That's 1 out of 3.5 M unemployed.
The profit margin dictates replacing expensive employees with cheaper ones, more employees with fewer employees, at every step. — Vera Mont
You see the same dangers I've pointed out, but you need to drive them to their conclusions first. — Christoffer
The AI that actually will be used, and is already being used to a great degree, is advanced algorithmic AI, synthetic intelligence, neural network intelligence. This is simply an AI that is specifically tailored to a specific function. — Christoffer
Here you actually start to get to the point I'm talking about: the actual collapse of capitalist culture. — Christoffer
throwing the world into a total capitalist collapse and soon follows, as a natural outcome of that chaos... war. — Christoffer
I know that. Also the other way around. There are very powerful forces pitted against public and democratic education in the US right now, and they've been making considerable gains.
Republicans, and white conservatives, have long been hostile to public schools. School desegregation drove white evangelicals to become the strongest Republican demographic. Ronald Reagan promised to end the Department of Education in 1980. Trump put Betsy DeVos in charge of the Department of Education,
At the same time, the same states that curtailed women's reproductive rights and ban books.
There has been an “alarming” surge in book censorship in the United States since last year totaling 1,586 book bans or restrictions in place, according to the director of PEN America, a nonprofit focusing on free speech and literature.
The "we" to which you belong is being pushed to the margins. — Vera Mont
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. Wikipedia
Born: October 20, 1859, Burlington, VT
Died: June 1, 1952, New York, NY — Wikipedia
John Dewey developed a pragmatic theory of inquiry to provide intelligent methods for social progress. He believed that the logic and attitude of successful scientific inquiries, properly conceived, could be fruitfully applied to morals and politics.
Pragmatism and moral progress: John Dewey's theory of ... — Kory Sorrel
It does. And that is how capitalism operates. I pointed it out as a demonstration of that fact. Not because I believe its the ethical thing to do.
My beliefs are that those at the top, ought to have the greatest sense of responsibility and duty to those at the bottom. Not an easy task for sure.
They must exert their knowledge and wisdom and position of power in an effort to serve the most vulnerable/uneducated and protect them from exploitation. They may not even enjoy the responsibility but see it as a duty they must rise to.
If at any point such a leader is not truly serving the foundation of their society, then they ought to resign and let those who are take over the wheel of the ship of humanity.
If one wants to speak for everyone, they had better be sure they have the skills to do so. — Benj96
In addition to funding libraries, he paid for thousands of church organs in the United States and around the world. Carnegie's wealth helped to establish numerous colleges, schools, nonprofit organizations and associations in his adopted country and many others.
Founded: Teachers Insurance and Annuity Ass...
Spouse: Louise Whitfield Carnegie
Works written: The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie's Story — Carnegie Corporation
We already have lots of wars. Climate migrations will start some more. So will the totalitarian backlash that's engulfing more and more democracies. Once the economy breaks down, who pays the warring armies? Who buys the munitions? Who makes the machines? When money stops making money, there will be no more investment; no more capitalists. Once they're gone, whoever takes over the broken pieces of civilization will have to decide what leftover automation they want to keep and to what purpose. I don't know who that will be. Whatever we think of it now won't matter then. — Vera Mont
What a delicious subject! :nerd: The historical Roosevelt family would certainly agree with you. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — Athena
Andrew Carnegie was as morally compromised as Doctor Jeckly and Mr. Hyde. He talked a good talk about the dignity of man and was known as a philanthropist, but when it came to the reality of economic competition he took the wrong side of the coal miners' fight for fair wages. He was cutthroat when it came to getting rich. At the time the science of Darwinism made our industrial reality very ugly, with the elite believing they were superior and entitled, and that created a terrible reality of using and abusing laborers. But Andrew Carnegie met your criteria of benefitting society. — Athena
My family is among these people who did not make the effort to be educated — Athena
With technology, we don't have to draft people into a war and that makes it much easier to hook us into wars that we can carry on without disturbing our daily lives. — Athena
No worry, no one is paying for wars in the US because we do them on credit. — Athena
Local war-lords. By force of arms. Except, they won't be able to get into the rich people's bunkers, which will be occupied by the late rich people's ex-servants and ruled by the self-promoted ex-mercenaries.n the future what will organize the people and how will that organization be maintained? — Athena
The problem with deciphering capitalism is that it doesn't have a constant value. In a poor nation, capitalism can very rapidly improve the quality of life for the people and increase wealth. But as soon as capitalism enters a stage where the majority of the people already have accumulated wealth it starts to tap into just being about cash flow, earnings, and gains. It stops being a system of change and instead becomes a "Baudrillardian eldritch horror" in which people become a slave to it, regardless of whether they want to or not. It starts to corrupt the people and divide them into rich and poor and over time increases that gap until the rich becomes so powerful that they essentially take over power from the government.
