With enough technology, is socialism actually viable?

[Bolas 5]

While many could argue we're taking big steps towards socialism, that is not the focus of this thread.

As we become more and more technologically advanced we're able to do far more with far less. This applies to people and money.

Computing power is growing at a huge rate requiring less to do much more. All aspects of business are getting bigger and faster.

Automation has led to greater efficiency. Soon it may be cheaper to use robots in various levels of manufacturing than even outsourced/offshored labor.

The downside of this is less people are needed in industries to do the same or greater levels of work.

There may come a point where there is just not enough work for all that are able to have a job. Some may say we're there already.

While those that work may definitely feel that each should pay their own way, myself included, should availability of work be a population control factor? Were all aid (gov't and private) turned off to all that were not working millions would probably die.

It becomes a question of if less and less people are needed to run, produce, service, entertain, etc. should they be expected to provide for the others? Obviously if less are working, the ones that are are most likely making much more as well.

The biggest concern would be creating a society where there was no incentive for one to better themselves or worst, no possibility.

Once matter teleportation/duplication is perfected and production and distribution costs go to near 0 for everything, it may just be the only viable option.

Of course, this is completely disregarding bureaucracy and politics which can easily double or triple workloads.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[loumeinhart 0]

Very interesting. I sometimes view human life at a very macro level. A piece of cooling rock with a bunch of shit growing on it... mankind is currently the organism that is able to build the most infrastructure and profoundly effect the rest of the planet for better or worse.

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There may come a point where there is just not enough work for all that are able to have a job

I've thought about this and you there is plenty of material/books and of course.. coast2coastAM !

If you told folks in 1950 what the world population was going to be in 2010 they would have freaked out and said that there would be mass starvation because food/agriculture would run dry. Yet somehow with a 4,274,612,380 increase (per US Census) the Human Being on average has access to technologies that the world 60 years ago only dreamed about. Wii, Cellular telephones for $50, 30mpg cars under $8000, Trans-Continental Jet flights for less than $1000, personal computers/robotics... the list goes on.

At some point population is going to catch up with us, but analysis on when and how it will affect us is beyond me.

[billvon 3,120]

Pure socialism is no more viable than pure capitalism or pure communism (or any other -ism for that matter.) It is a useful system for apportioning goods and services that most/all people need, but are not apportioned effectively through trade. It's a terrible system to base an economy on.

>It becomes a question of if less and less people are needed to run,
>produce, service, entertain, etc. should they be expected to provide for
>the others?

Yes, and we already do that. We are expected to pay for soldiers, air traffic control, policemen etc. This works because some goods/services are better paid for ahead of time than when people need them. (ATC is an example; you can't decide to pay for separation services after your airliner has run into another one.)

[metalslug 36]

Enough technology ?
Perhaps yes, but I think we're still a few decades away from "enough".

One of the bigger shortcomings of robots and artificial intelligence is object recognition and, in some cases, cost.
A human can almost instantly recognise a metal doorkey. If the key were cut in half to form 2 pieces, a human would not take long to identify the change.
A computer would require complex measurement scanning to identify a whole key and would probably never correctly identify a broken one.

This example makes humans superior for quite a while still in almost all the occupations that we see around us every day. "Burger flipping" is the classic menial job, and yet how long until we trust a robot to make us a burger with the correct garnish options such as "hold the onion"? How long until a robot like that costs less than minimum wage to produce and maintain?

Aviation autopilot systems are very advanced, and yet human pilots still occupy the cockpit and collect a paycheck even if they never touch the controls for the entire flight. Automated systems can fail, power can be interrupted. Most will require backup and maintenance. The human factor will be necessary for quite a while still.

