An aside, economics, wealth and prosperity should be guided by the human compass of providing the basic needs of every soul that is bore of it.

Tech gizmos can be helpful or they can be a dangerous distraction to mental well-being.

Depression, loneliness, detachment from reality through lack of real social interaction and thus reduced basic social skills remains an issue to be addressed.

It takes a village to raise a child but what we have now is the village idiot given a platform to troll chatbots and not provide for his wife in the bedroom

Clever that entrepreneurs are certainly taking advantage of incompetent government. Richard Branson for example sued the fuckers. Don’t know if he actually won.

This is the thing about people like Branson and other types of entrepreneurs they have no limits as to who they target to extract money from.

As my ISP is indeed VIRGIN MEDIA I’m staying clear of the fucker.

I think Capitalism is pretty obvious what it is, it's more interesting to ask the question: is there an economic system past Capitalism that isn't Marxism? — Christoffer

Consider: After Capitalism by David Schweickart (re: economy democracy). No doubt, the 'automated future' you mention is trending, so to speak, but it's not inevitable, or an inescapable prospect.

Correct! You see and I’ve read Christoffers point he has made. Although not truly misguided in terms of cost savings automaton goes only so far as the human engineers ingenuity is able to automate certain tasks.

Let’s take mining of raw materials as an example or even oil drilling which is where the real money is. Human prospecting still remains crucial for the identification of certain oil rich sites. Machines will still be able to identify these so called rich areas of oil. Clever AI will do the trick but the programmer still has to deploy the bloody machine in the first place

An aside, economics, wealth and prosperity should be guided by the human compass of providing the basic needs of every soul that is bore of it. — Deus

I agree and I don't. Yes, the wealth should be redistributed in a way to make humans live humane lives. That I agree with.

I would like to improve on that by saying that satisfying basic needs is not going to make anyone happy. People need education, entertainment, sex, hobbies, pastimes, and a feeling that their existence is meaningful.

These are tall orders, and I don't know that in an infinitely affluent society they can be achieved. The very fact that people don't have everything they want give meaning to their lives: "Let's get that which is missing." To some it's getting published, to some it's winning the Oscars, to some it's finding love in life, to some it's having children and raising them, and to some it's finding food from day to day, so they don't perish.

Once everything gets fulfilled, the meaning and purpose of one's existence is gone.

One need (not basic) is greed. It can never be fulfilled. Those billionaires are indeed lucky fellers, because they always can thrive for something.

For those who have fulfilled their lives' goals, and for those who have given up on that, there is always the Crack Cocaine.

God must be an atheisti.

Maslow hierarchy of needs has clearly demonstrated this. Don’t know why i didn’t quite mention it.

Maslow hierarchy of needs has clearly demonstrated this — Deus

True.

I suspect a future post-scarcity civilization will be maximally depopulated in comparison to this current pro-scarcity civilization. Perhaps several million people at most instead of several billion. Whether or not human beings will be happy – or happier (liberated from laboring for the necessities of life – won't be consequential to a civilization run by (and mostly for the reproductive development of) machines – automation intelligences – "automatopia" I call it.

NB: Post-scarcity humans incapable of making themselves happy in some way – especially without harming others or themselves – will probably be 'conditioned' to slowly or rapidly or suddenly euthanize themselves in various 'clean & painless' ways.

Why would people be unable to make themselves happy, 180? If Maslow's Hierarchy holds, people will simply achieve the state of need of self-actualization.

(I have an answer to this question, but I wonder if you have the same one.)

I don't know; some (too many) individuals are just congenitally miserable. I also don't think much of Maslow's conjecture.

Slightly pessimistic outlook which could potentially be true but highly unlikely. Not wanting to envision utopia I think things will most likely remain the same if not get better. I do in fact it will get better being a firm believer of quality over quantity in terms of the level of citizens in a given future society.

My view is a forecast and not a prediction. In the case of the latter, though, I consider it optimistic.

I don’t see how a society that will slowly euthanise itself can be seen as optimistic in any given context perhaps you could elaborate ?

Scarcity of resources will not mean any of the things you have forecasted. It will probably mean reduced population and whether the overall level of happuness will increase or decrease is and will be something that is hard to predict for sure.

