Topic: Will robotics be the end of capitalism?
Catherine !TGirlYJKXM started this discussion 10 years ago #53,499
What happens when all lower income and entry level jobs are taken over by computers?
In today's more "compassionate" world, surely, nobody would let a massive number of people starve due to lack of a job. So surely this would lead to more socialist government programs that could eventurally give way to a new form of government.
In today's more "compassionate" world, surely, nobody would let a massive number of people starve due to lack of a job. So surely this would lead to more socialist government programs that could eventurally give way to a new form of government.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 1 minute later[^] [v] #697,548
lol
Dr. Whom !7MHPahvoGY joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 1 hour later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #697,554
Catherine !TGirlYJKXM (OP) replied with this 10 years ago, 37 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #697,558
@previous (Dr. Whom !7MHPahvoGY)
Most of the violence seems to stem within third world countries. Most of the first world always seem to give a fuck about people when they are in dire need.
Most of the violence seems to stem within third world countries. Most of the first world always seem to give a fuck about people when they are in dire need.
Dr. Whom !7MHPahvoGY replied with this 10 years ago, 6 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #697,563
@previous (Catherine !TGirlYJKXM)> Most of the first world always seem to give a fuck about people when they are in dire need.
You don't get out much, do you?
bhutan joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 3 hours later, 5 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,614
D-g !jJEom8Ii3E joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 1 hour later, 7 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,623
squeegee joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 1 hour later, 8 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,662
well, it's true that the majority of people in developed countries are no longer subsistence farmers and agriculture has been taken over by machines for most of the really difficult work, but people still work. pretty much what happens when new technology comes along (such as agriculture thousands of years ago) people are awarded a lot more free time and generally have a huge uptick in energy availability. so once we started farming there was little need to be hunter/gatherers anymore which left us with a ton of free time. with that time we developed civilization and built great societies. with plenty of feed and no need to wander in small bands, we were able to make tremendous leaps and completely change the way our species lives.
same thing happened with the Industrial Revolution. instead of being Chicken Feather Pluckers people could go and get educated. that trend has continued, and will continue, as technology develops. yes, machines will take over many of the "jobs" we as humans do today, but that'll leave us with many new jobs to create. a good example will be what will happen with office life. today people travel to and from work and spend a lot of time in transit and very much productivity is lost because of commute times. Virtual Offices where people telecommute with a virtual reality presence may end up replacing the commute. instead of an office to go to, you have a VR room where you go to work. many hours saved will translate directly into something. better education, more free time to enjoy, or at least a bump in productivity. not to mention alleviating traffic for things like driverless cargo vehicles.
and things always go in baby steps. i know there's a hypothesis that tech will reach a "singularity" and suddenly humans will be entirely obsolete as machines surpass us, but that's not going to happen any time soon. maybe never. it's not like we can't continue to improve ourselves. and waiting for the "singularity" to come along and deliver us a Utopia is about like waiting for Jesus to return.
in your life you'll see some amazing things, but what'll impact you the most will be things like an increase in the variety of foods you have available to you. transportation will change, many low skill jobs will disappear, and in general humans will grow more intelligent on average. comfort will be easier to attain, and work will be less strenuous compared to work of earlier eras.
but, at the same time we'll be making huge advancements, and new work will be discovered. even strenuous work, and for the foreseeable future humans will have a fundamental role in the development of anything new.
and i'll put it this way, i still don't have a robot that can do simple house chores like dishes and laundry. i have a robot vacuum that's pretty awesome, but it's very simple in how it functions. and until we have robots that can do household chores better than humans, then the risk to most jobs is very low. especially anything that requires dexterity or cleverness. example: it's easy to make a machine that can build a car transmission. it can make the housing, cut the gears, and do much of the assembly. but, there is not a robot in existence that can repair a car transmission. you don't pull the transmission and hand it off to a machine, you disassemble it by hand and repair it using human intelligence.
