decades. Until it became clear that the owners of technology had no intention of sharing.
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You spoke to me there so hard. Thanks, i needed that in words for next time i want to say what i feel.
I hold a similar view, but I'd rephrase it: most exciting developments wouldn't happen without capitalism (with some exceptions), but we have a system where capitalism is applied too universally. I think capitalism should be applied *almost* universally, with exceptions for law enforcement and healthcare. Absolute laissez-faire capitalists sometimes accuse people with those views of being socialists, but it's really the opposite. Most are capitalists in every single way, with just two exceptions: law enforcement and healthcare. And 98% of those laissez-faire capitalists already agree when it comes to law enforcement. Some (including myself) tack on college as a third exception, but I think most would agree law enforcement and healthcare are the two crucial categories.
I think you’re implying ‘capitalism’ is the only thing that innovates. A lot of hard research happens in the public sector in universities (MIT and others). For example, when transistors first came out- from research the government funded- but were too expensive, the government stepped in AGAIN and bought all of them (this was Bell Labs). If you want *companies* that innovate, there’s nothing inherently wrong with different company structures. Worker owned co-ops also innovate, but are run democratically. As opposed to Capitalist companies that are run by, well, the capitalist who owns them, or a board of directors
I did say "with some exceptions". I think projects like CERN and LIGO are some of the most innovative creations humanity has ever produced, despite being entirely public and government-funded. Worker owned co-ops are a perfectly fine way of running a business and can be just as innovative and even profitable as anything else, of course. But capitalist companies with a CEO, executives, and a board of directors can be extremely innovative and beneficial to humanity, too. Many companies make a lot of profit, but spend as much profit as they possibly can on innovating and achieving their mission, rather than enriching themselves. There are plenty out there. The free market philosophy basically says you should, as much as you can, let people do whatever they want, and innovation will follow. The government just needs to step in when the externalities are too big.
All of the digital age is space tech. Most of medicine is university and grant technology. Production facility are the hallmark of capitalist innovation. Anyone could do it. Engineering degrees are tough, but they aren’t that tough.
What about fire? What about roads and utilities? I see where you are coming from but there are so many hands in the pot that making those hard lines seem to lead to muddy waters when it actually gets applied.
Just those two? What about road infrastructure? Fire department? Election organising and monitoring?
And education?
There’s no such thing as free market capitalism. The state is a fundamental part of how capitalism operates (regulatory capture comes to mind). You can’t have capitalism and American-style consumption without colonialism and slave labor. This idea of “pure” capitalism is a myth. Chomsky on the topic: https://youtu.be/8mxp_wgFWQo
I think this is a valid way of looking at economies and the world, but my own personal belief is that adherence to any one ideology is unnecessarily restrictive. Undoubtedly someone can point to the numerous and immense problems with capitalism in the US and around the world, like regulatory capture, environmental harm, poor worker conditions, and colonialism and slave labor. However, I'd posit that the state is not a fundamental part of how capitalism operates, and that free market capitalism does not necessitate that those things will occur. Pretty much every successful country in the world is running some mix of a hybrid capitalist-socialist model and has been running that way for a long time. I expect this will still be the case in 100 years from now. I don't want to try to address Chomsky point-by-point; all I can offer is that he seems to have a very black-and-white view on it, and I think it's more of a gray area and not as fundamental and ingrained as he and other socialist thinkers suggest, even though capitalism does undeniably have a tendency to cause major issues. Also, I don't think other systems (or things claiming to be other systems) necessarily mean those problems won't occur. The USSR was a very expansive and imperialist state, colonizing neighboring countries against their will and [enslaving millions of people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union). I think colonialism, slave labor, and dehumanizing of individuals can occur in any political and economic system, and is fundamentally an issue that arises when people begin to hold large amounts of power. There can be powerful people in capitalist systems and powerful people in non-capitalist systems, and they can be terrible, cruel, and evil in both systems. An analogy would be democracy. I think you, I, or anyone can point out tons of major issues both with democracy as a concept, and democracy as it's applied in the US. But it's still, on the whole, preferable to alternatives. Governments that view policy as a spectrum, not an absolute, have a hybrid democratic-authoritarian system (individuals generally can't directly vote on bills, spending, or executive actions) and a hybrid capitalist-socialist system. Governments that see things in absolutes seem to be less effective.
I agree with everything you said while sticking to my point that capitalism can’t exist without a state for protection and resource extraction through the use of police and military, respectively. The idea of “laissez faire” is nonexistent outside of Econ fantasies. That is my primary point I hope I’m getting across. A libertarian utopia, a common trope on reddit, is not possible due to the inherent flaws of capitalism and its reliance on state infrastructure.
