18 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

NAZIs are the left, not the right. 

Nazis no longer exist today... if you are talking about fascists, yes, the far left also preaches a form of fascism, no matter how they try to sugarcoat it. But then, so is the far right. The extremes start to resemble each other the more extreme they get.

.... Maybe in part because most fascist regimes that existed in history were actually socialist systems, not capitalist ones, thus resembling communist systems in many things besides who is elected as the ruling elite and who is the scapegoat. But that is going off on a tangent...

You are not really helping your point by spouting right propaganda.

18 hours ago, mikeman said:

He is also wrong, though. Communism is a much older idea than Marx, and really, it has religious roots. Thomas More wrote "Utopia" in the 1500s. Fourier was born 30 years before Marx. Robert Owen founded New Harmony in Indiana when Marx was 6. 

Well, I cannot not even say if he is right or wrong, he has gone so far sideways of your question.

I am a little confused though why it matter how old or new the ideas communism is based on is. Surely it does matter more how it was applied in practice? Or how the mistakes of the past could be avoided (thus how the totalitarian tendencies could be taken out of the communist idea that are in there because of "there shall be no elite" is just creating a vacuum filled by the strongest individual in the end in true anarchist fashion)?

Just because the Nazis used Socialist ideas in shaping their (very disfunctional) economy doesn't mean socialist economies lead to Fascism. But we should look into WHY socialism was so attractive for dictators that almost none of them in the past actually let capitalism run the economy, and dictators today are increasingly infusing their economies with socialist ideas (like putin having rolled back some privatizations over the last few years).

Same with communism. The ideas behind the economic system might be sound, and the intention might be laudable. The track record is pretty bad though in real life. I don't know what modern day Marxists and Communist REALLY want, all they say gets drowned out by the shouting of the far left hooligans, and the counter-shouting of the right wing "communism bad" crowd.

So maybe you can explain to me what you understand under the term communism, and why it should work now when it failed miserably in the 20th century? Especially how you prevent the tyrant getting control over the system, which has been the one consistent weak point in every communist system ever implemented.

Honest question. I am trying to understand the mindset of the modern day communist now that they seem to be popping up everywhere.

18 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

@Gian-Reto, I think we can put an end to the colonialism debate, it's not appropriate here. I think we agree on more things than not. To address two things you specifically pointed out:

1): You stated that algorithms aren't a catch all be all and may never be perfect. That's why we'd have governments (democratic governments. Capitalism doesn't function perfectly all the time either. We have recessions, for example, and Govs work to mitigate them. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine dealing with machine issues instead. 

2): Machines revolt? I mean we aren't' talking about sentient intelligences, just good algorithms. Ultimately it can be a problem, but not anytime soon IMHO.

Sure, its OT here anyway.

1) Agreed

2) Well, I am going farther into the future... its kind of the logical end point of an ever increasing AI Intelligence. Probably not going to happen in the next 100 years, no matter how much the "Singularity" believers wish for it to come sooner (yeah, because that would certainly work out well for them... I really cannot understand that mindset).

In the shorter timespan, we will have rather problems with loosing control of machines. When they are self learning, it will get harder and harder to guarantee that they do not learn the wrong thing. Every chatbot to date has been trolled by the internet and became a Nazi as soon as the chatbot was connected to the net to learn through interaction with the online public... every time it had to be taken down because of course the company couldn't leave a chatbot online that praised Hitler or was spouting racist crap.

Then there is the rumour that Google already lost control of some of their algorithms and has openly stated they are no longer sure why certain algorithms work the way they do. There has been an outrage lately here in switzerland were ads of some swiss supermarkets have been shown on Breitbart... which trigger certain local snowflakes that have nothing better to do than play the online moral police. But the point is, the company claimed they had no idea why their ads were shown on Breitbart, and stated their ad-service wouldn't know either (I bet it was Google, but then I guess by now every other ad service will also have replaced humans with alorithms to decide were to run what ads).

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.

