Economic Devastation

[AnonyMint]

blablahblah, I will try to find some time to reply to you later.

Something from my private email:

Technology needs to enable us to devalue material, fungible savings (tangible items) and up-value knowledge which is not fungible.

That will eliminate the economies-of-scale which create the power vacuum of significance.

> "The cycles of megadeath will continue to repeat throughout history." Do
you not agree that if technology and culture both shift towards real knowledge and enlightenment (high functioning PFC when dumbing down protocol is destroyed), then these cycles will be far less likely to occur?
> I wholeheartedly agree with your view about the technology.  However, I
think your natural analytical reductionist vision is a critical part of a holistic system based on nature and mathematics which includes an organic component that cannot be ignored. We seem to be working as a ying yang system to balance the equation.   Your mechanistic
reductionist clarity is unmatched. There is much power there, yet it needs balance.  I have that tendency as well but not to the degree you do.
> A phrase you've often used that resonates deeply with me both on the
mathematical/analytical level and the organic/holistic plane is the concept of knowledge constantly annealing towards a more perfect or accurate reality, which is exactly the exquisite process of tweaking the complex information system of DNA in natural selection to achieve
maximum fitness.  These processes reflect the natural order of universal energy dynamics.
> Maybe this will help you bridge another gap.  Our minds have been
programmed to get stuck in false dichotomies.  Your vision is clear and brilliant, you just need some context so others can grasp it.
>
>

>> Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 00:40:18 -0500
>> Subject: Damn it Martin, you know real democracy can't exist
>> From: AnonyMint
>>
>> http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/12/04/electronic-money-taxes/
>>
>> Martin, why are you deluding yourself?
>>
>> Read it from 160 IQ genius Eric S Raymond:
>>
>> Some Iron Laws of Political Economics
>> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984
>>
>> There can never be a sustained "real democracy" because the economics
of democracy is a power vacuum.
>>
>> If you can't understand that a power vacuum isn't replaced by any good
intentions no matter how sincere and no matter how many people join them, then you are just stoopid.
>>
>> So that is depressing. Yes it is. There is no solution. The cycles of
megadeath will continue to repeat throughout history.
>>
>> Actually there is one slim hope for a change. And it is technological. And you don't understand. If you want to understand, contact me and I will
explain to you in great detail over the phone.
>>
>>
>

[AnonyMint]

Embodied (in prior post) is the implication that local politics a la Catherine Austin Fitts is more resilient due to the Dunbar limit wherein humans can handle the trust issues more accurately on the local community scale.

If humans are not expending their effort to accumulate tangible items, because they are simply not that essential to survival, i.e. the 7 lean years become a non-issue, then we will have moved to a higher plane.

> Thanks, I know.  I believe we could achieve that end now if humanity was
> more rational. The knowledge and information is there.  Only 1% of the
> population uses it effectively.


http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/12/09/taxes-alter-behavior/

"It is time we seriously look at ending the income taxes and stop the borrowing funding government by just increasing the money supply keeping it within 5% of GDP which a central statistical agency calculates for ALL nations eliminating political manipulation."

Your response to the problem of a power vacuum is to increase the economy-of-scale for the vested interests in Brussels!

This really looks like you are working for them! Did you become corrupted in order to get out of prison?

You are a very smart man, so how is it that you believe we can hold a global authority accountable to only calculate 5% of per-nation GDP as tax and force the nations to adhere to it?

Think it out! In order for the global authority to have the power to enforce it, then it also has to power to control the 5% of the GDP tax, meaning it effectively is the beneficiary of the tax. Meaning it can change the rules with the power and resources we've handed to it in your proposal.

This is utter BS!

What we need instead is to remove that power vacuum. It is a very difficult problem to solve, and the solution is technological if any. Not political.

[CoinCube]

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/03/27/are-we-head-to-a-mad-max-scenario/
(Armstrong spent $20 million on research to construct the silver chart on that linked page above)

This chart is very interesting. Never seen it before. Basically it says that everything started go very badly for Rome back in 241 and it was pretty much all down hill from there.

Any Roman history buffs out there? I thought Rome fell to barbarians around 400AD. What was going on in  241 AD?