Reread what I actually wrote. I did not say "society will slowly euthnaize itself" and I did not forecast about a "scarcity of resources".

Ok fine. Without speculating too much into the future or post-humanism for that matter I firmly believe that human beings are still evolving. Being in a symbiotic and not parasitic relationship with whatever future tech enhancement in terms of our ability to make sense of the ever increasing sensory input which society should most likely address and whether it is worth perusing either ignore this development is something that should be consider be each sentient human being

And this panglossian scenario has to do with "capitalism" or economic systems how?

Because it’s the future we’re talking about and an enhancement of a human beings cognitive ability will give them an advantage in a competitive capitalistic society.

An offshoot of my original post for sure but still relevant

All these different terms get confusing, but the basic idea is free trade vs forced community sharing. When government interferes with free trade, then the problems of capitalism emerge.
Communities sharing is good. Thats the positive value communism is based on. But when its FORCED it leads to unintended consequences.
Trying to control nature always leads to unintended consequences. We have to work WITH nature, not against it. — Yohan

Well, this isn't doing a lot to dissuade me from Marxism's work on capitalism.

My belief is that markets cannot exist without a government -- they are as artificial or natural as any other social arrangement. That's because property rights are not naturally endowed upon us -- naturally speaking, we can take whatever we're strong enough to take (and in terms of a social species, that usually translates into numbers of people more than raw individual strength). It's only by creating an artificial market that people begin to trade things, since taking them directly has a punishment associated with it.

:up:

My belief is that markets cannot exist without a government -- they are as artificial or natural as any other social arrangement. That's because property rights are not naturally endowed upon us — Moliere

How do you form a government without a market?
Do you realise government is a product that is marketed and sold?

Government means you sell your self-sovereignty, freedom, rights to someone else, who in return gives you a sense of security by making your decisions for you and telling you what you want to hear.

Every virtue has shadow vice, and vice versa.
So that freedom is branded as "chaos" and slavery is branded as "security"

Each person is their own state, own governor, but other insecure beings sell you the lie that they can do a better job governing you than you can yourself.

How do you form a government without a market? — Yohan

Through collective action. It's not necessarily but is usually violent collective action.

Whatever a state's genesis, though, in maintaining a modern state we usually engage in violent collective action or the threat of said violent collective action in our negotiations with other states (and in the policing of our own citizens) The old economic definition of a state being the firm which has a monopoly on the use of violence.

Through collective action. It's not necessarily but is usually violent collective action. — Moliere

I don't know what violent action means if there is not yet any rights or property.
I do admit rights and property are hard ideas to comprehend, but I think they are based in instinct prior to the arising of some being governing another being. Even dogs defend what they see as their territory and their autonomy.

In a sense before monopolised government we were all equally the government. And arguably, even now we are all members of government, as supposedly we the people control the government. They work for us, not we for them, at least thats the claim. But really its a trade, and in trade each works for the other as well as for themselves, so we employ the government and the government employs us.

Sorry this isn't really specifically about what capitalism is. To me capitalism is the default when there is property. People trading whatever they want to trade for whatever someone else wants to trade.
Can people be sneaky and trick you into a bad deal? Yes. Capitalism is not to blame for that any more than free thinking is to blame for bad thoughts.. And the solution is education and better self-government. Not electing others forcefully restrict how we trade.

I don't know; some (too many) individuals are just congenitally miserable. I also don't think much of Maslow's conjecture. — 180 Proof

You did not give reasons; only personal views. I can't argue with your personal opinions not expressed as philosophical assertions.

I have reasons that can be supported, but since you guys on this thread with so much personal gusto and with so much curious intensity have shown your utter lack of interest in what I have to say that I'll keep them to myself.

Hey hey now. Not sure if you’re putting me in that bracket. Although I express personal opinion on the above matters I do tend to outline it with some reason behind it rather than just one sentence opinion of personal tastes.

I gave a reason:

... some (too many) individuals are just congenitally miserable. — 180 Proof

A psychological fact. As far as Maslow's conjecture, it's neither an argument nor a scientific model. You're the one "expressing personal opinions", gmba.

