[rm_-rf_slash]

Stephen Hawking made a great point last year when he wrote that automation/robots aren't the problem, capitalism is the problem.

Most of the world takes for granted a system that allocates resources and the results of production in a way that encourages the highest profits with the least costs. Since humans are the highest cost, they are the biggest target for automation.

We have a golden opportunity to create a better, more equitable way of living now and in the future. Let's not let this moment go to waste.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15

[jayjay71]

How do you think the new governments will unfold? Will there be gradual changes in multiple countries around the world, or will there be violent uprisings?

Historically speaking, at least in the United States, the citizens are far less powerful than the state simply due to the imbalance in weapons. The point of the 2nd amendment was so the people would be more powerful than the government, but due to the ban on machine guns and numerous other restrictions, I don't think anybody would argue the masses have nearly as much firepower as the military/police.

Exciting times ahead? I have to agree it feels like a change is coming, mostly due to the rapidly growing number of humans and dwindling of limited resources combined with growing inequality, but it's hard to predict what will happen (if anything) and when.

You think we'll see anything resembling a post-capitalist society in our lifetimes?

[aluhut]

If the last decades have shown something, then that firepower is not really relevant for resistance.

I think a corporate government model may jump in if the anti-terror infrastructure can't handle it at some point.

[rayiner]

I'm not sure that matters, as long as people have some sort of guns. Watch the show Jericho. The bulwark against tyranny is an all-volunteer military. The real threat is replacing Iowan boys with robots.

[douche]

In the event of a popular uprising, the semi-automatic hunting rifles owned by many of the public would actually be more effective against police/military units and their body armor than many military rounds. .30-06 has more power behind it and leaves a bigger hole than 5.56 NATO.

[JoeAltmaier]

True, but rate-of-fire is often the more important feature of a weapon.

[dbcurtis]

May all your enemies be on full auto.

The AK-47 and AR-15/M-16 are products of the doctrine of area fire. The M1 Garrand is a product of the doctrine of aimed fire. WW II was aimed fire. Aimed fire sucked in the jungle wars with fewer open field battles.

Hunting rifles are good for a sniper-based, aimed-fire guerilla action. A battle between farm boys and Marines will be asymetric.

[smileysteve]

Part of enabling the masses to go to war with the government is that if the war is long/wopsided enough then there are no more masses to be governed.

[evgen]

> The point of the 2nd amendment was so the people would be more powerful than the government

Sorry to drag this off-tangent, but that statement is not even close to the reality of why the 2nd amendment was proposed or ratified and you should really stop saying it. It makes a nice post-hoc fairy tale for NRA types, but you desperately need to read some history of the colonial period...

[JoeAltmaier]

Denial isn't the same thing as argument. The text of the 2nd Amendment is pretty starkly clear.

[evgen]

The text of the 2nd Amendment is quite clear. Especially the first thirteen words.

Those words are obvious to anyone who understand the history of the period, what those words meant at the time, and the arguments made in favor of the amendment. But for some strange reason everyone seems to forget they exist or claim that they are some rhetorical flourish that is found nowhere else in the first ten amendments.

So please, show off for us and explain them.

[jayjay71]

Enlighten me.

[evgen]

tl;dr:

* 'Yay! We are free from English tyranny'

* 'Hey, this is kind of a shitty neighborhood and the English might be back, we need an army.'

* 'Nah, armies are the tools of tyrants. We need a citizen militia, that will work.'

* 'Yeah, but they need to practice because we have seen how poorly these guys fight and if it weren't for our French friends and these German mercs we would have been toast'

* 'Okay, then we should practice. Now the general rule is that if you run a regulated (aka 'practiced') militia you also provide the cannons, beer and chips for the post-practice party, and you provide everyone with their gun. In case you haven't noticed we have been kiting bad checks for the past couple of years and our finances are somewhat...illiquid.'

* 'New plan. We tell our guys they need to bring their own gun. A lot have them already, so we make these BYOG militias.'

* 'Cool idea, let's write this down and stuff it in to the new amendments.'

[Yes, I am compressing a bit more than a decade of the post-revolutionary period under the articles of confederation and numerous state-level disagreements. Think of this as a simplified road map. The 2A was more about the poverty of colonial state governments than anything else.]

[mvitorino]

95% of people used to work in agriculture and now less than 5% do in most modern countries and also, as a result, there is a lot more food to go around.

Automation has been around for a while now. It's not a new problem and hasn't caused society to collapse yet.

As to alternatives to Capitalism, Communism was one that promised a more "equitable" way of living...

[majewsky]

Ah, the old fallacy that absence of capitalism equals communism. Yet humankind existed for millenia before either system was introduced.

[mvitorino]

That is not what I said. I merely mentioned that one of the possible alternatives was Communism. I do not know any alternatives that have worked and instead of pointing out a non existing fallacy, I would expect someone to actually point to viable alternative to Capitalism instead of simply being critics of it.

Also Capitalism is as old as the notion of personal property which predates any notion of State.

[phaemon]

It is not. Barter is not capitalism. Cottage industry is not capitalism.

Google 'history of capitalism' and you'll see.

[JoeAltmaier]

It's more inefficient than Capitalism, which is its Achilles heel. Socialism works when there is 'free' production to fuel it. Like in the Netherlands. It fails when the money stops pumping in, like Venezuela. Automation may provide the free input that makes a more humane (more Socialist) system work for everybody?

[mvitorino]

There is no such thing as free production because resources are not unlimited.

[PeterisP]

There is such a thing as production decoupled from labor.

We still need a way to allocate the limited resources, but the primary way to do can't be labor/salaries anymore - because in the near future, unlike all the past millenia, labor of most people is simply not needed for optimum production.

[mvitorino]

I can't think of a single industry that has been able to completely decouple production from labor. Even something as simple as subway ticketing machines or vending machines require technicians to deploy and maintain them. Sure, most people that sold tickets lost that job, but economies have always found a new occupation for most.

Seems to me most have exaggerated expectations of the impact of automation.

[JoeAltmaier]

No, most have underestimated the effect. A factory that used to have hundreds of workers and a few engineers and technicians, now has just a few engineers and technicians. That's effectively a decoupling of production from labor, however you want to look at it.

Automation of production has been explosive in the last few years. Companies that automate factories have a critical shortage of practical Engineers (no don't get excited; its one automation Engineer for every million people out of work). Automation Engineering requires a working knowledge of mechanical, electrical, chemical and information systems. My Niece flies all around the world installing and controlling automation, and her company cannot find qualified candidates to fill the demand.

[JoeAltmaier]

Oil out of the ground is the nearest thing then. Once its automated, it has negligible marginal human cost.

Or, did that mean something about 'poor planet we're exhausting its resources'? Then never mind.

[nationcrafting]

Are you saying resources get hurled into space when we use them?

Also, value can increase in a finite resources environment. For example, my iphone is worth a lot more, and is a lot more useful, than the materials it's made of.