|
The rich know the system is horrendously unequal, but coming to terms with exactly why, would mean undermining their own sense of self. In order to retain that self-worth, they rationalize this as being the 'natural' state, that this inequality simply manifests 'real' relationships on inferiority and superiority. Rather than expressing dysfuction, the world is seen as just, and that therefore whatever happens is justified in happening. Even if the wealth of the rich is always built on the poor, the poor is always viewed as 'parasitic', because seeing them as anything else would damage their ego. So, they'll kill the poor, because they won't see the value in keeping them alive. It's that simple.
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 11:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 13:17 |
|
|
You're forgetting that capitalism is not a rational system. The market doesn't follow any laws or forces. It follows what the capitalist class wants. If what they want is particularly unrealistic (fully automated trucking is probably one of these, websites with no product beyond selling marketing data definitely is), in the long term it might fail. But in the short and medium term, its going to gently caress things for workers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 11:51
|
|
|
The American crayfish was introduced in the '20s. A guest, if you like. And like most guests having a good time, they didn't wanna leave. Next 50 years they consumed all the local crayfish, wiped them out. And then, they started eating each other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 11:56
|
|
|
rudatron posted:The rich know the system is horrendously unequal, but coming to terms with exactly why, would mean undermining their own sense of self. In order to retain that self-worth, they rationalize this as being the 'natural' state, that this inequality simply manifests 'real' relationships on inferiority and superiority. Rather than expressing dysfuction, the world is seen as just, and that therefore whatever happens is justified in happening. I think you are reading far too much into this situation psychologically. Capital has poo poo they want to keep and they've noticed that they can hoover up more and more poo poo from people who have a little more to give. They'll do it until they can't and maybe you'd be shocked at how little thought or feeling occurs during the process.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 12:15
|
|
|
if billionaires were capable of saying, "that's probably enough," they wouldn't be billionaires
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 12:17
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:I didn't say it was incredibly difficult. I said that no one is bothering to do it, and that it's a pretty big indicator of how interested manufacturers actually are in mass-market autonomous vehicles. Digiwizzard posted:What on earth would the point be? The rich only exist in relation to the economy that provides them with structural power. That economy doesen't exist without the enormous populations and resource consumption that allows it to function at this scale. They could spend our last energy resources committing massive genocide, and then live the rest of their days scrambling in an abject poverty on a ruined planet. Hooray?
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 13:59
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:So to recap, "Automation" is just Capitalists learning One Weird Trick that they've been doing for two centuries now. But this time it's different because there's just not enough jobs left anymore. We've hit a critical amount of jobs and we can't afford to lose them!! They're all that's left keeping the economy going!! the only reason automation didn't cause the economy as we know it to collapse in the 1890s or the 1950s is because the same industrial technologies, techniques, and market conditions that drove those major waves of automation also drove massive increases in demand, far outstripping the productivity gains of automation and necessitating significant increases in the number of workers necessary to provide the supply to meet that demand. that's why bank teller employment went up despite the invention of ATMs, for instance - sure, the ATM decreased the number of tellers per branch, but consumer banking was also going through a big expansion at the time alongside its shifting role in the increasingly prosperous and financialized economy, so the number of branches went up enough to assure a net increase in the number of cashiers the problem is that people assumed that that was an inevitable consequence of automation, rather than a particular result of a particular set of conditions. they looked at historical examples of automation, noted the correlation between automation and massive economic growth leading to job growth, and assumed it was causation now the next wave of automation has hit banking (in the form of online banking and mobile banking), and this time market conditions aren't nearly as favorable to the business. the result? over 10,000 physical bank branches have closed since 2008, and the total number of teller jobs has dropped by 15%. moreover, the number of tellers per branch has dropped by  25% since 2005, which shows that automation was slamming tellers even during the good times but that the effect was simply being masked by the overall banking boom of the early 00s. naturally, bank teller wages have been trending downward too.so what happens to those 100,000 bank teller that lost their jobs over the past few years? into the job market they go, hunting for other low-skill low-wage work. maybe they could go into retail? nope, sorry, almost forgot about the "retailpocalypse" that's devastating retail employment right now. not only is the retail field not hiring, but 60,000 retail workers have lost their jobs so far in 2017, which means they're now competing for the same low-skill low-wage jobs that the bank tellers are. is McDonalds opening enough new stores to hire ten thousand new employees a month? somehow I doubt it the current wave of automation differs from previous waves of automation in that it's not really accompanied by massive demand increases or other huge economic expansions. the global rich is shrinking, and the current trend in automation is less about raising productivity and more about decreasing overhead. that means workers are much more vulnerable than ever before, and the economic effects and circumstances that cushioned the blow of previous automation aren't here to save us this time. this time, it's different...but in a bad way!
