Technological unemployment is (almost) here

[anu]

Can you say that in another way I am not sure understand.
...
A socialist planned economy rejects the idea of inequality and the idea of intellectual property and perpetual growth, land ownership and servitude?

I personally support RBE which from the political economy spectrum can be classified as a form of socialist planned economy (however it is completely different from Stalin/Mao version).
If you have studied The Venus Project ideas you should know that the variant I have quoted above is true.

This time is different, this time we'll get it right, says Pol Pot.

Do you think the Bolsheviks started out to kill millions of people? Frankly, they were in fact so similar to Zeitgeist, it is scary.

[aminorex]

This time is different, this time we'll get it right, says Pol Pot.

Do you think the Bolsheviks started out to kill millions of people? Frankly, they were in fact so similar to Zeitgeist, it is scary.

Pol Pot certainly did.  Do you think Dow Chemical started out to kill the people of Bhopal?

Rhetoric is agitprop, but a large demographic is immune to that these days.  Using facts, logic, and rigorous statistical methods gets more cred these days.

[Biomech]

Can you say that in another way I am not sure understand.
...
A socialist planned economy rejects the idea of inequality and the idea of intellectual property and perpetual growth, land ownership and servitude?

I personally support RBE which from the political economy spectrum can be classified as a form of socialist planned economy (however it is completely different from Stalin/Mao version).
If you have studied The Venus Project ideas you should know that the variant I have quoted above is true.

It has been a very long time since I read anything on the Venus project. At the time, it looked even more tyrannical than Soviet communism. But I'll have another look.

However, top down planning really only works in programming. Central planning of human economies has a proven track record going on for millennia. It hasn't worked once.

It won't this time either. For socialism to work requires that we become something other than human. I am opposed to that. This is what the ultimate form of socialism looks like.  

[anu]

Rhetoric is agitprop, but a large demographic is immune to that these days.  Using facts, logic, and rigorous statistical methods gets more cred these days.

Hayek's Road to Serfdom and Popper's The Open Society and it's Enemies are widely available since a long time. If what you are saying is true, then why are we still moving from an opportunity society to a neofeudal society? If what you are saying is true, why do people still believe a command economy like Zeitgeist proposes is the solution?

It is very simple: Economic freedom is at the base of all liberty. It is the freedom to create and trade the fruit of your labor. If you do not have that freedom you are a slave. It does not matter if Monsanto is taking that freedom from farmers, using IP and state bureaucracy or if Zeitgeist is taking that freedom away from farmers, using socialist ideology and state bureaucracy. Dito for everybody else.

If what you say is true, why isn't that understood?

[giantdragon]

For socialism to work requires that we become something other than human.

Automation and robots are "something other than human", however they are/will be able to do the most of work which humans had performed for millenniums.

If what you are saying is true, then why are we still moving from an opportunity society to a neofeudal society?

Corporations with greedy shareholders are pushing people here. But it won't last forever, sooner or later people will realize what is happening and reject this system.

[anu]

For socialism to work requires that we become something other than human.

Automation and robots are "something other than human", however they are/will be able to do the most of work which humans had performed for millenniums.

Not intending to put words into Biomech's mouth but I guess he meant that we'd have to give up individuality i.e. become hive animals.

If what you are saying is true, then why are we still moving from an opportunity society to a neofeudal society?

Corporations with greedy shareholders are pushing people here. But it won't last forever, sooner or later people will realize what is happening and reject this system.

That's my point entirely: A large minority recognizes that the system is rigged but what they want is more of the same - more state, more concentration of power, central planning. I guess it is no coincidence that George Soros, one of the most ruthless speculators since Nathan Rothschild likes Occupy so much. People need to be careful what they wish for - it may come true.

Quite some people on this forum can just lean back and enjoy the show. There is no need for them to be activists. It is all going in the direction they want. The only thing they have reason to be unhappy about is that it is not them who get to run the show.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

tl;dr  most often people who have new ideas often just top having old ideas.

The problem is there is a mechanism that is used to maintain wealth inequality when it in fact this mechanism should be one that encourages maximum efficiency and optimal distribution to meet all needs. It is asinine to argue or even conger up an argument that technology hinders that goal of meet all needs.  

