Forget Billions or even 100s of millions. If I had a single digit million dollar fortune to my name, nobody will hear from me again. I'll go to a quiet corner and just read books or garden or whatever. If I can be of any help/use to those less fortunate than me, I will. If I can't do that, then I'll keep quiet and live out my life.
I cannot fathom going out of my way to create chaos, to be cruel, to make lives miserable for millions of people, and worst of all, call it "progress". I just don't understand how these people think. Maybe I am just too poor, too dumb...
The personality defect that leads you to become powerful is the same defect that makes you want to become even more powerful.
It's the job of the rest of us to restructure the system to prevent this kind of pathological runaway power accumulation. It means new laws, but also a more enlightened culture.
A lot of people do exactly that, but by definition, you don't hear from the people who nobody will hear from again.
What's left are the folks for whom power and influence is a game. If they were to fuck off to the sunset and live a quiet life which harms nobody, they'd be abandoning the game. And it's become such a part of their identity that they can't live without that anymore.
Ironically, these folks are the best argument for replacing human decision making with machines. Cold, logical, emotionless machines that don't have identities or a need to win the game. Then all the folks whose sole purpose in life is controlling others would either need to find another purpose or off themself.
> these folks are the best argument for replacing human decision making with machines.
So the best way forward is to succumb to the tech oligarchs' plan?
I strongly disagree. Machines aren't neutral nor fair. They exist to impose the will of the people operating them. Have you already forgotten what social media algorithms, that "cold, logical, emotionless machines" that you speak so highly of, did to our society?
They have already taken part in every conceivable pleasure known to man that money can buy (legal and illegal). So much so that they have been desensitized to any stimuli barring extremes. And that's assuming these billionaires started out as ordinary folks in the first place (which is doubtful). All they got left is a God-complex to sustain them emotionally.
Earning billions and being cruel are inseparable. It is simply not possible to lay hands on such astronomical amounts of wealth without massive exploitation, which is why billionaires have the character traits that you describe.
A lot of it stems from EA (effective altruism) - paraphrased very roughly, it could argue that you are being immoral or selfish by not using the million dollars to invest and make a humanity changing discovery (FWIW I don't believe this, I'm explaining how they view things).
If they harm a billion people, but it benefits trillions in some theoretical glorious future, then it's the right thing to do. Of course it's all bullshit and they bake in a ton of assumptions at the core of their arguments that make the math of greed 'feel' okay, or at least palatable.
I find this not good Argument. We cannot predict the future and thinking about the good of people living in the future is therefore Not possible. We should think about the now and here and it's problems. Case: climate change, These people do Not waste any thought about that.
If they harm a billion people, but it benefits trillions in some theoretical glorious future, then it's the right thing to do
By the same logic, if harming one billionaire benefits million normal people, will they be okay with it? None of this makes any sense. Who gave them the right to decide all of this anyway?
sociopaths also understand that to gain power, you need to step on many people heads, which brings its own risks.
So peacefully sitting on millions and not billions may be winning strategy even from sociopath's point of view. Those people who wants billions likely have some other mental differences (getting adrenaline rush from power they can't get from other activities, etc)
This is Bernie Sanders not quite getting what's going on.
Computers getting more powerful in a Moore's law like way has been going on for decades and if human brains are something like computers of somewhat constant abilities it's inevitable the computers would overtake at some point. It's not really sci fi or an oligarch plan or especially new - I wrote about it for my uni entrance exam 45 years ago and the ideas go back at least to Turing.
Most of the stuff mentioned will inevitably happen, oligarchs or not and we should plan to make the best of it. Some of the things - merge, immortality and super intelligence could be quite cool. I imagine it'll be voluntary and some people will live traditionally, some will embrace the tech.
This is the inevitable result of a system that equates capital with power, and relies on an uneven distribution of said capital-power. A system designed for inequality will result in equality, and those with power-capital will only find more and better ways to increase their power-capital, to the detriment of us all. Humankind is doomed if we do not find a better way than capitalism.