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 15:37
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:In theory, a Capitalist could murder the Proletariat base that he extracts profit from, but its a lot like a cancer cell killing off it's host. After they're gone his options will be... limited. this is what fascism is
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 15:43
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:What on earth would the point be? The rich only exist in relation to the economy that provides them with structural power. That economy doesen't exist without the enormous populations and resource consumption that allows it to function at this scale. They could spend our last energy resources committing massive genocide, and then live the rest of their days scrambling in an abject poverty on a ruined planet. Hooray? there's no reason it would need to be a total genocide, the rich were incredibly eager to kill off a few million sick poor people to scrape back their obamacare money. There would still need to be a few people around to buy and produce the commodities that keep our lovely economy afloat and maintain the quality of life of the shrinking class of people that has any wealth left. according to capitalists, those people were just leeches anyway
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 15:47
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:The economy could be shifted from a mass consumer economy to one basically centered around maintaining a supply chain for the lives of rich people - sort of shrinking the world economy down to a few globalized "chiefdoms" where the majority of labor is machine labor, plus whatever few people are needed to keep things running smoothly. This sounds incredibly vulnerable to sabotage or outright subversion. Which wouldn't stop anyone from doing it, mind you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 15:50
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:This sounds incredibly vulnerable to sabotage or outright subversion.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:the only reason automation didn't cause the economy as we know it to collapse in the 1890s or the 1950s is because the same industrial technologies, techniques, and market conditions that drove those major waves of automation also drove massive increases in demand, far outstripping the productivity gains of automation and necessitating significant increases in the number of workers necessary to provide the supply to meet that demand. that's why bank teller employment went up despite the invention of ATMs, for instance - sure, the ATM decreased the number of tellers per branch, but consumer banking was also going through a big expansion at the time alongside its shifting role in the increasingly prosperous and financialized economy, so the number of branches went up enough to assure a net increase in the number of cashiers it's not different this time because of demand. there's never been a society where there wasn't an endless demand for goods and services. what made things different in the past was that resources were so abundant, so cheap and so accessible that the economy grew at a pace never seen before in human history. this economic growth meant that you always had a surfeit of jobs that you could pump the populace into. in 1800 the economy was about 80% farmers generating enough of a food surplus to feed the other 20% of urban craftsmen, artisans, merchants, etc. as industrialisation reduced the need for a larger agricultural workforce larger chunks of the population were freed up to pursue other avenues of employment, becoming factory workers and labourers. when the economy began to deindustrialise in the 1980s and the factories were moved offshore, the economy transformed again into a "service economy" of middle-men and con artists. this economy produces very little of anything tangible, and much of the economic activity is limited to finding newer and more creative ways to scam each other. but it is nevertheless economic activity and drives consumption. keynes theory of employment pointed out that you could short circuit the business cycle with stimulus spending. it ultimately didn’t matter how worthwhile the pursuit was, the government could bury money and people could dig it up for a living, as long as they were getting paid they would consume, and this consumption would signal to the productive parts of the economy to keep growing and expanding. looking around at the western economy of usurers, insurance salesmen, lawyers, marketers, speculators and middle men, the buried money thing probably would have been preferable. the thing is that growing your way out of trouble only works as long as you have more resources to fuel that growth. if you want to talk about correlations with economic growth, i have a few charts for you to look at Main Paineframe posted:
hold the phone here. think about what you're saying. do you really believe that those tellers lost their jobs because of a massive increase in efficiency in the banking system from 2005 onwards? that this was caused by internet banking? a service with that has no overlapping competition with the services a teller provides, y'know, withdrawing and depositing money. they lost their jobs because they were automated away by internet banking? i have a much simpler explanation, banks in 2005 were broadcasting record profit but were flat loving broke and began jettisoning non essential personnel as more and more debt went bad. as the oil prices went up the debt failure rates reached such catastrophic levels that every bank would have gone under without governments of the world stepping in to stabilize the debt bubble. they pulled the lever on the economic slot machine one more time and prayed to god that technology would discover a new energy source before everything collapsed. well, it's 2017 and there's nothing teed up that would come even close to replacing oil. we have less resources than ever and even more debt. the governments, corporations, banks and public of the world are all insanely broke and over leveraged. when does the automation kick in again? retail is collapsing for the exact same reason that the banking system is collapsing. capitalism is going into a catabolic state as the economy contracts and cannibalises itself. look at the economy around you and the millions of people graduating from universities with lifelong debts and absolutely no job prospects, outside of lovely short term work with no benefits. you seem to think that by pointing out automation is a fantasy that i'm implying the economy will be fine and everyone will continue to be employed. the economy is going to collapse and no one will be employed, because we don't have the resources to keep it going
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 15:28
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:
yeah, this isn't going to happen. the sort of globalized trade you're imagining relies on energy abundance and a neoliberal world order that ensures stability and low barriers to trade. we're about to enter a world of severe scarcity, unrest and resource nationalism. the fantasy that you can just amputate all of the things that make the economy work and still have an economy can't actually function. there's absolutely no resilience built into this system, which relies on super massive and super vulnerable supply chains. no country has the insane amount of resources you would require to achieve industrial autarky, which means everything starts to break down because the plumbing system relies on pipes you used to import from china, the power plant needs turbines that you imported from germany, the roads need asphalt as they crack and spall. without a steady net influx of energy all systems break down and give in to entropy. the bitcoin of weed posted:there's no reason it would need to be a total genocide, the rich were incredibly eager to kill off a few million sick poor people to scrape back their obamacare money. There would still need to be a few people around to buy and produce the commodities that keep our lovely economy afloat and maintain the quality of life of the shrinking class of people that has any wealth left. according to capitalists, those people were just leeches anyway well, i guess there would be a lot of genocide in the structural violence sense, but it's not really something they'd be doing intentionally. genocides tend to be fairly expensive, the nazis switched to zyklon-b because bullets were too expensive after all. most governments will be forced to reassert themselves in areas they've long relinquished to corporations as the markets fail. i could see the shittiest and most fascist ones abandoning their growing populations of the marginalized and unemployed to starve to death. i could see them tightening up around an ever shrinking core of workers who are still employed and maintaining the system. the problem of course is that trying to maintain their standards of living is an uphill battle that they can't ever win, starved of resources the collapse becomes inevitable, either due to mounting inside pressures causing them to dissolve in civil war, or external pressures wiping them out in violent revolution/extreme climate events/running out of the resources to keep industrial agriculture going.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 16:06
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:now the next wave of automation has hit banking (in the form of online banking and mobile banking), and this time market conditions aren't nearly as favorable to the business. the result? over 10,000 physical bank branches have closed since 2008, and the total number of teller jobs has dropped by 15%. moreover, the number of tellers per branch has dropped by how has the total number of teller jobs dropped by 15% when the number of branches has dropped(assuming more than 10,000 weren't opened), and the number of tellers per branch has dropped by 25%? Shouldn't that 15% at least be 25%? and also: I work in a factory, and the parts/worked hour that the line that I am at is at 1/4 of the parts/worked hour for the more automated line. I guarantee that 4x more buildings aren't being built with the parts on the new line, so layoffs are going to happen when they get more of those lines. TeenageArchipelago fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Sep 2, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 16:20
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:yeah, this isn't going to happen. the sort of globalized trade you're imagining relies on energy abundance and a neoliberal world order that ensures stability and low barriers to trade. we're about to enter a world of severe scarcity, unrest and resource nationalism. the fantasy that you can just amputate all of the things that make the economy work and still have an economy can't actually function. there's absolutely no resilience built into this system, which relies on super massive and super vulnerable supply chains. no country has the insane amount of resources you would require to achieve industrial autarky, which means everything starts to break down because the plumbing system relies on pipes you used to import from china, the power plant needs turbines that you imported from germany, the roads need asphalt as they crack and spall. without a steady net influx of energy all systems break down and give in to entropy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 16:52
