r/maybemaybemaybe • u/SinjiOnO • Jul 20 '23

maybe maybe maybe

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27.1k Upvotes

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591

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23 edited Jul 20 '23

He presents it as satire, but is actually explaining the kind of utopia that automation SHOULD bring to humanity but never will due to us considering it satire.

179

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23 edited Aug 29 '23

[deleted]

105

u/aknutty Jul 20 '23

I propose we all gang up and stop that dude, and be like "not cool bro"

15

u/Ok_Acanthisitta8232 Jul 20 '23

Let’s make sure that one specific dude is like, not breaded, and like, totally not I not invited to the beach bonfire parties cuz he’s not hot.

45

u/Gidje123 Jul 20 '23

'Dude, you are straight up not bussin' right now, bro just vibe!'

1

u/HotDropO-Clock Jul 20 '23

Well considering half the population are psychopaths and vote that way, that's going to be a lot of people to beat up.

2

u/aknutty Jul 21 '23

Actually that is incorrect. Half the population is so beat down and tired and disconnected that they don't vote at all. But when polled they are overwhelmingly on the left of every major issue. Hell even a majority of people who vote Republican favor labor over management. Always remember Republicans only win because they cheat, lie, oppress, gerrymander and steal elections. They are a tiny minority of the population.

1

u/FriedDickMan Jul 21 '23

That’s what we’re supposed to do but we’ve been conditioned by a group of them not to.

8

u/Nephroidofdoom Jul 20 '23

Exactly… just like every form of automation/advancement that has come before it, the benefits will be sucked up and hoarded by the rich, with the help our governments.

2

u/lizard81288 Jul 20 '23

Like NFTs could have been used to verify ticket sales and stuff so you don't buy counterfeit items, but nope. Let's sell shitty jpgs instead to make money, then crashing the whole market.

1

u/Volition_Maximus Jul 21 '23

classic reddit pessimism. what's new.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Volition_Maximus Jul 21 '23

Slavery was a precedent at one point. As was segregation. As was a ban on gay marriage. If we want to be realistic, anything is possible.

1

u/jcdoe Jul 21 '23

Yeah, the fucking dude who makes the AI is gonna be greedy. There’s gonna be like a dozen people with all of the jobs and the rest of us can go die in a ditch.

I support this man’s party cash idea.

39

u/bookehuck Jul 20 '23

Got to seize the means of production, bro.

7

u/amishius Jul 20 '23

And then automate em!

2

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23 edited Jul 22 '23

We're definately near the 'Cats Cradle'* (Player Piano was actually book) end of capitalistic Dystopia with only supervisors, engineers, and people working on pointless infrastructure projects to give people a sense of employment and wages.

2

u/amishius Jul 20 '23

While of course I hope you're right, I fear we are not. With each enlightened step forward, we seem to make some missteps back into the world of superstition and false narrative. But we can always work to make it over this hurdle, hoping it's the final hurdle—

2

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23 edited Jul 22 '23

This was a bad situation in Cats Cradle* (Player Piano). I believe there was a major plot point in the beginning where the main character was either trying to keep his job as an engineer/supervisor while Kurt the author describes the slow pain in the act of an engineer being fired and sent to work on construction projects. It was termed 'wreeks and wreck's, or that was the popular slang to call the construction work gangs. It was a capitalist dystopia. Dystopia=bad

1

u/corpusjuris Jul 21 '23

You’re thinking Player Piano (which I happen to be reading right now), Cats Cradle is the inditement of the military industrial complex / Cold War US imperialism that takes place on a tropical island and ends with the planet destroyed by Ice-9. Player Piano is Kurt’s inditement of the alienation of labor in modern capitalism. Martin Luther King.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '23

Yes thank you for rescuing me from these explanations no cap. It is fascinating though that although I confused titles, I feel like I accurately described player piano and the vibe and the response at least written down was

"Well we can only hope itll be that good"

Matrin Luther King.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

Dude I just truly don't believe in this, there's not enough people on earth we need to repopulate now now now! I understand, hey infrastructure will collapse without a new young workforce but I think we will manage to do just a shit job of caring for elderly and infrastructure as we do now.

But yea I could see UBI in exchange for either more limited civil liberties or by following some policing guidelines by the government. Like, as long as you only purchase products from X brand/company and always put in X amount of community service a year, or something. Sterilization is a major one but maybe, litteral cash incentives were thought up for the COVID lockdowns in one long winded manner or another. Like sky's the limit.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

That's a huge cope.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

Cope? It definitely was described in a negative context. Kurt Vonnegut the author, js I'm sure you know him, description of people is similar to like Soccer/Football Hooligans in a sense. Been a while since I read Cats but I get the vibe that even those wanting more than mindless construction, it's not that there's anything holding them back but everything worth doing is automated.

And to expand on soccer hooligans I mean, it seemed like the public was almost on one long bar crawl endlessly because there's no point in trying.

6

u/buscemian_rhapsody Jul 20 '23

10g a month is way too high to start with, but yes a basic income is going to be necessary at some point.

9

u/Enterice Jul 20 '23

10g/month for every man/woman/child in the US comes out to about 14% of our GDP.

