Get Rid of Capitalism?

[Zlaxer]

Think about this in terms of some future point where there exists no scarcity at all. Where it wouldn't matter if somebody is getting a UBI or not. He could just fabricate a house somewhere, and print pretty much everything he needs. Maybe he needs to grow his own food, but that's about it.

I think the general direction here is something like Simak described in City.

Have to associate "costs" with resources somehow...most proles will fuck till the planet literally can't produce enough food...

Similarly, most proles would "replicate" excessively, i.e., without any consideration of the strain on their fellow man.....

Your world works where people are intelligent and responsible....most people lack both those qualities....that's where cots comes in - it forces most people to be good neighbors...

[Zlaxer]

Most people are animals...




How's that for critical reading

[SilverEagle]

We need to figure out something completely new. Both capitalism and socialism have essentially failed.

Capitalism itself, in it's pure form has not failed. What has failed is crony capitalism/corporatism that grew like a cancer in our economy over the last sixty to seventy years. The problem is we as a people are not fixing the problem but instead have basically left no other options for Millennials except for them to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Speaker to Animals]

We need to figure out something completely new. Both capitalism and socialism have essentially failed.

Capitalism itself, in it's pure form has not failed. What has failed is crony capitalism/corporatism that grew like a cancer in our economy over the last sixty to seventy years. The problem is we as a people are not fixing the problem but instead have basically left no other options for Millennials except for them to throw the baby out with the bath water.

And Stalin wasn't a real communist. I am not playing this game with you.

[Fife]

UBI with dramatically reduced world population we don't need 10 Billion people....

Fife won't like it - but he's offered up a big fat Goose Egg when it comes to keeping the proles employed....

[Zlaxer]

UBI with dramatically reduced world population we don't need 10 Billion people....

Fife won't like it - but he's offered up a big fat Goose Egg when it comes to keeping the proles employed....

Removing such a venerated genome would only serve to make it easier for degenerates to procreate.

[Speaker to Animals]

I am not sure what part of the demographic winter you don't understand, but too many people is not our problem.

[Zlaxer]

I am not sure what part of the demographic winter you don't understand, but too many people is not our problem.

The part where Africa.....

https://africacheck.org/factsheets/fact ... ojections/

[SuburbanFarmer]

Damn, this was a really good thread for a minute.

Put me down for the “mixed economy” ideal, though I doubt that it has a snowballs chance in America. It will come down to China, in the end, to decide between tyranny and compromise. The only way that the West could do it, at this point, is by a messianic figure arising to lead the system in a new direction, somehow immune to special interests.

Yes, I know that’s why Trump got elected. I was just never under the illusion that he would do it.

[Speaker to Animals]

Even a mixed economy is not likely to deal with this issue.

Mixed economies are in as much trouble as the United States right now, and it's likely to get worse.

We have, on the one hand, the inevitability of massive unemployment as technological progress automates most everything. On the other hand, that same technological progress will make the means of production non-scarce. That is, anybody will be able to make most of whatever it is they want.

For instance, there exist no practical reasons why some hypothetical 3D printer cannot print all the parts of a computer in the future if given the materials necessary. We already are inching towards totally automated software development with code generation algorithms combined with the latest AI techniques. Think of all the money you spent on software in the past few years. That probably won't be necessary at some point. As cheap as computers have become in the past few years, they could become far cheaper (just the cost of materials) at some point.

I don't know how far out that really is. But that day is coming nevertheless.

I think governments and corporations will eventually lose power as people just drift away from cities and live out on their own in voluntary communities (if in communities at all). If you can fabricate whatever you want with 3D printers and nano-farms, and you can then automate your own food production, have your home built by robots, etc., then why even bother with cities and governments?

Again: I don't know how long it will take humanity to get from here to there, but it's not like some final event where somebody flips the light switch centuries from now so we don't need to think about it. It's a process that happens over time, and we have to adapt to that process and the change it entails. Also, if the singularity cultists are correct, that process is not going to be centuries at all, but possibly within a century. Once you achieve general AI, that thing is just going to rapidly snowball in intelligence as it constantly improves upon itself at computer speed.

Capitalism gets a pre-industrial society from a medieval state to the state I just described. It's a transitional system. Possibly the most important transition of all of them (even over that of agriculture), but still a temporary thing. The idea that it's the end state is what I take issue with. But I don't really know how best to adapt to these things.