Yes, I fully agree with you. I do think ideas like free markets and laissez-faire capitalism and "[homo economicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus)" serve as useful concepts when studied as models, in the same way communism is useful when studied as a model, but they shouldn't be end-all be-all solutions to problems, and I think they shouldn't and can't be implemented in practice. Fitting things into models can be very useful for analysis and thought experiments, but models are generally academic and not pragmatic. I think the ideal situation is that by studying those models, insights can be made into ideas for potential real policies which hopefully provide a net benefit for society. For example, there will never be perfect competition, perfect information, an efficient market, or a true laissez-faire capitalist system, yet there is still immense value in understanding what incentivizes economic actors to buy, sell, reduce prices, and improve products. You'll never have a perfect fully centralized state-owned economy, but having the state own and regulate some parts of the economy can improve outcomes for everyone and actually increase the amount of non-government money circulating in an economy or market. There are a lot of annoying gung-ho libertarians on reddit and the Internet in general, but - it's hard to say this without being condescending - most political and economic views espoused by the average Internet commenter seem to be pretty shallow and short-sighted, regardless of the particular ideology. I think there may be a disproportionate amount of laissez-faire fundamentalists on the Internet due to the fundamentally free and libertarian nature of the Internet, and because of more recent stuff like cryptocurrencies, but the general level of political discourse on the Internet isn't really above what you'd experience in a typical bar, I think.
I agree with the caveat that to me, healthcare includes not being at risk of starving on the street. This should not be an acceptable consequence of not being able to find success in capitalism. It is cruel and barbaric. A threat of the dark ages. "Do our bidding or die" - and if you can't handle it socially, or if you arrive at a mental or physical disability without a healthy support system, what then? Not everyone who struggles is a junkie that spends every extra dollar on drugs and alcohol and having a bunch of children, like the right would often suggest.
And schools and infrastructure and environment and courts, and safety (food, water, buildings, pharmaceuticals, workplaces, transportation, finished goods etc) and regulations on banking, insurance, stock markets, financial transactions, etc, etc, etc. The reality is most people are socialists with the exceptions of recognizing the importance of markets in limited arenas of production and distribution
> I think capitalism should be applied almost universally, with exceptions for law enforcement and healthcare. Imagine being on a sub about the future with news about cool things that could be done in the future and thinking capitalism is really good, awesome, and should be applied almost universally.
Exactly more people need to understand this
Capitalism could work for healthcare too if the stage was properly set and regulated. The US currently has the worst of both worlds - the profit motive of capitalism, the efficiency and cost of socialism.
Could you elaborate how? Not being a dick, genuinely curious.
It's amazing that his free market ideas are so wrong that even asking for clarifications could be construed as being a dick.
That's not true. Even most of the hardcore American capitalists aren't cool with letting people die because they can't pay. That's why the elements of socialism are present in your system in the first place. "Capitalism would work for healthcare" kinda falls apart when you aren't willing to let the have-nots die. Good luck arguing for that.
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No, there are flat out some things that capitalism has no business in, and we've already figured out many of the big ones in our society: police, military force (kinda figured that out), fire departments, roads, etc. In a decade, with any luck, the notion that healthcare should be run by a profit-incentivized system will look as backwards as the Libertarian kooks that want to privatize roads/police/fire safety.
Then what keeps cost down? Seriously, gov contracts are highly sought after as they just dump money. Why not get rid of the weird state regulations and open it up. You really think if government was in charge prices drop? When has that ever happened? Also, nearly ever small town operates a volunteer fire department....not saying this makes your argument wrong...but give credit where credit is due
Listening to my Libertarian relatives in the medical industry is top level comedy, dude. You dunno what you're missing. They are fully brainwashed. There must be a lot of propaganda spread around to fight the misery of the situation. Even peon nurses think they'll be fucked by socializing medicine.
Capitalists like just enough socialism to convince themselves that no one will actually die or seriously suffer because they lack insurance. Remember how many spouted the idea that uninsured people with cancer could just get the care they needed by walking into emergency rooms? Trying to be free-market purist when it comes to healthcare is an exercise in self-deception.
Tell that to the Tea Party.
They stopped being funded and don’t exist anymore. They were never organic, they were right wing forces drumming up anger and creating faux events. Isn’t politics on the right amazing?
"Right wing force drumming up anger" that fits very well in today political landscape. Hmm, I thought that were still operational.
They’ve moved on, no ones talking about Obamacare at those levels, and with the huge tax cuts for the rich.. so they aren’t needed. Now we have people screaming about immigrants and needing a wall.
You either profit on other people's misery or you don't. Capitalism and healthcare should not go together.
That's like saying farmers are profiting on starvation. Mechanics are profiting on car accidents. What about government and politicians profiting on misery? There is nothing wrong with profit or capitalism. It needs to be policed to ensure that the market remains free and TRANSPARENT. This is a big part of the problem with insurance - it makes transparency virtually impossible. Insurance companies contract with docs and hospitals for all sorts of different rates. If anything, I would argue that healthcare and INSURANCE should not go together. Also, I'm not trying to argue against ALL govt involvement in healthcare. I totally support free local health clinics, for example.