[dreamdancer 0]

i think that, whatever we do, we're going to be 'directed' by increasingly independent algorithms. we have a few decades left to tweak them in our favour and then they run the show completely.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[Lucky... 0]

Well, if Repubs were in control they would do just that, cut the workforce and tell those who are starving that they're just being whiners. The Dems would create some monstrosity of a gov system that wasn't needed but created jobs and economic stability. The Repubs would scream that their liberty was being torn down, the Dems would just plug along and ensure all were ok. Doesn't this sound like the Great Depression? And the political outcome then was 5 consec terms of Dems, then a great Republican named Eisenhower, then mostly garbage since: Nixon, Reagan. GWB. I think the people forgot about the GD and went with their hearts. But to answer your question, the political structure would remove the garbage, hence no Republicans and put inplace Dems as a compensator.

[fasted3 0]

In a lot of ways, we are already there.
How many people in the US actually do useful jobs?
Oddly enough, most of those jobs pay the least.

But what do I know?

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Well, if Repubs were in control they would do just that, cut the workforce and tell those who are starving that they're just being whiners. The Dems would create some monstrosity of a gov system that wasn't needed but created jobs and economic stability. The Repubs would scream that their liberty was being torn down, the Dems would just plug along and ensure all were ok. Doesn't this sound like the Great Depression? And the political outcome then was 5 consec terms of Dems, then a great Republican named Eisenhower, then mostly garbage since: Nixon, Reagan. GWB. I think the people forgot about the GD and went with their hearts. But to answer your question, the political structure would remove the garbage, hence no Republicans and put inplace Dems as a compensator.

You're a Republican, aren't you? Why do you carry such hate and anger towards your own party?

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[lawrocket 3]

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In a lot of ways, we are already there.
How many people in the US actually do useful jobs?
Oddly enough, most of those jobs pay the least.

True. And those like farmers are the ones who get screwed quite often. Why? Because farmers do not live in big city voting blocks. They are spread out.

This is why the Hetch Hetchy remains flooded to supply water to Napa and the Bay Area liberals. Meanwhile, many of those same people fully support cutting water supplies to farmers who provide the food they eat.


[Hr]


I think that technology will continue its path to improving efficiency. But since socialism is, by its nature, inefficient, there will be a struggle.

Also - note that Marx did not believe that a successful communist system could develop from an agrarian economy. Marx argued that one could only result from the overthrow of a capitalist system that had installed the infrastructure necessary for the society to continue. Communist systems cannot create the capital, so to speak, to build a society. Marx recognized that capitalism was necessary to build.

The issue to me, Mr. Bolas, is that I do not think that a socialist system can effectively maintain technological development. Socialist policies were responsible for the moon shot, etc. But the technology and R&D were done by private companies with an incentive to improve and innovate. Such may not continue under socialism.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[loumeinhart 0]

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i think that, whatever we do, we're going to be 'directed' by increasingly independent algorithms

C'mon dude laymen's terms. I didn't go to college

[skybill 22]

Hi Bolas,
So ya' get all these "machines" to do all this work. Until ya' get machines to build the machines, someone will still have to build, maintain, repair etc., the machines?? Just a thought. And, as Margaret Thacher said,"The only trouble with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of 'Other Peoples' Money!'!!!!" Just another thought.

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[Andy9o8 2]

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i think that, whatever we do, we're going to be 'directed' by increasingly independent algorithms

C'mon dude laymen's terms. I didn't go to college

Sighh, fine.
He's referring to Borg, Terminators and Cylons.

[billvon 3,120]

>A human can almost instantly recognise a metal doorkey. If the key were
>cut in half to form 2 pieces, a human would not take long to identify the
>change.

>A computer would require complex measurement scanning to identify a
>whole key and would probably never correctly identify a broken one.

Actually our assembly line uses machine vision to identify parts before they are placed, and is quite good at detecting the wrong part/a broken part/the right part but oriented the wrong way. And it can do so at ten parts a second.

>Aviation autopilot systems are very advanced, and yet human pilots still
>occupy the cockpit and collect a paycheck even if they never touch the
>controls for the entire flight.

A significant (and growing) number of military aircraft have no pilots at all, and do pretty well.

>"Burger flipping" is the classic menial job, and yet how long until we trust a
>robot to make us a burger with the correct garnish options such as "hold the
>onion"?