18 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

It's not possible to engage in discussion with what basically amounts to "Communism is bad, if robots mean communism, let's ban it all". I mean, what am I supposed to debate here?

Maybe this:

- Does he actually believe robots mean communism, or is he only kee-jerking to statements he has read in the thread? Because I don't think robots=communism... there are many ways to make society work under heavy automation, some of them good, most probably very bad for most humans, some of them quite moderate, most probably rather extreme from our current perspective.

- What is HIS solution to the problem if communism is unacceptable? Is it a ban of automation? How would that work?

Because while I don't think a ban of AI or automation really is the way to go... I know many people, very close to me, that react that way. I had long discussions with them, and I do understand their reasoning.

I don't believe in the economic isolationism that Trump advocates, but I think we should give people that are resisting new technology and globalism at least the credit that they do have valid points, that automation and globalism probably should take into account.

Now I am not sure @Kavik Kang is really intersted in a real debate, given he seems to be in pure reaction mode, still not really listening to what people write, mixed with healthy shilling for his 300 page document

18 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

My main exception is that human governments will still govern. Republics will still exist. Democracy will still exist. The judiciary, etc. will all exist. We won't be ruled by machines necessarily (at least, before sentient AI, but then the rulebook is out the window, and that's not the focus of this thread). I'm not advocating for authoritarian rule. The only thing that changes is how our economics work.

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.

18 hours ago, mikeman said:

Actually, I did, but when you hear someone lamenting that "America is slowly descending into communism", this is a dogwhistle so loud that is heard all the way to Sweden and beyond.

Well, yeah, maybe you should simply ignore it? Just saying... You are kinda training the dog in the wrong direction here

When has "Don't feed the troll!" come out of fashion in the intertubes, I wonder.....

18 hours ago, mikeman said:

Hm, so government can collect taxes from citizens in order to buy missiles from Raytheon, because the protection of the US soil is considered part of "general welfare", but suddenly it can't collect taxes from citizens in order to buy medical care, is that it?

I mean, this is how it goes:

1) Joe is taxed and part of his money goes in order to buy a Raytheon missile : OK!
2) Joe is taxed and part of his money goes in order to buy a Hitachi MRI machine: NOT OK!

Playing devils advocate here:

Military HAS to be state owned, because the state HAS to have a monopoly on militaristic power... unless you want militias armed to the teeth everywhere, like in the southern parts of the US.

Or you want to invest even more into shady mercenary groups like Blackwater (that the US government does EXACTLY that is mindboggling to me, but again, going off on a tangent).

Or you want some other country to invade your nation (not that high a risk, still there)

Medical care does not have to be. You CAN expect everyone to pay out of his own pocket for medical care.

Now, I do agree that this might not make so much sense when in turn modern society is expected to ensure basic living standarts even to the poorest of its members, as this is part of the social contract... social peace and stability, accepting the gap between the rich and the poor for a basic solidarity between the members of society enacted by the state. Thus the state needs to pay for its poorest members anyway...

But just wanted to point out how those two things are not exactly the same thing. One ensures the souvereignity of the nation, prevents the pitfalls of private military corps being used even more, and prevents citizens to organize their own militia... it basically affects ALL citizens, directly, and is easy to understand for everyone.

The other only affect people directly that cannot afford basic health care. It will, at some point, affect everyone going through a serious ilness, who wasn't farsighted enough to save money just for that. In the end it will affect even the richest when the social contract is no longer upheld and it leads to more crime because the poorest cannot afford their pills they need, and to a lower satisfaction in the middle class actually running the whole shop because they go poor as soon as they have to fight cancer or get another serious illness. But that indirect link is kinda hard to understand for most people I would guess. Its much more theoretical and indirect than "no military -> north korea will invade us".

>>Communism tries to do away with the elite, and take away all kind of ownership.