Edit: minor-transgression posted an excellent Summary of Roman History that describes in detail the gradual decline of its currency.

[aminorex]

Rome was in constant civil war, run by the military, which was constantly infighting.  Diocletian is generally blamed for debasing the currency, in the 280s.

[Malooka]

If you are arguing that automation will lead to long-term unemployment, I think you are wrong.  Authors have written extensively on this subject since the 1900s (and perhaps earlier).  Many were worried that machines would replace men.  What we have seen is that automation simply results in higher efficiency and unforseen job opportunities on the automation side.  This seems obvious to me, so you must be arguing something else despite what I'm reading here.

Around 4.1 million people work in fast food right now just in the US.

What sort of "unforeseen job opportunities" will be awaiting them? 

And how will most of them increase their IQ enough to obtain such jobs?

[LostDutchman]

[Rassah]

Around 4.1 million people work in fast food right now just in the US.

What sort of "unforeseen job opportunities" will be awaiting them? 

And how will most of them increase their IQ enough to obtain such jobs?

They will work part time while taking college and university classes in the evenings or weekends, and then have middle to upper class level employment opportunities in whatever they studdied and got degrees in. That's what I did when I worked in fast food.

[Kungfucheez]

If you are arguing that automation will lead to long-term unemployment, I think you are wrong.  Authors have written extensively on this subject since the 1900s (and perhaps earlier).  Many were worried that machines would replace men.  What we have seen is that automation simply results in higher efficiency and unforseen job opportunities on the automation side.  This seems obvious to me, so you must be arguing something else despite what I'm reading here.

Around 4.1 million people work in fast food right now just in the US.

What sort of "unforeseen job opportunities" will be awaiting them? 

And how will most of them increase their IQ enough to obtain such jobs?

Any job they are willing to train for.

Automation is good thing for production, and all those workers will just naturally migrate to other fields over time as different jobs become available. This is very old news

[aminorex]

Increasingly unlikely over time.  Too many humans, too much technology.  Value of labor tends to zero.  Education exists to indoctrinate and remove surplus labor supply.  To pay for it, the products become wage slaves, but it is mostly make-work, pushing paper, or light servant work.  Most of the working people in the economy are already superfluous.  That situation is getting worse, not better. 

I am one of the elite knowledge workers.  I am still a wage-slave and a servant, but my work is interesting, stimulating, pleasant, and my compensation includes first-class travel, and about 10x the average worker in fiat.  Very few people can get into this sort of arrangement.

I used to be a dirt farmer.  The work was hard and life was rich, but I was poor.  Eventually it became untenable to farm except on a very large capital-intensive scale, and I had to do something else.

Most service occupations (the largest sector in the developed world) will be obsoleted soon, by automation.

Manufacturing is done in the third world.

What is left is finance (autophagy, slave-raiding), logistics, and security (defending the oligarchs from the masses).

Knowledge work is being commodified as well.  Soon a machine will be able to do any knowledge work better than a human.  Probably during my lifetime.

When every job is done better by a machine than by a human, humans have no jobs.  It's that simple. The social contract must adapt, will adapt, either by evolution or by revolution.

[LostDutchman]

Increasingly unlikely over time.  Too many humans, too much technology.  Value of labor tends to zero.  Education exists to indoctrinate and remove surplus labor supply.  To pay for it, the products become wage slaves, but it is mostly make-work, pushing paper, or light servant work.  Most of the working people in the economy are already superfluous.  That situation is getting worse, not better. 

I am one of the elite knowledge workers.  I am still a wage-slave and a servant, but my work is interesting, stimulating, pleasant, and my compensation includes first-class travel, and about 10x the average worker in fiat.  Very few people can get into this sort of arrangement.

I used to be a dirt farmer.  The work was hard and life was rich, but I was poor.  Eventually it became untenable to farm except on a very large capital-intensive scale, and I had to do something else.

Most service occupations (the largest sector in the developed world) will be obsoleted soon, by automation.

Manufacturing is done in the third world.

What is left is finance (autophagy, slave-raiding), logistics, and security (defending the oligarchs from the masses).