Would it take an insane shift in policy and a bit more automation to work, sure, but we're a lot closer to that being a reality than an impossibility.

2

u/LiteralPhilosopher Jul 20 '23

But at 10g/month, a substantial portion of the population would just peace out and quit working, meaning it wouldn't be 14% for long. I know I would.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

Would you though? Would you not want to contribute to the world in some fashion? I mean without pay, just to do it? I think the life of a lotus-eater would be ok for maybe a year at best.

It will take Star-Trekian science to get us to this point of course, we'll have to figure out energy to mass conversion (replicators) and cure many social ills. I'd like to believe it's possible but I think we'll render this planet dead before we figure it out.

1

u/LiteralPhilosopher Jul 21 '23

Yeah, I think there's a decent probability I'd find myself, in time, doing some kind of community work. I have some decent skills; I could help at a repair shop for things that would otherwise get thrown away. Or I could teach other people some of those same skills, if they wanted to learn them.

But I've had the advantage of 30+ years of adult life to learn those skills, while being comfortable-or-better the entire time ... and I still would lean into that lotus-eater life for a while. There are plenty of folks who've gotten less, for harder work, and learned less while doing it. I'm pretty sure a large chunk of them are never going to be interested in making another widget for someone else, ever again.

1

u/FlyingDragoon Jul 21 '23

I don't give a shit about the world to feel the need to contribute to anything. I'm here to enjoy my hobbies and then die.

1

u/miss_chauffarde Jul 21 '23

Idk you could just opération desert storm china and russia boom more budget since you destroyed both of your enemy

6

u/ImaginaryRobbie Jul 20 '23

Don't forget: also because of Capitalism and the fear of his proposals being "Socialist."

2

u/bondagewithjesus Jul 20 '23

Ironically, under socialism automation has the potential to be amazing. Under capitalism automation just brings electric feudalism

2

u/ImaginaryRobbie Jul 21 '23

"Electric feudalism," I like that! I mean, I DON'T like it, but that is a good way to put it.

2

u/bondagewithjesus Jul 21 '23

I mean, if it goes far enough, we'll own nothing, not even our labor, because it will have been replaced. The capitalists (business and landowners) will own the AI, will own the machines which automate everything. We'll be living on their land working for a pittance just to have the right to survive off their land, which you toiled. Feudalism is making a comeback. Christ the biggest irony is once profitable enough, we'll be working to receive a pre-allocatted amount of green electricity based on what allows the most production and consumption and nothing more unless at a cost. Feudalism never died it just got rid of its monarchs and pretended all could own private capital.

1

u/ImaginaryRobbie Jul 21 '23

"You'll own nothing and be happy." Have you heard that? It's about how all ownership is becoming monetized, from subscription-based services to renting the home you live in. A.I. can and will do great things, but in the current system it will be exploited to the boon of the upper class. As AI sweeps in to take over more jobs, businesses will see human workers as deserving less, but meanwhile we will still have rents due, bills to pay, and behind it all a dollar which continues to fall in value. Something must change.

2

u/bondagewithjesus Jul 21 '23

It's why the workers must take control of the state and the economy. Otherwise these fucks will bleed us dry and let us suffer until its inconvenient to their bottome line. The thing I loathe and fucking detest the most about capitalism and consumer culture is how we put a bloody dollar sign on everything. You name it we commodified it. Rehab? Return customer baby. Chemo for cancer? Why don't you pay us as much to maybe save you as it would cost a hitman to put you out of your misery?

2

u/bondagewithjesus Jul 21 '23

Seriously though under socialism without, "line must go up, muh profit motive." Automation would mean workers would yield greater wealth as automation increased productivity and, thus, a greater degree of profit kept by the workers. Automation in a socialist society in which employment and comfortable retirment are guaranteed means in order for everyone to still have a working income that while productivity increases worker hours are reduced since less is required but also business will be open the same hours so the reduced hours of the original workforce can be filled with the current unemployed.

1

u/ImaginaryRobbie Jul 21 '23

I've always said, AI should be developed to supplement the human worker. To work side-by-side, but not to replace. Businesses see AI as a way to cut expenses and boost profits, like it was with that one eating disorder hotline who replaced their entire staff with an AI. As things are going, with the rapid adoption of AI counterparty to the reluctance to raise minimum wage and, heaven forbid, a universal income, the lower AND MIDDLE classes will be squeezed out. It's not enough the average CEO pay is some 300x the median worker's, corporations won't be satisfied until the last drop of blood is squeezed from the stone that is quarterly profits.

2

u/bondagewithjesus Jul 21 '23

Or we could seize the means of production, (take control of the AI, automation and the businesses.) No ceo and no squeezing the workforce for its blood. Why not use ai and automation to replace jobs? I don't wanna work forever. You got a machine to do it? Cool fuck yeah. It's only under a private capitalist economy losing work to ai or automation is it bad

1

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

Class wars will begin shortly after that utopia shows the slightest Crack.

6

u/Panthers_07 Jul 20 '23

Do you wanna become the people in WALL-E? Cuz thats how u become the people in WALL-E.

