Reply to: An end to poverty?

[SueEllen]

Add to that the advent of television and computers and there's been a whole mindset shift in accepting newspapers as gospel to an inherent mistrust of them. To suggest that technology isn't changing human nature is only something a gibbon would assert.

The British are and have always been mavericks anyway compared to other countries in Europe.

There were always people who never trusted the establishment, and some of them fought against the status quo. This is one of the reasons why we don't have things that are common in other European countries like ID cards, and why there were riots and other resistance to the poll tax.

All technology has done has shown there are more mavericks in British society than originally thought.

Governments now have to divide and conquer to rule, but this will not work forever..

[shaunbhoy]

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.

HTH

Well you ARE the forum specialist on primitive cerebrums AtW. The floor is yours!!

[AtW]

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.

HTH

[SpontaneousOrder]

Rather than proving yourself an idiot (again), perhaps consider that human nature includes the way we think, act and feel. Increased longevity has made us think differently about a whole variety of things, including planning for our old age as well as caring for our ageing relatives. The whole philosophy of the NHS as well as our reliance upon it is a shift in human nature from what it was before that.

Add to that the advent of television and computers and there's been a whole mindset shift in accepting newspapers as gospel to an inherent mistrust of them. To suggest that technology isn't changing human nature is only something a gibbon would assert.

Or to be more precise - in my opinion - technology has changed the expression of human nature. Our nature is still the same as it was a long time ago.

[LondonManc]

It hasn't found a cure for stupidity though - well done you've completely missed the entire point being discussed which was not whether science is good, but that human nature hasn't changed despite our wonderful advances.

Rather than proving yourself an idiot (again), perhaps consider that human nature includes the way we think, act and feel. Increased longevity has made us think differently about a whole variety of things, including planning for our old age as well as caring for our ageing relatives. The whole philosophy of the NHS as well as our reliance upon it is a shift in human nature from what it was before that.

Add to that the advent of television and computers and there's been a whole mindset shift in accepting newspapers as gospel to an inherent mistrust of them. To suggest that technology isn't changing human nature is only something a gibbon would assert.

[Zero Liability]

Why would determining the need be an issue? If the algorithm knew the optimal levels of resource requirements in the different regions could it not just chug away in the background maintaining said levels?

Because you are vastly simplifying the concept of "need". Even very basic wants, like food, shelter, sanitation etc. are deliverable to varying costs, levels of quality and at various timescales, all of which requires the coordination of scarce capital goods, and requires this program (more accurately, the planner who is responsible for it) to supplant its own judgements with those for whom it is planning; I think you can extrapolate from this what I am getting at. So "if the algorithm knew"... resolves to "if the planner knew...", which has changed nothing and still leaves the "planner" mired in the dark, because it assumes away the problem. I've also noticed there is an insistence by some TVP types that scarcity is a thing of the past. Scarcity is dealt with and hidden in the background in an economy where capital can be efficiently allocated with a price system in consumer and capital goods, but if that capital structure is disrupted scarcity rapidly reasserts itself into the open. Hence why ZIRP and associated forms of madness are capable of inflicting so much damage on economies.

I get that there is the concept of goods/services above basic levels of survival that would need to be addressed. Especially for those of us who'd like a nice big house by the beach with 2 spaceships parked on the roof...

It's pretty straightforward to get everyone down to a basic level of subsistence and then return to living in caves a few years later, after the capital structure is entirely gutted. That doesn't take a genius. In fact, you don't even need super-computers, you could just go live in agrarian communities like those of the Amish.

I do think we are going to see some significant changes in the future, in terms of digital currencies (of the BTC type, not the current $ scam) and 3D printing altering the very structures of industries, but none of them involve the disappearance of money, or are even feasible without it.

[TykeMerc]

Ending poverty is easy.

[SpontaneousOrder]

You'd have to ask it

It won't happen anyway so there's no point trying to come up with ways to end poverty - it's a dead end, on here anyway...

Ending poverty is easy. Stop supporting the use of legalised violent force against peaceful people. Poverty gone within a few decades.

[AtW]

It won't happen anyway so there's no point trying to come up with ways to end poverty - it's a dead end, on here anyway...

Oh don't give up so easily...

[meridian]

And how does it decide whether your job is to waitress or give out hand jobs?

The computer will decide. Delivery Boy, Spaceship Captain, Bureaucrat, etc

[Jog On]

Jog On - how would your computer decide who gets a nice detached house in a leafy safe area of London with great schools, and who gets a bedsit in Birmingham?

Inquiring minds want to know

And how does it decide whether your job is to waitress or give out hand jobs?

You'd have to ask it

It won't happen anyway so there's no point trying to come up with ways to end poverty - it's a dead end, on here anyway...

[SpontaneousOrder]

Jog On - how would your computer decide who gets a nice detached house in a leafy safe area of London with great schools, and who gets a bedsit in Birmingham?

Inquiring minds want to know

And how does it decide whether your job is to waitress or give out hand jobs?

[AtW]

Jog On - how would your computer decide who gets a nice detached house in a leafy safe area of London with great schools, and who gets a bedsit in Birmingham?

Inquiring minds want to know

[SpontaneousOrder]

TVP is based on the current state being without scarcity.

What's your solution to ending poverty then?

Any solution of mine wouldn't involve magic.

We don't currently live in a world without scarcity. We currently don't have the technology to live in a world where scarcity is relatively negligible.

If this wasn't the case, you could implement TVP yourself right now.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Apparently nothing BP - the highest intellects on CUK have deemed we are all doomed to continue under 'trickle down economics'

Let them eat cake!

Are you comparing pocket sized supercomputers & a car in every home to cake?