This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Te AI is in Bahamas, it’s making decisions for a business in the USA. Who gets the tax money?
As for the AI have nots starving, this is how history has tended to work for most of human history. When a worker has no useful skills he gets laid off permanently, and either subsists on a dole or goes hungry. The Industrial Revolution was also a time of great poverty with thousands reduced to living in tiny tenement housing. The Victorian Era had people living underground as it was illegal to be homeless.
What’s unprecedented here is the sheer scale of the problem. There’s no reason to think that a government can permanently and sustainably put three quarters of the population on welfare and still function. Nor do I find it plausible that millions of people with no prospects of useful employment are going to thrive. We have historical examples of people in that situation, and none of them have produced Utopian societies. Indian reservations are impoverished shit holes compared to the surrounding communities. So are ghettos. Rome created a huge underclass full of dysfunctional families with her dole. Turning all of America into a giant reservation where everyone lives on the dole is not going to create a flourishing society that creates hippy art. It’s going to create. Poverty and corruption and dysfunction.
If the US wants that tax money? The US clearly and obviously can do this right now (and in many ways, they do), without an AI involved.
For many of the periods you're talking about, the vast majority of the population was actually doing subsistence farming. Obviously, this was not a nice life, especially given their level of tech, with even extremely rudimentary advances still on the horizon. They were much more at the mercy of things like weather patterns. While going off to work the land had downsides, it was an alternative. If a bunch of folks basically had to go off and do that, they could again trade with one another, coming from a baseline of ideas/tech that they could generate in-community that is significantly higher than what was possible at those times.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link