Comment by rogerrogerr
11 days ago
Sure, but who do they sell stuff to if no one has a job? We’re on the brink of some _very_ unexplored branches of human behavior.
11 days ago
Sure, but who do they sell stuff to if no one has a job? We’re on the brink of some _very_ unexplored branches of human behavior.
That's the key. The poor are useful to business so long as they are a source of money and power. What happens if the time comes that the poor have nothing the rich want?
The rich will need play things. Think Westworld, but with real people.
Historically in this case eventually the poor kill the rich
Probably not this time though
If they killed the poor, then how can they enjoy their power over people?
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I guess that’s why Larry, Zuck and Thiel, et al want constant recording of the plebs, so that ‘citizens will be on their best behaviour’.
This time there will be no revolution but it will be televised. :P
It's strange that socialists seem more concerned with their material possessions than anyone else.
The poor will always have the only thing the rich want. Labor. Without labor Trump cannot slather the white house in gold. Without labor Zuck cannot smoke meats. Without labor Musk cannot troll people on X.
The rich do not want anything you have, they want you. Body and soul.
Robots can take most of the jobs, but the feeling of power over other humans they likely cannot replace.
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I mean, eventually like 1 person is going to have more wealth than 60% of the nation combined. At that point, why even bother trying to earn customers or appeal to the lower half when you can instead curry favor with that 1 person.
Oh, the rich will be very happy wielding sadistic power over the poor
They will always want entertainment.
Whether it's gladiators or bum fights, the poor will ultimately be given a job. Robot wars was fun, but UFC has stayed.
This is why revolts happen.
If you scratch under the hood of UBI, it's a mechanism to keep revolutions at bay. The balance of tax the ultra wealthy vs giving people enough to "live comfortably" is always the job of governance.
> If you scratch under the hood of UBI, it's a mechanism to keep revolutions at bay.
It's also putting money in the hands of the consumers so the rich can compete between themselves at how much each can scoop back up.
Something like feeding animals in the forest to compete with your friends at who can hunt better.
When poor have nothing then you have to shift to taking money of the other rich, but they are clever, so it's easier to take a little bit from the hands of all rich equally, give that money to the poor and reduce the new problem to the old one, how to extract as much as you can from the poor.
The first sentence is definitely. But, UBI is a nerd/socialist fantasy. It would nevet work and will never happen. Everyone with these sci-fi fever dreams of what will happen if AI collapses white collar jobs are coming from people that don’t know how the world or people actually work outside of their daydreams. People aren’t going to just be like “ok, well I guess it’s time for bread and water and Soviet style tenement housing, all this progress in livings was great while it lasted.” And other people are talking about using batteries for money or something. People need to touch grass.
This is very explored - it was the state of humanity for most of its existence. The few had resources, the many were poor.
For most of humanity's existence nobody was poor because there was no such thing as money.
We're nearly-there. The humans then become the capital/resource to be acquired, not money.
That's why every country is somehow chasing that elusive "population growth". It creates more "things" to own, whether that be money by virtue of more people creating more money through economic activity or simply more people to claim as "yours" (for the elites/leaders).
Bots. Agentic consumers.
Imagine a few billionaires pay big bucks to keep AGI to themselves and let the rest of us die on the vine.
Okay, but why would we die on the vine? Wouldn’t we just… make a parallel economy without the AGI? The world works today without AGI.
Or use any of the wonders of military technology invented in the last 200 years to take back society. These fuckers have lived in prosperity for so long that they don't even think it is possible. But so many people throughout history thought they were untouchable until the masses decided they had enough of their shit. Kings with professional armies, full plate knights, men with cannons, mens with guns, machine guns, bombs, planes, tanks, helicopters, and yet at the end of the day when enough random people are pissed off enough the mass of people with nothing to lose are the ones who "win" in the end with the powerful dead or hiding.
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Parallel economies are banned. Try making a new currency in the US.
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> Okay, but why would we die on the vine? Wouldn’t we just… make a parallel economy without the AGI? The world works today without AGI.
Because you need things they want. Like why would they spare the electricity to heat your home, when it could go to "better" use powering a few dozen GPUs serving a billionaire? Why would they spare the land for you to grow food, when they could use it to build ziggurats dedicated to their power (or whatever else is their whim)?
The market sends the scarce resources to those with the most money.
What is the fantasy AGI supposed to be that's so great for billionaires to have? A human baby is an <s>A</s>GI, it won't tell you the Ultimate Answer, or even a penultimate one, because it has no way to know.
No, seriously, what? You think an AGI is going to be a willing slave and endowed with special knowledge? Where does either part of that come from?
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