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:it's not different this time because of demand. there's never been a society where there wasn't an endless demand for goods and services. what made things different in the past was that resources were so abundant, so cheap and so accessible that the economy grew at a pace never seen before in human history. this economic growth meant that you always had a surfeit of jobs that you could pump the populace into. in 1800 the economy was about 80% farmers generating enough of a food surplus to feed the other 20% of urban craftsmen, artisans, merchants, etc. as industrialisation reduced the need for a larger agricultural workforce larger chunks of the population were freed up to pursue other avenues of employment, becoming factory workers and labourers. when the economy began to deindustrialise in the 1980s and the factories were moved offshore, the economy transformed again into a "service economy" of middle-men and con artists. this economy produces very little of anything tangible, and much of the economic activity is limited to finding newer and more creative ways to scam each other. but it is nevertheless economic activity and drives consumption. the problem is that no one's getting paid anymore there's plenty of demand, but no one has any money to transform that demand into actually buying poo poo, because decent-paying jobs have been gutted and left to die Digiwizzard posted:hold the phone here. think about what you're saying. do you really believe that those tellers lost their jobs because of a massive increase in efficiency in the banking system from 2005 onwards? that this was caused by internet banking? a service with that has no overlapping competition with the services a teller provides, y'know, withdrawing and depositing money. they lost their jobs because they were automated away by internet banking? withdrawing and depositing money was taken over by ATMs ages ago. tellers generally handle more complicated stuff, like account transfers and wire transfers, cashier's checks and money orders, and acting as sales agents for loans and mortgages. over the past few years, most of that stuff has been replaced with online banking. if someone wanted to shift some money from a savings account to a checking account, they used to have to talk to a bank teller - now they just tap around on their phone for a minute physical bank branches are increasingly becoming obsolete TeenageArchipelago posted:how has the total number of teller jobs dropped by 15% when the number of branches has dropped(assuming more than 10,000 weren't opened), and the number of tellers per branch has dropped by 25%? Shouldn't that 15% at least be 25%? starting points are different. the total number of teller jobs has dropped 15% since 2008, while the tellers per branch has dropped 25% since 2005
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 22:08
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:It should also be noted that the Rich would very rapidly lose any sort of power they hold in the event of economic collapse. If your main way of dealing with life's problems is to open your wallet then you will suddenly find yourself in a terrifying ordeal when dollars become worthless. You can "own" trillions in assets, but that ownership suddenly becomes meaningless without a functioning and well fed police force to enforce it. Automated guards. Digiwizzard posted:In theory, a Capitalist could murder the Proletariat base that he extracts profit from, but its a lot like a cancer cell killing off it's host. After they're gone his options will be... limited. Labor won't be human anymore.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2017 23:24
|
|
|
Jeb! Repetition posted:Labor won't be human anymore. Future will probably be like in the book Player Piano
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 00:24
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:Just how big a resource crunch are you imagining here? Like, I'm suggesting a scenario where 99+% of the population is left to essentially die without the support of the technologies that allowed humans to reach the numbers they have, so presumably you're expecting access to energy to restrict enough to not even meet a few percent of our present world's consumption? The need for energy is going to be massively curtailed if it's not used to feed, clothe and keep warm/cool the great unwashed masses. first off, that 99% of the population isn't just going to say "cya" and mysteriously vanish. they're going to fight to stay alive and they'll be consuming resources while they do it. but even if you assume you can kill 9 billion with nukes and bioplagues and somehow avoid it backfiring triggering human extinction, you still have to contend with the negative economies of scale. while they're alive those people still provide valuable goods and services which disappear when they do. you're going to need a certain amount of workers to operate that oil rig, to retrofit and man those refineries that don't produce small batches of petroleum, to transport that oil from the disparate areas they're located around the globe to guarded compounds of the elites. and only a tiny fraction of that oil will even be usable for running the tractors and generators at those compounds, the rest has to be reinvested in the infrastructure you have running to harvest and transport the oil. the same law of diminishing