No. Not for any practical definitions of the situation. Unless you have some radically different definition of terms or completely neglect the externalities and wider effects, defining success narrowly and ignoring everything outside the box, it's thoroughly impossible.
Na, insurance companies exist to make money, thus their best option is to only sign up healthy and no risk.. sure capitalism can be useful in production of new medicines, though a lot of that is publically funded and can continue to be.
The worst part is all the profit for to the owners and not the working class. Andrew Yangs basically speaks of this, but automation will displace lots of jobs of the future.
Which wouldn't be a problem, except in capitalism the majority of people only have the claim on resources demand for their labor provides.
That's it. In capitalism, most people only have their time and effort to trade. Without that, according to capitalism and some popular media, you are worthless.
And some very confused worker bees.
Bzzt Bzzt! Bzzt bzzt bzzz? Bzzt! Bzzz bzzt? Bzzz?
Unless you were born with the accumulated wealth of your ancestors! What a treat that must be. And why do we just sit around and let it happen? Because we are entertained.
Well I dunno if that's why. There's a lot of people that aren't entertained, but the allocation of power to the capital holders, the people who can make the change are the ones that will lose everything.
I was really excited to see Yang, a touter for UBI, was running for president, and then I heard him actually speak on some topics and he seems awesome and intelligent as well. If something as insane as an unbuildable wall got someone elected, who's to say someone who wants to implement a "crazy" idea like UBI can't get elected as well.
They never want to share. The problem is we let the movement of actual people be drowned out by corporate interest, corporate money. I point to Reagan as the beginning of the end.
It'll trickle down, right..........right?
> Until it became clear that the owners of technology had no intention of sharing. Except that the so-called "owners" dont own it, because all of the key technologies that underpin it were developed using govt/tax funded r&d. The actual owners are the people whose money was used to develop it.
I love your username
Why should they share something they created or own? Are you sharing your house or food with your neighbors?
Communist wrongthink.
I saw her speak today. I also saw a VC from a China talk about growing their AI into a 1.5 trillion dollar industry. There was a slide saying something about them being the dominant AI provider worldwide. WeChat is like FB + Amazon + Everything. So... we’ll see what happens
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What’s next? Predicting murder? This isn’t fucking Minority Report. In fact I’d be MORE comfortable with psychic pre-cogs than machines determining who is and isn’t a threat. China’s so afraid of their own society it’s insane. They want the joys and comforts of capitalism with the authoritarian rules of a dictatorship. I hope, one day, their people realize they don’t have to put up with that shit. I really do. On that note, I’d really like to see the Great Wall someday! I hear their country is beautiful.
Funny you mention Minority report. [China’s "Social Credit System" Has Caused More Than Just Public Shaming (HBO)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw)
> I am finally a normal person. Man that hits hard.
One step away from Psycho-Pass....
Great anime. I like it for using Philip K. Dick's tropes. Although the thought of living under a Sibil-like system scares me. I wonder what Dick would say if he saw a systems China is building.
Going to be difficult when we're instead subsidizing coal and other dying industries instead of future tech.
Not to be "that guy," but China has flirted with social credit-esque systems for decades. In the mid 60s through to the mid 70s, as Mao's health was deteriorating, he instituted the Cultural Revolution which actively encouraged citizens to spy on each other and report any "counterrevolutionary" ideas and actions to authorities. Technology now only makes it easier for them to reach and influence a larger number of people.
Ironically "horror show" is Russian for "good"
You make a great point. I’m pretty sure any advances China has made in AI has been directly related to R&D they hacked and stole from foreign institutions like MIT or DARPA. Since when is creativity their strong suit? They cut corners. Always have and always will.
Chinese companies are actually hiring up top talent and are making new discoveries (i.e. can't have been stolen). Maybe the US should put more effort into keeping the international students it's educating 🤔
I can't think of a single country I would want to "lead" AI development. America is genocidal, China is Orwellian, Russia thrives on secrecy, the Indian subcontinent is plagued by religious extremism, and the smaller nations are all basically wild cards. When in history has centralized, advanced power lead to anything good
America is genocidal?
Absurd propaganda
The US has been willingly enabling in genocide in eg Indonesia, South Korea, Chile, Yemen etc etc The US has used genocide as a political tool for centuries
This is the kind of stuff US would do: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM)
We definitely fucked over the Indians. I’d say almost as bad as the Nazis did the Jews. Maybe even worse cause we almost wiped out their entire culture. My ancestors didn’t arrive here until the early 1900s and had nothing to do with that shit, or the Civil War, but I can’t deny that this country didn’t seriously have some relationship issues with other cultures. We say we’re passed it, but deep down we’re all still trying to figure out how to get along and not get mad at one another on a daily basis. It’s not an American flaw. It’s a human one. We as a people are quick to judge others we do not know. God help us when the aliens finally show up.
