[TaylorAlexander]

Well, I’m a working robotics engineer in the Silicon Valley area and I am trying to design robotics for a post scarcity collectivist utopia. At home I do research in to functional 3D printed robotics and I operate a YouTube channel and discussion website [1] to pull people together so we can discuss collectively owned automated communities. I’m a fan of Murray Bookchin and want to live in a collectively owned automated farming commune. I’ve just taken a new job on an actual farm as a robotics engineer, and we’re going to try to build automation for farming.

I’m also a writer and I study the intersection of automation and society.

So while it’s true that most automation engineers don’t think this way, some of us do. :-)

[1] http://reboot.love

[krapp]

It's not the engineers I'm talking about so much as business owners, stockholders and politicians, the people actually writing the laws and making the decisions about how automation is going to shape the future.

The problem with seeing automation as a means to liberate people from capitalism and free them for intellectual pursuits (a noble and laudable goal) is that it exists to serve capitalist ends. Amazon, for instance, is definitely not automating for the benefit of humanity. They just don't want to pay people.

Although it is good to know someone is thinking about it. I really worry that, at scale, mass employment won't be addressed until it actually threatens the status quo.

[AareyBaba]

This might be good point to mention the only 2020 presidential candidate who is talking about how UBI could address this seemingly inevitable future that is closer than we think.

Andrew Yang. See his discussion with students at Georgetown Univ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tuJ0phjFys

or for a longer exposition of his ideas see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8

[SequoiaHope]

UBI represents a continuation of capitalism where the machinery of our world is still under elite control. I’d rather see a candidate that will provide seed funding for cooperatives. Way more liberatory than cash handouts from our rulers.

[krapp]

Isn't seed funding for cooperatives also basically a cash handout from our rulers?

[TaylorAlexander]

Yes, though much more directed than UBI. Credit Unions are well positioned to provide loans for coops. The government could provide some backing for those loans to stimulate growth. That’s way, way less intervention than a UBI.

[SequoiaHope]

I absolutely agree with you. I don’t think there’s much I can do to stop what’s currently got so much momentum. The capitalists will capitalize and the workers will be treated as tools to be taken on and used when needed to fill in the gaps, and quality of life for many people will continue to be low even as some of us travel to other worlds.

But the technology, while not liberating, will become more accessible. And I think a lot of people, just as in many decades past, are interested in something beyond bare capitalism.

My hope is that the collectivists can make progress in the coming decades too. We can develop our own open source alternatives to the machinery of dystopia. We can abandon intellectual property as a concept and ensure that when we labor for new development, the knowledge we gain is accessible to everyone who wants to liberate themselves.

And just as a group of hobbyists and corporations built Linux, perhaps we could build our own alternative to dystopia.

Politically right now I think we need unity and we need to stop trying to use the government to solve our problems. The government is a tool of force and force cannot be the way we build utopia except perhaps as defense against those who would have it shut down.

https://youtu.be/V6HWLJqTASA

[joyeuse6701]

Hmm, certainly Amazon doesn't want to pay anyone, robot, company or human more than they have to to do a job. Does that benefit humanity? For it's customers and shareholders yes, for the replaced warehouse worker, maybe not. But even that can be argued.

[jpindar]

I'm guessing you're a Cory Doctorow fan too? I thought Walkaway was very interesting, though not his best novel.

[TaylorAlexander]

I don’t read a lot (YouTube lectures are my thing) but I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Cory Doctorows work. Someone has recommended Walkaway to me.

[jonahss]

Holy cow that's awesome.

[TaylorAlexander]

Thanks!