Knowledge work is being commodified as well.  Soon a machine will be able to do any knowledge work better than a human.  Probably during my lifetime.

When every job is done better by a machine than by a human, humans have no jobs.  It's that simple. The social contract must adapt, will adapt, either by evolution or by revolution.

Very interesting; well-written and cogent.

Thank you for your post.

My $.02.

[Kungfucheez]

Increasingly unlikely over time.  Too many humans, too much technology.  Value of labor tends to zero.  Education exists to indoctrinate and remove surplus labor supply.  To pay for it, the products become wage slaves, but it is mostly make-work, pushing paper, or light servant work.  Most of the working people in the economy are already superfluous.  That situation is getting worse, not better. 

I am one of the elite knowledge workers.  I am still a wage-slave and a servant, but my work is interesting, stimulating, pleasant, and my compensation includes first-class travel, and about 10x the average worker in fiat.  Very few people can get into this sort of arrangement.

I used to be a dirt farmer.  The work was hard and life was rich, but I was poor.  Eventually it became untenable to farm except on a very large capital-intensive scale, and I had to do something else.

Most service occupations (the largest sector in the developed world) will be obsoleted soon, by automation.

Manufacturing is done in the third world.

What is left is finance (autophagy, slave-raiding), logistics, and security (defending the oligarchs from the masses).

Knowledge work is being commodified as well.  Soon a machine will be able to do any knowledge work better than a human.  Probably during my lifetime.

When every job is done better by a machine than by a human, humans have no jobs.  It's that simple. The social contract must adapt, will adapt, either by evolution or by revolution.

I'm...not exactly sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying the world will slowly turn into the Matrix and we'll have to eventually fight the machines and become their slaves? And then be harvested for battery power and have to save Zion?

[LostDutchman]

I'm...not exactly sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying the world will slowly turn into the Matrix and we'll have to eventually fight the machines and become their slaves? And then be harvested for battery power and have to save Zion?

Not certain what you mean by that one, so could you please elaborate a bit?

Thanks in advance.

[Rassah]

We used to have to calculate everything using paper and pencil, and memorize multiplication tables. Now we have calculators. We used to have to memorize facts, encyplopedias, and history. Now we can easily look up those things through google and wikipedia. I don't understand why with computers becoming ever more advanced, we won't just continue to use them to supplement our own thinking the same way we did with calculators, google, etc.

[Kungfucheez]

We used to have to calculate everything using paper and pencil, and memorize multiplication tables. Now we have calculators. We used to have to memorize facts, encyplopedias, and history. Now we can easily look up those things through google and wikipedia. I don't understand why with computers becoming ever more advanced, we won't just continue to use them to supplement our own thinking the same way we did with calculators, google, etc.

Except technology is not meant to be a substitute to thinking. Google, calculators, encyclopedias, computers, machines; they are tools. Their main purpose is to make work more efficient for the average person, but that is not a substitute for abstract thought and knowledge.  

[Malooka]

Around 4.1 million people work in fast food right now just in the US.

What sort of "unforeseen job opportunities" will be awaiting them? 

And how will most of them increase their IQ enough to obtain such jobs?

They will work part time while taking college and university classes in the evenings or weekends, and then have middle to upper class level employment opportunities in whatever they studdied and got degrees in. That's what I did when I worked in fast food.

Not sure what country you're living in but if you've looked at the striking fast food workers in America... well, most of them aren't college material, to put it politely.  All are not born with the same intellectual capacity.

[Kungfucheez]

Around 4.1 million people work in fast food right now just in the US.

What sort of "unforeseen job opportunities" will be awaiting them?  

And how will most of them increase their IQ enough to obtain such jobs?

They will work part time while taking college and university classes in the evenings or weekends, and then have middle to upper class level employment opportunities in whatever they studdied and got degrees in. That's what I did when I worked in fast food.

Not sure what country you're living in but if you've looked at the striking fast food workers in America... well, most of them aren't college material, to put it politely.  All are not born with the same intellectual capacity.