> Humankind is doomed if we do not find a better way than capitalism.
better way is regulated capitalism. Its just citizens don't stand ground when capitalists compromise regulation, and our regulated capitalism becomes not regulated.
These technofascists are today's equivalent to the eugenicists of 100 years ago. They believe they have the singular vision and the moral authority to dictate the future of humanity.
But it's also different this time because these maniacs come with the power of perverse amounts of money and control over actual technology.
We let them become that big and powerful and I have an inkling we might come to regret it.
I've always seen using an adblocker as a moral imperative to avoid giving the parasites any money. I also segment my browsing / shopping / buying to avoid referral tracking etc.
Imagine if that been mass culture! Imagine Doubleclick never getting off the ground, so it would have been unable to kill Google and walk around wearing its skin as a costume. Imagine if when all of the tech companies wanted profitability, they had to ask for subscription fees in exchange for providing actual value, rather than merely optimizing for "engagement" (aka time wasted).
Does anyone have a better long term plan for the species? The full article is paywalled, so does Bernie (who seems generally great) have a 10,000 year plan for the species?
We can’t even solve 1 year problems as a nation, so the probability of global human community aligning to stall our breakneck self destruction via AGW or war is zero.
Humans have only dominated the planet for 250,000 years, who says we’re supposed to continue that?
Dinosaurs dominated for millions and they are gone there’s no universal mandate that humans are the final form of intelligence and no reason to believe we are.
Last I checked we’re all extinct within 1Billion years and humans can’t survive mass migration off of earth because there’s nowhere to go.
Forget Billions or even 100s of millions. If I had a single digit million dollar fortune to my name, nobody will hear from me again. I'll go to a quiet corner and just read books or garden or whatever. If I can be of any help/use to those less fortunate than me, I will. If I can't do that, then I'll keep quiet and live out my life.
I cannot fathom going out of my way to create chaos, to be cruel, to make lives miserable for millions of people, and worst of all, call it "progress". I just don't understand how these people think. Maybe I am just too poor, too dumb...
The personality defect that leads you to become powerful is the same defect that makes you want to become even more powerful.
It's the job of the rest of us to restructure the system to prevent this kind of pathological runaway power accumulation. It means new laws, but also a more enlightened culture.
It may even mean a revolution, either the soft or hard type.
Said defect is called *avarice". Left untempered, it's one of the most destructive of vices.
A lot of people do exactly that, but by definition, you don't hear from the people who nobody will hear from again.
What's left are the folks for whom power and influence is a game. If they were to fuck off to the sunset and live a quiet life which harms nobody, they'd be abandoning the game. And it's become such a part of their identity that they can't live without that anymore.
Ironically, these folks are the best argument for replacing human decision making with machines. Cold, logical, emotionless machines that don't have identities or a need to win the game. Then all the folks whose sole purpose in life is controlling others would either need to find another purpose or off themself.
> these folks are the best argument for replacing human decision making with machines.
So the best way forward is to succumb to the tech oligarchs' plan?
I strongly disagree. Machines aren't neutral nor fair. They exist to impose the will of the people operating them. Have you already forgotten what social media algorithms, that "cold, logical, emotionless machines" that you speak so highly of, did to our society?
They have already taken part in every conceivable pleasure known to man that money can buy (legal and illegal). So much so that they have been desensitized to any stimuli barring extremes. And that's assuming these billionaires started out as ordinary folks in the first place (which is doubtful). All they got left is a God-complex to sustain them emotionally.
Let us be neighbours, so we can play a little bit Counter Strike or Q3A :-))
I would buy a small house near forrest & mountains.
Earning billions and being cruel are inseparable. It is simply not possible to lay hands on such astronomical amounts of wealth without massive exploitation, which is why billionaires have the character traits that you describe.
> I just don't understand how these people think.
