Traitor: One who commits treason
Treason: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
He didn't levy war on us, he didn't adhere to our enemies, nor did he give them comfort. There is a flimsy argument that perhaps his actions gave aid to our enemies but if you roll with that reasoning then all of the people he exposed are also traitors so I'm not sure that's an argument the government would want to make.
He may be a criminal under the current laws, but he's not a traitor. Furthermore, if what he did was illegal then it's the law that is wrong and should be changed. The correct action would be for him to receive a presidential pardon followed by congress strengthening the whistleblower laws and a big shakeup at the NSA to root out their culture of taking activities beyond what they are authorized for. I'm afraid we don't live in that rosy alternate universe however.
You're suggesting a culture where the majority of inhabitants have no hope for the future. To say that such a culture would be unstable is a vast understatement. The likely outcome would be bloody and violent revolution. War is economically wasteful and destructive to the environment, I don't think the result would be nearly as cheery as you seem to be assuming.
Perhaps, but have you considered the consequences of what you're suggesting when the group who can't support children grows to include the majority of the population?
The number of farm workers has also drastically declined but in both cases
we haven't seen a huge spike in unemployment.
That is because the displaced farm workers were able to move into the manufacturing sector. More recently displaced manufacturing workers have been moving to the service sector for at least forty years. The question is, now that the service sector is going through the same process where are all the workers going to move to? (There are only three sectors to the economy) While 100% automation is unlikely any time soon, if manufacturing and the service sector become as efficient as Agriculture then we're looking at less than 4% of the population being employed. Those sort of levels would have profound social consequences.
These white collar jobs aren't being replaced any more than the spreadsheet and accounting software replaced the accountant.
The head accountant is still there but the overall size of accounting departments and associated administrative staff have shrunk massively over the last fifty years.
I used to agree with you on the basic income, but now I'm not so sure. The mistake a lot of socialists tend to make is assuming that humans will go do some thing useful with their time if they have no need to work to survive. I think this is not a valid general assumption, and if it isn't then socialism eats itself (interestingly in the same way capitalism eats itself due to greed), not due to an inability to supply the needs of the population, but due to social breakdown.
Social breakdown isn't the normal problem of socialism, rather it's the allocation of benefits at a rate faster than wealth is produced. In order for a society to have successful socialism it must first A) Be exceedingly wealthy, B) Have a way to continue generating large amounts of wealth even after incentives for work are reduced, C) Ensure that beneficiaries can't vote themselves wealth greater than what is being produced. So far we haven't managed to create a society that can do all three at the same time but automation may fix A&B enough that a bit of social design to fix C might make the whole thing workable.
Dignity does NOT come from forced coercive threat of violence and income redistribution based on that violence. We have conclusively proven that in the former USSR (and North Korea and more).
True, but when wealth disparity becomes extreme that doesn't turn out so well either. See feudalism for a potent example of what it's like for most people to exist as little more than chattel.
True, but at some point people will have negative net present value from an employers perspective. In that scenario it might be cheaper to pay them a basic income than it would be to employ them or pay for suppressing civil unrest.
When there are no jobs, provided we can feed everyone, we essentially have communism. The worker becomes the artist and the commodity is culture.
That could happen, more likely the unemployed will be considered "useless eaters" and every effort will be made to disenfranchise them. Warehousing and/or liquidation will be the preferred outcomes by the elite.
Yes, first you have to endure other people telling you what to do for most of your adult life while you have little time to pursue anything that interests you. It's better than starving and being homeless but that's not saying much.
Anarchists aren't against rules, they're against rulers.
That hasn't been my experience with Anarchists, but even if true it's a bit of a moot point since they oppose any sort of enforcement mechanism for the rules beyond voluntary cooperation. Like or not there is always a percentage of humans that are willing to optimize for their own welfare regardless of the impact to others and that pretty much makes all voluntary only societies unworkable.
Libertarians are just fine with rulers, so long as they are "job creators", otherwise known as robber barons and oligarchs.
That's certainly a fair description of the corporate shill faction, though they are certainly not the only group within the party. In general Libertarians believe that government is a necessary evil that should be minimized but not eliminated. Of course there are endless arguments on what the necessary minimums are.
Libertarianism is a big tent, you might not want to paint with such a broad brush. The main stream position is that they support strong property rights and issues of that nature should be solved in court. Personally I think that's fantasy land since it would just mean rulings in favor of those who can afford the best lawyers (something I haven't heard a Libertarian answer to) Personally, and I'm registered Libertarian currently, my view is that one of the proper roles of government (yes, there are such a things unless you're an anarchist) is to ensure that externalities are re-internalized, though preferably in the least distorting way possible. (pigovian taxes generally being the most straightforward solution).
For low paid employees with quantifiable job outcomes this will likely be a net win even though it's horrible and dehumanizing. For knowledge workers and the like it will be a net loss since job outcomes are less quantifiable and more subject to things like employee morale. Of course that won't stop them from deploying it anyways.
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That same may be said of killing [insert bad guy]. It doesn't make the murder legal, it may only lessen the sentence.
Except in Texas where it's still a valid defense to say "He needed killing" and get off scott free if the jury agrees. Not a bad law in my opinion.
Traitor: One who commits treason
Treason: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
He didn't levy war on us, he didn't adhere to our enemies, nor did he give them comfort. There is a flimsy argument that perhaps his actions gave aid to our enemies but if you roll with that reasoning then all of the people he exposed are also traitors so I'm not sure that's an argument the government would want to make.