fact of the matter computing is no where close to where it needs to be to usher in an era of human obsolescence. your brain runs at 98.6 degrees and has a very low volume for its output. computers run 2-3 times hotter and take up volumes many. many orders of magnitude greater to achieve the same processing power. the cost of powering computer generated thought is going to be much greater than the energy needs of the human brain for a considerable amount of time. we WILL see a Great AI in our time, i do believe that, but it will probably be a huge network of computers operating as one AI rather than a bunch of desktop AIs. eventually we'll see desktop AI, but not any time soon enough to worry about.
same thing happened with the Industrial Revolution. instead of being Chicken Feather Pluckers people could go and get educated. that trend has continued, and will continue, as technology develops. yes, machines will take over many of the "jobs" we as humans do today, but that'll leave us with many new jobs to create. a good example will be what will happen with office life. today people travel to and from work and spend a lot of time in transit and very much productivity is lost because of commute times. Virtual Offices where people telecommute with a virtual reality presence may end up replacing the commute. instead of an office to go to, you have a VR room where you go to work. many hours saved will translate directly into something. better education, more free time to enjoy, or at least a bump in productivity. not to mention alleviating traffic for things like driverless cargo vehicles.
and things always go in baby steps. i know there's a hypothesis that tech will reach a "singularity" and suddenly humans will be entirely obsolete as machines surpass us, but that's not going to happen any time soon. maybe never. it's not like we can't continue to improve ourselves. and waiting for the "singularity" to come along and deliver us a Utopia is about like waiting for Jesus to return.
in your life you'll see some amazing things, but what'll impact you the most will be things like an increase in the variety of foods you have available to you. transportation will change, many low skill jobs will disappear, and in general humans will grow more intelligent on average. comfort will be easier to attain, and work will be less strenuous compared to work of earlier eras.
but, at the same time we'll be making huge advancements, and new work will be discovered. even strenuous work, and for the foreseeable future humans will have a fundamental role in the development of anything new.
and i'll put it this way, i still don't have a robot that can do simple house chores like dishes and laundry. i have a robot vacuum that's pretty awesome, but it's very simple in how it functions. and until we have robots that can do household chores better than humans, then the risk to most jobs is very low. especially anything that requires dexterity or cleverness. example: it's easy to make a machine that can build a car transmission. it can make the housing, cut the gears, and do much of the assembly. but, there is not a robot in existence that can repair a car transmission. you don't pull the transmission and hand it off to a machine, you disassemble it by hand and repair it using human intelligence.
fact of the matter computing is no where close to where it needs to be to usher in an era of human obsolescence. your brain runs at 98.6 degrees and has a very low volume for its output. computers run 2-3 times hotter and take up volumes many. many orders of magnitude greater to achieve the same processing power. the cost of powering computer generated thought is going to be much greater than the energy needs of the human brain for a considerable amount of time. we WILL see a Great AI in our time, i do believe that, but it will probably be a huge network of computers operating as one AI rather than a bunch of desktop AIs. eventually we'll see desktop AI, but not any time soon enough to worry about.
bhutan replied with this 10 years ago, 1 hour later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,697
@previous (squeegee)
ok I only read your first paragraph but subsistence farming is a lot more intensive and results in far less free time than would a hunter gatherer forager society
it led to innovation and settling but not free time or happiness
ok I only read your first paragraph but subsistence farming is a lot more intensive and results in far less free time than would a hunter gatherer forager society
it led to innovation and settling but not free time or happiness
bhutan double-posted this 10 years ago, 34 seconds later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,698
kook !!OPZbEQMT1 joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 2 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,700
@697,697 (bhutan)
But don't hunter/gatherer societies basically spend all of their time looking for food?
If farming takes more time than how can it also lead to more innovation?
But don't hunter/gatherer societies basically spend all of their time looking for food?