You can keep the existing mechanism (political and economic) and ponder unconditional income, or planned economy, or you can stop having old ideas and define a new mechanism, to ensure that there is a net benefit from technology.  

Some random examples of how the existing mechanism is used to maintain wealth inequality is perpetuated are:
The meme that an Idea can be a property right and must be enforced by the law.
The meme that properties given by nature for the benefit of evolution of life, like water and land belong to the entities that claimed them first.  
The meme that education is not free, and is a corporate for profit right.
The meme that people will stop buying food and other necessities if they become relatively less expensive.

The problem (eventually) will not be that we will not have all of our needs satisfied, it's that we will not have any instinctual reason to learn or do anything productive, which will slow down human development and through eventual evolution (unless we manage who gets to have kids through managed reproduction) we'll eventually split into a dualist race of cyborgs and "the rest", which will most likely devolve into people who just accept what their told and maximise their pleasure.

Although once we have extremely well developed VR games, it may not really big that big of a deal. Personally I actually really don't enjoy the possibility of people living their whole lives in VR, its quite depressing, although this does seem like the most likely future we're going to be walking into.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

A small bump, but for everyone who blatantly disagrees with the "We're rapidly losing permanent well paying jobs", I recommend you to watch this vice news series (not all is aired yet, just parts 1-3) and still come away with the same viewpoint.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbqD6ARCGNE

Even if I was a wealthy person and felt bad for these people, how would I help them? donate to them? give them work cleaning my shoes? There is a problem here and it needs to be fixed, the market isn't going to be able to fix it by itself and that's becoming more and more obvious to me, unless you want to live in the world of Elysium where 99% of the worlds population lives in a dump and 1% lives on a space-station with extravagant wealth.

[giantdragon]

Even if I was a wealthy person and felt bad for these people, how would I help them?

Wealthy people have much more political influence, so you would push legislation to make economy more redistributive (e.g. share remaining jobs by reducing working week to 15 hours for the same wage, implementing unconditional income, put heavier tax burden on capital while freeing labor etc).

unless you want to live in the world of Elysium where 99% of the worlds population lives in a dump and 1% lives on a space-station with extravagant wealth.

If you watched the movie, you must know how Elysium ended!

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

If you watched the movie, you must know how Elysium ended!

I agree with the rest of your post, but the plot device for the actual ending of Elysium was most certainly deus ex machina 

[giantdragon]

There is little chance a fully automated world could ever satisfy all our needs. Looking at maslow's hierarchy of needs it is only the bottom of the pyramid that can be done by robots.

It is true that higher levels of needs will be difficult to automate, but 1) very few people have enough talents to take these remaining jobs, 2) "superstar effect" will continuously grow as technology advances.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates recently acknowledged the problem, however proposed standard rightist bullshit (I haven't expected anything else from him, he probably won't change his position even if underpaid/unemployed rioters will throw Molotov cocktail into his house).

Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses … it's progressing. ...  Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. ...  20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.

Gates believes that the tax codes are going to need to change to encourage companies to hire employees, including, perhaps, eliminating income and payroll taxes altogether. He's also not a fan of raising the minimum wage, fearing that it will discourage employers from hiring workers in the very categories of jobs that are most threatened by automation.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-bots-are-taking-away-jobs-2014-3

[thedarklight]

If these machines are capable of replacing us, then why would they care about us or do anything to keep our species going?

It is nearly impossible to predict how AI development will go, but my personal opinion is that autonomous robots and software capable to replace ~50% of workforce will appear much earlier than self-aware ("thinking") machines.

Where would a guaranteed income come from?

If you have read my posts you probably know that I prefer another solution rather than unconditional income. Address this question to it's supporters.

He was saying that the tech unemployment problem is only something that happens in a socialist system, and can't happen in a capitalist system. Thus, there is no solution for tech unemployment in a capitalist system, because such a thing simply can't happen in that system.

Technological unemployment can appear only in capitalist system. In the variant of socialism with planned economy it is impossible in principle!

@thedarklight, please post summary of your idea.

