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Bubzer

(4,211 posts)
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 11:42 AM Mar 2016

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

According to world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the rising use of automated machines may mean the end of human rights – not just jobs. But he’s not talking about robots with artificial intelligence taking over the world, he’s talking about the current capitalist political system and its major players.


...

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

The insatiable thirst for capitalist accumulation bestowed upon humans by years of lies and terrible economic policy has affected technology in such a way that one of its major goals has become to replace human jobs.

If we do not take this warning seriously, we may face unfathomable corporate domination. If we let the same people who buy and sell our political system and resources maintain control of automated technology, then we’ll be heading towards a very harsh reality.

http://usuncut.com/news/edit-complete-hw-stephen-hawking-says-really-scared-capitalism-not-robots/
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Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots (Original Post) Bubzer Mar 2016 OP
Thanks for posting this. KPN Mar 2016 #1
And yet so many continue to march in lock-step towards the abyss. StandingInLeftField Mar 2016 #2
He's right, but we should also still be afraid of the robots. phantom power Mar 2016 #3
He assumes people have brains. Gregorian Mar 2016 #4
Very true. raging moderate Mar 2016 #5
And, of course, it takes Stephen Hawking to come to this giant-sized "DURRRRRRRR" of a conclusion: HughBeaumont Mar 2016 #6
Fucking Spot On! Phlem Mar 2016 #7
Or in other words WHEN CRABS ROAR Mar 2016 #8
Actually, most of the world's goods are still produced by human hands, at least partly. Francis Booth Mar 2016 #9
Those of us on the anti-capitalist left have been screaming this for years. Odin2005 Mar 2016 #10

KPN

(15,587 posts)
1. Thanks for posting this.
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 11:48 AM
Mar 2016

Hawking's been getting this message out for a little while now. He is 100% dead-on.

Too many people fail to see the forests for the trees. The fouindation is always the most important piece of any structure, physical or otherwise.

2. And yet so many continue to march in lock-step towards the abyss.
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 11:51 AM
Mar 2016

I once heard the saying "the A students teach the B students to work for the C students." Have we reached the point where the D and F students have subsumed all others through outright thievery? It appears so...

Gregorian

(23,867 posts)
4. He assumes people have brains.
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 11:56 AM
Mar 2016

That is a poor assumption when it comes to this subject. It's like saying Einstein has the same political principles as Bernie. Then they go and vote for Hillary. Go figure.

I can't even get DU'ers to spend a few minutes looking at intelligent discussions on the subject.

The odd part is, once you know how economics works, the politics follows. It's explains almost all of how we operate with respect to human beings.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
6. And, of course, it takes Stephen Hawking to come to this giant-sized "DURRRRRRRR" of a conclusion:
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 01:16 PM
Mar 2016
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.


Wealth addicts own and run everything (including the government) and they will not stop.

Guaranteed Minimum Income is NEVER going to happen. Even though it NEEDS to happen, it's not GOING to happen. This assumes that a wealth addict has a soul, foresight and a conscience. They lack all three, much to our dismay. We're expected to invent, rugged individualize, innovate, rethink, re-paradigm . . . or whatever vague corporate buzzword verb pundits think up . . . our way out of our malaise; lack of money, luck, opportunity, patronage or privilege be damned. That's just the WAY America thinks and they're never going to change. Sorry if anyone thought otherwise, but that's the way it fucking is.

This two-tiered dystopia is going to be a crushing blackened plague for all of us.

WHEN CRABS ROAR

(3,813 posts)
8. Or in other words
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 02:52 PM
Mar 2016

Get set for the coming international corporate wars where peoples needs will be secondary and the corporations need to win will become all important, fighting each other for total control.

Francis Booth

(162 posts)
9. Actually, most of the world's goods are still produced by human hands, at least partly.
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 03:44 PM
Mar 2016

if you were to go inside the huge Chinese factories that make just about everything in the world, guess what you would find? Not a lot of robots, but thousands and thousands of people, crammed into suffocating assembly lines, working long hours to produce iPhones and DVD players and every other gadget that the Western world craves.

Automated assembly, while widely utilized in the Western world, is not very cost-effective when it comes to producing items that change very quickly, like consumer electronics. It's faster and cheaper to reconfigure a human assembly line using hand tooling then it is to design robots that can replicate the fine motor skills of human beings. Even the Japanese, who were the undisputed masters of mechanical automation, have somewhat thrown in the towel and sent a lot of their manufacturing to China.

While some processes do lend themselves to large-scale automation, like semi-conductor fabrication, most of the world's goods are still produced by hand in relatively small volumes.

While the Chinese have created a dystopia, it's not quite the one that Hawking describes. And I think machines that can design other machines are still a long way off. We will have human labor for a very long time to come, it just won't be the labor that our grandparents did.

And what about the automation that has improved the lives of so many? Agricultural machinery has allowed 1% of the population to feed the other 99%, while the price of food in real dollars has steadily declined.

Odin2005

(53,521 posts)
10. Those of us on the anti-capitalist left have been screaming this for years.
Wed Mar 16, 2016, 05:26 PM
Mar 2016

I'm not a full-on Marxist, but this is EXACTLY what Marx predicted 150 years ago, that the drive to constantly revolutionize the means of production will make labor more and more efficient, causing less workers to be needed, leading to increased unemployment and an increasingly fucked working class.

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