If farming takes more time than how can it also lead to more innovation?
bhutan replied with this 10 years ago, 9 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,705
@previous (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
no, a day or two of successful hunting by a handful of people might mean a week of free time for a small community.
also when people stay in one place there's opportunity to innovate. not everyone will be farming, and people create new occupations. settling to farm results in innovation thru engineering, building permanent structures etc. it's more like the work/innovation branch out from necessiy
no, a day or two of successful hunting by a handful of people might mean a week of free time for a small community.
also when people stay in one place there's opportunity to innovate. not everyone will be farming, and people create new occupations. settling to farm results in innovation thru engineering, building permanent structures etc. it's more like the work/innovation branch out from necessiy
kook !!OPZbEQMT1 replied with this 10 years ago, 51 seconds later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,707
bhutan replied with this 10 years ago, 5 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,712
@previous (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
yes you are correct. a bad season could kill everyone
a bad season can mean bad things for an agrarian society too but there are more failsafes.
yes you are correct. a bad season could kill everyone
a bad season can mean bad things for an agrarian society too but there are more failsafes.
bhutan double-posted this 10 years ago, 1 minute later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,714
@697,707 (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
personally tho I just would rather live nicely until a bad season comes and I die than toil in relative safety
personally tho I just would rather live nicely until a bad season comes and I die than toil in relative safety
kook !!OPZbEQMT1 replied with this 10 years ago, 2 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,716
kook !!OPZbEQMT1 double-posted this 10 years ago, 1 minute later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,717
@697,714 (bhutan)
Slightly off topic, but you should watch the Mark and Ollie shows called Living with the mek, and Living with the Kombai (and one other that I cant remember the name of). they live with mostly uncontacted hunter gatherer tribes and its very interesting.
Slightly off topic, but you should watch the Mark and Ollie shows called Living with the mek, and Living with the Kombai (and one other that I cant remember the name of). they live with mostly uncontacted hunter gatherer tribes and its very interesting.
bhutan replied with this 10 years ago, 9 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,723
@697,716 (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
> but with hunting, a bad month could kill anyone because you have less food saved.
that's literally what I just said
@previous (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
Okie dokie I will look into it
> but with hunting, a bad month could kill anyone because you have less food saved.
that's literally what I just said
@previous (kook !!OPZbEQMT1)
Okie dokie I will look into it
kook !!OPZbEQMT1 replied with this 10 years ago, 3 minutes later, 10 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,725
@previous (bhutan)
Sorry, I meant like with agriculture it would literally need to be a season of starvation, but with hunting, it might be like two weeks. Sorry
Sorry, I meant like with agriculture it would literally need to be a season of starvation, but with hunting, it might be like two weeks. Sorry
squeegee replied with this 10 years ago, 6 minutes later, 11 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,727
@697,705 (bhutan)
hunter gatherers were constantly on the move, following where food was, and spent a great deal of time doing both. farming allowed people to quit roaming around much of the time and focus their energy on fields rather than walking. agriculture produces tons more food than hunting/gathering, fewer people could do MORE and produce MORE food which allowed more free time for everyone.
there's a real reason why we adopted agriculture over hunting/gathering. it's an energy issue. agriculture outputs way more energy that you put into it. yes, farmers work long hours, but not everyone was a farmer since much fewer people could produce much more food. this allowed people to engage in everything from inventing large tools to domesticating animals.
if hunting/gathering produced more food then we would never have adopted agriculture.
hunter gatherers were constantly on the move, following where food was, and spent a great deal of time doing both. farming allowed people to quit roaming around much of the time and focus their energy on fields rather than walking. agriculture produces tons more food than hunting/gathering, fewer people could do MORE and produce MORE food which allowed more free time for everyone.
there's a real reason why we adopted agriculture over hunting/gathering. it's an energy issue. agriculture outputs way more energy that you put into it. yes, farmers work long hours, but not everyone was a farmer since much fewer people could produce much more food. this allowed people to engage in everything from inventing large tools to domesticating animals.
if hunting/gathering produced more food then we would never have adopted agriculture.
(Edited 32 seconds later.)
Anonymous H joined in and replied with this 10 years ago, 17 minutes later, 11 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,732
Mechanical cotton harvesting vs niggers?
bhutan replied with this 10 years ago, 30 minutes later, 11 hours after the original post[^] [v] #697,742
@697,727 (squeegee)
I think I covered that when I was talking with kook
but that isn't to say that all foragers were/are entirely nomadic and small scale agriculture wasn't practiced
I think I covered that when I was talking with kook
but that isn't to say that all foragers were/are entirely nomadic and small scale agriculture wasn't practiced