returns applies just as much to resources as it does to industrialisation. we harvested all the good stuff decades ago. now we're stuck horizontally dredging hundreds of tonnes of rock to convert into a few barrels of usable petroleum. we're sawing off the tops of mountains to access sulfur riddled coal deposits of such poor quality they would have thrown it away in the 1800s. we have mile deep copper mines that are harvesting copper ore with less than 1% copper content. nobody would ever do this poo poo if we had a choice. we're resorting to it in desperation because it's all that we've got left. Main Paineframe posted:the problem is that no one's getting paid anymore the point is that the pay issue isn't going to give you economic growth, only resources can do that. everyone could be paid more fairly and it will temporarily make the economy more democratic, but money is only a claim against resources and the resource base is shrinking, which means as the economy contracts money becomes worthless. the average monthly wage for venezuelans in 2012 was around 3000 bolivares. in 2017 it's the average monthly wage is 200,000 bolivares. do you think the venezuelan economy has been growing? Jeb! Repetition posted:Automated guards. so tell me more about these robot guards. what is the energy source that powers them? how do they kill people? what will happen when the proprietary sensors break down or the servomotors blow and the factory that made replacement parts shut down years ago? think very carefully about this. robots aren't magic, they require a constant flow of inputs just like everything else does. if you're a capitalist who's very life depends on the continued functioning of ED-209, then the local warlord will be wearing your skin as a cape when you run out of electricity and ammunition.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 01:37
|
|
|
We arent literally ruining out of resources my man. I'm also finding it difficult to understand why you're not getting it. Are you aware of the history of plantation slavery? Do you get that its actually very easy to both rationalize the brutal and lethal exploitation of others, and the necessary violence to keep the system going? And that its not actually a simple thing to assume that 'the good guys' always win? Black people didn't take that poo poo lying down, they fought back - yet, the only example of a successful slave revolt I can think of is Haiti. Why? Because the tools of violence, ability to organize and freedom of movement, was all monopolized by the slave-holding class. Even a suspicion of organizing, was met with malicious retribution. That denies people the ability to act collectively, through the creation of an environment of total fear. And once that has been denied, the system has no threats to its operation, because individuals can't topple the system. Only collective, organized action can. But the situation is worse now. Because technology now gives the ability for an even smaller group of people to oppress. How are you going to take down a drone with a pitchfork? What exactly are you going to do, when you facing a lime of tanks, and your life has no value to the pilots of those tanks? Because if labor is at all necessary, that's the future you get. Under total automaton, you don't even get that, you just get total extermination.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 01:57
|
|
|
Digiwizzard posted:so tell me more about these robot guards. what is the energy source that powers them? how do they kill people? what will happen when the proprietary sensors break down or the servomotors blow and the factory that made replacement parts shut down years ago? They use solar power or imported batteries, they kill with a stun discharge or mechanical strike, and we're far enough in the future that there are other robos who can repair the guards and each other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 02:14
|
|
|
Ah, magic
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:14
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:Ah, magic We're talking about the future and sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable etc
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:15
|
|
|
We arent' running out of energy, there's enough coal to last effectively forever, and fusion progress is continuing. The future is an energy contraction, not 'we can't use electricity ever again'.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:21
|
|
|
There's more energy stored in methane clathrates on the sea floor than there is in buried natural gas deposits, and none of them have been expoited yet.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:24
|
|
|
Also, why not assume that we'll either have solar panels as efficient as photosynthesis, or electrochemical generators as efficient as animal digestion, so if you could grow crops to feed humans you could have robots doing exactly the same things as the humans would. Probably more if our magnetic inductors are more efficient than muscles. Or we come up with an even better way to convert energy to mechanical for artificial beings.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:28
|
|
|
Photosynthesis isn't that efficient, only something like 1% of the light actually gets absorbed into sugar. Solar energy is a manufacturing problem, not a solar cell efficiency problem.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:30
|
|
|
etalian posted:Future will probably be like in the book Player Piano I've been saying this for a while. It's the most realistic vision of the future that I can think of. Roving gangs of people looking for work while the factories are guarded by the military.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:30
