Comment by vrganj

> If capitalism would get us to post-scarcity society then well, you'd have to admin that capitalism is amazingly effective

I will freely admit that. But that's not the critique. Effective at what? Cancer is effective. Effectiveness for its own sake is not an inherent good. Capitalism is amazingly effective at centralizing power in a few oligarchs.

> Your assumption about AI-rulers (I presume altman and amodei, not governments) having abundance machines and not sharing the abundance with anyone else is really without any merit.

It's not an assumption. It is a structural argument. You have not addressed any of my points - why would they share?

> 1) powerless government

The government doesn't need to be powerless. It just needs to be aligned with the oligarchy. I would posit that is already the case - see basically anything the regime does.

> 2) actual ASI that's abundance machine

Yeah I agree with you there, I'm not sure that one's gonna happen, but what if it does? Under current ownership structures, it would be a bad thing.

> 3) ASI that's perfectly aligned towards serving altman and amodei and none else

Maybe Musk. Maybe Zuckerberg. Probably also Trump, as per 1).

> 4) altman and amodei deciding that everyone should be poor.

Their fellow oligarch Musk literally cut USAID which was providing for the poorest, most vulnerable people on Earth, while he was the richest man on Earth. You do not become a billionaire by caring about the poor.

> you can't stop progress. It never worked and never will

Of course you can. Some examples: Civilian Supersonic Flight, Genetics under Lysenko, Firearms in the Tokugawa shogunate.