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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Er, what? Non-sequitur argument much?
Automation is inevitable as we move forward with technology. The question is whether we are trodden under by it or it enhances all of our lives, and the answer lies in how we deal with the displacement of jobs that results.
If tech giants and mega-capitalists are allowed to hold all of the profits in an increasingly stratified wealth structure, we will lose. If we compel them (because they won't part with the money out of the goodness of their hearts) to share those profits so that everyone benefits from both the increased wealth and the increased productivity, we will win.
A Luddite argument about tearing down the machines is just dumb. Not that I am accusing Yang of making such an argument, but a lot of people seem to believe it.
Edited by Fighteer on Aug 2nd 2019 at 9:57:23 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"What do we think the odds of Trump getting re-elected are, at this point? Better? Worse? Same?
Higher than you might hope, lower than you might fear.
More people are actually behind Trump and support him than one may want to admit. His approval ratings have been remarkably stable throughout his Presidency. Over the last two and a half years, voters on both sides of the aisle have gotten exactly what they expected from him.
However. His stable approval ratings also mean that while few supporters have jumped ship on him, he isn't winning anyone over to his side, either. Trump suffered a quick bleedout of support
right at the start when "Give him a chance!" voters realized he was actually f*cking serious about the shit he talked. 2017 was a shitshow for Trump before he stabilized in 2018.
He won the Presidency by EC technicality in 2016 despite his opponent getting 3 million more votes than him, and proceeded to enter office with 45.5% approval. After stabilizing in 2018, he's rarely gone above or below a 40-42% approval margin. Slightly fewer people like him today than did in 2016, which is going to make winning with a minority of votes even harder - and winning with a majority near-impossible.
However, that does not in any way mean that you should discount him as a 2020 candidate. He has an incumbent advantage, an extensive propaganda network hard at work to promote him, and this year's Democratic primary is frankly a ludicrous clusterf*ck. We have so many Dems doing extensive opposition research and trying to tear each other down that all Trump's team really needs to do is sit at the debates with a recording device.
If Biden wins the nomination, for instance, Kamala Harris's brutal takedown of his record will make a phenomenal attack ad.
So. Yeah. If I had to describe Trump's chances in 2020 in one word, it would be "competitive". We cannot afford to consider him a joke candidate with no hope of success like we did in 2016. But don't lose hope, either, because far more beloved Presidents than him have lost their re-election bids.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 2nd 2019 at 8:00:34 AM
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Not really, it's long been a part of capitalist critique that increasing automation is a problem because the capitalist would always choose to use it to cut costs (read: lay off the workforce) rather than use it to decrease the amount of work those same workers would have to do while keeping the wages the same - which is what would happen if automation was introduced into a worker co-op. Automation is a boon to everyone in a socialist system, while being bad for workers in a capitalist system.
And now you confuse me because you call calling out capitalism a non-sequitur and then in the same post come up with this incredibly socialist spread the wealth idea.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."Automation displacing jobs pertains to everyone in every economic system. It has nothing to do with capitalism per se; the problem with capitalism is that of wealth distribution. Socialism (in the Marxist sense) has a different problem in that the economic incentives for automation are skewed by the lack of market pressure to reduce wages. You're still putting people out of work either way.
Yes, democratic socialism implicitly uses wealth redistribution to combat wage losses from automation while retaining capitalist incentives to push technological innovation, but it doesn't magically fix the problem by waving a wand. The social issues of devaluing work remain and must be dealt with.
Edited by Fighteer on Aug 2nd 2019 at 10:22:32 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"He doesn't specify which jobs or from where in the government they'd be phased out, so the plan's headline is a gimmick to attract the small government crowd. He's not really planning to reduce the role of the government. The second part practically guarantees he'd expand it.
This is no way makes his logic any less idiotic and the value of his "reforms" any less dubious.
Those 20% are doing something presumably, I in no way trust Yang to fire the 20% of Federal employees who aren't useful (if they even exist).
Hiring an outside firm to evaluate who should be fired and who shouldn't is just peak techbro bullshit, I stand by my position. It's an awful plan and Yang is an awful candidate.
Wealth redistribution is just good policy, not socialism.
Socialism is the support for workers controlling the means of production since Figteer has given no sign they support that in the mid or long term their solutions are not socialistic.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 2nd 2019 at 7:24:25 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangTrump continues to try and distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein, despite previously loving him.
