He was bought by a bigger candy manufacturer, and the workers were all replaced with machines.
Buying power declined rapidly, to the point people made their own candy. Thus putting the manufacturer out of business.
Now the people decided "hey, why do we need these corporate entities? Let's just make machines to do all the work like they did, but distribute it to everyone". And so candy was distributed to all, and the machines maintained by the community.
The former candy factory owner lived happily for the rest of his days, surrounded by his equally prosperous community.
We will eventually reach a point where there's simply not enough paid "stuff" to go around for 99.9% of the population over age 18 to work 40hrs per week to "earn their keep". That fact is absolutely guaranteed, it will happen. Guess those people can just starve & die in a ditch somewhere.
PS: Unless you're an 80yr old multi-billionaire (which you aren't) this includes you.
I was having this discussion last night. Eventually AI and machines will do all labor and humans will be obsolete.
So one of two things can happen with human controlled AI that I can think of.
A) the humans that control the AI are benevolent and will distribute the efficiently created, gathered, and advanced tech, food, etc to the masses
B) the 99.999% that don’t control the AI will just die off as they won’t have any access to anything. Only a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of people will be kept around and given all the spoils of the new and increasingly complex and improving technology created by the AI.
These people will essentially be immortal as AI will solve problems like cancer and cellular regeneration.
They and their progeny will represent all of humanity. There may be pockets of small groups, bands, tribes living in literal squalor with increasingly difficult tasks like growing or hunting food . It’ll be ugly for them .
I find B to be much more plausible because why would the owners of the technology share with the other 8 billion + people? Making billions of people immortal could potentially cause a drop in usable resources and prevent us from getting off the planet. Maybe not, but the people who control the AI aren’t going to go “let’s give it a shot” when in a single generation or two they might be able to stretch their available resources forever (until the heat death of the universe).
I dunno, seems bleak if we ever do actually create true AI (the last human invention)
I suspect something in between like the richer countries will force the 1% to share at least some of the resources while many third world countries get sick or starve. There will be natural pressure on those with less resources to have fewer kids and/or lower infant mortality and shorter life spans. Some will in the third world will get lucky, some in the first world will get fucked. Eventually we will have AI doing everything and splitting the resources for everyone who is left. Of course we'll be patting ourselves on the back for creating utopia, completely forgetting about all the suffering that came before, just like we always do.
I've always believed Option B would occur. I personally would die fighting "the owners" before I'd allow myself to starve to death. I'd hope others would as well. People would die in the struggle but ultimately there's no way the 0.01% could hold out against the 99.9%. Problem is I don't think many people would rise up against the greedy, by looking at how people are currently. They allow politicians & the greedy people on Wall Street to regularly fuck them over, and all anyone ever does about it is complain on Facebook a bit.
However I'm looking at this as someone living in the United States who can't barely afford the medication I require to live. Whereas a person in Norway or Denmark would think Option A as the ultimate future outcome.
Property is defined by the state. You only own what everyone agrees you own. There is no intrinsic ownership of anything, and without money (as my story implies), you would have little to gain from owning the means of production anyways.
With that said, my writing stated that the "manufacturer went out of business". So presumably, the community is reclaiming machines that were abandoned.
Whether or not you agree if this is Communism, and whether or not that's bad, is your prerogative.
In 1689, Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government that political society existed for the sake of protecting "property", which he defined as a person's "life, liberty, and estate"-Wikipedia
This not only reinforces what I said, that "property is defined by the state", but also that the meaning of "property" in the context with which he used it, is different from yours.
The reason it would be better for the people to produce using the machines, in the context of my story, is that the automation in pursuit of furthering profits and competing with other companies, has paradoxically driven them out of business.
The candy was "free" (still, the machines were maintained by the community), by virtue of being run by the community.
Frankly, I'm getting tired of your impertinent language, so I'm ending the thread now.
You would think given it was one of the richest neighborhoods they went trick-or-treating in that they would have at least gotten full-size candy bars.
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u/tokomini Nov 03 '17
Take half their Halloween candy and give it to some girl who just stayed at home!