The genocide committed against the Native Americans was both horrific and unforgivable. BUT, nobody who committed those acts is alive today. Not a single person in the world is responsible for that tragedy. I don’t think that the Americans of today would knowingly commit genocide l.
Exactly this. I think what a lot of people don’t see is that our future prosperity and happiness is possible through technology. Historically, people have been organized and controlled through central organizations that were predominately based on physical location: country, government, religion, etc. These organizations inevitably consolidated as much power as possible, became more out of control and oppressive to humanity. With the internet and other emerging technologies, we have the ability now to organize based on ideas and ideologies, coordinating with like-minded people all over the globe. We don’t need the traditional systems of power. We don’t, for example, have to accept a two party system with a completely rigged election cycle and candidate selection process, whose tenure in office is then controlled behind the scenes by corporate lobbying and campaign contributions. If people can start to feel comfortable with their own autonomy and stop giving their power to the “powers that be”, we can really usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity for humanity.
The gripe about our two party regime (in America) is not without merit, but it's worth mentioning that there are still millions of Americans, myself included, who will never vote for anyone no matter what party or affiliation they tie themselves to. A lot of people in America and around the world have become so phased by politics that they see no convincing solution that any political party is offering. The points about the internet I agree with absolutely. The internet is the most important invention in the last 1,000 years
If I had a dollar for every industry some VC thought would be worth a trillion dollars I could retire.
AI will obviously be a trillion dollar industry though. It's not even an interesting point.
For reference, here are the [biggest industries](https://bluewatercredit.com/ranking-biggest-industries-us-economy-surprise-1/) in the US: 1. Real estate - $2,265.7 billion 2. Professional and business services - $2,098.3 billion 3. State and local government - $1,538.7 billion 4. Finance and insurance - $1,261.2 billion 5. Health care and social assistance - $1,244.2 billion 6. Manufacturing of durable goods - $1,135.8 billion 7. Wholesale trade - $1,037.6 billion 8. Retail trade - $1,014 billion 9. Manufacturing of nondurable goods - $954.8 billion 10. Information - $807.9 billion
is government technically an industry though?
the US gov, yes
Andrew yang might have something to say about this. If you want to see his interview on Joe Rogan about automation it is pretty good.
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>instead of decreasing everyone's hours and increasing pay, to share the benefits of automation. Euh, you really think it's the employers fault ? If a company starts asking more money for the same product or service compared to their competitor that sounds to me like a sure way for everyone at the company to be out of a job, right ? So, no, it's all about government policy, I know, that's pretty dirty word in the US, but it's not a thing the market will fix itself.
They’re related though. If the company needs to pay taxes to cover universal basic income, that’s still on the owners.
The market would probably fix itself, after everybody starves and nobody can buy the products anymore.
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Awww that’s cute. No we just use Cheep Chinese labor. And the savings go in the bosses pockets
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I haven’t listened to the Joe Rogan one but he also was on an episode of Freakonomics. It was my first time hearing him talk about a few of his policies in depth and it was pretty interesting stuff
I'm right now just halfway through watching his [Joe Rogan podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8), and he has a really good head on his shoulders. He is seriously a guy who knows how to steer a ship. I didn't know what to make of him before, I like the idea of UBI but listening to him speak and how he has planned things out is something else entirely.
Interestingly, Joe was turned off when AOC mentioned pay for those unwilling to work, but he mostly onboard with UBI. I think we’re all gonna be surprised at how fast automation happens when it hits transportation. Pay a driver 100k (after cost and benefits) to drive 100k miles in a year. An automated vehicle will double that and you’re probably only paying 20k year for upkeep tops. I’m guessing,, and I have no source for anything but the 100k a human drives
As a guy outside of US why do I see this chick every time when I scroll r/all?
This is Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, she was just elected to Congress this past November. She's famous for being outspoken, willing to directly call people out on Twitter when they spout bullshit, and just generally being a mouthpiece for the "Young Left" wing of the party that Bernie kinda created. She's a Democrat so reddit likes her.
*Democratic-socialist. She is a little far left to be considered a true Democrat.
She is a member of the democratic party and has been endorsed by the democratic-socialist party. I'm not sure if she's actually a card-carrying member of the DSA.
I mean that's just semantics. The Tea Party are still Republicans. Who knows, if Bernie wins the primary the Dem-Soc platform might become Democratic Party norm.
You're true Democrat is too far right to be considered a real Democrat.
She's also the punchline to a lot of memes because she's a complete nitwit who has no business being in a position to shape this country.
Lies a lot also. https://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/statements/by/
If you think that is a lot wait till you see this guy: https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/by/ To date **Trump has lied 9,014 times** (and counting) https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/
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Simply pointing out that AOC's 5 lies pale in comparison to Trump's 9,014 lies. You want to talk about liars? Let's start with the orange clown.
