Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[hops]

I'm totally not a Thai spambot.

* Cinder gently nudges Thai kitchen appliances away

[Graknorke]

And that is what makes me froth.  It's so fucking stupid!  The moment you hit the very idea that the lack of a negative thing that we are actively working to eliminate also makes the system cease to function should also be the moment it is drastically re-evaluated.  That this is not happening in any meaningful fashion makes me froth.

It's cool, the rich might come to their senses around the time where middle management starts starving for lack of work to be paid for.

[Reelya]

... Nazi apologetics in the forum? Seriously??

They wanted their people to strive towards the ideal and help one another, and they wanted other cultures and races to do the same in their own countries, and not in Germany. Hitler and Leon Degrelle have certainly said as much.

You're disregarding small irrelevant details, such as "Germany" being redefined as a space stretching from Normandy to the Urals, plans  of using natives of the former territories now encompassed by "Germany" as slave labor, and declared intentions in favor of ethnic cleansing and massacring dissenters.

Of course Nazi Germany had a hand in horrific atrocities, that's a given. So did the Soviets, the Japanese, and the Americans and Brits, although the Soviet, German, and Japanese war crimes certainly had the highest body counts.

The French only missed out on the war crimes by virtue of being knocked out of the war early on. The French penal colonies in French Guyana were easily as bad as the soviet gulags. Once they sentenced you to a term on Devil's Island it was a basic certainty that you never returned alive.

[alway]

And that is what makes me froth.  It's so fucking stupid!  The moment you hit the very idea that the lack of a negative thing that we are actively working to eliminate also makes the system cease to function should also be the moment it is drastically re-evaluated.  That this is not happening in any meaningful fashion makes me froth.

It's cool, the rich might come to their senses around the time where middle management starts starving for lack of work to be paid for.

That's just it though. Society in the US has this utterly toxic idea that the worth of a person I'd related to, if not totally based upon, their economic value. Quite frankly, most people will very shortly discover that such a foundation for ones self worth is entirely inappropriate for modern society. Most of the people on earth are all but worthless economically, most always have been, and most always will be. That's simply something which is coming here now.The emperor never had any clothes, but never before did he leave the throne room and parade through the streets, as it were. Pointless, demeaning work is not good for society, it's a plague upon it both preventing people from doing things which benefit society and from enjoying the benefits brought by it.

[SirQuiamus]

And that is what makes me froth.  It's so fucking stupid!  The moment you hit the very idea that the lack of a negative thing that we are actively working to eliminate also makes the system cease to function should also be the moment it is drastically re-evaluated.  That this is not happening in any meaningful fashion makes me froth.

Could you please elaborate on that for a bit? I didn't quite catch what those bolded words are referring to.     

[Arx]

I'm not SalmonGod, but since he's offline and I think I understand what he's saying:

The 'negative thing' is work, especially 'busywork' that has no real meaning. That's what robots and computers are steadily eliminating.
'The system' is the whole socioeconomic structure, basically - you need to work to get money, regardless of whether or not that work actually adds meaning to anything or anyone.

[SirQuiamus]

I'm not SalmonGod, but since he's offline and I think I understand what he's saying:

The 'negative thing' is work, especially 'busywork' that has no real meaning. That's what robots and computers are steadily eliminating.
'The system' is the whole socioeconomic structure, basically - you need to work to get money, regardless of whether or not that work actually adds meaning to anything or anyone.

I almost understood that, but is that pesky pronoun referring to the idea, the negative thing, or the system? Anaphoric reference be tricky, yo.

[Arx]

Contextually and based on SalmonGod's other politics (as I understand them), 'it' is the system. When the basis of a utopia is apparently a problem, something is rotten.

[SirQuiamus]

Contextually and based on SalmonGod's other politics (as I understand them), 'it' is the system. When the basis of a utopia is apparently a problem, something is rotten.

I still find that hard to understand. As far as I know, 21st-century capitalism does not regard the elimination of busywork, or any kind of work, as a problem – quite the opposite, in fact. It's only a problem to the workers themselves, but hey, since the system no longer has any use for them, what can ya do?

[Arx]

I think that's SalmonGod's point. Mechanisation is causing the sytem to screw the workers over to an increasing extent, and so either mechanisation or the system has to go. Truean says mechanisation has to go; SalmonGod says the system has to go.

[Graknorke]

Contextually and based on SalmonGod's other politics (as I understand them), 'it' is the system. When the basis of a utopia is apparently a problem, something is rotten.

I still find that hard to understand. As far as I know, 21st-century capitalism does not regard the elimination of busywork, or any kind of work, as a problem – quite the opposite, in fact. It's only a problem to the workers themselves, but hey, since the system no longer has any use for them, what can ya do?

It's a problem in that you've got all these useless bums around who need looking after without contributing the financial share that they have no means of providing.

[10ebbor10]

To be honest, I think that the whole anti-automation "they'll steal our jobs" idea is an inherently pointless and useless notion.

Capitalism will automatically, and inherently seek the most cost-effective solution. If that's robots, then automation will come. If you have the capability of stopping that trend, then you also have the capability to change the system, preventing the negative effects from appearing.

If anything, the "STOP automation to protect workers" argument is self defeating, because in order for Humans to remain cheaper than robots (and thus remain in use in a capitalist society) it will require a continual and ever increasing reduction of labor rights. 

The police argument is silly. In the event of a robot officer shooting someone, there are 3 options. Wrong orders, software malfunction, or it's the fault of the victim. So, punish respectively the commanding officer, the robot's programmer, or no one at all.

This is not, in any way, different from what happens if a human police officer shoots someone. Still the same 3 options. Same results.

With the difference being off course that robot's behaviour is perfectly predictable, and that it's sensor data won't lie.

[Harry Baldman]

It doesn't really make a difference if it's a robot policeman (a robo-cop, if you will) or an average policeman - either could probably shoot you dead in the street and get away with it. It would be less so for the robo-cop, even, since those would at least have an objective error in their programming that could be corrected and that the public would be very interested to correct, given that I suspect nobody would really trust a robot in the early days.

Also, that robot arm wasn't really taught to fight, just to swing a sword. It's a demonstration of strength, speed and precision, and quite a visually impressive demonstration at that. That robot or at least robots like it is still probably going to be used for manufacturing some form of good or performing some sort of other task.

I hope they do manage to create friendly AI in my lifetime, though. When they release the mathematical reductions of actual sentience and human morals/ethics, it'll surely be a great day for philosophy. Imagine how much smoother decision making would become with the help of ethical calculus.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm totally not a Thai spambot.

* Cinder gently nudges Thai kitchen appliances away

Deep cover spambot: make an account, spend a bunch of time on the forum, befriend people.  And then hand the account over to a spambot and move on to a different forum.

[penguinofhonor]

.