What does being proven wrong by history mean? That it changes and disappears? Then history has proved everything wrong, and it will continue to prove everything wrong (in terms of social organisation that is).Your bucolic idealization is just that, history has always proved it wrong or is there any doubt that social inequity was a major contributing factor to the French Revolution. — Cavacava
One basic human fact is that people get bored. Another basic human fact is that people like arbitrariness and freedom, and detest being forced to do things. Your utopia of equality, etc. involves (1) maintaining the same regime forever, and (2) forcing people to fit in certain norms. So it will fail, it's against human nature.People are people, basics human facts don't change, you wrote your own rebuttal. — Cavacava
So whoever manipulates others the best ought to govern?My "Utopia" is democracy in which equality is striven for and not stiffed by a rich aristocracy. — Cavacava
Will that justice be enforced? At least with a despot you have an enemy, you can go after him. But with the law, who can you go after? That's why the law was invented - nobody is responsible anymore - the law is blamed. The law orders the Nazi officer to yank the Jews out of their homes and to the gas chambers they go... So he knocks on the door "Sorry ma'am. It's the law, I'm forced to now yank you from your home and put you on this train. My apologies, I'm just obeying the law. If you want, you can file a complaint on the train later".My "Utopia" is a just society under rules of law. — Cavacava
I agree, I never said it is just.What you have outline is not, and cannot constitute a just society. — Cavacava
Will that justice be enforced? At least with a despot you have an enemy, you can go after him. But with the law, who can you go after? That's why the law was invented - nobody is responsible anymore - the law is blamed. The law orders the Nazi officer to yank the Jews out of their homes and to the gas chambers they go... So he knocks on the door "Sorry ma'am. It's the law, I'm forced to now yank you from your home and put you on this train. My apologies, I'm just obeying the law. If you want, you can file a complaint on the train later". — Agustino
Exactly - so the law is actually only as good as the people behind it. That means that whether it's based on the law, or based on the dictates of a supreme leader, what matters the most is the wisdom of the people behind the system, not the system itself. I also draw attention to the fact that a tyrannical law is worse than a tyrannical dictator since it legitimises tyranny and makes it acceptable.Why would you counterpose the Holocaust against law? The nazis made a sham of the law, replacing it with the rule of persons like Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, et al. — Bitter Crank
The nazis made a sham of the law, replacing it with the rule of persons like Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, et al. — Bitter Crank
...are you a classical Marxist? — fishfry
This sounds a bit like the line of questioning in the House Unamerican Activities Committee..."Are you now, or were you ever a member of the Communist Party?" — Bitter Crank
if you look at the condition of the public schools in poor neighborhoods, you see that it's not working. — fishfry
The rich do get richer but the cake also gets bigger over time. — BlueBanana
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this assertion you make follows this line of logic; equality among society is good, therefore inequality among a society must be bad. I would COMPLETELY disagree with this. Everyone is different. Everyone has differing values, experiences, and perceptions that are all unique to their own individual existence on this Earth. Therefore, claiming everyone should be equal is preposterous! What good does being equal do? Where is the incentive to strive for a better life? Your sense of life purpose would greatly diminish.In an fair [equal] society everyone would get the same amount of slices. — Purple Pond
This is totally flawed.Money. There is a limited supply of money in the world (the money pie). When there are more rich people getting more money, somebody has to be getting less, namely the poor. — Purple Pond
Time. A disadvantaged person's time is worth much less than a privileged person. Therefore the poor have to work longer hours and get less pay (less of the pie). — Purple Pond
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this assertion you make follows this line of logic; equality among society is good, therefore inequality among a society must be bad. I would COMPLETELY disagree with this. Everyone is different.. — Austin Owens
If Bill Gates earns more money today, how do I become poorer tomorrow? There is only less money in the world if I don't work hard, and choose not to take advantage of opportunities. There's no finite amount of dollar bills circulating around. I mean, it's not infinite, but it might as well be. — Austin Owens
We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Oprah, Bill gates and Tome Cruise are all successful (privileged) people. What got them their success? Is their time more magical than my own? Of course not. What separates these people is HOW they spend their time. — Austin Owens