|
|
|
rudatron posted:Photosynthesis isn't that efficient, only something like 1% of the light actually gets absorbed into sugar. Solar energy is a manufacturing problem, not a solar cell efficiency problem. Oh yeah I looked it up and if I understand correctly our most efficient cells are over 4 times as efficient as the most efficient plants, whoops.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:39
|
|
|
rudatron posted:We arent literally ruining out of resources my man. I'm also finding it difficult to understand why you're not getting it. Are you aware of the history of plantation slavery? Do you get that its actually very easy to both rationalize the brutal and lethal exploitation of others, and the necessary violence to keep the system going? And that its not actually a simple thing to assume that 'the good guys' always win? Black people didn't take that poo poo lying down, they fought back - yet, the only example of a successful slave revolt I can think of is Haiti. Why? Because the tools of violence, ability to organize and freedom of movement, was all monopolized by the slave-holding class. Even a suspicion of organizing, was met with malicious retribution. That denies people the ability to act collectively, through the creation of an environment of total fear. And once that has been denied, the system has no threats to its operation, because individuals can't topple the system. Only collective, organized action can. We are objectively running out of resources. Literally every resource you can imagine. The situation is so dire that even renewable resources like groundwater aquifers are being depleted far faster then they can be replenished. At current rates of depletion, it's expected 2/3rds of the planet won't have reliable access to fresh water by 2025. That's not even taking into account the effect of climate change induced drought. No one ever thought things would get so bad that we were in danger of running out of loving water, and yet here we are. I have no idea where you're getting the impression that I'm painting a rosy picture of the future. The future is a place of extreme hardship and deprivation on a scale that humanity has never faced before. There's not going to be any revolution, and even if there was a revolution it would be too late to avert the course we're already locked into. Do you think the world of exploitation, resource fascism and starvation that's coming is somehow preferable to the one that exists right now? Humanity has only been able to sustain the level of technological complexity it has because it was able to tap into a source of millions of years of stored sunlight. Now we're running out of it, and that means that the technological complexity rapidly falls apart. The drone looks impressive in the context of a civilization with such abundant resources that you can set aside people to design, build and maintain such machines, as well as the enormous complex web of infrastructure that can keep that supply chain going. You run out of resources and that supply chain disappears, and that drone turns into an useless rusted sculpture from a bygone era. The fantasy you have is that you can somehow keep this level of technological complexity to keep everything running without all of the excess that makes it possible. It's inherently ridiculous, but I think it speaks more deeply to a desire for continuity and meaning. It doesn't matter that this immortal techno-bourgeoise is a fantasy built on sand, you want to continue believing in it because it's comforting to imagine the narrative we tell each other about humanity's innate brilliance is true. You want to believe in the big Other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 03:53
|
|
|
Jeb! Repetition posted:Also, why not assume that we'll either have solar panels as efficient as photosynthesis, or electrochemical generators as efficient as animal digestion, so if you could grow crops to feed humans you could have robots doing exactly the same things as the humans would. Probably more if our magnetic inductors are more efficient than muscles. Or we come up with an even better way to convert energy to mechanical for artificial beings. Because it's no different then fantasizing about nuclear fusion, nanotechnology, the singularity or finding a way to tap into methane clathrates without killing everyone. You can daydream about it but there's a significant gulf between what you want to happen and what resources exist to facilitate them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 04:06
|
|
|
Why do you think 'if you tap these resources you kill everyone' is somehow going to be a disincentive? As long as the people Like You aren't doing the dying, then that's not going to stop it. The person who's buying into a fantasy is yourself: there is no law of nature that says that the bad buys always get punished. You're interpreting resource shortages as a kind of 'reckoning' for late capitalism, or maybe humanity as a whole, for which of course everyone suffers. The world is sodom, and in comes the hand of god, in the form of peak oil. Everything is 'reset'. It fits very well this very conservative metaphor that always accompanies this reactionary apocalyptic: the immoral society is destroyed by the primal forces of nature. But such a law of the universe does not exist. There is no metaphysical goodness that compels history to follow such as well-contained narrative arc.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 04:16
|
|
|
