So there are terminators who write computer programs and are self aware, but if these businesses have no one to buy their products would these robots rise against us? Technology is all well and good, but they are grooming the American public into janitors who oil and maintain automated machines. The solution to automation has to be from their creators, the rich in their divine intelligence, can create respectable jobs that robots can't do instead of jobs American's don't want to do.
No this logic is backwards, American greatness existed long before China had a middle class. American consumerism created China's middle class, and is paying for its second aircraft carrier and strong military that its using against American allies. All of this of course is courtesy of America's rich and 'innovative' businesses. The workers did not get lazy, it was the rich and their businesses. They sent labor for slave wages, and now they are doing automation and claiming innovation. Vending machines and child laborers isn't innovative, its inhuman. The solution to automation is creating good paying jobs, it's also innovative. America is not great again because businesses don't want to be innovative and create good jobs, they want to be greedy and create low paying jobs, or vending machines that replace the worker altogether. Well this administration did take a little stand against big businesses, it was noble. Although Hillary Clinton will sell out like Bill Clinton did, and we'll continue down the Reagan status quo of big business entitlement and greed. What that means is we'll set ourselves up for another economic crash in 20 years, and the robots will take over. I think that's the solution to automation from the corporate sector.
Today most computer programs are written by computers and it's projected that by 2045 artificial intelligence will exceed the total human knowledge of all history. Of course the "Terminator" fears will remain science fiction because artificial intelligence is compartmentalized. There isn't a single "super-brain" computer that knows everything. The knowledge is divided by subject matter. The rich aren't that intelligent and, in fact, typically aren't even more intelligent than the average person. Money doesn't imply intelligence. Of course the observation you make in the first statement is 100% accurate. All economic systems are based upon human labor and as technology replaces human labor the economic systems will collapse. People won't have money to purchase the goods and services provided for by the technology and even the wealthy will lose eventually. The problem is that you want to depend upon the wealthy to solve the problem when the wealthy don't have either the intelligence or enough money to solve the problem. Our entire economic system must eventually change to something completely different from what we have today. Our problem is to define what that economic system will be and how do we make the transition to it?
Self-assembling code is changing most software challenges. Just like expert systems changed contract law and much of modern medicine. Robotics is changing the service industry, self assembling geometries are changing manufacturing, the steam engine changed the transport industry, e-commerce changed the retail industry, bio-fabrication is changing the agriculture and textile industries, computers changed the communications industry.... yes, zero-labor models are changing our economy. They have since we started using wind-mills and other engines. But I'd disagree that what's coming is completely different. Our economy was never based on human labor. Human labor is just one component often utilized in it. We have had other sources of labor since we tamed oxen. Our economy is based on trading solutions. I solve a problem for you, you solve one for me. The exchange allows us both to get more done than we would on our own. I don't see that model changing. Folks who want to participate need to offer new solutions, and no... repetitive tasks and running errands that could be done by animals, drones, or gravity aren't likely to be highly valued solutions. They never were.
socialism will eventually be inevitable, but were not there yet.. service jobs will take over, then even robots may replace them, so in the end socialism will be the only option of course war and disease could prevent us from ever reaching that point .
Simply reserve Labor at the rock bottom cost of a form of minimum wage that clears our poverty guidelines that can be applied for on an at-will basis in any at-will employment State; and, call it unemployment compensation. That way, Labor can pursue market friendly activities that may result in being more marketable even with more automation.
Only for the portion of the population that is incapable or unwilling to produce value. And we are already there. The retarded, demented, criminal, crippled or otherwise unproductive portion of our society live their lives in socialized systems now. The rest of us maintain the eloi systems, but exchange other value between ourselves in an open market. I'm not sure how that would change if more folks decide they are unable or unwilling to offer value. Most of them are already providing nothing, they just don't realize or admit it.
I am not sure what you mean; socialism starts with a social Contract. It is like Palmolive, you are soaking in it. Why not use socialism to correct for Capital inefficiencies in any given market in order to better promote the general welfare?
The above is the best response I've seen in this thread. Technological advances have provided the solution to production of an ample supply of most every human survival need by a diminishing amount of human labour, which has resulted in the necessity of a growing number of the population having to earn the means by which their needs can be acquired from the production of wants instead, which technology advances and free trade with other nations has diminished the need of human labour. The number of consumers is growing much more rapidly than the number of required producers. Rather than look for a solution to a solution we might do better to look for the real problem and how best to solve it. Even Marx began with "From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution" in the initial stage of Communism, advancing it as "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" in the final stage.