Side note: some people begin life's journey as poor, and end up becoming some of the greatest success stories (Oprah Winfrey) — Austin Owens
I may have badly worded my OP but that's not what I believe at all. I don't think we should live in an equal society, nor am I saying that some inequality is necessarily bad. — Purple Pond
i disagree. What happens when the economy is bad? People start saving and they don't spend it. This is where you feel the effects money not in circulation. If every rich person kept a lot of their money in banks and never spend it, believe me, it would hurt you financially. So yes, if bill gates gets richer the rest of society get's that much poorer. — Purple Pond
No we don't. Most of us have to spend a good chunk of the day working just to makes ends meat. And who do we work for? Richer people. We're essentially giving them our time. All the while the super-rich practically don't have to spend a minute working. They could just live off their investments. Not to mention all the people spending their time working for them. They have surplus time. — Purple Pond
Then why do conservatives want tax breaks for the rich? We're always hearing how giving the rich more money to spend and invest will boost the economy. Here's a whole article arguing for just that. https://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/taxes-wealthy-economy-opinions-contributors-alex-brill-chad-hill.html#45b823f862a0The 1% of wealth in this country does not move the economy when it's up OR down. The middle class does. — Austin Owens
The "law" is really an automatisation of justice, much like Bitcoin would be an automatisation of payment systems. If you look at human history the trend is to go from less automatisation to more automatisation. But there is a problem that is often forgotten with moving from less automatisation to more. The more automatisation there is, the more inescapable control there exists, and the less freedom in the real sense of the term. In other words, people are more and more removed from the decision-making process. And the way the system is setup is that those who control what the laws are can always blame the law for the oppression of their brethren - ie, we're just following the law. They no longer have to assume full responsibility.On the contrary. Everything the Nazis did was strictly according to the law. Of course the law itself became corrupt. Perhaps that's what you meant. But that shows that even the "rule of law" can be problematic. We see such instances in the contemporary news from time to time. — fishfry
Labor theory of value and all that? — fishfry
The "law" is really an automatisation of justice, much like Bitcoin would be an automatisation of payment systems. If you look at human history the trend is to go from less automatisation to more automatisation. But there is a problem that is often forgotten with moving from less automatisation to more. The more automatisation there is, the more inescapable control there exists, and the less freedom in the real sense of the term. — Agustino
Everyone would submit orders for all products to a central computer. — Agustino
Yes. Recently I have had quite some trouble with my local banker for exactly this reason. Nobody is willing to take responsibility, they all blame the procedures, shrug their shoulders, and say there's nothing they can do. Or one decision-maker sends you to another decision-maker who sends you back to the first decision-maker >:O .That fits nicely with some thoughts I have.
The risk isn't computers acting like people. The risk is people acting like computers.
Every time you're trying to explain your particular situation to a bureaucrat and they stonewall you with "policy," that's a system that's operating like an algorithm, to the detriment of the human in particular and humanity in general.
Every time a cop shoots an unarmed civilian in a bad shoot and the chief says, "Our officer followed departmental procedures," well DUH, your procedures need to be changed then. You need to train cops not to shoot the wrong people. It's literally impossible to foresee every situation. You have to train people to have a heart, not a flow chart.
Our worry about AI is misplaced. We need to start looking at the way we treat each other. No computer could be any worse to us than we already are. — fishfry
It's not top-down. It is true that the computer decides what gets produced, but it decides so based on the quantified will of the people. If there are two orders, for product A and product B, and there aren't enough resources to produce both, then the one with the higher price will get produced first. So if someone is willing to pay more for A, that is a suggestion that relative to B, A is worth more.You have to let the system make decisions organically from the bottom up. Top down control has been a bloody awful failure in China and the Soviet Union and Venezuela and Cuba. I don't understand how one could advocate for this and still hope to have a human society. — fishfry
Money. There is a limited supply of money in the world (the money pie). When there are more rich people getting more money, somebody has to be getting less, namely the poor. — Purple Pond
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