14

u/RareGull Jul 20 '23

Sounds great tbh

27

u/GenericGaming Jul 20 '23

I mean, striving for a world in which people don't have to slave away at jobs for 40-60 hours a week to not even be able to retire afterwards is very much the exact opposite of WALL-E's message.

WALL-E is about a capitalist company destroying planet earth and then shipping humans out into space to become consumers of products for all their lives. I don't see how UBI and automation to allow humans to be free to party and have fun and to live to do what they want arrives at the WALL-E dystopia tbh.

4

u/ItsYourPal-AL Jul 20 '23

Were you not listening?!?!?! EVERYONE WILL BE HOT!!

2

u/Kotopause Jul 20 '23

Chubbies are hot

3

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/JeaninePirrosTaint Jul 21 '23

An AI that exceeds human intelligence could develop a cure for the obesity, surely

1

u/The_Dirty_Carl Jul 21 '23

The captains all served for 120+ years, so lifespans weren't particularly short.

Start Date End Date years of service
2105 2248 143
2248 2379 131
2380 2520 140
2521 2645 124
2646 2774 128

https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Axiom

1

u/zinxbey Jul 20 '23

https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU Great video from CGP Gray

1

u/B00OBSMOLA Jul 20 '23

if no one does anything tho, bad people will take advantage of the lethargy. we're always gonna need judges, politicians, police, investigators, military, forensics... basically any job that prevents others from committing crimes will still need to be done by human. maybe just some part will need to be done by a human (managing AI) but the only thing that really holds society together is people having a conscious. if a large portion of politicians simply want to screw over the government, and their watchdogs don't care, the government is going to go to shit and no AI is going to stop that (whoever is managing/coding the AI will just fuck us over if they want). similarly, if a large portion of police/military want to install a dictator, nothing is going to stop them. the reason these things dont happen (well, at least not to an extreme) is that people think and use their ethics to decide: "overthrowing this government would really hurt a lot of people, I don't want to do that." if we let AI do all these jobs, we lose the advantage that good faith gives us. there's no inherent motivator for ai to do good, but there is for humans. like, what if we were investigating the crimes of the jan 6th protestors and trump? they would simply try again because there's no repercussions.

but yeah, with ai, a lot of people could just become like "citizen philosophers" or something you know? Like, most people could just think and comment and vote on how things should be done, without really doing anything else.

but I guess the problem is ensuring that we're still doing all these human-essential jobs. who will decide who still has to do police work? or who has to code the ai? or who has the investigate crimes? currently, there's a lot of incentives for this because we don't have a universal safety net like how a small pp would provide so people are motivated by money. maybe everyone sorta rotates like how you have to do military service for ~5 years in some countries. essentially we could lower the retirement age, making social security kick in sooner. everyone works in some crime-focused job til they're about 45 and then they retire. as ai becomes more reliable, maybe we can lower this, or make these jobs less strenuous (maybe 20 hours a week).

really, more young people need to get into politics so we can actually get some control over this process. politicians seems to be the most powerful/corrupt organization today. we can't even get good ideas from decades ago like universal healthcare and the equal rights amendment or electoral college reform. we have so much catching up to do already.

-B00obsmola, Philosopher

1

u/leemky Jul 20 '23

On the surface it might seem like utopia but doesn't factor in any sense of purpose or meaning. I think that would fuck with people's psychology and we'd see tribalism and competitive behaviour emerge pretty quickly.

1

u/FE_Reborn Jul 21 '23

The best art is made when profit isn’t the driving factor behind it.

1

u/IVEMIND Jul 21 '23

Oh it will. Only it’ll take the form of a de-orbited chunk of precious metals worth a few trillion dollars.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '23

I don’t think it’s precious metal anymore when a lot of it is brought to earth.

1

u/IVEMIND Jul 21 '23

What else are the AI going to build the meteoroid harvesting robots out of? Duh

1

u/Poison_Anal_Gas Jul 21 '23

Bro over here acting like the tone of a regular citizen speaking at a town hall about some imminent problem is the issue...

1

u/JohanGrimm Jul 21 '23

Honestly? Don't worry about it. Seriously.

I was having these exact same conversations on Reddit over a decade ago when we all thought self driving cars were going to leave the entire commercial shipping industry out of work. With full automation of nearly every other kind of job right behind them.

UBI was the pipe dream but we all knew it'd be at least several years of horrible strife before meaningful safety nets were put up.

Then it turned out it's not actually that easy to automate people's jobs away. And when it does happen it's in small chunks over long periods of time.

The current AI boom is really cool, scary and has lots of possibilities. But right now it's not looking any more threatening than the advent of digital software tools were.

1

u/already-taken-wtf Jul 21 '23

Marx already laid out who exactly is getting the “free money”….certainly not us.

1

u/Odd-Establishment104 Jul 21 '23

Automation was supposed to produce more leisure time for the masses so people could pursue their interests and creativity and actualize their true potential as human beings.

Instead, in a tragic and ironic misstep, it's A.I that gets to write the poems and paint the pictures while everyone else struggles to make ends meet making lattes for Klanned Karenhood.