DescentBB

Will Robinson wrote:Slick your scenario won't happen until the bill of rights is a distant memory.

am I the only one who finds this sentence ironic as hell?

Our troops are not brainless tools of the elite and won't be transformed into such as long as we get free speech and right to assembly and hold elections under those freedoms.

well then, by golly, we'll give you the best darned elections money can buy, and slowly allow private contractors to handle more of the military's responsibilities, and, you know, MONEY equals free speech. Getting my drift, Will?

You have to control public discourse like the Chinese do (are trying to hold on to ) before the 5% can control the armed authority.

fun exercise for you some night with time on your hands(or take my word for this): watch one hour each of CNN, Fox, MSNBC. Count, separated by network, how many times you see ads for the Petroleum industry or Koch brothers. Hint: Fox won't win, most nights. Now revisit that part about controlling public discourse.

hankfully there are still enough of the free folk around.

less than you think......

I'm getting a drift of bad fiction on the breeze. Like a bad knock off of a show like 24.

Jeff250 wrote:

Ferno wrote:I see the food service industry as being the first to go fully automated. It's happening right now -- I see the drive thru section at mcdonalds here using a robot to pour drinks.

McDonald's will be, but I really wouldn't even call that a restaurant, much less a high end one.

Nor I. That's why I called them "food service".

Jobs that are based on art and creativity will be the last ones to be automated, I think, and that probably won't happen until true artificial intelligence exists. So there should be jobs that are necessarily human and not robotic for quite some time to come.

The first thought I had was…ha, you can’t replace me with a machine…then the reality sets in a little while later, when I realized there would be like a billion people ready to do my job for less, and the likelihood of not having any customers anyway.

Believe this…when labor is no longer a marketable commodity, economies that have lasted for thousands of years will collapse.

Governments will be forced to institute a sort of quazi-socialism (because those who “own” all of the earth’s natural resources aren’t likely to give them up easily) where you receive some kind of government credits.

And for those of you who think you will just do some hobbies, do you really think there will be anything left after you pay for your basic needs to do any such thing, do you think the rich will just give you some Cobalt.

Personally I can’t connect all of the dots on how any such economy could possibly work, maybe someday we might reach that Star Trek world, but in the meantime it won’t be pretty.

I didn’t read this entire thread, but I do get the gist, and many of you are way too optimistic, and one that believes that the rich can hold on to power forever, dream on, because it would be the end of the system that they derive their power from in the first place…sure there will always be the “rich” but it will be under a new system where the exploitation of labor will no longer be in effect. So the entire future of everyone would depend on nationalizing resources and developing a completely different way of life.

Goodbye old rich…hello new rich…

How will you become rich in a world where you can’t control resources, or sell/exploit labor?

Of course there are all of the other possibilities, where we get stuck somewhere in between, but either way…the world we know will no longer exist.

Spidey wrote:The first thought I had was…ha, you can’t replace me with a machine…then the reality sets in a little while later, when I realized there would be like a billion people ready to do my job for less, and the likelihood of not having any customers anyway.

Believe this…when labor is no longer a marketable commodity, economies that have lasted for thousands of years will collapse.

well put. Now, ponder this. For the past 8 or 9 years, more money is transferred in the US from inheritance than by labor, something never seen previously.

Governments will be forced to institute a sort of quazi-socialism (because those who “own” all of the earth’s natural resources aren’t likely to give them up easily) where you receive some kind of government credits.

And for those of you who think you will just do some hobbies, do you really think there will be anything left after you pay for your basic needs to do any such thing, do you think the rich will just give you some Cobalt.

essentially what I was getting at. Thanks for a very stark rephrasing of it.

We already have quasi socialism. The debate that continues is how much can we sustain. As long as there are free elections and a large faction at the polls that support limiting the effect of dependency on government for sustenance there will be no dystopian fantasy come to reality in America.

If the efforts designed to win hearts and minds for the liberal cause ever sway enough of the youth then future generations could hit the tipping point and allow us to slip into a big brother socialist economy and surely as quick as government becomes that powerful the people pulling the strings in government behind the scenes will have no need for those puppets we call 'representatives' and it will simply become something 'other than America'.

But that is one huge 'if'.
Moderates and others, like the media, tend to find their balls and integrity when things get ridiculous. The source of the problem won't be ignored and clouded any longer, that would be long before it was too late.

A depression brought on by the conditions slick predicts here with no proper solution projected and proven out will not result in people standing idly by waiting for the elites to implement the new paradigm of permanent soup kitchens and housing assignments.

There would be a violent uprising and then a new government would form long before the existing elites could have transitioned the current armed authorities in america to protect them. This vague 'privatization' scenario of slicks is like a weak plot fault in a B movie.

The US army isn't manned by the same kind of member as the Chinese army is. No one in the Army believes their whole family will be rounded up and shot if they disobey the order to wipe out their brother and sister civilians.
That is a factor that slick seems to assume will not be present but he hasn't described how that kind of change would take place in the hearts and minds of the military, Sheriffs, Police, etc.

We americans have an expectation that bad government can be flushed before a revolt is necessary and that means we still understand that a revolt is the ultimate resolution. The majority population of the US, in spite of liberal efforts to neuter it, is quite dangerous to a minority of elites. If the 'rules' no longer apply due to conditions becoming dire the elites don't have the kind of protection slicks fantasy suggests.

The same way murderers find Jesus on death row liberals would find love for guns if slicks fantasy hatched and it would end poorly for the elites.
Also, no one has considered what forces from outside would align themselves with the resistance. It would be WWIII if the US dissolved into civil war.

