Comment by fennecfoxy
4 days ago
>Argentina, the world’s eighth-largest country I think this says something about human progress. We haven't really pulled it together yet, have we?
Through the efforts of many (and yet still few) we have created such amazing technologies. And yet so many are still so poor and without the benefits of modern technology because we've allowed a system (capitalism) to be created where wealth and access to technology accumulates up top and no, it does not really "trickle down".
To me, it really is the saddest thing about human existence and entirely predictable because of how most of our human behaviours are linked to evolutionary processes.
It's nice to romanticise human emotion and connection in a rugged environment using technology that we consider defunct and for them to be able to live a life that many would consider "more natural". But then one of them gets sick. Someone who loves, is loved, who creates art and consumes art, who smiles when the petrichor hits their nostrils after a dry Summer. And then they die.
I just really wish that things were more equitable because we definitely have enough to go around.
you left out the part where the system (capitalism) is creating the technology that people use and makes their life better.
Giving people material goods or technology does make them wealthy. Sometimes it even hurts them https://humanprogress.org/agricultural-subsidies-in-wealthy-... You have to understand poverty and what causes it before you are able to solve for it. Your colonial / dependency mindset will not help.
I thought I'd follow up by pointing out that capitalism (optimisation for profits) often shuns developing new technology.
There are hundreds of thousands of similar stories but the origin of the blue LED, something responsible for a large number of child technologies, came from an engineer who basically disobeyed his boss, worked himself down to the bone on the problem including spending many of his own hours.
And when he finally did it, he got absolutely shafted; none of those huge profits for him, barely a thank you.
Capitalism barely provides. It's too concerned with optimising for profit. Any technologies developed are usually an accident/the product of hard work that capitalism has not fully paid for. Research grants are the only true way to do it.
And if capitalism hadn't created a corrupt system where those who are wealthiest barely pay in on tax, then we wouldn't need them in the first place. People could crowd source developing new technologies because they'd actually be getting their fair share, or the government can do it through grant allocation.
No, labour creates the technology that people use.
The system just decides where the wealth goes.
Under capitalism, it doesn't go to the people who did the labour.
"Under capitalism, it doesn't go to the people who did the labour."
Automation is removing the human labour factor rapidly, so that no longer holds true. Karl Marx's writings never anticipated cybernetics, transhumanism and genetic engineering despite his followers believing he was some kind of infallible prophet.
The machines will build themselves, repair themselves and run themselves.
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Was no technology created before capitalism? I once heard someone say it's easier for some people to imagine the end of the world before imagining the end of capitalism.
Not "created" I think. There were still inventions, but actively looking for the new new thing in order to create new products is somethign that was introduced with capitalism.
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> because we've allowed a system (capitalism) to be created
Before we even discuss capitalism, Argentina's history shows that a large share of its GDP has gone directly to corruption at every level of the pyramid. See [1].
[1] "Corruption accounting and growth: towards a new methodology" <https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/jfcpps/jfc-04-2019-0039.html>
Capitalism, corruption and humans are all synonyms imo.
We can't help but not play fair. It's wired into us.
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The problem we have here in Argentina is not capitalism. The problem with Argentina is that we don't have capitalism.
Capitalist countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and the People's Republic of China (!) have gone from being much poorer than we are to being much richer than we are in only a few decades. Meanwhile Perón's "third way" between capitalism and communism has left us poor and economically stagnant. We have to constantly struggle against bureaucracy to do anything economically productive, and if that's successful, the government confiscates it. Only politically well-connected companies can prosper, and those mostly produce low-quality goods that people only buy because importing goods from abroad is prohibitively expensive and bureaucratic. The society is thoroughly corrupt, having internalized the lesson that when someone gets cheated, it's their own fault for being so stupid, and a laudable achievement for the cheater. So Argentines who have the choice invest their money abroad, leaving the country without the capital investment required for industrial productivity.
The current government says lots of great things about capitalism and economic liberty, but you cannot institute capitalism by fiat. (Turning a healthy tank of fish into fish soup is easier than turning fish soup back into a healthy tank of fish.) Capitalism is highly productive because capitalists invest their capital in creating productive capacity in the expectation of profit. In Argentina, capitalists very reasonably have the expectation that, after the next election, their profits will be confiscated by the new administration. So they don't invest, except in forms that pay for themselves before the next election — mining minerals and planting crops, for example.
Massive state spending to expand productive capacity might be able to break this cycle, following the examples of the US, the USSR, the People's Republic of China, and Perón himself (before he abandoned the policy). But it's absolutely taboo for both the current "libertarian" administration and their Peronist political opponents.