This is the state where people start to work themselves to death. Because they're not part of a society that is gaining wealth as a collective but rather has become a new type of slave society. In this new type, people live in an illusion of existential value that they cannot distinguish from any other reality. People lose track of basic existential questions like love and death and replace them with a monetary valuation of status. People start to think they are in love with someone when they're basically just together with them because of the status it produces, they get children because that's a family status, and they have a certain job which is a further acquired status. In the age of the internet, this has also been intensified as people project these statuses out to people surrounding them, further blinding them into this system.
This is the Baudrillardian horror, modern western capitalism has evolved into an unseen monster that people think is "quality life". It's so ingrained into our psychology that we're never even questioning how this life works. Everything we do is part of this capitalist mentality, everything is about some kind of status or monetary gain and loss, and the most obvious sign of this is how much more popular "quick fix" existential treatments have become. The desperate search for "meaning in all the chaos", without people understanding what that chaos really is.
And so, some, like Marx, developed political philosophies that examined the inner workings of capitalism and alternatives to it. But Marx is also outdated since it focuses entirely on the industrial age of development, which had entirely different inner mechanics, especially lacking the Baudrillard perspective.
With so many people in the world today, with such a technological explosion that the last 150 years have produced, it is impossible to maintain a society based on Marx's ideas and it's also impossible to maintain a society of modern capitalism. Because essentially any political philosophy regards the citizen as a cog in a machine, without essential value other than its function.
If these cogs are changed into automation, into robots and we dislocate humans from the traditional machine, then that becomes an existence that has never been available on a large scale before. We are so ingrained in the idea of "work" that people don't know how to manage their time outside of it. It has, throughout history, either been about survival or monetary gain at its core and occasionally, for a few, been a place of meaning. But on a large scale, how can everyone find meaning?
That is the core problem that philosophy and people need to solve when advanced automation starts to reshape society. — Christoffer
I have a problem with Jesus saying to turn our backs on family and put God first. I think there are good reasons to put family and community first. — Athena
I did mention the world's debt-load - with three links to graphs illustrating it. That's what will the break capitalist system: it runs on the expectation of future growth. When expectation outruns the capability for growth, you get a recession or depression. Then the government has to step and recycle the assets. But now, the assets are not available to government: they've been block-chained and bit-coined and legerdemained out of reach.... if they ever existed in the physical world where people need food and shelter.
Wars used to grow economies, both in the arming phase and the rebuilding phase, because people worked their asses off to produce munitions and supplies for the soldiers and the soldiers got paid and spent money and the war profiteers raked in the money and hired more people and invested in peactime construction.
When you wage war on margin, you're gambling with your national economy. And when wars are waged not for territory and resources but hegemony, there is material return for the winning nation.
n the future what will organize the people and how will that organization be maintained?
— Athena
Local war-lords. By force of arms. Except, they won't be able to get into the rich people's bunkers, which will be occupied by the late rich people's ex-servants, ruled by the self-promoted mercenaries. — Vera Mont
It's the large organized religions, washing hands with the secular elites, that promoted uncontrolled fecundity, to ensure unlimited cheap labour and expendable armies for their wars. — Vera Mont
If you can't have "decided principles" through religion, then the principles need to have a rational, logical, and empathic core that automatically makes people gravitate toward that logical good as doing otherwise would lead to misery. A truly liberal society free from religion requires the people to understand morality as a system that is logical and not decided upon them. — Christoffer
You speak of modern economic realities that I know very little about. — Athena
Regulation, tax reform, public works, welfare legislation. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/ Similar measures were taken by the Bennett government in Canada. In some other countries, of course, the political upheaval knocked down existing regimes.How does a government step in and recycle assets? — Athena
I think if we are serious about defending our democracy, we also need to get serious about replacing the autocratic model of the industry with the democratic model. — Athena
Do we want a future that is ruled by a force of arms and self-promoted mercenaries? — Athena
Oh, oh, I think we are getting further and further off the topic of labor and technology, — Athena
Greeks. Those oddballs didn't think highly of a god of war and they were too retarded to have an empire. Although they did colonize much of the known world. — Athena
new Star Trek Generation is "group think" and less individualistic. — Athena
How does a government step in and recycle assets?
— Athena
Regulation, tax reform, public works, welfare legislation. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/ Similar measures were taken by the Bennett government in Canada. In some other countries, of course, the political upheaval knocked down existing regimes.
I think if we are serious about defending our democracy, we also need to get serious about replacing the autocratic model of the industry with the democratic model.
— Athena
The trouble is, not enough of you (and not enough of us, either) are serious enough about it to stop the large minority that are eager to destroy it outright. The destroyers have a huge advantage: they're never hampered by truth, principles or scruples. — Vera Mont
I know it's off topic, but as an SF aficionado, I have to defend the Star Trek personnel. Starfleet is a military organization, with a chain of command and uniforms and all that, (and Kirk was a bit of a maverick) They're not supposed to be independent individuals. There is plenty of individualism and scholarship in the civilian population of their time, as well as entrepreneurship - just no money used in the Federation. — Vera Mont
h that's a shame. Perhaps you are the new enlightened family member that shows them how the world works and how to empower themselves to lead a more fruitful life?
Education can be be recieved from others or from the self (through rigorous/thorough and balanced observation - all things considered).
We ought to listen to wise teachers. And when our wisdom parallels or overcomes theirs, we ought to offer it in turn to those less educated. It's our duty to give those tools to the ones without them, level the playing field as it were. Restore the balance to avoid exploitation. — Benj96
Now back to Roosevelt and the New Deal. Hoover and Roosevelt worked together to give us a fascist form of government. That is leaving property in the hands of private owners, but regulating industry. — Athena
When was this? In which decades of its existence was the US not engaged in any armed conflict? — Vera Mont
Big War Spikes
There have been four major spikes in US defense spending since the 1790s.
Big Spikes in Defense Spending
Chart 2.33: Big Spikes in Defense Spending
Viewed across the two centuries of US power, defense spending shows four spikes. It spiked at nearly 12 percent of GDP in the Civil War of the 1860s (not including spending by the rebels). It spiked at 22 percent in World War I. It spiked at 41 percent in World War II, and again at nearly 15 percent of GDP during the Korean War.
Defense spending exceeded 10 percent of GDP for one year in the 19th century and 19 years in the 20th century. The last year in which defense spending hit 10 percent of GDP was 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.
The peak of defense spending during the Iraq conflict was 5.66 percent GDP in 2010. — Christopher Chantrill
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973#
War Powers Resolution of 1973
“...to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution...and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities."
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (also known as the War Powers Act) "is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.” As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch’s power when committing U.S. military forces to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. It stipulates the president must notify Congress within 48 hours of military action and prohibits armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days.
Not until after the capitalists broke all their toys and a millions of lives. I don't think they could have nationalized industry - or very much else - given the popular mind-set. Obviously, what call fascism is not quite congruent with my definition. — Vera Mont
Fascism
In terms of economics, fascism incorporates elements of both capitalism and socialism. Fascist economists advocate for self-sufficiency and individual profit, but promote government subsidies of corporations. Fascist economics thus supports a blend of both private and public ownership over the means of production—there is an emphasis on private profit, but at the same time, the national interest is ultimately more important.
https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2020/07/capitalism-socialism-or-fascism-a-guide-to-economic-systems-and-ideologies/
Unfortunately, I can not copy and paste the charts of US military spending — Athena
That's right. Not at first. The ambitions grew with the successes; since the Monroe Doctrine, their scope and reach kept growing until they were a World Power, Big Four, Policeman of the World, NATO boss, The West, the top banana. That's expensive. Especially when you start losing.And I offer this evidence that the US was not interested in being the military power it is today... — Athena
How did the capitalists break the system? — Athena
Do you really? How did demand for oil cause the 1929 market crash?I think our economy goes up and down in relation to the supply of oil and its demand... — Athena
I wish but the last thing the young want is advice from an old person. Books advise grandmas to hold their tongues and experience has taught me the wisdom of what they say. — Athena
The people that know us best - our strengths and weaknesses, are family, right? — Benj96
A grandchild can be as knowledgeable a book worm as they like in life but if they don't feel cared for, listened to, in this individualistic, materialist society they are growing up in then I'd imagine theyd feel pretty lonely and isolated. — Benj96
The more fundamental truth of things doesnt change with time otherwise it wouldn't be the truth of the matter would it? And wisdom I guess is being able to define those same base values in a system or society that is forever changing. — Benj96
heaven's forbid grandmas should give advice about raising children — Athena
. I am hoping men will become better husbands and fathers. — Athena
Our women have the freedom of barbarians and I do not mean that as a compliment. — Athena
Now that is a true philosophical statement. I love it! :heart: I have to go to work. I will ponder what you said and look forward to getting back to you. — Athena
America was never about family and God! It's always been about wealth, power and conflict. — Vera Mont
The more fundamental truth of things doesnt change with time otherwise it wouldn't be the truth of the matter would it? And wisdom I guess is being able to define those same base values in a system or society that is forever changing. — Benj96
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