It doesn't though. It really, *really* doesn't. I don't know why this point never gets through - I think it's because capitalism doesn't make the distinction between "owning a TV" and "owning a TV factory" - it's all just "ownership". Socialists do make this distinction though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_versus_private_property

I mean, I'm sure there has been some sect on some time or another that preached we shouldn't even have *personal* possessions, and all possessions should be communal, but that is by no means marxist. There is no reason for the marxists to care about what you do with your personal possessions. All they care about is putting the tools of production under public control. We are talking about the public/common ownership of capital goods, *not* consumer goods.

6 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Nazis no longer exist today... if you are talking about fascists, yes, the far left also preaches a form of fascism, no matter how they try to sugarcoat it. But then, so is the far right. The extremes start to resemble each other the more extreme they get.

.... Maybe in part because most fascist regimes that existed in history were actually socialist systems, not capitalist ones, thus resembling communist systems in many things besides who is elected as the ruling elite and who is the scapegoat. But that is going off on a tangent...

 

You are not really helping your point by spouting right propaganda.

 

The Nazi's were nationalist communists, about as far "left" as it gets.  People who call themselves Nazi's today are generally pathetic people who have chosen that history as a kind of twisted religion they follow, I definitely agree with you there.  I have not "spouted propaganda", I can't even guess at what you might be referring too there.  But I do also agree with you about extremists, except of course that the more extreme they get the farther apart they appear too be.  They never begin to resemble each other at all, they are polar opposites.  We are in good company with that concept, though...

“The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.” - Dwight Eisenhower

Also, I was not "shilling for my 300-page document".  I was suggesting that anyone interested in this very subject read it because they would learn far more about this very subject then I can take the time to re-write here in this thread.  It has a lot to teach, especially too anyone who is under the age of 30.  I really do know far more about the true nature of the Soviet Union than most people who are still alive today, it was "the family business" for two generations in my family.  But, if you want to retain your mistaken impressions of how this world actually functions that is fine with me.

"Things don't happen, things are made to happen." - John F Kennedy

@Kavik Kang okay, so back to the actual topic, if we assume that mass automation of jobs reaches a critical point where it destroys more jobs than it creates, leaving a large segment of the population unemployed, what is your proposal to deal with this crisis?

Let's be clear : We're talking about autonomous machines with advanced programming that are capable of doing work such as building houses, building bridges, mining, driving trucks, farming, etc etc. Let's not start talking about robots that start to have feelings and demand rights just yet. That's a completely different topic.

What is your proposal to deal with this problem?

Don't forget the 'Robots' analyzing markets and productions to replace middle and even upper management positions.

Robots replacing coders are looking more and more like a thing as well. 

In all honesty it is looking like there will potentially be more jobs lost to robots white collar jobs than there will be in things like strawberry picking. (For the simple reason that there is a lot more being invested in replacing those expensive high value jobs than there is being invested in tackling the issue of reliably picking strawberries, and the high cost to return price of buying any potential strawberry picker machine.)

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.  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.

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?

“Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality... for one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor.” - Adam Smith

If human life is a primary consideration, then why are there so many homeless and sick people in the US who do not receive the care and treatment that would allow them to lead long, happy, productive lives? 

Why should humans be forced to toil in misery doing jobs that could readily have been done with tools? Maybe rather than allowing nailguns in construction the US should go back to everyone swinging a hammer on a job site? - It would employ more people! Don't forget the electric drill, if they replace those with hand cranked ones then we would require even MORE humans to 'remain employed' to meet the construction industry's demands. Banning heavy machinery in mining would do wonders for employment levels... 

8 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

“The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.” - Dwight Eisenhower

Agreed

8 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

But I do also agree with you about extremists, except of course that the more extreme they get the farther apart they appear too be.  They never begin to resemble each other at all, they are polar opposites.

Care to elaborate? How are the far left and far right dictators NOT starting to look very alike? I am not talking about some conservatives or liberals of the more moderate kind.

I am talking about people that have become so extreme that they are just abusing the political agenda (or their religion) for their tyranny. How are Hitler and Stalin not the same thing in different clothing (and with slightly different outcome)? How is it that the far right and far left hooligans battling in the streets wear the same clothing, and act exactly the same, only shouting different nonsense?