When Capitalists claim the numbers just don't work; what do they actually mean? CEO Slashes $1 Million Salary To Give Lowest-Paid Workers A Raise--http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/gravity-payments-raise_n_7061676.html Gravity Payments CEO takes 90% pay cut to give workers huge raise--http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/14/news/companies/ceo-pay-cuts-pay-increases/
There's probably as many answers to that question as there are capitalists to ask. The simple solution would be to compete with those businesses you feel are not paying high enough wages or employing enough workers by adjusting wages and employment to what you feel they should be, and provide a product of the same or higher quality at the same or a lower price. That seems to be what "Gravity Payments" CEO is doing. Let the consumer make the choice of where to take their business.
This is accurate and the root of the problem is found here. Our "laws of property" that govern commerce are not based upon human labor but the "natural/inalienable right of property" is exclusively based upon human labor. http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment5.html Our laws of property are based upon "statutory title" (that Locke argued against) as opposed to human labor that establishes the natural/inalienable right of property. Based upon statutory title people acquire wealth where they don't have a natural/inalienable right of property to that wealth. Let is review the man with the oxen that farms the land as an example. Oxen assists the man in the plowing of the field but does not replace the human labor involved. That farmer is still expending a huge amount of physical labor in plowing the field establishing a "right to use the land" as well as the "right to the crop" it produces. Move forward to today where we have automated tractors, planting machines, watering systems, and harvesting equipment that is fully operated by computer without the need for any human operators. The technology can do it all without any human labor and the "machine" cannot create a "natural/inalienable right of property" to the use of the land or the crop being produced. We can also apply this to land. The "natural/inalienable right of property" is non-transferrable because an inalienable right is inherent in the person and by definition is non-transferrable. A person can establish a right of property related to the use of the land by their labor but they cannot sell or transfer that right. They can transfer the "title" to the land though but that doesn't grant a right of property to the land. Only if the new owner establishes a "right of property" with their own labor do they then establish a "right of property" to the use of the land. I mentioned this anecdotally because last year my father passed away and the home he built and lived in for his retirement years was passed down to me. I acquired the "title" to the house and land but it wasn't until I moved in and began to maintain the land and the home did I acquire a "right of property" to it. Now I have both "title" and a "right of property" to the house and land it's on. Today people often own "title" to vast amounts of wealth without a "natural/inalienable right of property" related to that "title" and I see that to be the inherent problem that we must address when we look at technology that makes human labor obsolete. Resolving this problem is the key to the solution but it requires a complete overhaul of our statutory laws of property that are based upon "title" as opposed to "human labor" where a right of property exists. The barrier to achieving this is "conservatism" that seek to retain the traditional economic institutions that have always been based upon "title" developed under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings which is what Locke argued against in 1690. We retained the laws of property from England when the United States was created because of "conservatism" that wanted to retain the economic institution based upon "title" as opposed to being highly progressive in changing our statutory laws to reflect the "natural/inalienable right of property" as proposed by Locke. We're still operating under the "Divine Right of Kings" as opposed to the "Natural/Inalienable Right of Property" today because of conservatism. It will take very progressive thinking and action to change our laws of property that will effect the entire economic structure of the United States and the "conservatives" are going to fight tooth and nail against the necessary changes.
It can't be done mathmatically. Not only did the automation replace the human labor but it also increased production reducing the "per unit" cost by also lowering the overhead costs. The lower product cost resulting from both less labor and less overhead reduces the retail price to below what can be produced with human labor.
By that logic, the tomato that a man grows can never be sold or given to another person. If I make a gift of it to Joe, Bob can take it from Joe claiming I abandoned the tomato and Joe never owned it. Limiting ourselves to this suggested definition of ownership doesn't seem practical.
You mean, it is simply the "bottom line" for Capitalists? Here's How Outrageous The Pay Gap Between CEOs And Workers Is--http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ceo-worker-pay-gap_55ddc3c7e4b0a40aa3acd1c9 Why does the right complain about increasing socialization of costs that they like to complain about paying for?
