Comment by traverseda
5 months ago
I'd be more worried about the implicit power imbalance. It's not what can humans provide for each-other, it's what can humans provide for a handful of ultra-wealthy oligarchs.
5 months ago
I'd be more worried about the implicit power imbalance. It's not what can humans provide for each-other, it's what can humans provide for a handful of ultra-wealthy oligarchs.
Yeah, from the perspective of the ultra-wealthy us humans are already pretty worthless and they'll be glad to get rid of us.
But from the perspective of a human being, an animal, and the environment that needs love, connection, mutual generosity and care, another human being who can provide those is priceless.
I propose we break away and create our own new economy and the ultra-wealthy can stay in their fully optimised machine dominated bunkers.
Sure maybe we'll need to throw a few food rations and bags of youthful blood down there for them every once in a while, but otherwise we could live in an economy that works for humanity instead.
Charlie Chaplin's speech is more relevant now than ever before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20
I first saw this about 15 years ago and it had a profound impact on me. It's stuck with me ever since
"Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts."
Spoken 85 years ago and even more relevant today
The thing that the ultra-wealthy desire above all else is power and privilege, and they won't be getting either of that in those bunkers.
They sure as shit won't be content to leave the rest of us alone.
Yeah I know it's an unrealistic ideal but it's fun to think about.
That said my theory about power and privilege is that it's actually just a symptom of a deep fear of death. The reason gaining more money/power/status never lets up is because there's no amount of money/power/status that can satiate that fear, but somehow naively there's a belief that it can. I wouldn't be surprised if most people who have any amount of wealth has a terrible fear of losing it all, and to somebody whose identity is tied to that wealth, that's as good as death.
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> It's not what can humans provide for each-other, it's what can humans provide for a handful of ultra-wealthy oligarchs.
You can definitely use AI and automation to help yourself and your family/community rather than the oligarchs. You set the prompts. If AI is smart enough to do your old job, it is also smart enough to support you be independent.