Slick is also forgetting that there already was a civil war here in the US. He seems to think that revolution is some nigh-impossible, concept-only thing that has little to no chance of happening because people are such dumb, complacent sheep that they'll just passively allow anyone with so much as a scowl or a fancy word to do whatever they like, when I see people from all over the US - including soldiers, especially soldiers! - nearly threatening civil war at virtually everything the President and Congress say or do. People are already disgruntled. Why do you think there are so many pro-gunners? It's not just because they like things that go boom or because there's a buck to be made, I can tell you that much.

Also, quasi-socialism is exactly what I was saying would occur. Government credit system?

MD-1118 wrote:Wages become a thing of the past because machines don't need to be paid, so the money goes into a sort of welfare credit system to make sure everyone has a bed, three healthy square meals a day, reliable internet connection, and a roof over their heads, as well as a small allowance for 'luxuries'.

Sure, that may be slightly optimistic, but it's not completely bat**** insane to think it's a possibility, especially considering internet should soon be firmly established as a utility. More importantly, it's certainly not a bad thing to hope for. I just find it funny how Slick is quick to jump in and say how the rich and powerful are going to institute some sort of oppressive totalitarian dystopian regime when I say it, but when Spidey says it,

callmeslick wrote:essentially what I was getting at.

As for what Spidey said...

Spidey wrote:And for those of you who think you will just do some hobbies, do you really think there will be anything left after you pay for your basic needs to do any such thing, do you think the rich will just give you some Cobalt.

I make less than nine thousand dollars a year, and yet I still manage to invest in a few hobbies - gunpla, wall scrolls, computer builds, video games. Once the cost of goods and essentials drops (and the cost will drop, since wageless robots will be doing most or all of the work), things should be even more affordable than they are now. So yes, I do really think there will be something left over after I pay for my basic needs. I'm already living that life now, that's how I can think that. Will there be a rough transitionary period? Sure there will. Will the rich gain control over us 95% forever, as Slick seems to think? Once again, in Spidey's words:

Spidey wrote:and one that believes that the rich can hold on to power forever, dream on, because it would be the end of the system that they derive their power from in the first place…sure there will always be the “rich” but it will be under a new system where the exploitation of labor will no longer be in effect. So the entire future of everyone would depend on nationalizing resources and developing a completely different way of life.

MD-1118 wrote:Slick is also forgetting that there already was a civil war here in the US. He seems to think that revolution is some nigh-impossible, concept-only thing that has little to no chance of happening because people are such dumb, complacent sheep that they'll just passively allow anyone with so much as a scowl or a fancy word to do whatever they like, when I see people from all over the US - including soldiers, especially soldiers! - nearly threatening civil war at virtually everything the President and Congress say or do. People are already disgruntled. Why do you think there are so many pro-gunners? It's not just because they like things that go boom or because there's a buck to be made, I can tell you that much.

actually, I'm pretty much up on the Civil War, although in VA they called the War of Northern Aggression. And, in fact, your very scenario(current unease leading to schism) would play rather neatly into the long term plan.....

MD-1118 wrote:I make less than nine thousand dollars a year, and yet I still manage to invest in a few hobbies - gunpla, wall scrolls, computer builds, video games. Once the cost of goods and essentials drops (and the cost will drop, since wageless robots will be doing most or all of the work), things should be even more affordable than they are now. So yes, I do really think there will be something left over after I pay for my basic needs. I'm already living that life now...

Things better be really really cheap, because money will become devalued, due to the fact that it’s actually labor that backs the US dollar.

I think you are making a fatal error by describing a new paradigm that requires aspects of the old one to work.

Spidey wrote:

MD-1118 wrote:I make less than nine thousand dollars a year, and yet I still manage to invest in a few hobbies - gunpla, wall scrolls, computer builds, video games. Once the cost of goods and essentials drops (and the cost will drop, since wageless robots will be doing most or all of the work), things should be even more affordable than they are now. So yes, I do really think there will be something left over after I pay for my basic needs. I'm already living that life now...

Things better be really really cheap, because money will become devalued, due to the fact that it’s actually labor that backs the US dollar.

I think you are making a fatal error by describing a new paradigm that requires aspects of the old one to work.

Money will probably become devalued to the point where the dollar ceases to exist altogether, but the 'costs' of manufacturing, mining, etc. will plummet as well since the labor that backed the dollar is also the labor that provides the resources the dollar was spent on. I foresee the currency of the future being data / data processing, energy, or some combination of the two, with the by-now well-entrenched credit system sticking around, although it will probably adapt and change as well. And with energy technologies such as solar and nuclear power making constant strides forward, those will become more plentiful even if no one actually does much work at all.

I really don't see any other long-term outcome being possible, assuming technological progress continues and the human race doesn't wipe itself out.

Spidey wrote:

MD-1118 wrote:I make less than nine thousand dollars a year, and yet I still manage to invest in a few hobbies - gunpla, wall scrolls, computer builds, video games. Once the cost of goods and essentials drops (and the cost will drop, since wageless robots will be doing most or all of the work), things should be even more affordable than they are now. So yes, I do really think there will be something left over after I pay for my basic needs. I'm already living that life now...

Things better be really really cheap, because money will become devalued, due to the fact that it’s actually labor that backs the US dollar.

I think you are making a fatal error by describing a new paradigm that requires aspects of the old one to work.

agree completely. Further, MD, you retort with the hopeful assumption that some sort of altruistic nouveau currency system evolves AND that mankind doesn't wipe itself out. More likely to me is that humankind clings to the old systems, both monetary and governmental for far too long, and does, indeed thin the herd out drastically(or have it thinned via disease). Population dynamics rules the latter and human nature the former.