Abstract

The ideas presented in this paper developed in response to help resolve some of the problems which will result from technological unemployment. We believe that as machines become more intelligent and work currently done by human beings become automated there will be a sharp increase in the unemployment rate as humans are laid off to be replaced by intelligent machines. We believe that intelligent machines can be leveraged to provide a basic dividend to a decentralized pseudo-anonymous group of owners as a means of providing an axillary safety-net which cannot be shut down by any government or corporation.

http://darkai.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Resilience-Project-Whitepaper-Draft-3c.pdf

My unfinished whitepaper provides an outline for a solution to technological unemployment. The whitepaper could use some editing, can be improved upon in the details, but it shows that you can have basic income under a pure capitalist system. No one has to use the government to take anything from anyone else. The government is merely bypassed in favor of technology which makes everything so cheap that the cost of living goes down.

Capital assets in the form of dividend paying stocks for instance can provide basic income. You do not need to tax the rich to feed the poor because economic growth can pay enough in dividends to provide basic income to entire cities or entire countries. I hope to show that you can use the levers of capitalism even easier than you can use the levers of government and without any confrontation because you decide how to distribute your shares.

[giantdragon]

Capital assets in the form of dividend paying stocks for instance can provide basic income. You do not need to tax the rich to feed the poor because economic growth can pay enough in dividends to provide basic income to entire cities or entire countries. I hope to show that you can use the levers of capitalism even easier than you can use the levers of government and without any confrontation because you decide how to distribute your shares.

Interesting, who will voluntary give away these shares for free to the unemployed?!

[thedarklight]

Capital assets in the form of dividend paying stocks for instance can provide basic income. You do not need to tax the rich to feed the poor because economic growth can pay enough in dividends to provide basic income to entire cities or entire countries. I hope to show that you can use the levers of capitalism even easier than you can use the levers of government and without any confrontation because you decide how to distribute your shares.

Interesting, who will voluntary give away these shares for free to the unemployed?!

To this exact point this is how much of the Soviet Union divided up the public assets, funny thing all the poor people sold there divided paying stocks to the wealthy.  

Who would voluntarily give their shares? When did I say it would work like that?

Nor do I say some government should steal your shares and distribute it for you.

Everyone is part of some community, if you're so greedy that you can't give a percentage of your shares back to the community why should you expect the community to support or protect your business?

It's an advantage for a business to support the community they operate in. I would give some of my shares to my community. That doesn't necessary mean "the poor" or random people. When I say my community that could mean my fraternity, my peer group, the Bitcoin community or any community I choose. Most shares wouldn't be given away but should be easy to earn for the volunteers.

People already are following this distributed ownership business model. They might not give the shares away for free but they let you in on it at pre-IPO when shares are going for pennies.

Look at altcoins for example and you'll see that when altcoins launch they go for pennies. A small community of true believers form around the altcoin. These are the people who actually develop the coin, build value around the coin, etc.

In a DAC if we use that as the example then you'll have people volunteering for shares in the DAC. They aren't supposed to all just be given away. In other cases people mine and get them from that.

I find it strange that in the Bitcoin community where most are poor and own shares in this Bitcoin thing that you think it's a foreign concept that the same familiar process could be used over and over again to solve poverty.

STOP THINKING INSIDE THE BOX!!!

Have a look at my blog article and learn more http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/03/12/autopoietic-computing-and-reality-augmented-autopoietic-social-structures/

[thedarklight]

STOP THINKING INSIDE THE BOX!!!

I'll take a look at your article thanks.

For now, if that was directed at me I'll point out I'm not in this box I'm way outside so fare out people think I'm a Vegan Marxist.

The negative ramifications of  technological unemployment are non issues for me to be honest the image that comes to mind is the "milk" factory in Cloud Atlas. And I'm sure the humans that still have emotions will self correct.

http://youtu.be/WfGMYdalClU this reminded me of this thread.

I don't see technological unemployment as necessarily having negative ramifications that outweigh the long term positive ramifications. It depends on how we deal with it. So we don't need humans to do pointless grunt work anymore? We have machines which build and work for machines?

Now we can be far more efficient in our designs. We don't have to produce as much waste, or destroy the earth because we will have more people taking part in the research and design phase. Intelligent machines can assist with research and design to optimize for survival scenarios which for instance have the lowest carbon footprint.