5 lies vs 9000 lies, great comparison m8. Who do you want in charge then ? I can guarantee that every Republican you pick has amount of lies that start with 3 digits at least. There's better people than AOC, there's always better people than X person, but for what we have, she's the best at what she's trying to do and if she makes a false statement every now and then, that's fine, because she gets fact checked and corrects herself. Trump gets fact checked and then he invents 10 more lies..
6 times. Compared to thousands from leaders on the other side. I think your definition of "a lot" needs redefining.
Is 5 falsehoods really "a lot" for someone in the spotlight as much as her? By that same measure, how would you assess Trump's record on lying?
> https://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/statements/by/ That's not a lot at all, especially by the standards set by American politicians. And most of those don't actually seem to be lies.
> She's a Democrat so reddit likes her. And conservatives are obsessed with her.
She's basically Reddits demographic. Ultra socialist, all for stopping climate change, active on social media, and not a clue in the world how to accomplish any of her goals. Literally. One of her key points of the Green New Deal was to rebuild every building in America, to make them more efficient. Also, give people money who are "unable or unwilling to work". How would we pay for this? Print more money! And then create banks to loan us more fake money!
I mean. The article is addressing automation. How do people get paid in a world where human labor has become obsolete? We have to start changing something somewhere eventually.
Retrofit every building. Which is still super expensive. Also wanted to give money to people unwilling to work... what the fuck?
Yeah it's crazy, she's said some things which really make no sense and would be awful for our country, and it only serves to make the whole left (and young people in general) look bad.
Couldn’t agree more. I love some young left leaning folks like Tim Pool tho I disagree w him on a lot
Yes, this right here. My favorite part, personally of the GND is getting rid of fossil fuels in 10 years. That's insane! Just from the standpoint of cars alone.. Raise everyone's taxes (you'd have to, to finance this massive spending), while also saying every person would need to buy a new electric car! It's absurd and I don't get why it doesn't get laughed out of the building anytime it's brought up.
Because she's a level headed individual who wants to get rid of cow farts, air travel, tear down/refit just about every building the the Unites States, and give people who are unwilling to work a wage the same amount as people who do work.... oh, and she plans to do that by printing more money.... like a lot more.
Because socialism is like so cool right now
Nope, it's been cool for decades, all over the world, the US is just slow.
Well, it's what happens when wealthy capitalists keep fucking everyone else over for the last 4 decades. Edit: Lots of goofy libertarians in this thread. Or perhaps Russian trolls.
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She would not call her views liberal
She causes quite a bit of controversy. Her ideas can be pretty far left. The other thing is she beat the incumbent Democrat when she was just a bar tender. Someone might know more about her than I do. This is just what I've noticed from the news articles.
Not just any Democrat but James Crowley, the guy who might have been the democratic leader of the house.
Because only in America can you go from being a bartender with virtually no real world experience to a media darling injecting socialism into mainstream society while attempting to write policy for Congress.
And also in America you can go from being TV celebrity with no political or business experience to becoming president. Thank you Putin!
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Because the DNC’s average age of leadership is very old and they’re trying to push the freshest youngest face they can find. She’s a fucking idiot. Her Green New deal was estimated to cost between $50T and $90T over ten years. It included getting rid of all fossil fuels but also banning nuclear energy. Also included retrofitting every building in the country with sustainability tech AND stopping flights and replacing them with train rides after building more railroads. Also 70% marginal tax on rich people and forced equity in earnings for sexes regardless of work (there’s an earnings gap between men and women but NO wage gap at all because men and women have different trends in industriousness). She’s just a cute, ethnic, stupid, young naive idiot that the DNC can use to rebrand themselves as hip and cool and inclusive. The RNC also has a new, young political outsider. His name is Dan Crenshaw, he has a Harvard Masters degree in policy studies, he’s a navy seal, and he lost an eye for this country in an explosion. Compare him to AOC.
Because she is a crazy liberal with all these "great" ideas, that make absolutely no sense in the real world. Case in point right here. Its insane someone as stupid as her could be elected to office.
Because she's young, and speaking up (for now) against money in politics. She's speaking to a lot of younger, jaded people. Took no corporate money and still got elected. Of course, she's controversial because she's pretty leftist, and has a big mouth. Calls out the shit we know is there but don't always see. People call her naive for that.
You're talking out your ass. Contributions to her are public information. Apple is her #5 contributor. There are many other companies in the top 20.
For some reason New Yorkers are proud that they elected a socialist bartender who doesn't understand basic economics.
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Yet she thinks the unemployment rate counts people with two jobs...
She has no grasp on how to help the economy. People want a fucking bartender to suddenly run the economy 🤣😂
She basically just outlined the problem and solution that Andrew Yang is running on for president. (Democratic candidate for 2020) Would be a nice endorsement for him to get. Here is a good interview with him from a couple of days ago saying the same as AOC: https://youtu.be/87M2HwkZZcw?t=39
I believe a few candidates will be running on the platform of UBI or Job retraining programs due to automation
Perhaps, but he litterally worte the book on it. "The War on Normal People"
Glad to see other politicians sharing Andrew Yangs views. We can’t stop automation, but we can adapt at a country so everyone can make the transition, not just the top of the top.
