Silicon Valley's new ideological faction, called Effective Accelerationism or e/acc, is focused on the pursuit of AI development with no guardrails to slow its growth.
My view of it is that if it doesn’t go fast, we end up in a boiled frog situation where every year a few more jobs are lost but not enough for people to protest and the rich end up owning all of us like slaves after a couple of decades.
If in the space of a few years we lose virtually all jobs, it will be hard to argue against the obvious solutions like rapid nationalization of assets and fully automated communism.
While I agree with your first paragraph, I’m not sure that communism would be a solution, given how history has shown us that it can be quite easily corrupted and used by the elite to exploit the masses.
A capitalist system where political power have the means to control financial power, and where there are limits to the influence of money in politics, might be better IMHO.
I’m not sure that capitalism would be a solution, given how history has shown us that it designed to be corrupt and used by the elite to exploit the masses.
Humans being as they are, just as it is naive to expect that a Society were everybody has the same (i.e. the actual Communist utopia) even if created instantly by magic would remain Equal for more than a few seconds, it’s naive to expect that in a Society were personal monetary wealth is valued as the greatest quality of a person and the core political message is that “Greed is Good”, the Makers of Laws (a.k.a. Politicians) and the Enforcers of Laws would be - uniquelly in such a society - not driven by personal upside maximization and instead work for the common good.
In the game of Capitalism, there is no greater Return On Investment than that of buying rules and referees and the more it get invested in overall on those with the power to subvert the system that defines and imposes check & balances the easier it gets to treat law-making and law-enforcement as services for sale.
Scandinavian nations are degrading along with everybody else at this point, it just took longer and was harder to subvert governance in the heavilly supervised version of Capitalism of countries with a general pro-social culture than it did in “free for all” US of A were there none of the social, non-Capitalist, ideological elements are about considering others and not just one’s own satisfaction and ego (which is how you end up with Libertarians rather than Equalitarians and pure ego-driven Moralists rather than Conservatives).
naive to expect… the actual Communist utopia… even if created instantly by magic would remain Equal for more than a few seconds
Who said that’s the communist utopia? Who is shooting for an unenforceable equality? What kind of mindset do you think those who existed in your own imagined communist utopia that society would have? Capitalist points of view?
Can you honestly look at the state of society (and the planet, in a more literal sense) and say that capitalism is doing a good job…? It’s rampant with corruption and suffering.
It’s doing a not so bad job in a few countries (spoiler: the US is not among them), e.g. Finland, Denmark, Germany, Canada. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, not even a good system, just that it’s a good place to start.
Wealth redistribution requires that there’s wealth to begin with, and capitalism is clearly the system with the best incentives to create wealth. You just need strong policies to prevent sociopaths a la Musk, Thiel or Bezos to try to hoard “all the money”, to easily break up monopolies, etc.
Canada is not doing okay, its government is clearly corrupt and has no problem letting the population flounder in a housing crisis. Harper’s era was about pulling money away from crown corps in favour of paying companies friendly to the Conservative Party.
A frog that is slowly boiled will jump out. However, if it’s dropped in boiling water, it’ll die because it doesn’t have time to jump out before the proteins in its body get destroyed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
Relevant because I don’t think slow change is as irreversible as fast change, and might actually be more manageable
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The boiling frog is an apologue describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that ifa frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but ifthe frog is putin tepid water which is then brought toa boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used asa metaphor forthe inability or unwillingness of people to react toor be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is trueifthe heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival inthe wild. A frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out.
My view of it is that if it doesn’t go fast, we end up in a boiled frog situation where every year a few more jobs are lost but not enough for people to protest and the rich end up owning all of us like slaves after a couple of decades.
If in the space of a few years we lose virtually all jobs, it will be hard to argue against the obvious solutions like rapid nationalization of assets and fully automated communism.
While I agree with your first paragraph, I’m not sure that communism would be a solution, given how history has shown us that it can be quite easily corrupted and used by the elite to exploit the masses.
A capitalist system where political power have the means to control financial power, and where there are limits to the influence of money in politics, might be better IMHO.
I’m not sure that capitalism would be a solution, given how history has shown us that it designed to be corrupt and used by the elite to exploit the masses.
Humans being as they are, just as it is naive to expect that a Society were everybody has the same (i.e. the actual Communist utopia) even if created instantly by magic would remain Equal for more than a few seconds, it’s naive to expect that in a Society were personal monetary wealth is valued as the greatest quality of a person and the core political message is that “Greed is Good”, the Makers of Laws (a.k.a. Politicians) and the Enforcers of Laws would be - uniquelly in such a society - not driven by personal upside maximization and instead work for the common good.
In the game of Capitalism, there is no greater Return On Investment than that of buying rules and referees and the more it get invested in overall on those with the power to subvert the system that defines and imposes check & balances the easier it gets to treat law-making and law-enforcement as services for sale.
Scandinavian nations are degrading along with everybody else at this point, it just took longer and was harder to subvert governance in the heavilly supervised version of Capitalism of countries with a general pro-social culture than it did in “free for all” US of A were there none of the social, non-Capitalist, ideological elements are about considering others and not just one’s own satisfaction and ego (which is how you end up with Libertarians rather than Equalitarians and pure ego-driven Moralists rather than Conservatives).
Who said that’s the communist utopia? Who is shooting for an unenforceable equality? What kind of mindset do you think those who existed in your own imagined communist utopia that society would have? Capitalist points of view?
Can you honestly look at the state of society (and the planet, in a more literal sense) and say that capitalism is doing a good job…? It’s rampant with corruption and suffering.
It’s doing a not so bad job in a few countries (spoiler: the US is not among them), e.g. Finland, Denmark, Germany, Canada. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, not even a good system, just that it’s a good place to start.
Wealth redistribution requires that there’s wealth to begin with, and capitalism is clearly the system with the best incentives to create wealth. You just need strong policies to prevent sociopaths a la Musk, Thiel or Bezos to try to hoard “all the money”, to easily break up monopolies, etc.
Canada is not doing okay, its government is clearly corrupt and has no problem letting the population flounder in a housing crisis. Harper’s era was about pulling money away from crown corps in favour of paying companies friendly to the Conservative Party.
A frog that is slowly boiled will jump out. However, if it’s dropped in boiling water, it’ll die because it doesn’t have time to jump out before the proteins in its body get destroyed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
Relevant because I don’t think slow change is as irreversible as fast change, and might actually be more manageable
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The boiling frog is an apologue describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to modern biologists the premise is false: changing location is a natural thermoregulation strategy for frogs and other ectotherms, and is necessary for survival in the wild. A frog that is gradually heated will jump out. Furthermore, a frog placed into already boiling water will die immediately, not jump out.article | about