[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Technology might make socialism actually work at some point. This is a hideous thing to consider, but just as sci-fi movies have pointed out for several decades, productivity could be increased with computer-triggered negative and positive reinforcement. Pain would be the negative stimulus. Some highly addictive government mandated drug would be doled out as a positive stimulus.

On the other side of the coin, technology also is causing rapid attitude changes in society. Just imagine, the Cult of the Sacred Cow, a group of hackers, is giving software to Chinese dissidents, enabling to read what we just posted.

[weikel]

Technology might make socialism actually work at some point.

If we can replicate everything like in star trek and can have robots do whatever work is nessacary then sure.

[from occupied ga]

Technology might make socialism actually work at some point

Nope - Not now. Not ever. Look at it from the viewpoint of the last 50 years. Did socialism work 50 years ago? No. Does socialism work today? No. Are workers more productive today than they were 50 years ago? Absolutely; they are much more productive, but socialism is a worse failure today than it was 50 years ago.

The problem with socialism is not that there aren't enough resources. It is that there is no upper limit to human greed. The parasitic classes (including the politicians and bureaucrats) always want more. They are driven by envy of their betters (and their betters are almost everyone). It doesn't matter how much they get at the expense of someone else, they want it all.

[RLK]

Technology might make socialism actually work at some point. This is a hideous thing to consider, but just as sci-fi movies have pointed out for several decades, productivity could be increased with computer-triggered negative and positive reinforcement.

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What your are saying has merit. There was a Marxist theorist fron the 19th century, Rosenbaum, who believed Capitalism must be the first step in creating a Marxist/communist society.

Marxism dulls the aggressive and creative economic process so that there tends to be a stagnation at the level existant at the moment Marxism was imposed. Consequently, Marxism would alway fail without a developed economy to take over.

As technology advances we will one day see the point where the human race is serviced by self-maintaining machinery answering every need and every need at the push of a few buttons and a voice command. At that point creativity and effort will become obsolete and Marxism will become workable.

The thought of what kind of people this environment will produce is frightening. In one sense we now have a parallel environment where this is taking place. Institutions such as the welfare system and the university tenure system are producing environments where there is unconditional receipt if sustinance without need for effort or creativity and the people within that life style are degenerating into eternal mindless children incapable of any adult responsibility or activity other than momentary sex or drugs.