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michael_mullet t1_isf111a wrote

Reply to comment by AdditionalPizza in We've all heard the trope that to be a billionaire you essentially have to be a sociopath; Could we cure that? Is there hope? by AdditionalPizza

What you're describing is still capitalism, the competitive market where free actors can allocate resources in the manner that produces the best return.

Everyone right now can in fact own the means of production in this system. Everyone can invest some of their earnings in the stock market. Just buying QQQ guarantees ownership of the top 100 fastest growing large companies on NASDAQ.

QQQ has averaged 16%/yr for the past 10 years. A low end worker making $15/hr could invest 10% of earnings per year in QQQ and be a millionaire in 25 years even if he never got a raise.

You don't need UBI, or special training, expensive schools, a pedigree or the right background. You just need to save a little money.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_isfa3w8 wrote

I'm not down voting anyone here, fyi.

But I know what I'm describing is capitalism, I wasn't claiming it isn't. But I'm talking about the transition from it, toward a more sustainable system before AI becomes something only the "haves" get while the "have nots" fall into total poverty.

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michael_mullet t1_isffhrk wrote

Gotcha.

I don't think there is a more sustainable system than capitalism.

All of the progress and wealth generated in past 200 hundred years has been from capitalism. Even perverted, not quite free markets in China have done more in 20 years than all of the five year plans of socialism combined.

I also understand that the portion of wealth flowing to labor has been declining since 1971 (https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/), but the average person's access to the other side of the ledger has increased too.

Maybe an option is having social security buy into capital markets and give non-investors upside access to capital gains. Whatever options are tested, the only guarantee is that systems with the freest markets where labor and capital compete to provide goods and services will be the most successful.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_isfizb1 wrote

Well the whole subject of transformative AI relates to some kind of revolution. Not in the sense of an over-throw scenario, but like the industrial and agricultural ones. We are in the midst of a revolution. Everyone here is focused so much on the date of AGI/ASI and the singularity, of course that's the sub, but we don't need those necessarily. I have no doubt they will be soon enough, but the next 5-10 years will be the most important in human history so far. The computational revolution or whatever you want to call it, probably something catchier than that. Of course that can be superseded shortly after by AGI or whatever, but regardless of people predicting the singularity in 15 years or 100 years, the revolution is already here, and transformative AI is "slowly" coming out every few months. We don't need 100% unemployment to reach a crises, we need like 10%.

Capitalism just simply cannot be sustainable when unemployment rates start rapidly rising. We can say things like history repeats itself, there were actually more jobs created from the industrial revolution, etc. But history doesn't *always* repeat itself. We are going to automate everything, or at least enough things that there just simply won't be a *reason* to work. The industrial revolution everyone feared being unemployed, this time around we should fear if we will still need to work.

Capitalisms has been exploited to see the gains we have so far, the wealthy still need the lower classes. Without us, they don't sell products. Currently they need our labour, shortly they won't. Do they think they can just take our labour and paychecks and we can still purchase their products? It just won't work.

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