A lot of it stems from EA (effective altruism) - paraphrased very roughly, it could argue that you are being immoral or selfish by not using the million dollars to invest and make a humanity changing discovery (FWIW I don't believe this, I'm explaining how they view things).
If they harm a billion people, but it benefits trillions in some theoretical glorious future, then it's the right thing to do. Of course it's all bullshit and they bake in a ton of assumptions at the core of their arguments that make the math of greed 'feel' okay, or at least palatable.
I find this not good Argument. We cannot predict the future and thinking about the good of people living in the future is therefore Not possible. We should think about the now and here and it's problems. Case: climate change, These people do Not waste any thought about that.
If they harm a billion people, but it benefits trillions in some theoretical glorious future, then it's the right thing to do
By the same logic, if harming one billionaire benefits million normal people, will they be okay with it? None of this makes any sense. Who gave them the right to decide all of this anyway?
Same. Non-sociopaths understand that with power comes responsibility and I don’t want to be responsible for everyone else so I don’t want power.
sociopaths also understand that to gain power, you need to step on many people heads, which brings its own risks.
So peacefully sitting on millions and not billions may be winning strategy even from sociopath's point of view. Those people who wants billions likely have some other mental differences (getting adrenaline rush from power they can't get from other activities, etc)
This is Bernie Sanders not quite getting what's going on.
Computers getting more powerful in a Moore's law like way has been going on for decades and if human brains are something like computers of somewhat constant abilities it's inevitable the computers would overtake at some point. It's not really sci fi or an oligarch plan or especially new - I wrote about it for my uni entrance exam 45 years ago and the ideas go back at least to Turing.
Most of the stuff mentioned will inevitably happen, oligarchs or not and we should plan to make the best of it. Some of the things - merge, immortality and super intelligence could be quite cool. I imagine it'll be voluntary and some people will live traditionally, some will embrace the tech.
This is the inevitable result of a system that equates capital with power, and relies on an uneven distribution of said capital-power. A system designed for inequality will result in equality, and those with power-capital will only find more and better ways to increase their power-capital, to the detriment of us all. Humankind is doomed if we do not find a better way than capitalism.
> Humankind is doomed if we do not find a better way than capitalism.
better way is regulated capitalism. Its just citizens don't stand ground when capitalists compromise regulation, and our regulated capitalism becomes not regulated.
https://archive.is/gvPFC
These technofascists are today's equivalent to the eugenicists of 100 years ago. They believe they have the singular vision and the moral authority to dictate the future of humanity.
But it's also different this time because these maniacs come with the power of perverse amounts of money and control over actual technology.
We let them become that big and powerful and I have an inkling we might come to regret it.
Some of us already do!
I've always seen using an adblocker as a moral imperative to avoid giving the parasites any money. I also segment my browsing / shopping / buying to avoid referral tracking etc.
Imagine if that been mass culture! Imagine Doubleclick never getting off the ground, so it would have been unable to kill Google and walk around wearing its skin as a costume. Imagine if when all of the tech companies wanted profitability, they had to ask for subscription fees in exchange for providing actual value, rather than merely optimizing for "engagement" (aka time wasted).
Does anyone have a better long term plan for the species? The full article is paywalled, so does Bernie (who seems generally great) have a 10,000 year plan for the species?
We can’t even solve 1 year problems as a nation, so the probability of global human community aligning to stall our breakneck self destruction via AGW or war is zero.
Humans have only dominated the planet for 250,000 years, who says we’re supposed to continue that?
Dinosaurs dominated for millions and they are gone there’s no universal mandate that humans are the final form of intelligence and no reason to believe we are.
Last I checked we’re all extinct within 1Billion years and humans can’t survive mass migration off of earth because there’s nowhere to go.
This is the only option
There's plenty of places to go. Space is literally infinite. We even have multiple options within our own star system.
> This is the only option
You are free to delete yourself. Don't impose it on others.
[dead]