Well since computers cannot become self aware as the terminator since that is 'still' science fiction, then there must be a way for businesses to create jobs where people can still apply their knowledge and conscience to a problem which can lead to productive solutions, and ethical profits. Jeff bezos, steve jobs, bill gates, mark zuckerberg, these are all well respected gentlemen because of their vast superior intelligence over the common man. They can create solutions to automation that would not impact the lower classes beneath them. Well technology is the evolution of humanity and business, automation will jump start this but it needs to be managed properly to care for the human element. If not social darwinism will be even worse than now, where the weak will be destroyed to make room for the strong. We'll always need the likes of Jeff bezos and Bill Gates to solve our problems, just as we do need the government to do the same. The transition would involve finding a balance in allowing the elites both in government and business to give up a little of their power for the benefit of everyone else. That is both the fortune or misfortune of living in a free country where the individual can amass great power. As we have seen all through history, those in power have a hard time giving up power when the time comes for a correction.
human labor comes in all forms not just physical labor, people thinking up things are laborers just in a different way. the transition from running errands to being retrained to know what and how to offer solutions, is what is needed by the rich and government if they are to take proper responsibility for the new economy and people in it.
There should be welfare for people who are unable to survive in this social darwinism created by automation. The 'retarded, demented, crippled, criminal, etc'..net recipients are unwilling or incapable of participating because the billionaires aren't taking proper responsibility for them to transition into an automated economy. There are no programs in place to retrain them to be anything other than the help which is being replaced by robots, if they could even have the luxury to sustain such poor employment to begin with.
They were very good businessmen but I don't believe they were exceptionally intelligent. As businessmen they hired people with exceptional technical intelligence of course. For example Bill Gates and Paul Allen didn't invent the operating system (MS-DOS 1.2 they sold to IBM that eventually turned Microsoft into a milti-billion dollar corporation. They purchased it from a computer programmer named Tim Paterson for $50,000. That was a simple business decision that didn't require much intelligence. No argument and this is basically referred to as "conservatism" where the existing social, economic, and political institutions that establish that power are vigorously defended to prevent a "change in power" based upon new social, economic, and/or political institutions. The underlying problem, as I see it, is that we need a paradigm shift in our economic institutions. Based upon our current economic institutions the "Title" establishes the "Statutory Ownership of Property" and that needs to be changed. We need a new economic institutions where the "Natural/Inalienable Right of Property" establishes the "Statutory Title" (as argued by John Locke) and that basically turns our current caplitalistic model upside down. This is not an argument against capitalism but instead is an argument against capitalism as we know it. We have to toss the economics of Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, and the Austrian School of Economics in the trash can and create a new model of capitalism based upon the arguments of John Locke. Obviously those with a lot of wealth and power created by the capitalist models established by Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, and the Austrian School of Economics are going to vigorously fight against such a change.
To just focus on this there's always plenty of "mental and physical labor" that needs to be done. The problem is how to channel "wealth" into those occupations. My wife, for example, is an exceptional ceramic artist and potter (IMHO) but how do we get people to pay $20 for a beautiful coffee cup that's literally a work of art that she makes as opposed to paying $1 at Dollar Tree for a coffee cup mass produced by automated processes? People will readily pay for the functionality of the coffee cup but few will pay for the art that can be a component of the coffee cup. We can certainly argue that the art in addition to the functionality is far superior to just the functionality but most people won't pay 20-times as much for the art in addition to the functionality. Yes, there are a few ceramic artists and potters that can make a living at it but overwhelmingly most cannot. I've been around custom cars and motorcycles and the same situation exists. A few can make a living building custom cars and motorcycles but most cannot. Both the "potter" and the "custom" car/motorcycle builder are highly knowledgeable and highly skilled individuals but they generally can't make a living based upon their knowledge and skills. It's not that they don't produce item that people want but instead that they can't compete with machines when it comes to price even though their products are highly superior to what the machine can produce based upon esoteric values. The work exists but the work needs to support the person performing the work and that often doesn't happen. How do we fix that problem?
*shrug* Call designing and developing new solutions labor if you like. I think most of us would draw a line between work (moving stuff) and that other kind of contribution. Whatever you'd like to call it though, if you're waiting for someone to train you to imagine, innovate, and deliver solutions that didn't exist before... then I think you're going to have a long wait. That's not how it works. What we need are people who will step up and take responsibility for a problem and create it's solution. If you are only volunteering to do that on the condition that someone else shoulder the responsibility for that problem and for people like you then your offer is a deception. You offer no value.
There should be rain in the Sahara and green grass in Antarctica. Should is a useless word. Anything you can program a person to do, we can probably program a silicon box, robotic drone, oxen, chemical reaction, hinged lever or water wheel to do better. The way to offer value that an automated process can't is to look beyond assembling and start creating. No one will program you to do that. If you want to contribute, find a problem and create a solution. If you won't or can't, join drooling Bob or crippled Joe at the welfare line. This is a kind nation. We offer socialized services for the retarded, demented, crippled, criminal, and others who are either unwilling or unable to take care of themselves. But it's time to stop pretending there is any difference between Bob and the guy standing behind the fry counter.
