my platform as presidential candidate - what's yours?

POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Monday, June 3, 2024 14:50
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6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, June 27, 2019 9:20 AM

I think we're getting a bit confused here. I don't see a Jetson style robot, or the robot Tom Arnold brought home to the family in The Outer Limits being a future that many of us will see. That's a lot of moving parts. I think only rich people will have things like that.

But home automation is already a big thing. It doesn't even require that homes are built with that functionality in mind since wi-fi is everywhere now.

I think that tech is a lot scarier than robots ever would be simply because it can keep tabs on you 24/7.... and it's already here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Thursday, June 27, 2019 9:28 AM

Yep, home automation ... Just OOC SIX, how many people have homes? How many people can afford the latest smartphone-controlled heating/AC system, refrigerator, and security system? heck, if you're renting you're not about to pay for major upgrades to your apartment (even if you could afford it) and if you're homeless ....

Yes, there will be all kinds of gadgets (which most people won't be able to afford) but that has nothing to do with droids automating everyone out of work, which was JO's poriginal premise. Not possible. I don't mean not technologically possible, I mean not ECONOMICALLY possible. The follow-on effects in terms of unempoyment and poverty would be catastrophic.

And not positive for us either. Not physically good for us. Not psychologically good for us. Not neurologically good for us. Makes our economy weak, not robust, subject to shocks. Makes people even more dependent on centralized government and puts more power in the hands of politicians. Is that what we want?

So, if we're going to envision a future that we WANT, why not open up the scope of thought?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

JO753

Thursday, June 27, 2019 8:10 PM

Droidz

flying 'car'

more droidz

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com .

1KIKI

Thursday, June 27, 2019 9:33 PM

If you have the money ...

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, June 27, 2019 11:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yep, home automation ... Just OOC SIX, how many people have homes? How many people can afford the latest smartphone-controlled heating/AC system, refrigerator, and security system? heck, if you're renting you're not about to pay for major upgrades to your apartment (even if you could afford it) and if you're homeless ....

Yes, there will be all kinds of gadgets (which most people won't be able to afford) but that has nothing to do with droids automating everyone out of work, which was JO's poriginal premise. Not possible. I don't mean not technologically possible, I mean not ECONOMICALLY possible. The follow-on effects in terms of unempoyment and poverty would be catastrophic.

And not positive for us either. Not pysically good for us. Not psychologically good for us. Not neurologically good for us. Makes our economy weak, not robust, subject to shocks. Makes people even more dependent on centralized government and puts more power in the hands of politicians. Is that what we want?

So, if we're going to envision a future that we WANT, why not open up the scope of thought?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

I'm not saying it's the future we want. I'm just saying that (assuming we don't blow ourselves up and the climate isn't going to kill us) that this is the inevatible conclusion.

Think of human beings as the interim sexual organs of technology. That's what I do.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Friday, June 28, 2019 12:04 AM

Quote:
I'm not saying it's the future we want. I'm just saying that (assuming we don't blow ourselves up and the climate isn't going to kill us) that this is the inevatible conclusion.

No, it isn't. There are power, resource, and money limitations on universal adoption of consumer technology, and economic (and therefore political) limitations on universal adoption of production technology.

Low-power technologies, like the smart phone, can be mass-adopted. High-power technologies, like the flying car, won't be. Just look at where we are now: More than 100 years after the invention of the car, 90% of the people in the world don't own one.

Only a very small fraction of that 10% of car-owners will own a driverless car, and an even smaller fraction of that will own a "flying car". Seriously. So let's stop talking about some "inevitable" future that isn't going to happen as far as anyone can foresee, and focus on the purpose of a platform, which is what we WANT to make happen.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, June 28, 2019 2:28 AM

I'm all for ending this line of dialogue if you're going to be obtuse about it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

1KIKI

Friday, June 28, 2019 3:21 AM

What's obtuse? You claim that EVERYBODY will get a housework-robot, right? You say "it's inevitable", right? Signy and I are both saying if people aren't working (having been displaced by similar robots), they won't have the money to afford that 'inevitability'.

I've pointed to a real world example where, when unemployment went up, so did hunger. People who were out of work couldn't afford food, let alone luxuries. Signy pointed to many examples, including that in the real world, 90% of people can't afford a car.

Also, fwiw, I think you've gotten stuck in the 'it's inevitable so why even think about it' tar pit. It's not inevitable for economic reasons (already in effect), earth's carrying capacity physical reasons, and the will of the mass of people.

Even job loss isn't inevitable. It's due to specific policies that are pursued by business, unfettered. Business being unfettered is itself a policy. All of these events are driven by specific decisions, made under conditions that we can change - if we want to.

The question is - do you want to?

SIGNYM

Friday, June 28, 2019 3:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm all for ending this line of dialogue if you're going to be obtuse about it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I think JO was trying to say that people will be automated out of jobs and "therefore" he proposes universal basic income to get around the consequence that people won't have any source of income. In some respects you coud say line of reasoning is an extension of what's happening now, altho I think the lack of jobs comes mostly from "cheap foreign labor" rather than automation.

So let's try and discuss universal basic income in absence of that line of reasoning.

I'm still against it, with or without the idea of automation. I went thru the budgetary estimates somewhere (not this thread) and found that $1000/mo/person would more than suck up any funds set aside for Federal welfare (incl food stamps), and more than any money that we could expect to save on the military (even if we were to drop military spending by 90%) and - even excluding people already receiving Social Security from UBI program - it would take up more than the entire Federal budget. SO budgetarily it's a bust.

Elsewhere, I thought about the results of UBI. In the current milieu, it wouldn't even promote the "virtuous cycle" of more demand > more jobs; the only thing that would happen would be a giant transfer of money to foreign nations as they ramp up production of goods, and a general rise in prices for larger/infrastructural items things that can't (or won't) be readily produced nationally, like houses, electricity, medical care, roadways etc. So, economically it's not positive either. In order for people to raise their standard of living, we need to increase production and services first.

I haven't come to these ideas in any a pre-determined fashion. I know what my ideological preferences are, but I tried to exclude them when considering the outcomes of UBI. So sit down and think about what would happen if the USA population was flooded with money. Wha would happen as a result? If you find a flaw in my results let me know.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .

JONGSSTRAW

Friday, June 28, 2019 5:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

In the late 90s, I was the first of my friends to have a cell phone. It was $60 bucks a month for 250 minutes (no nights, no weekends, no text, no data). Fast forward to 2019 and millions of people have "free" Obama phones. Both the phones themselves and the monthly line and internet charges.

I'd argue that nobody needs a cell phone, simply based off the fact that we made it so long without them. I'd also get a lot of arguments about that too.

Just sayin'.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

LOL! I too had a cell phone (from work), actually a Blackberry, in the early 90's. It was cool having it …. for about a day. Then I felt like, who the hell needs to be getting all these stupid e-mails all day on my frikkin' phone, and worse, who the hell WANTS to be on call any time of the day or night. What a pain in the ass! Years later the I-Phone came out, and ever since then its been a worldwide obsession to possess the latest and greatest phone. Honestly, I don't get it, the whole stupid and obnoxious thing.

I look around every day at all these face-in-their phone zombies, and I'm like …

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