Posted on 09/03/2013 1:32:14 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
1. What socialists/communists fail to acknowledge is that basic human nature pushes us to want to better ourselves, to achieve, to distinguish ourselves. If this weren't true, we would not have made the advances we've made as a species - especially in the time frame in which we've made them.
2. When the ability of individual human beings to better themselves is suppressed, demotivation occurs - often along with depression and a variety of self-destructive behaviors (e.g. alcoholism in the USSR as one of a large number of examples).
3. Ironically, socialism/communism are generally pushed forward by ‘leaders’ who are narcissistic and who are in essence distinguishing themselves apart from the rest of us by being ‘leaders’ of these movements. Progressives are very often identified by a ‘save the world’ mentality - that features them as the special few who are the chosen ones to ‘save the world’. In essence, they are exhibiting behaviors consistent with item number 1 above, while pushing a world construct that denies the rest of us the right to distinguish ourselves.
4. The Utopian concept that we can technologically advance to the point at which human input is no longer needed, and we can all just ‘chill’ and enjoy the fruits of utopia - while ‘automation’ etc. takes care of business for us is terribly flawed for an extensive number of reasons. Among them:
A. Someone needs to invent, perfect, build, and maintain the automation. It will not just come into being on its own.
B. Even if one evokes the ‘ultimate’ automated society, in which ‘smart machines’ invent the automation, build it, perfect it, and maintain it, someone will have to invent and fabricate these ‘smart machines’. You could argue that ‘smarter machines’ will invent the ‘smart machines’, but this begins to get a little ridiculous and way too futuristic to be considered seriously in the current or foreseeable future context. Yes, all things are possible, but if one believes this scenario of machine begets machine begets machine, then I have Escher drawings you'd probably love to have hanging on your wall.
To me, the part of the human spirit that led us to go into space, to walk on the moon, and for many to die trying to reach the summit of Everest, is so intrinsic, basic, and intensely human that to deny these things essentially is to deny our humanity. Interestingly, on another thread today there was reference to the behavior of Russian athletes - including rudeness and hypercompetitiveness. In my view, it was inevitable that Russian athletes would be hypercompetitive, since for years and years athletic competition was the only way one could legitimately distinguish oneself in the USSR.
Lots to think about, and I'd love to hear other opinions.
And one wonders how many products the robots will buy.
At some point, it becomes impossible to turn around, and it may be that there is no "Plan B". People might wake up and say "Socialism really doesn't work!" and they may say "Our factories are automated, but who can buy the goods?"
And the question is: What now? You've gone over the waterfall. People lack a work ethic. People lack an education. The school system is a wasteland that simply cannot turn out a decent product for at least a generation. Morals are shot. The entire culture is shot.
People need to REALLY think out of the box. The problem is here today, but the fix is (maybe) 20 years away. What do we do?
I don't pretend to have the answer, but voting for a better guy, or tweaking section 24B of the tax code is definitely not going to stop us from going over the waterfall.
As I see it, the Left has executed a long-term plan over the past 100+ years. Conservatives need to stop thinking "How can next quarter be better?" and start thinking "Where can we hope to be in 2050?" As I say, I have no answer, but I think quick fixes are not the way. If going over the waterfall is inevitable (and I think it is) then we better start planning what to do after the crash at the bottom.
Agreed. The picture of a rowboat atilt on the crest of a waterfall comes to mind.
I wasn’t taking a shot at you, just remembering what a union official at a car plant in the 1950s said when management was extolling the virtues of automation (they don’t need breaks or vacations or sick days, etc.).
At the time I thought the guy was just against modernization, never thinking we’d get to this stage, exacerbated by shipping plants to where humans are still cheaper than machines.
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