The entire point of 'total automation' is that the supply chain, designing and manufacturing of such machinery is itself totally automated, and your supposition that such technical complexity can only arise from excessive energy reserves (stored sunlight) is naive. Human beings are very complex biological machinery, yet it is stupid to say that peak oil will lead to the end of literally every single human being, or biological life as a whole. There is nothing unique or special about machines, in terms of complexity vs. resource consumption, and supposing there is is buying into a narrative that only makes sense in the 20th century.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 04:21
|
|
|
Further, it's fairly obvious to show that complexity arises as a reaction to shortages, as a way to become more efficient, not something that is 'tacked on' only in response to surpluses of resources. Civilized societies are more efficient at exploiting the environment than hunter gatherers. A timber-log fire is less efficient than a fluorescent/gas-discharge light, in terms of energy used.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 04:24
|
|
|
yes, i'm the reactionary for not buying into the idiotic fantasy that the rich are so special they will break entropy.rudatron posted:Why do you think 'if you tap these resources you kill everyone' is somehow going to be a disincentive? As long as the people Like You aren't doing the dying, then that's not going to stop it. it's true, imminent human extinction probably won't be enough to dissaude capitalists from attempting to harvest the clathrates, but my outlook remains pessimistic on their ability to actually efficiently and affordably mine methane in the time window available. either the efforts will be small scale and too expensive to be pursued, or they will be massively successful and accelerate the release of arctic methane, causing the climate to warm by 10 degrees in a few years. after that it won't matter how rich anyone is because everyone will be dead. rudatron posted:
could you project any harder? seriously, what the gently caress are you talking about, when have i ever tried to cast resource depletion as some kind of ontological battle between good and evil. when have i ever implied that there is going to be a silver lining to it? who the are the “good guys” in this scenario? the local warlord?? the capitalist? you have this impression that i think resource depletion is going to be great. it’s not, it’s going to be terrifying. nobody deserves what’s coming next. especially not the people who are being affected right now, in places like syria, yemen, congo and venezuela. these people had almost no responsibility or control over the problems befalling them. the traditional attitude of the western hypocrite is to insist though, that while those problems exist somewhere out there, they could never happen over here. this is likely why posters are getting increasingly desperate with the bargaining, insisting that automation is strong and real and my friend. the implict subtext is that world as it is has continuity and longevity, as long as you’ve got the money. they are sadly mistaken. resource depletion isn't about humanity being punished for it's wickedness. humanity is doing exactly the same thing every other plant and animal does when it taps into a giant store of energy. it happens every time someone brews a bottle of beer. just add some drops of sugar to a petri dish full of yeast and watch as the system becomes dramatically more complex as the population grows exponentially. then watch as the population collapses as the last of the energy is metabolized and they starve to death in their own alcohol waste. if there’s a sin humanity is being punished for then it’s hubris. i would argue that the horrifying punishment doesen’t nearly match up with the crime. unfortunately, justice and fairness are human concepts. the yeast don’t get a fair hearing and neither will we. quote:The entire point of 'total automation' is that the supply chain, designing and manufacturing of such machinery is itself totally automated, and your supposition that such technical complexity can only arise from excessive energy reserves (stored sunlight) is naive. Human beings are very complex biological machinery, yet it is stupid to say that peak oil will lead to the end of literally every single human being, or biological life as a whole. There is nothing unique or special about machines, in terms of complexity vs. resource consumption, and supposing there is is buying into a narrative that only makes sense in the 20th century. humanity evolved over millions of years in response to the environment. Humans are able to metabolize energy from oxygen and water. They can digest carbons and store it as energy. We’ve never designed any kind of machine that even comes close to approaching the complexity of a human being, suggesting that we can just make machines that operate like humans so all of our problems are solved is some incredibly dumb magical thinking. quote:Further, it's fairly obvious to show that complexity arises as a reaction to shortages, as a way to become more efficient, not something that is 'tacked on' only in response to surpluses of resources. Civilized societies are more efficient at exploiting the environment than hunter gatherers. A timber-log fire is less efficient than a fluorescent/gas-discharge light, in terms of energy used. this is a very poor understanding of thermodynamics. no system has ever existed that becomes more complex when deprived of energy. they all simplify, and break down completely unless another energy source is found. stars burn out, plants wilt, animals starve. civilizations collapse there’s