He may be a criminal under the current laws, but he's not a traitor. Furthermore, if what he did was illegal then it's the law that is wrong and should be changed. The correct action would be for him to receive a presidential pardon followed by congress strengthening the whistleblower laws and a big shakeup at the NSA to root out their culture of taking activities beyond what they are authorized for. I'm afraid we don't live in that rosy alternate universe however.
Yes, because everything in the world is binary and there are no shades of grey.
You're suggesting a culture where the majority of inhabitants have no hope for the future. To say that such a culture would be unstable is a vast understatement. The likely outcome would be bloody and violent revolution. War is economically wasteful and destructive to the environment, I don't think the result would be nearly as cheery as you seem to be assuming.
File a bug report.
So how is a surgeon supposed to wire up a body to a brain that hasn't grown into that body?
Seems like what you need is a way to replicate that original process and let the brain re-learn its interface.
But those are not human hands.
Well, not Human 1.0 anyways.
Perhaps, but have you considered the consequences of what you're suggesting when the group who can't support children grows to include the majority of the population?
Of course they also don't usually decide that they'd rather have a skyscraper instead of a bridge when you're mid-project.
The number of farm workers has also drastically declined but in both cases we haven't seen a huge spike in unemployment.
That is because the displaced farm workers were able to move into the manufacturing sector. More recently displaced manufacturing workers have been moving to the service sector for at least forty years. The question is, now that the service sector is going through the same process where are all the workers going to move to? (There are only three sectors to the economy) While 100% automation is unlikely any time soon, if manufacturing and the service sector become as efficient as Agriculture then we're looking at less than 4% of the population being employed. Those sort of levels would have profound social consequences.
These white collar jobs aren't being replaced any more than the spreadsheet and accounting software replaced the accountant.
The head accountant is still there but the overall size of accounting departments and associated administrative staff have shrunk massively over the last fifty years.
You've heard these stations that are totally automated. No human touch, dry as a bone. The ones you want to listen to are still emceed by humans.
Personally I prefer the automated ones.
I used to agree with you on the basic income, but now I'm not so sure. The mistake a lot of socialists tend to make is assuming that humans will go do some thing useful with their time if they have no need to work to survive. I think this is not a valid general assumption, and if it isn't then socialism eats itself (interestingly in the same way capitalism eats itself due to greed), not due to an inability to supply the needs of the population, but due to social breakdown.
Social breakdown isn't the normal problem of socialism, rather it's the allocation of benefits at a rate faster than wealth is produced. In order for a society to have successful socialism it must first A) Be exceedingly wealthy, B) Have a way to continue generating large amounts of wealth even after incentives for work are reduced, C) Ensure that beneficiaries can't vote themselves wealth greater than what is being produced. So far we haven't managed to create a society that can do all three at the same time but automation may fix A&B enough that a bit of social design to fix C might make the whole thing workable.
Yep, sounds like a perfect recipe for a revolution.
Hence the emphasis on DARPA projects that can produce robotic soldiers and autonomous war machines.
Dignity does NOT come from forced coercive threat of violence and income redistribution based on that violence. We have conclusively proven that in the former USSR (and North Korea and more).
True, but when wealth disparity becomes extreme that doesn't turn out so well either. See feudalism for a potent example of what it's like for most people to exist as little more than chattel.
True, but at some point people will have negative net present value from an employers perspective. In that scenario it might be cheaper to pay them a basic income than it would be to employ them or pay for suppressing civil unrest.
Sure, that'll work, until they train the AIs to do it themselves.
When there are no jobs, provided we can feed everyone, we essentially have communism. The worker becomes the artist and the commodity is culture.
That could happen, more likely the unemployed will be considered "useless eaters" and every effort will be made to disenfranchise them. Warehousing and/or liquidation will be the preferred outcomes by the elite.
Yes, first you have to endure other people telling you what to do for most of your adult life while you have little time to pursue anything that interests you. It's better than starving and being homeless but that's not saying much.
isn't that better than swabbing us all down with toxic chemicals?
That would depend on whether you're a corporation that does chemical manufacturing or not.
I congratulate the winning corporate overlords for defeating their rival corporate overlords. Keep up the good work, we're rooting for you!
Anarchists aren't against rules, they're against rulers.
That hasn't been my experience with Anarchists, but even if true it's a bit of a moot point since they oppose any sort of enforcement mechanism for the rules beyond voluntary cooperation. Like or not there is always a percentage of humans that are willing to optimize for their own welfare regardless of the impact to others and that pretty much makes all voluntary only societies unworkable.
Libertarians are just fine with rulers, so long as they are "job creators", otherwise known as robber barons and oligarchs.
That's certainly a fair description of the corporate shill faction, though they are certainly not the only group within the party. In general Libertarians believe that government is a necessary evil that should be minimized but not eliminated. Of course there are endless arguments on what the necessary minimums are.
Libertarianism is a big tent, you might not want to paint with such a broad brush. The main stream position is that they support strong property rights and issues of that nature should be solved in court. Personally I think that's fantasy land since it would just mean rulings in favor of those who can afford the best lawyers (something I haven't heard a Libertarian answer to) Personally, and I'm registered Libertarian currently, my view is that one of the proper roles of government (yes, there are such a things unless you're an anarchist) is to ensure that externalities are re-internalized, though preferably in the least distorting way possible. (pigovian taxes generally being the most straightforward solution).
For low paid employees with quantifiable job outcomes this will likely be a net win even though it's horrible and dehumanizing. For knowledge workers and the like it will be a net loss since job outcomes are less quantifiable and more subject to things like employee morale. Of course that won't stop them from deploying it anyways.
Meth, BTW, is a Sched II drug, less harmful than pot, according to the Feds.
Which is completely ridiculous, anyone who has ever met meth heads & pot heads can tell you that meth is far more dangerous.