8 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

I have not "spouted propaganda", I can't even guess at what you might be referring too there.

Well, the kind of "X did nothing wrong, Y is evil" kind of thing. That is, from the moderates and centrists view, propaganda from the extremes of the spectrum. From the center, they both look like a bad option. I understand that you will see the side you lean more towards as less evil, yes... but "its only them, not us"?

8 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

Also, I was not "shilling for my 300-page document".  I was suggesting that anyone interested in this very subject read it because they would learn far more about this very subject then I can take the time to re-write here in this thread.  It has a lot to teach, especially too anyone who is under the age of 30. 

Okay, fine. Not meant as an insult.

Maybe you should just understand that reading 300 pages is a serious commitment of time. So maybe try to see things from the other side when you get snarky comments for the amount of pages you expect people to read.

Don't know, maybe you are a book fanatic and you inhale 300 pages in an hour.... many people are not.

1 hour 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 that would be true in our current society, we probably wouldn't have this discussion at the moment.

See, modern day capitalism is seeing human life as a resource to exploit... what the guys are pondering here should a) prevent that state getting even worse with humans not even being a resource anymore, only a market to sell to, and b) maybe make things a little bit more even in the process thanks to automagic.

A laudable idea. I am not sure if they are aware that if that plan goes wrong, things could get even more downhill. Which is the position you are holding, if I understand you correct.

I am in the middle somewhere. I see the concerns you hold. But I do see the opportunities of new technology.

1 hour ago, Kavik Kang said:

If robots are going to destroy human lives, then we should not build them.

IF.... we don't know. Its a risk. It's not given.

It was clear since '86 that the risk of nuclear power plants making big parts of a country inhabitable is real. Not just a very small percentage in a statistic (and AFAIK, the number is really small unless human error occurs)... but happening in the real world. Because humans are stupid. And omit security measures to save money.

Yet nuclear power plants are still built all over the world. Some countries have banned them, others still see opportunities for cheap power.

Its the same here. People should be aware of the risk. Outright banning new technology because there IS a risk is IMO a knee-jerk reaction.

1 hour 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. 

Yah, when other countries lose control over their robot armies, or social order breaks down in a good chunk of the world because of automation, lets see how the US will stand alone.

Unilateralism is not such a great idea in a world were ICBMs can reach any point in the world, and your economy is linked to import and export.

1 hour ago, Kavik Kang said:

We are generally about 50-100 years ahead of all other nations in almost every way for a reason.

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.

1 hour 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?

Now that is a valid concern and a valid question.

but that its kinda just the conservative mindset speaking. Which is, again, a valid point and a needed balance to the liberal optimism.

I would say "that is why we need to be careful what we build", and not trust new technology too much....

14 hours ago, mikeman said:

>>Communism tries to do away with the elite, and take away all kind of ownership.

It doesn't though. It really, *really* doesn't. I don't know why this point never gets through - I think it's because capitalism doesn't make the distinction between "owning a TV" and "owning a TV factory" - it's all just "ownership". Socialists do make this distinction though.

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.

As far as I get it that was one reason why the soviet union had such trouble with its elite. They needed the oligarchs and other influental people to get things organized, yet they couldn't officially reward them as nobody was allowed to own property.... so these became pretty much criminals (because they amassed possesions above what a normal soviet citizen should get) that the state simply ignored as long as the public wouldn't notice (because the oligarchs actually had a lot of influence), if I got my history right there.

14 hours ago, mikeman said:

All they care about is putting the tools of production under public control.

Then the soviets got their implementation pretty wrong, if this was Marx' theory.

Again, that sounds more like socialism to me. And again, I am questioning why someone would even use a name tainted by almost a century of bloodshed and economic mismanagement instead of using a term less likely to provoke knee-jerk reactions.

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 can't reply to everything you said because this will then start to seem like it's all about me.  I was just answering Mikeman's post since that was where the discussion had gone back to robots.  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.

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".  

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.

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.