11 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:if you are talking about fascists, yes, the far left also preaches a form of fascism, no matter how they try to sugarcoat it.
I'm not sure I really even want to begin debating this...it'll get nasty super fast. Not a rabbit hole I'm even going to comment on.
11 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:So while there might be no revolt by sentinent machines in the short term, and incidents such as the ones mentioned probably get rarer... the only way to actually make sure those cannot happen is to remove self-learning from a machine, or restrict it very strictly until the machine is moving within a very small "echo chamber" when learning new things. Of course we could say that this is only a problem for the petty applications algorithms are used today (social media, running ads, chatting with strangers to prove the tech)... but then I believe the problem still exists in other applications
I mean, again, it's not that we get rid of oversight. There'd still be oversight. And again, instead of dealing with recessions, we deal with potential machine glitches. Like I said, we don't have a utopia so to speak: we've solved one set of problems and have some new ones that need solving. Such a system would, over time, get better I'd imagine.
15 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:See, then its not REALLY communism. That is, as far as I understand it, socialism. mixed with some communist ideas, maybe. Communism tries to do away with the elite, and take away all kind of ownership.
The latter is why most people that are not slaves, piss poor or idealists will object to it... the former is why its usually resulting in a dictatorship. There will be ALWAYS an elite.... trying to destroy the elite, and prevent the organic formation of a new one just leaves a vacuum, which leads to the meanest bastard taking control.
What you propose is a strong socialist state, that borrows some ideas from Marx to ensure a more even resource allocation. Which might work even when the concept of private ownership, and a capitalistic, altough state controlled, econmy still exist.
You are basically going in the direction of modern day China, with a government more interested in equity between its citizens. And yeah, modern day China is not really a communist regime anymore. Which, as far as I am concerned, is good. Its also an authoritarian state. Which I find rather bad.... but that just shows the dangers of the concept, even with a watered down socialism. A strong state always is in danger of becoming a dictatorship.
I'm not gonna lie, I don't really care about the semantics of the name of what I'm proposing. I will note I'm not proposing a Chinese system. The Chinese system is, as I understand it, still a one party rule, with some elements of the free market. I'm not proposing a free market really. I propose that markets be replaced with AI and algorithms. BUT I say that we should still keep republics/democracy and the judiciary, since algorithms cannot necessarily decide things like foreign policy amongst other things. I think that @mikeman explained the gist of my algorithmic idea the best.
6 hours ago, mikeman said:What is your proposal to deal with this problem?
Exactly what I wanted to know, and now that I know!
2 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:Mikeman, human lives are more important than the convenience of automation. Human life is always the primary consideration in all things. If robots are going to destroy human lives, then we should not build them.
I mean, it's not a given they are going to destroy human lives. How have you drawn this conclusion? And, as others have pointed out, we can ban all sorts of technology with the exact same reasoning (many have tried). Moreover, as @Luckless has correctly pointed out, I can think of tons of examples of people whose lives are not being taken into consideration in capitalism. And, as @Gian-Reto has very correctly pointed out, capitalism doesn't really care for human lives, they're just resources...
This isn't to say that I hate capitalism or something, but rather that this line of argument is very faulty.
2 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:if other nations want to build robots, let them, and then, as has so often been the case during the last 200 years or so, America will stand in defiance of the rest of the world as a shining beacon of light showing the way. When people say "but every other civilized nation in the world does it this other way, so we should too" they are forgetting that America often does things differently than the rest of the world... and is the most advanced and powerful civilization in the history of the world for doing so. We are generally about 50-100 years ahead of all other nations in almost every way for a reason.
Yea, this line of reasoning is just wrong. We are behind many nations in many things (education is one that springs to mind, then there's things like gun deaths, per capita GDP, shit even happiness of people in general is not America). This isn't a justification of why banning robots makes sense. You can justify any number of stupid things that way, but it doesn't change the fact that what you are doing is stupid. I've heard that line of reasoning from many people when trying to convince me that it's a smart idea to do X, even though others aren't.
Let's break it down. Say we do ban automation. What then? Companies will simply leave the US and start manufacturing elsewhere where it's legal. The US will lose many more jobs. Hardly sounds like a solution. More like blowing off your foot with a shotgun.
2 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:There have been sci-fi stories, I can't remember specific examples right now, that advance the idea that such high levels of automation would eventually result in humans that have forgotten how to do anything but maintain the robots. Eventually, when the robots stopped working, they would quickly regress hundreds of years into an almost primitive civilization. But long before you even think it through that far, if they will ruin everyone's lives, if that is the predicted result... why build them in the first place?
A fair concern, but then maybe we should just stop using all forms of tech in case people forget what life is like without it. The only way to ensure that we don't forget living without technology is to not live with it period. Clearly we aren't doing that.
1 hour ago, Gian-Reto said:Dude, your military might still be 10 years ahead... but China is quickly gaining on you there. The tech companys that are still ahead are actually multinationals by now, ready to jump ship should the US become hostile for globalist companys. High-tech manufacturing is by now mostly done in Asia, you might be on par with germany there by now (given one of the biggest chip factories in the west is located in germany)
Wake up man... the US might not be as **** as some doom-and-gloom-guys might have believe and still do, but you are quickly loosing your "leader of the free world" title.
It absolutely blows my mind that people actually hold this idea that America still owns the world. America has the world's largest economy and there is no question that America is extremely important in many ways and not going anywhere anytime soon. But America is not the sole nation for doing any number of things. This wasn't even true during the Cold War. It's definitely not true now. And it's even more debatable on the 'leader of the free world' given current events with the US...
1 hour ago, Gian-Reto said:Well maybe explain to me then how ownership should work in communism. As far as I get the theory, nobody owns anything but "the people" (which means the state, or the elite, depending on how authoritarian or neo-monarchist the communis^tic state in question is)... which in turn "lend" what is needed for people to do their job and live a normal life to those that need it.
Probably @mikeman has a better idea than I do, but as I understand it, the idea is that the 'means of production' are shared. IE, the factories, or in this case, the automated factories and resource allocation algorithms, are not owned by any one person or group of persons. Personal possessions still exist (like finished products). I can still own a car, or a house. But I can't own a factory. As I also understand it, Marx himself didn't give a clear idea of what the world would look like after capitalism and under 'Communism'.
1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:The thing I don't buy about the whole automation angle is that we've been using technology to make people's jobs obsolete for tens of thousands of years, yet somehow an overwhelming majority of us are still employed because new jobs open up in response. Why is it treated as a foregone conclusion that this will stop happening at some point?
Frankly this sounds about as silly to me as the whole "zombie apocalypse" shtick.
I don't think it's necessarily apocalyptic, I just feel that low skilled jobs are disappearing. And we are seeing that the income gap and wealth disparity is increasing. There are more programming jobs, but can we expect everyone to know these skills? More and more we are seeing AI and algorithms applied to accomplish things without humans at all.
10 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:I know you don't want to hear this, and I am trying to avoid mentioning it, but you'd really have to read the PDU timeline to understand where I am even coming from. That makes it hard for me to answer a lot of what you are saying, because we are speaking from the perspective of very different histories. Based on the things you are saying, I can tell that the reality you believe in is far different from mine... and I'm already familiar with yours and where it comes from. So you'd have to know mine, and where it comes from, before you could really understand what I mean in my responses.
Your response to literally any attempt to debate you has been "read my book". It seems like a way to sidestep basically all questions. It cannot be that tough to simply respond to a question posed. It cannot and should not take a novel to explain simply answers.
16 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:But, a few things... What "right wing dictators"? Can you name one? There has never been a "fascist republic", or a republic that you could describe as an "evil empire". There are no "republican dicators" in all of history that I am aware. Just kings and communists. And you "Hitler v Stalin" example... We've already been over that, they are both communists. They are both "left".
I get the nasty feeling you're one of those people who thinks that only the Left is wrong...
And no, you're wrong here. Hitler absolutely hated Marxists and liberals. As per Wikipedia:
QuoteThe majority of scholars identify Nazism in both theory and practice as a form of far-right politics.[13] Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements.[14]
...
The Nazis were strongly influenced by the post–World War I far-right in Germany, which held common beliefs such as anti-Marxism, anti-liberalism and antisemitism, along with nationalism, contempt for the Treaty of Versailles and condemnation of the Weimar Republic for signing the armistice in November 1918 which later led it to sign the Treaty of Versailles.[21] A major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist Freikorps, paramilitary organizations that engaged in political violence after World War I.[21]
The full article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
On fascism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
On far right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics
Nationalism is not a Left wing concept. It is a distinctly right wing concept. Nativism is also a distinctly far-right concept.
Are there similarities between far left and far right? Yes, in that typically extremists hate dissent. That does not mean that they have the same underlying ideological principles.
Your respond to these points is either "read my book" or to just repeat yourself. We aren't really getting anywhere here, so I don't see the point in continuing.
29 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:The United States is 50-100 years of the rest of the world in just about every way, not just military, and has been since some point during 1943 or 44. And China is not 10 years behind us, the Russians are still 20 behind us and have only recently begun to catch up solely due to 8 years of the "policies" of Dear Leader. China is a minor nation of insignificant military power compared to the United States, just like everyone else on the planet except for the Russians. In a real, all-out, WWII-minded war like a war with China would be... China's government would collapse and it's army would give up, disband, and go home in the same three weeks it took to do the same thing to Afghanistan, and Iraq (twice). We know how long it takes us to defeat any nation except Russia in an all-out war... 3 weeks. China would be no different. You clearly have no concept of the difference between the US military and everyone else, but most people don't. Most people have no concept of just how much better we are at blowing things up than everybody else is. But we are.
The US is absolutely not 50-100 years ahead of the rest of the world...that kind of disparity would imply that the rest of the world is still stuck on horses and bullock carts and muskets. That's just patently false. There are certain parts of the world that are pretty bad, granted. But much of Europe is very well developed. China (amongst other Asian nations) have rapidly redeveloped since the turn of the millennium. And as I stated above, there are plenty of categories the US is behind in.
China has the world's largest army dude. And plenty of nukes to back it up along with a rapidly redeveloping military that is geared towards dealing with US threats.. The US might win out in the end, but after a brutal, prolonged struggle, which could very well mean the destruction of both nations in the end anyways. It's not a friggin' pushover war.
Afghanistan and Iraq are both extremely different from China...when we invaded Afghanistan, it was in very poor shape. That's not an achievement. Iraq was also never a nation in the same league. Even you admit that a war with Russia wouldn't be easy. It'd be just as disastrous.
Most people have no concept of how much better the US military is? I think you have no concept of the sheer costs that'd be involved in any war with Russia or China.
In any event, this is way OT.
In any event, your continued attacks on Obama also pretty much cement my above feeling.
40 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:As for the US standing alone... no problem. "Go ahead, punks... Make our day!" Like many today, you probably believe that "we better not attack Iran, they'll sink are navy!". If that is the case, the the US military is about 1,000,000 times more capable than you believe it too be.
I think you really are failing to understand the new globalized world.