Technology does not have to be like what you see in Cloud Atlas. Technology liberates people as well. If you watched that movie then you'll realize that it reached that point due to human ignorance.

The same technology which would allow us to build intelligent machines would allow us to remove the veil of ignorance. Our design decisions could be longer term, more efficient, ecologically sustainable, and benefit the community designing it by awarding the shares to the designers.

Human beings are the grand designers, and while intelligent machines will eventually surpass our capability to design, those intelligent machines will still require human feedback to optimize in a way which supports our habitat and along with it our long term survival.

I don't fear technology. I'm no neo-luddite. It's the human being that creates destructive designs, not the tools.
You could use 3d printers to reduce poverty, increase self sufficiency, promote ecological sustainability, or you could use it to make guns and other weapons. The human being decides and most human beings aren't very good at thinking about long term consequences.

[thedarklight]

Marxism is still inside the box. The premises it was based on are based on the industrial mind set. The world we will live in will not resemble that world at all.

We have a new set of problems now and you're better off learning from Star Trek than from Marxism. Marxism is not future proof, it's not scalable, it's based on assumptions.

If you're vegan then you must be excited to know that sooner or later meat will lab grown or be 3d printed, it may actually be healthy to eat meat and no animal will have to suffer.

Technology can lead to radical abundance. Capitalism/communism? Update your software.  

http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/11/26/radical-abundance-by-k-eric-drexler-2013-book-review/

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

I personally view personal incorporation as a pretty valid successor to the current system. Take a read of the incorporated man / incorporated war book series, they aren't perfect but definitely better than capitalism/communism as it actually values each human being in a personal individual way, rather than based off of the chances and opportunities they have had access to throughout their lives.

IE: a poor african child in zambia has most of his shares purchased by an angel investor, and learns that this kid would be able to do some really great things if he went to school, so he pays for  highschool/university and in return expects an income from his future engineering work proportional to the share ownership in that person, and then that angel investor is also owned in part by other speculative investors (maybe his parents or his university) essentially fair, accountable and humane bondage.

[Biomech]

For socialism to work requires that we become something other than human.

Automation and robots are "something other than human", however they are/will be able to do the most of work which humans had performed for millenniums.

Not intending to put words into Biomech's mouth but I guess he meant that we'd have to give up individuality i.e. become hive animals.

That is exactly what I'm saying.

There are *elements* of socialism that could be workable, in a voluntary society. But the whole picture? Only if we become something like the Borg. If that's the vision of the future that most people want, I'll be bowing out.

Luckily, it's not. They just want the freebies, and that eventually comes to a halt.

[giantdragon]

IE: a poor african child in zambia has most of his shares purchased by an angel investor, and learns that this kid would be able to do some really great things if he went to school, so he pays for  highschool/university and in return expects an income from his future engineering work proportional to the share ownership in that person, and then that angel investor is also owned in part by other speculative investors (maybe his parents or his university) essentially fair, accountable and humane bondage.

USSR used the same mechanism (only difference that communist party's bosses took some profit share instead of angel investor's in your example).

There are *elements* of socialism that could be workable, in a voluntary society. But the whole picture? Only if we become something like the Borg. If that's the vision of the future that most people want, I'll be bowing out.

I think it is inevitable! Genetic modifications are need to continue race against machines in the long run, otherwise humans will have no application even in socialism and start degrading when bots do 100% of work.

[skilo]

I personally view personal incorporation as a pretty valid successor to the current system. Take a read of the incorporated man / incorporated war book series, they aren't perfect but definitely better than capitalism/communism as it actually values each human being in a personal individual way, rather than based off of the chances and opportunities they have had access to throughout their lives.

IE: a poor african child in zambia has most of his shares purchased by an angel investor, and learns that this kid would be able to do some really great things if he went to school, so he pays for  highschool/university and in return expects an income from his future engineering work proportional to the share ownership in that person, and then that angel investor is also owned in part by other speculative investors (maybe his parents or his university) essentially fair, accountable and humane bondage.

What happens if the kid can't get a job in the field his angel investors sent him to college for? Would the angel investor just right it off as a bad investment or would the kid still owe a portion of his mcdonalds paycheck to the investor?

This is technically a form of slavery but i guess no more than we already are today where uncle sam expects a portion of your income at the end of the year.