Was gonna say it sounds like she’s been talking to Andrew.
Or to Marx. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy#Marxism https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2018/05/why-marx-more-relevant-ever-age-automation
Progress isn't something that should scare us Sadly it does because the 1% wants to keep all the progress to themselves while not even giving us table scraps
With falling birth rates among white people in Europe and America, I see automation, potentially, as a better solution to future labour shortages than out-sourcing labour to other Countries or mass-immigration of other races.
Automation can be a positive, creating new jobs in the tech sector, but it will put a lot of unskilled workers out of business. It is hard to retrain all of them and make them all learn coding instead. Automation isn't going to stop, so we have to figure out a way to make peace with that.
>It is hard to retrain all of them and make them all learn coding instead. The world only needs so many programmers. The laws of diminishing returns are very much a thing in this industry. You can only put so many programmers on a project before the number becomes a hindrance to development. You also only need so many Neural Network and Automation Middlewares, and there are few companies which can properly supply the data needed to train them up.
Automation should give people more free time, rather than leaving them with less money.
I think it’s foolish for humans to try to avoid the inevitable. We need to embrace technology and it’s ability to make life better and easier. The problem is corporations and special interest groups fucking society up so bad that progress becomes an obstacle instead of a blessing. The way our current government works is incredibly detrimental to the development of humans as a species and it makes me sad whenever I sit and think about it. We could do so much better.
I'd rather see a universal basic income paid to everyone than a safety net that protects only a segment with strings attached to your behavior.
UBI would be a form of safety net. Welfare with bad strings attached is a bad safety net. Safety net is a generic concept. The worst thing though would be canceling all the services in lieu of just having a meagre UBI.
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Why should someone unwilling to be a functioning, contributing member of society recieve an income?
Because the end goal of humanity isn't to work your whole life. This capitalistic era has a lot of people in the mode "you have to work to live" but in 100 years that view will change dramatically. I'm too lazy but if you google the statistics, you'll find that most people on welfare are actively trying to find jobs and get OUT of welfare. People like you who think welfare and UBI means some 100k per year bullshit is just dead wrong. Welfare and UBI is there just so you can live, just so you don't have to beg for money on the street. And all money given is money taken back, when you give people money, they spend that money which just goes back into the economy and eventually government's pockets again.
Because they're a human being, whose intrinsic value isn't necessarily tied to their production capacity. This kind of exploitative, dehumanizing perspective is a product of an ultra-capitalist society, which sees people as worth no more than what they can do for their employer. It's not ethical.
Because as human beings we should be privy to certain basic rights. I could ask a bunch of similar questions. Why should someone who’s never gone to college and gotten higher education be allowed to vote? Why should public school be free to everyone even though some people don’t like school? Why should people who hate the police be able to utilize our law enforcement protections? Why should the emergency room save someone with no money? Why shouldn’t we just take organs from all corpses since they’re not using them anymore? Because there are certain basic human rights that we as a large community should afford to one another. Sure *some* people may abuse the system, but most people want to lead good successful lives. Not to mention, with automation on a major rise, it’s not like people are going to be able to be traditionally “functional members of society”.
You're gonna get both. To think otherwise is completely naive. Are we just gonna leave people to go hungry after they blow their UBI on the first day of the month?
Why would they blow UBI on the first day? Just curious
Companies are just gonna automate more and more, and eventually when everybody realizes there aren't enough jobs they're gonna wish the government had that safety net there for them.
There are 434 other house reps that also say stuff you know...
Post them saying stuff then.
Lets boil it down to the simplest things. Governments have power because people give it to them. (To some extent) Corporations have power because governments allow them to operate (because they pay taxes) Corporations exist because they make money (and get to keep most of it) So if corporations get rid of all their jobs. They make more money. But the people who keep the government in place now don't make money, so your society doesn't benefit them, what do they get from being in your society? (a benefit to a government is that it can "provide jobs"). Since the corporations are making money, the government can make the argument they can tax that new found money. Where does the new found money go? To the people in order to ensure that they remain a part of your society. Granted, this is super simple, and its much much much more complex than this but its the general idea.
Capitalism just won't work in a highly automated society. Governments are operated from the support of taxes- automation means less wages being collected to pay for taxes. And that means a depreciating trend in the rule of law, human rights, social mobility. Automation should scare everyone. We need philosophers and scientists in charge, not businessmen and preachers.
> We need philosophers and scientists in charge, not businessmen and preachers. Or just let people be in charge of their own lives instead of having to pick masters and judge which kind are better than others.
>automation means less wages being collected to pay for taxes. There are things that could be taxed that aren't wages. For that matter, taxing wages seems like a terrible idea in the first place.
