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Meta_Digital t1_j2cby1j wrote

Reply to comment by ShalmaneserIII in How the concept: Banality of evil developed by Hanna Arendt can be applied to AI Ethics in order to understand the unintentional behaviour of machines that are intelligent but not conscious. by AndreasRaaskov

But a group of hunter-gatherers who have free time, personal autonomy, and the basic necessities are a lot richer than the coffee plantation workers that drug LA, the meat industry workers that prepare the flesh they consume, the sweatshops that churn out their fast fashion, and the children in lithium mines that supply the raw material for their "green" transportation.

Where the hunter-gatherer doesn't have many luxuries, the average LA resident's luxuries come at the expense of human dignity and happiness elsewhere.

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ShalmaneserIII t1_j2cchew wrote

See, this is why we ignore people like you- you'd offer up a life chasing buffalo and living in a tent as a better alternative to a modern industrial society. For those of us not into permanent camping as a lifestyle, there is no way we want you making economic decisions. And fortunately, since your choices lead to being impoverished- by the actual productivity standards, not some equality metric- you get steamrolled by our way.

Because your non-capitalist societies had one crucial, critical, inescapable flaw: they couldn't defend themselves. Everything else they did was rendered irrelevant by that.

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Meta_Digital t1_j2ccpml wrote

I never argued for chasing buffalo or living in a tent. I don't think any of these are required. Are you responding to someone else's post or confusing me with someone else?

What I said is that the primitive life is objectively better than being a child laborer in a toxic metal mine or a wage slave in a sweatshop.

I don't think we have to give up a comfortable lifestyle because we transition to a more functional and ethical system than capitalism.

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ShalmaneserIII t1_j2ccz59 wrote

Yes, we would give up that comfortable lifestyle. In the absence of either greed or threat, why work? And without work, what drives productivity?

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Meta_Digital t1_j2cd4y1 wrote

In the absence of greed or threat, we'd live in a nice world.

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ShalmaneserIII t1_j2cdbcx wrote

Hunting buffalo. Hunter-gatherer levels of productivity are about what people would do if they can't accumulate capital for themselves or if they're not coerced by external threat.

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Meta_Digital t1_j2cdhdi wrote

So then is your argument that a productive world is better than one that is pleasant to live in?

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ShalmaneserIII t1_j2cdsvu wrote

My argument is that a world without productivity is less pleasant than one with it. Do you like air conditioning? Running water for nice hot showers even in midwinter? Fresh veggies in January?

Basically, what you think of as pleasant- apparently being time to lounge around with your friends- is not what I think of as pleasant.

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Meta_Digital t1_j2ce014 wrote

My idea of pleasant is a world where everyone's needs are met as well as some of our wants. Production matters only insofar as it meets those needs and wants. Excess production, like we're seeing today, only destroys us and the planet.

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ShalmaneserIII t1_j2ci0e0 wrote

Which means you lose. You will be outproduced by others, and will not have the resources to stop them from doing as they wish.

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