| ▲ | delichon 10 hours ago |
| Back in 2025 before cheap bots, our grandparents endured lives of servitude. They spent an enormous amount of time doing simple chores like folding clothes, driving, programming, washing and dusting, grooming themselves. They had to walk their own dogs and play with their own children. They sometimes even had to cook their own food, directly over fire. "Hygiene" was a primitive joke. A full day's work usually wasn't even enough to buy a single new car. They wrote checks to the government, rather than the other way around. Life was brutal, desperate and short. |
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| ▲ | djtango 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Why is UBI assumed as part of techtopia? When the government has access to unlimited labour and military via robots, why do they need citizens anymore? Beyond some antiquated moral obligation, why would a government actually do anything for a population that is net value extracting? |
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| ▲ | SturgeonsLaw 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >why would a government actually do anything for a population that is net value extracting? Because we outnumber them a million to one, and history is littered with examples of what happens to leaders who squeeze their population a little too far | | |
| ▲ | bigstrat2003 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not really convinced it's actually possible to overthrow a modern government. The disparity in killing power available to the two sides is just too great. Like yeah we outnumber the government a million to one (figuratively), but that's not going to help much when they have tanks, artillery, and planes to defend themselves with. | | |
| ▲ | Aloha 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The people that run that killing power are also citizens, and they either must be bought at an increasing steep price, or they will go with the bulk of the nation (mostly with their near and distant relatives who are suffering) - network effects are very real here. | | |
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| ▲ | myk9001 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So, you literally read "unlimited supply of military via robots" in the parent comment, and still reply with this? Humanity truly doesn't stand a chance... | |
| ▲ | mrob 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Historical leaders didn't have fully automated killer drone factories. (Just an example; a real AGI will probably come up with more effective ideas.) |
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| ▲ | defrost 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You might as well ask why a sea of humanity should tolerate a toll gate keeping robotically enhanced micro brotopia that is net value extracting. Traditionally these motte and bailey fiefdoms were laid siege to and undermined. | |
| ▲ | tdeck 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > why do they need citizens anymore? People like being served by human beings, rich people especially. So that work will still be around and all the brightest and most diligent people will compete to be the one who brings Jeff Bezos's grandson his dinner. |
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| ▲ | 0xbadcafebee 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > They had to walk their own dogs and play with their own children. Oof, that one hits hard. My dad was an executive, mom was a housewife/socialite, we lived in Mexico. Had our own live-in maid, gardeners/handymen for outside chores. I saw them more than my parents. I can totally see them hiring robots instead of humans. Once technology gets cheap enough, the masses adopt it (in the 60's TV was an electronic babysitter) |
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| ▲ | johnfn 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This comment is a real rollercoaster. I can’t tell which side you’re arguing for. |
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| ▲ | ineedasername 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Could be they aren’t trying to come down on a nice easy high-contrast color and are figuring anywhere society lands will still be some shade of gray with a bit of flair here and there and a dash of spilled paint in other places. | | | |
| ▲ | DaiPlusPlus 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Clearly advocating for the continued use of paper checks | |
| ▲ | temp8830 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also, back in 2025 people's mental models were so primitive that they could only consider one parameter at a time. And the reward function was wired into their survival instincts, imagine that! This caused them to see a person whose mental model held a different parameter value as a threat to their survival. These primitive serial thinkers used something called "wars" to update model weights, where they physically eliminated compute elements! Truly a barbaric age. |
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| ▲ | refurb an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yup, it’s funny seeing people say how bad the past was without realizing people 100 years from now will say the exact same thing about today. Not to mention the opinions and beliefs that people hold “as the right side of history” without realizing these things change and no doubt some view they hold will be seen as “barbaric” in the future. |
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| ▲ | NedF 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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