That's actually a pretty trivial thing to do, and would be no problem at all to automate. Things like inventory storage and preparation and cleaning are harder to automate. But you're right; it's just plain cheaper to get minimum wage people to do that. (Not because of the cost of automation, which is amortized for decades, but because of the maintenance and oversight required; a good technician makes five times what a burger flipper does.)

[wmw999 2,589]

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(to Lucky)You're a Republican, aren't you? Why do you carry such hate and anger towards your own party?

Good thing I wasn't drinking when I read this or I probably would have spit water all over my monitor

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[dreamdancer 0]

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i think that, whatever we do, we're going to be 'directed' by increasingly independent algorithms

C'mon dude laymen's terms. I didn't go to college

Sighh, fine.
He's referring to Borg, Terminators and Cylons.

i'm thinking more of software. stuff like air traffic control, share trading, identification, medical intervention. all these things are going to go over to algorithms that are going to become more and more 'black box' - meaning we (people) will become increasingly unable to open up these controlling algorithms. the best ones will survive and evolve without us knowing how they work. just that they do.

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[Bolas 5]

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Pure socialism is no more viable than pure capitalism or pure communism (or any other -ism for that matter.)

If a society started off with pure capitalism and whatever government it had did not regulate or get involved in any way (and vice versa) other than possibly a flat tax I think it could survive.

Switching a hybrid system such as ours to pure capitalism would be much more difficult as welfare (corporate and personal) is so abundant.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[billvon 3,120]

>If a society started off with pure capitalism and whatever government it had
>did not regulate or get involved in any way (and vice versa) other than
>possibly a flat tax I think it could survive.

It would die a rapid and violent death. Competition? Buy the roads going to their factory and post armed guards to prevent anyone from crossing your property. Difficulty disposing of nuclear waste? Grind it up and dump it in a river somewhere. Worker problems? Require them to buy stuff at the company store to keep their jobs, then threaten to arrest them and repossess their house unless they shut up and work 16 hour days. Have cops standing by to make the arrests.

There's a common libertarian thought that pure capitalism would result in a super-efficient economy where excesses and abuses disappear simply because they're not profitable. History seems to demonstrate the opposite. For capitalism to work, it has to be sufficiently regulated so that noncompetitive practices, external costs and worker abuse are expensive enough that most companies don't engage in such behaviors.

[Bolas 5]

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>If a society started off with pure capitalism and whatever government it had
>did not regulate or get involved in any way (and vice versa) other than
>possibly a flat tax I think it could survive.

It would die a rapid and violent death. Competition? Buy the roads going to their factory and post armed guards to prevent anyone from crossing your property. Difficulty disposing of nuclear waste? Grind it up and dump it in a river somewhere. Worker problems? Require them to buy stuff at the company store to keep their jobs, then threaten to arrest them and repossess their house unless they shut up and work 16 hour days. Have cops standing by to make the arrests.

There's a common libertarian thought that pure capitalism would result in a super-efficient economy where excesses and abuses disappear simply because they're not profitable. History seems to demonstrate the opposite. For capitalism to work, it has to be sufficiently regulated so that noncompetitive practices, external costs and worker abuse are expensive enough that most companies don't engage in such behaviors.

In the past I would definitely agree. However in this ultra connected society we now have, actions like that would not be able to be kept quiet or local and would not be tolerated for long.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[likearock 2]

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There's a common libertarian thought that pure capitalism would result in a super-efficient economy where excesses and abuses disappear simply because they're not profitable. History seems to demonstrate the opposite. For capitalism to work, it has to be sufficiently regulated so that noncompetitive practices, external costs and worker abuse are expensive enough that most companies don't engage in such behaviors.

Another flaw in that argument is that pure capitalism is too heavily incentivized for short term rather than long term gain.

[happythoughts 0]

Malthus predicted that the population would eventually
outstrip the ability to produce food.

Due to the work of Fritz Haber, nitrogen-fixation allowed the
development of modern fertilizers. (As in all things, some
of his work with chemicals was used in weapons.)

The major problem with solving problems is that it
raises the level of expectation.

