[SequoiaHope]

I’ve researched this extensively and I’m convinced we could have done this in the developed world starting 100 years ago, but individuals in a position of power preferred to accumulate wealth themselves rather than distribute earnings equitably.

So I don’t believe an automated utopia is going to happen automatically. We’ve got to work to create corporate structures that naturally reward all of the workers instead of a few at the top. Cooperatively run companies are one way to do this. If the major companies of our world were cooperatives, a wide swath of the population would gain the wealth our world is increasingly producing.

But technology alone won’t solve the problem. We need to intentionally structure our society in a way that makes this socialist utopia possible. That’s what I study and I’m trying to figure it out. I’m also a robotics engineer.

[technobabble]

> and I’m convinced we could have done this in the developed world starting 100 years ago

I'm interested in reading more about this. Do you have books/research papers you recommend?

[SequoiaHope]

Well, I’ve definitely found Chomsky’s work helpful as a libertarian socialist critique of the state. His book “On Anarchism” helped lay out to me how collectivist movements of the past have often failed by direct violent repression from the state.

I’ve not read Karl Marx but I’ve learned from others that his critique of capitalism is worthwhile and relevant today and has been since it was written.

At one time I found Richard Wolff helpful, including his book “Democracy at Work” about worker run collectives. His lectures may be of value but lately I find him hard to listen to because of how kind of smarmy he gets.

This interview with Murray Bookchin from 1986 was pretty informative: https://youtu.be/kBP_BMOblzc

Otherwise the subject of interest is called “anarchism” or “libertarian socialism” or “communism”. It all falls under the broader umbrella of “socialism”, which is the intentional organization of society to produce a certain quality of life for all people. All of those terms have been heavily loaded by history and it’s propaganda, so you have to search carefully. Pundits of all persuasions will make broad claims about these social sciences, but know this: socialism and the other ideas laid out have a rich and complex history that absolutely must be researched. Ignore anyone who says the soviets were socialist and they were horrible so socialism is horrible. There is a history of socialist movements going back over 150 years that includes many writers and activists including those who were murdered by the soviets or the nazis precisely because they wanted power in the hands of the people, not the state.

When you look this up, also study imperialism, feminism, the black panthers and black liberation moments, lgbtq movements, and liberation movements in other countries. If you’re white and/or otherwise privileged (as I am) know that the experience of less privileged people are so different from yours that they absolutely cannot be excluded from the development of a utopia.

For more information see here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/

[criddell]

It's going to be a rough transition, but it will happen.

There's going to be a tipping point where the distribution of wealth is so unbelievably bad that voters will finally start voting for policies that will redistribute more equitably.

[TaylorAlexander]

I don’t think voting could solve the problem because I believe the problem is concentration of power in corporations and governments. How could the government, which is captured by wealthy interests, ever bring about liberation of the people? The history of liberation movements is that they are suppressed by governments.

[philipkglass]

There are elected governments that are not beholden to the specific moneyed interests that want to keep control of robots. If we reach the threshold of post-scarcity, where robots build robots and the only barrier against duplicates-at-cost is patents or copyrights, then some countries will reject the intellectual property norms promoted by wealthy developed countries. It has happened already with drug patents. The people of Johannnesburg may get cheap robots a generation ahead of those of Boston. Liberation could start at the edges of the current economic world order and diffuse toward the center.

[SequoiaHope]

Absolutely! I see intellectual property as harmful and focus myself on developing totally open source technology. I’ve made one trip to teach robotics in a foreign country and I hope that over time open source could fill needs in the fringes when capitalism doesn’t, eventually leading to a more liberated world outside the capitalist center.

[ozzyman700]

That tipping point may pass by the time enough voters self educate or educate each other about inequality in the distribution of wealth, at which point revolution becomes more likely.

[amazonavocado]

Generally one of two things needs to happen.

Either a new industry, or new innovations in existing industries, creating more low-skill jobs in the same manner that previous industries have done.

Or make the need to work in order to make a living obsolete for many.

[carapace]

> I’ve researched this extensively and I’m convinced we could have done this in the developed world starting 100 years ago, but individuals in a position of power preferred to accumulate wealth themselves rather than distribute earnings equitably.

Bucky Fuller wrote "GRUNCH of Giants" which says something similar.

("GRUNCH" is GRoss UNiversal Cash Heist)

https://fullerfuturefest.com/humanitys-critical-path-from-we...

[badpun]

> Cooperatively run companies are one way to do this. If the major companies of our world were cooperatives, a wide swath of the population would gain the wealth our world is increasingly producing.

How do you imagine we manufacture for example microprocessors in such scenario? I.e. how does a group of people start the next Intel as a co-op, without ever taking any external capital? BTW I've sent the same question to Chomsky some time ago, but no response yet.

[SequoiaHope]

Well this could be done with anarchist communism where the economy is made up of a network of communes that trade with one another. Of course to build microprocessors you need to develop some wealth, so like any economy they’d have to grow slowly starting with smaller things. But over time I see no reason why a network of communes couldn’t amass the wealth necessary to build microprocessors. Although one issue is that communists are I think less focused on wealth accumulation.

[matz1]

I don't understand how technology alone won’t solve the problem. If I have a technology that can provide me my basic need (food,shelter,etc) and it cheap enough and easy enough for me to operate myself, in a way that I can be self sufficient without relying of other human, how is the notion of traditional job will not change in this situation ?

[TaylorAlexander]

Total individual self sufficiency is not really the best solution - collective self sufficiency is. But once we start collaborating, we fall in to structures where all the benefit we create ends up in the bank accounts of a few people instead of building a utopia. It takes a different structure to society, not mere technology, to change this situation.

Moreover: liberating technology will not be developed by the capitalist establishment because our liberation runs counter to the opportunity we represent as tools to be exploited. This is why Silicon Valley relies on surveillance and the big companies don’t share their key source code. They don’t have the goal of liberating us.

[matz1]

Do you mean someone or some group of people is going to prevent the invention of this technology (individual self sufficiency) ?

Invention of technology doesn't rely on capitalist establishment though, as long as there is at least one engineer out there to work on it just for the sake of it. For example, the invention of linux.

[SequoiaHope]

No, but technology does not spontaneously occur. I am in fact a huge advocate of the development of liberatory technology like Linux, but I emphasize that actual people have to be working on that problem for the technology to develop. It is not the case that it simply “will happen”. It will only happen if we build it. The capitalists will not build it.

[noonespecial]

I think his point was that right now, if that technology did exist someone would decide that you need their permission (and some payment of course) to operate it and show up with soldiers if you tried anyway.

[jtolmar]

The amount of labor necessary to satisfy basic needs has went down significantly over the last hundred years, but the amount of labor needed to afford satisfying basic needs has not. A successful strategy for full automation would see work hours gradually reduce until they hit zero.

The reason this has happened is that we use an economic system where laborers are paid market rate and the owners are paid the rest. So when we automate something new, the market rate for labor stays the same (at best), but reduced costs mean there's a bigger chunk leftover for the owners. So business owners capture all the returns from automation. As long as this holds, you should expect increased automation to benefit whoever already owns the machines, not society at large.

And there are lots of possible solutions for this, some quite simple, but they're all considered socialism or communism, so when you start talking about them people assume you want Soviet Russia and stop listening.

[TaylorAlexander]

Agreed. But I believe worker ownership of the means of production can be achieved legally in our present system. A network of cooperatives could ethically support its members, and there would be no elite owners to suck up the wealth they generate.