Woah there. Says who, you? How do you know the intellectual capacity of every fast-food worker? That seems awfully ignorant to assume those individuals, who reserve the same rights as all human beings do, that they are not somehow entitled to the same education as you or I. Nor should they be denied those rights to a decent wage and a decent education merely on the assumption that they are somehow "less" important then you. This is the very essence of discrimination.

[Rassah]

Not sure what country you're living in but if you've looked at the striking fast food workers in America... well, most of them aren't college material, to put it politely.  All are not born with the same intellectual capacity.

I'm from US. They can strike, or actually do something *shrug* I'd like to think that idiocy is a choice, and can be cured by education. I know the guy working at Subway where I get my lunch every day is on a student visa from India, and is currently working on his Master's.

[Impaler]

IF (and I emphasis IF) it comes to pass that the value of labor has so fully collapsed that it becomes completely untenable for most of the population to be supported on wage labor then I expect our society will respond with either.

Some kind of minimum wage subsidy in which people are subsidized to work, the Earned income tax credit is a crude form of this.

Some kind of subsistence needs voucher program for the poor, again food stamps being a form of this.

Basically America would respond with BIGGER versions of the things it is already doing for the early stages of this problem.  But people still believe their work is valuable (and I'd argue it still is) and still believe that education is a way to climb up (it but narrowing) so the social fabric around work and poverty assistance hasn't changed.  If the fact AND the realization that labor is worthless and that no educational ladder exists that would allow a person to produce valuable labor, then we would experience a huge rupture in social fabric and attitudes towards work.  I can't quite say what what would happen but I'm doubtful the initial American response solutions would be tenable in the face of major attitude changes about work as these responses have been engendered by the current or arguably decades past attitudes.

Some responses which I think would be a bit less dystopian would be to restricting work hours as technology reduces required labor such that the remaining labor gets redistributed to the full populous and it's value remains artificially high due to scarcity.  This might run into significant educational barriers as the devaluation will probably not be equal across


Lastly I would recommend David Brins 'Kiln People' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiln_People simply for it's examination of the devaluation of labor that is a side effect of the main plot device, the creation of cheap, disposable 'golems' that can perform all labor.  It's not quite equivalent to automation because golems act a multipliers and allow only the highly highly skilled to do ALL the work.  In a sense it is more a winner-take-all kind of labor market rather then one of total automation renders all labor worthless.  I find this more likely a scenario as even in the total replacement scenario their would have to be an intermediate stage in which all but the most elite laborers have been squeezed out.  Presumably these few exemplary individuals will consist of poetic geniuses, Playboy centerfolds and or NFL linebackers will be preserved because of they are essentially highly specialized freaks of nature operating in fields where automatic can't substitute... yet.

[aminorex]

Presumably these few exemplary individuals will consist of poetic geniuses, Playboy centerfolds and or NFL linebackers will be preserved because of they are essentially highly specialized freaks of nature operating in fields where automatic can't substitute... yet.

Centerfolds are immediately eligible for replacement.  I find it hard to understand how any human model could be useful for print work today.  Motion work, okay, that's 5 years off, but print?  C'mon.  Poetic genius, very nearly, perhaps 5 years.  Linebackers, however, are debatable.  Either they can be replaced by 2 years of focused effort with a robot, or they can't ever be replaced because humanity is an intrinsic qualification.   If the consumer/advertising system doesn't atrophy and starve league sport, I would expect a large chunk to become robotic, like the Hugh Jackman movie a year or so back.  Doubt robosport can ever really replace human sport, but it will certainly displace a chunk, and attenuate the revenues, salaries.
 

[aminorex]

When every job is done better by a machine than by a human, humans have no jobs.  It's that simple. The social contract must adapt, will adapt, either by evolution or by revolution.

I'm...not exactly sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying the world will slowly turn into the Matrix ...

No.  I'm saying the social contract must be homeostatic, but the current social contract will diverge due to technological change.  Societies must plan to re-organize, or they will be re-organized without a plan.  I don't mean to imply centralization when I say "organize", although certainly hegemons will prefer centralized re-organization.  I think of decentral re-organization, through co-operating communities of interest, as an appealing opportunity to remove parasitic, degrading, and abusive entrenched centralized power structures.