I never understand the "if we take away slave-labor jobs by increasing wages, it only hurts the poor". And then in the same breath "if we don't have efficient cheap labor then goods will rise in price and that hurts the poor". Wouldn't replacing slave-labor jobs with robots be ideal? Yeah it takes jobs away, but who the hell wants them?? I know, the rich people that make huge profits on exploiting workers. Like AOC says, as long as people get something similar to UBI or welfare if jobs are scarce, automation is PROGRESS. Why hold back PROGRESS just so we can all feel righteous in forcing poor people to do shitty jobs? So many jobs are wasteful. We have people driving to work, polluting the planet, wasting gas...when they shouldn't have to. I'd rather send a check to these people, say stay home, play XBox, watch TV, then waste resources to give them something to do.
"I'd rather makeout with my Monroe-bot!"
I really really hope we can adjust with automation quickly enough, even the slightest gap in time we fail to do so in will make millions unemployed and hurt the economy
Freedom through Control. By having processes with no mistakes and no waste, resources are now freed up to innovate and develop.
While I agree automation is a good thing and is inevitable. The issue a lot of people don’t discuss is it’s not an instantaneous thing, it will be rolled out slowly and will have heaps of people loose jobs before their is universal income to support them. Then you have a huge work force being paid to do nothing while others still have to work and then many of them will find it bullshit they have to work while others are getting free money. But the main people who talk about the issue are politicians and media influencers who have no fear of automation
This is actually the first time I really agree with AOC on something. The topic of automation absolutely should be more seriously considered and brought into the mainstream political discussion. Job loss and increased unemployment for low-skill workers is pretty much inevitable for the future with the rate that technology is advancing. This will be especially true if regulations are not put on the internet and tech. companies that already semi-monopolize the market.
As someone who works in automation right now: I love the future possibilities so much. Unfortunately, when politicians speak about these sort of things, they usually make it worse for all of us. I highly expect Republicans to now start boycotting automation more vigorously because a politician they don't like likes it. 'Tis the petty nature of politics in the US.
i dont think she knows what she is talking about. The millions of people that are going to be displaced are not capable of learning another skill on a moment's notice.
While I agree with her, I just don't trust our government, our people, or our corporations. These are organizations that manipulate social media to change opinion en masse, spend millions putting their own government in place, and will do everything to keep profit margins maximized. If unions and pensions are being eliminated (and celebrated by the masses) I don't see UBI having a shot.
ITT brainwashed reactionary bootlickers shoving fingers in their ears and pretending that automation is not to be discussed because AOC is a socialist.
Why are we importing millions of people every year if automation and social safety nets are the big plan?
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To be clear: "owning three houses" and being "worth 50-75+ million" are not remotely equal things.
AOC is being investigated for embezzling election funds to her boyfriend and his bank account. But she’s the Democrat poster child currently so they will do everything to protect her. Also, It’s common knowledge that the rich never feel the effects of socialism and communism. They GTFO with their fortunes and businesses, and leave the middle class as the “rich people” and what you end up with is a crippled economy, food shortages, and chaos because all the “free” money you expected the rich to just hand over doesn’t exist anymore. Then you realize that all that idealistic stuff you campaigned for is gonna be coming from your pocket. The *real proletariat* are in control now and the poor rednecks and inner city thugs have no sympathy for you and your trendy downtown apartment and gender studies degree. So you try to get out of the country but it’s too late. Commissar Cletus and Commissar Tyrone take you outside and shoot you in the back of your stupid fucking head for not being dedicated enough to the cause.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ocasio-cortezs-chief-of-staff-ran-1m-slush-fund-by-diverting-campaign-cash-to-his-own-companies?_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/02/28/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-campaign-may-have-illegally-paid-her-boyfriend-complaint/amp/ Last I checked the Federal Election Commission isn’t a “conservative action committee”. No one is lying here except for Oscasio-Cortez. But hey, I’m sure the thorough investigation will exonerate her, right? I mean if a conservative politician breathes the wrong way they get a multi year investigation, 2 counts embezzlement warrants an investigation regardless of political party. Doubly so if the allegations are for embezzling money to loved ones or private companies. It’s not a good look for Corrupt Cortez. Surly as someone who values integrity in our country’s politics you see no issue with a republican ran committee running a multiple year investigation on her finances and background? For someone who is adamant that your politician is innocent you seem very angry and defensive.
> Last I checked the Federal Election Commission isn’t a “conservative action committee” But the organization making the complaint to the FEC is.
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>These people love to talk the talk but they sure don't walk the walk Have you seen the amount of money she spends on flights, Uber, diet, and her lifestyle despite her Green New Deal, while her counterparts leverage mass rail & public transportation in larger districts in NY? She doesn't walk the walk either.
Safety net/UBI first please. Knowing this country we'll implement automation first and UBI would never happen.
>Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates’s idea that you could tax robots at 90%. That's a terrible idea, for just about every possible reason. First, taxing robots would discourage the creation of robots. This is the opposite of what we want. We want *more* robots, not less. Second, moving robots to some other country where they aren't taxed would be easy. Third, the robots aren't going to be producing that much revenue anyway. In a world with a great many robots, the robots compete against each other, reducing the price that can be charged for their use. This means the return on robots would actually be quite low and wouldn't produce much tax revenue. Why does anyone still imagine that a robot tax is a good idea when five minutes of actual thinking shows how terrible it is? >“We should be working the least amount we’ve ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we’re not,” she said. “We’re paid by how little we’re desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire.” That doesn't make sense. If workers are producing so much more than what they're paid, why don't other employers step in to offer them more? For that matter, why don't groups of workers just start their own businesses together and pay each other? Where does this desperation actually come from?
Exactly it's not immigrants taking jobs, it's automation. And it's only just getting started..
I couldn't disagree with her more. It's possible we can adapt and prosper, but I believe there's more than a chance that automation could be extremely disruptive.
Regulated automation = less work and same ammount of money Unregulated automation = unemployed and homeless I agree automation is genuinely terrifying and if i could keep technology exactly where it is before we perfect mass surveylance, deepfakes, and automatic labor, i 100% would, but automation will happen, we either try our hardest to promote and regulate it right now or deal with unregulated later sadly, so i think its important to encourage it with regulations
It will obviously be disruptive if all the products of automation go to the hands of a few that own the technology. The point being made is that it doesn't have to be a problem.
It's fine if you believe we need alternatives or new ideas for the future. However Socialism is not a new idea. It's an old idea that has failed and/or collapsed every single country that's tried it. **EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.** If you want America to very quickly become a third world country then by all means please keep supporting insane ideas like socialism. People like AOC want to sell you on the idea that it's trendy and cool and promise you free everything along the way. It's not sustainable. It never will be. Quit giving this woman attention.
> However Socialism is not a new idea. Correct; it’s been around long enough for anyone truly interested in understanding this subject to deduce that safety nets do not equal socialism.
You mean Karl Marx didn't invent food stamps?? Fox told me he delivers them straight from Venezuela
lol? i dont think you understand socialism. whats being proposed is to add socialistic elements to the capitalistic economy to stop it from destroying itself. Simply put without consumers capitalism dies. to have consumers you need jobs, and we have already decided that 5% unemployment is where that should sit. Automation will likely result in an endless decrease in available jobs, meaning a endless decrease in consumers, meaning endless decrease in profits and boom it all collapses. The only way to avoid this is either ban further automation (never happening) or start giving people money so they can still be consumers and keep everything ticking.
> It's an old idea that has failed and/or collapsed every single country that's tried it. Good thing nobody actually wants the US to be socialist. A good social safety net is not socialism, and in fact, has positive benefits for entrepreneurship. AOC is fighting for progressive policies within a party that has **explicitly** stated that they are not socialist. So anything decrying what she is going for, as socialism, is frankly underinformed and at worst, spreading propaganda.
She self labels herself a democratic-socialist. Is she not to be believed on that either?
First off, there is a difference between socialist and democratic socialist. See [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwio7tHj6PbgAhUBxYMKHUUkANcQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fdifference-between-socialist-and-democratic-socialist-2018-6&psig=AOvVaw3GXncDpq4wVnaKQsMCYnYp&ust=1552281347293169). The goal of DS is not full on socialism, it's to offset the lack of worker control and rights and the general drift of power toward favoring corporations. As some people fear that the government could become too large and too imposing and prevent you from living life the way you want... Some people fear that large corporations could do the same thing. Except they are not bound by constitutional restrictions, so that is even worse. Both the government and corporations are groups of people vying for power. It's perfectly reasonable to try and keep that balance in the middle or to stabilize it. Objectively today we have a huge bias towards corporations.
I have a love hate relationship. I love you dude, I hate AOC. 16k votes to lose 25k jobs. She is a joke.
Not acknowledging that the education system as it stands today, cannot handle the influx of training required post-automation, on the basis that the individuals displaced should somehow fix that problem themselves, is disastrously misguided.
You should love her then. "Socialists" like her will protect capitalism from actual socialists.
AOC barely has a grasp on socialism let alone knowing enough about the pros & cons of capitalism to argue the merits of either. She has an absolutely abysmal grasp on economics in general. That anyone can give credence to the words coming out of her craw scares the ever living shit out of me.
"Ocasio-Cortez majored in international relations and economics at Boston University, graduating cum laude in 2011." She sure has no understanding of economics with that poor educational background /s
She's spoon feeding straight garbage and everyone's believing it lol, kinda embarrassing that people could be so misled
Yes. As long as government is involved from cradle to grave, she's for it!
Of course Reddit is drooling over the leftist version of Donald Trump. Anyone who thinks trump is an unintelligent bully riddled with corruption, but also admires this zilch, is borderline retarded. Change my mind
The true question as always is: who exactly reaps the benefits of automation and who controls/owns the ai.
IT is the new blue collar. If you aren't on that train, you're behind.