Epstein meanwhile has been outed as a Wannabe Emperor Scientist and Immortality Seeker on top of everything else we know of him.
There's a lot of precedent for "rich, eccentric" people pioneering technological and social advancement. Of course, they are people like everyone else, and as their celebrity and/or money amplify their virtues, so they amplify their vices.
Jeffrey Epstein is a man with a lot of vices and relatively few virtues. In that, he is a perfect fit for the circles that folks like Donald Trump hang out in.
Edited by Fighteer on Aug 2nd 2019 at 11:59:29 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"States removed 17 million people from their voting rolls.
Just in case you thought this would be a proper election.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 2nd 2019 at 10:37:39 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.We have federal agencies ordered to do nothing about Russian interference, gerrymandered electoral maps that the conservative-led Supreme Court refuses to strike down, and a propaganda network is the most-watched news agency on television.
Who actually thought this was going to be a proper election? Voter suppression is business as usual.
EDIT: Oh, and let's not forget that up to 50% of people who cast a vote in each state will not be counted and do not get a voice. Democracy! Only kinda sorta!
Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 2nd 2019 at 12:08:56 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I would argue you could easily still have capitalism in a heavily-automated world. This is because technically speaking, automation doesn't cut down the number of jobs, it just gives them to robots. So you'd still get a lot of the same structure here. I could also see the new economics revolving around the trade of automation itself. For example, instead of buying a coffee, you buy a barista robot.
A second argument I'd make is that with a lot of automation and the productivity from it, socialism becomes obsolete. You can easily make sure everyone's basic necessities are taken care of without doing going full-on Marxist in such a system.
To be fair, in a strict democracy, up to 50% of people's votes don't count by default.
Edited by Protagonist506 on Aug 2nd 2019 at 11:12:51 AM
Leviticus 19:34
There are two problems with that model of capitalism, though. First, the person "buying the robot" doesn't have gainful employment themselves, so where are they getting the money with which to engage in commerce? This leads into the second: how is wealth counted?
If money is being generated by the sale and transport of goods and services produced by the robots, someone is paying for it and someone is getting paid. The person getting paid can spend that money to make more robots, but to what end? He can buy more stuff for himself, but if the robots are making stuff cheaply enough, at best he's getting more of it than other people, and he can only consume so much. At worst he's sitting on ever-increasing piles of money with no effective value other than paying people to buy the things his robots are making and presumably also to keep him from being murdered by the hordes of unemployed people without money to buy the things his robots are making.
You can solve this in two main ways: take the rich guy's money and give it to everyone else so they can buy his stuff, or do away with money and give everyone what they need from the innumerable bounty of stuff being made by all the robots. Both of these solutions have advantages and drawbacks, but the point being illustrated is that complete automation of production kills Capitalism just as surely as it kills Socialism. You need a completely new economic model to handle it.
Also, this is, politely speaking, bollocks. The purpose of the voters on the losing side is to force the winning side to make its message acceptable to as many people as it takes to reach 50.00001% note . That is how a representative democracy is supposed to work. You have to put forth the effort to appeal to the majority of voters, effort that is not required at all if the other side simply doesn't turn out. The latter is precisely the Republican playbook, and standing up to be counted is the only way to resist it.
By voting for "the other guy", you are literally forcing the political system to move towards your wants even if you don't ultimately get them.
Edited by Fighteer on Aug 2nd 2019 at 2:38:04 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So with that burglary attempt at Elijah Cummings' home, Trump decided to Kick Them While They Are Down and tweet out ""Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!"
Surprisingly, even Nikki Haley - his former UN Ambassador - called him out for it.
What do you all figure the odds are that the would-be-burglar is actually a Trump supporter who was deliberately targeting Cummings because of Trump's inflammatory rhetoric? I mean for fuck's sake, I can't even imagine the outcry if Obama had said that about Rand Paul's scuffle with his neighbor.
Edited by ironballs16 on Aug 2nd 2019 at 2:39:46 PM
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Edited by tclittle on Aug 2nd 2019 at 1:52:57 PM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."Maybe Trump can shoot for four days before his next nominee is withdrawn. Go for the record.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows - after all, these are folks that are disheartened because of Trump's behavior. Who's to say the next crop of replacements won't be worse?
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"

Yeah, he doesn't seem to be against automation so much as, you know, cognizant of its effects (both positive and negative). He's not saying "Grrr! Dem machines r stealing our jobz!" so much as "we will lose jobs to machines and we're not doing anything about it."
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