No doubt, the 'automated future' you mention is trending, so to speak, but it's not inevitable, or an inescapable prospect. — 180 Proof

Name a reason why the world would not jump onto advanced automation the first chance it gets. It is just as inevitable as how the wheel changed the world. No one would oppose it, except those who oppose the consequences of it and call for a ban on automation, but which government would choose to ban advanced automation seen as it would exponentially improve the national economics of that nation?

With over abundant workforce and general population education needs to play an important part in skilling them towards this new future. — Deus

Even though full-scale advanced automation isn't happening yet, we have kids in schools today actively working towards a job that will most definitely be dead in a couple of years. Politics around education and the faculties themselves aren't equipped to change since they aren't even entertaining the scenario of full-scale advanced automation. They act upon the status quo, they never act upon what will be. Advanced automation will happen fast. The point is when we have generalized robotics that can be adapted based on the user training them rather than having a software programmer doing it. This would mean that a clothing company that requires a robot to fold and organize clothes in a store according to a set plan can teach that robot one time how to fold clothes, hang clothes, and take care of the store chores and then multiply. Over time, these robots will become more advanced, faster and better at their tasks and can also be sold as "store template workers" to speed up the training phase. All of a sudden you have a or multiple stores that only have one human employee, the one who talks to customers, with that job also being in danger by socially trained robots.

Point is that we will have a point when a general-purpose robot becomes a reality and from that point, if it is inexpensive and reliable in day-to-day work, it will almost completely change the western world overnight. No company will look at their expensive human workforce, then look at a workforce of robots who cost just a fraction compared to the humans and go "yeah, I love to lose money".

There's no coincidence that Tesla is developing such robots since Elon Musk is trying to push the edge on how effective manufacturing can get. Human workers have limits and cost money, so with the world's most advanced self-driving system, he can just repurpose that to cover other tasks than just driving. Tesla might be the first industry in the world to become fully automated in all areas of production at their factories. If his goal of selling these robots becomes a reality, we will have the first general-purpose robots existing in society. If successful, in that they lower costs for companies, that would be an exponential factor for the automation industry, leading to more and more companies wanting to work on general-purpose robotics and the industry would explode into a new era.

Politics and education will lag far behind that development because it will happen too fast. We will have an era of mass unemployment and we will probably see UBI become implemented as a desperate attempt to save the world economy from a total collapse. That's in the western world, imagine the consequences for third world countries or nations on the brink of becoming rich due to how western industries put people in low-income jobs there. Advanced automation will make no sense to have in these countries because it's cheaper to just build factories closer to home when the workforce is just robots. Western industries will abandon these nations and their economy will collapse to a much worse state than before. There will be civil wars and also even wars against the west. Of course, some companies in these nations might use robots as well, maybe even catch up with competing products, but once again, education and politics lag behind. If leaders of a third world nation were aware of this development, they would right now make a policy of educating many people in engineering and automation technology. Since western societies are so filled with TikTok-numbed kids and adults, we will see a surge in any nation that jumped onto this development fast for a desperate population in need of jobs.

India is a good example of this since there are a lot of technicians in India who work within industries primarily from outside of India. If all of them focused on purely Indian companies, that also take advantage of automation, they could easily become a dominant factor in the future where western companies lag behind.

The conclusion is that advanced automation will radically change the world as it looks today. It's going to be a total transformation in the same style as the industrial revolution. With massive shifts in labor types and how people live their lives. Since culture is often defined by how our economy and work affect our lives, it will radically transform culture worldwide.

Sprinkle in the outcome of climate change and we will see a massive change over the coming hundred years that is unprecedented compared to the previous hundred years.

If I have money I can buy wool, cotton and SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM.

(Viking longboat incoming …)

But can you regulate your gluttony with the ever increasing amount of SPAM?

Maybe stick to sushi and if you can’t catch it yourself buy it from a fishmonger

If I have money I can buy wool, cotton and SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM. — I like sushi

Sounds profitable for me :yum:

No man-made change is inevitable, especially to the degree it adversely affects so many people as the prospect of total automation of production and services would. Examples: global Lenin-Stalinism / Maoism, global laissez-faire capitalism, nuclear war, etc.