occasionally examples in nature of some plants and animals that are able to survive shocks and trauma better due to stores of energy, and this could perhaps be interpreted as an increase in complexity, but this is because there’s been a trade off between “efficiency” and “resilience”. trees with lignotubers are able to store energy so that they can restart growth even after bushfires, but this energy storage means that the plant will grow slower and less efficiently. the same can probably be said for our hunter gatherer band and our civilized society. the hunter gatherers have a lovely and hard life, but their constant nomadic ranging means that theres little concern about depleting the environment. in contrast our civilized society is efficient at generating a comfortable and pleasurable lifestyle but is completely reliant on its environment. cut down too many trees, pollute too many rivers, erode the arable farmland and.. poof! the civilization is gone! possibly to never return. it all really depends on your definition of efficiency. capitalism is in a sense, the most efficient method of consuming resources ever created. it incentivizes nonstop expansion, growth and consumption, and has created vast material wealth, enough to ensure that most westerners live better than royalty did in the past. however, it stores absolutely nothing for the future, and so now there isn’t one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 09:56
|
|
|
What world do you live in that hunter gatherers are 'not dependent on their environment'? Actual hunter gatherers are extremely sensitive to climate change and disruption, and are forced to move (and conflict with whoever was there originally) over limited resources - they are not somehow immune to shifts in climate and such, but in many ways more vulnerable. Furthermore, the earth is not a closed system, and screaming 'ENTROPY' without any understanding of the physics, is an insult. Or are you of the somewhat similar opinion that life cannot have evolved, because that violates entropy somehow? I didn't realize you were a young-earth creationist. I also can't help but feel you glossed over the whole 'biological machinery' argument with 'but but but we've never made artificial life' to actually appreciate the point I was making: complexity is not and has never been synonymous with inefficiency, and taking that as an assumption, from which you're reaching your conclusion, is being naive and reductionist. Biological machines are at once more complex and more efficient than human made machines today, in their consumption of energy. You're projecting out the experience of the 20th century onto all technological advancement, by conflating the drive for profit and the economic utilization of technology(see Jevon's Paradox), with something inherent to the technology itself. Each successive steam/heat engines were more efficient than the last, and this lead to greater overall consumption of resources, because of economic incentives and the drive for profit, not because the machines physically consume more. If they did consume more, they're be no sense in upgrading: you just build more of the old, simpler ones. The fact that we don't, is complete and utter disproof of your idea that more complex == more energy intensive. And my whole point here is not to suggest that 'automation is real and my friend': it is emphatically not anyone's friend, merely a tool that is used. Nor am I suggesting that the West is somehow going to be insulated from these problems: it's not an east versus west thing, it's a rich versus poor thing. It's not that the rich break entropy, but that they'll end up burning the poor alive, to keep the whole thing going. And advances in social control and technological force amplification (re: drones, weapons of mass destruction, automated surveillance) means there's a very real chance they'll get away with it. rudatron fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Sep 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 10:34
|
|
|
hey yall keep it c-spam in here not d&d yikes
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 10:35
|
|
|
no
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 10:41
|
|
|
rudatron, i know you're not this thick. pointing out migrating nomads are less reliant on the environment is not saying nomads exist in a bubble separate from the environment. pointing out that the earth is not a closed system is very little solace when less than 4% of our energy consumption is renewable. the strawmen don't do you any favours. in any case, you can continue to insist that This Time It's Different and dream of capitalists without capitalism, living in automated dystopias where all their whims are catered to by biological machines in massive self sufficient, totally automated supply chains. it doesen't matter that our economy has no biological machines, no automated supply chains and no capitalists who have overcome the jevons paradox. in the future there will be, because the big other has to exist and guarantee meaning
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 11:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 13:17 |
|
|
Oh no, it's not capitalism that I'm talking about that's coming: it's fascism/feudalism. Capitalism would at least imply some kind of market, but all that is superfluous when you either have meat slaves or robot slaves to do everything for you. If they don't have total automation, what does that matter? All they need are instruments of fear and intimidation, to get enough done. And to large extent, that already exists.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2017 11:34
|
|