[billvon 3,120]

>However in this ultra connected society we now have, actions like that
>would not be able to be kept quiet or local and would not be tolerated for
>long.

Why not? We have people making excuses for death threats, and we have a populace who is perfectly willing to crucify muslims/bankers/Toyota/unions/big companies/presidents on a moment's notice, depending on which way the wind is blowing. The media has exacerbated this; have them start the echo chamber on (say) unions and you'd have millions of people who support any union-busting tactics companies can mount.

One of the reasons our system of government works is that it takes a long time to make changes. That tends to damp out short term impulsive behavior, and regulates even long term herd behavior with a set of (relatively) immutable principles in the Constitution. This document can also be changed, but even simple changes take years, which helps to further damp spurious sentiments.

That's our primary protection against polluters, abusers and monopolists. Not easily swayed public sentiment, nor a perception that one guy is a villain and another a saint. It's that we have a pretty ponderous system of government that is based on some pretty well-explained principles, one that is slow to change even if public sentiment wants it to.

[FallingOsh 0]

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>Aviation autopilot systems are very advanced, and yet human pilots still
>occupy the cockpit and collect a paycheck even if they never touch the
>controls for the entire flight.

A significant (and growing) number of military aircraft have no pilots at all, and do pretty well.

They're still controlled by one or more pilots on the ground plus which goes along with his point.

--------------------------------------------------
Stay positive and love your life.

[metalslug 36]

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Actually our assembly line uses machine vision to identify parts before they are placed, and is quite good at detecting the wrong part/a broken part/the right part but oriented the wrong way. And it can do so at ten parts a second.

With respect to the genius of your system, I'm pretty sure your assembly line is programmed to identify a limited number of inventory parts corresponding to very exact dimensions and exclude or reject those it cannot identify. Could I drop a $10 bill, a broken key or even a valid inventory part scaled to half the correct size onto your assembly line and receive a voice or display telling me exactly what it is ?
This was more my direction regarding the superiority of (adult) humans in object recognition.

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A significant (and growing) number of military aircraft have no pilots at all, and do pretty well.

The military is already a socialist system. Unemployment doesn't seem to be a problem there.
...unless the military is already retrenching pilots? Are they?
An exclusively automated pilot would surely be uncommon on any aircraft that carries personnel. The reasons for having human pilots are at least partly ethical too; value of human life vs. the reliability of A.I. and I have my doubts that will change anytime soon.

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Things like inventory storage and preparation and cleaning are harder to automate..

Exactly right.
I could swap the ketchup and mustard bottles, swap the onion tray and the cheese tray, replace the meat with wooden discs of similar dimensions. Our burger flipping droid would not independently resolve these dilemmas as easily as the human before it.

[dreamdancer 0]

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CHALLENGES don't get much bigger than trying to create artificial consciousness. Some doubt if it can be done - or if it ever should. Bolder researchers are not put off, though. "We have to consider machine consciousness as a grand challenge, like putting a man on the moon," says Antonio Chella at the University of Palermo in Italy and editor of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness. The journal was launched last year, a sign of the field's growing momentum. Another landmark is the recently developed "Conscale", developed by Raúl Arrabales of the Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain to compare the intelligence of various software agents - and biological ones too (see diagram).

Perhaps the closest a software bot has come so far is IDA, the Intelligent Distribution Agent built in 2003 by Stan Franklin at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. IDA assigns sailors in the US navy to new jobs when they finish a tour of duty and has to juggle naval policies, job requirements, changing costs and sailors' needs.

Like people, IDA has "conscious" and "unconscious" levels of processing. At the unconscious level she deploys software agents to gather data and process information. These agents compete to enter IDA's "conscious" workspace, where they interact with each other and decisions get made. The updated Learning IDA, or LIDA, was completed this year. She learns from what reaches her consciousness and uses this to guide future decisions. LIDA also has the benefit of "emotions" - high-level goals that guide her decision-making.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627542.000-picking-our-brains-can-we-make-a-conscious-machine.html

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding