• Xenny@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    What does capitalism do when there is nothing left to take? It keeps taking

    • demizerone@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Line must go up and up! I work at a company that has been booming on the stock market, and the pressures for “line must go up always” don’t seem sustainable

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      We’re gonna find out as soon as AI, automation, and robotics are more cost efficient at performing most functions than humans.

      My expectation is genocide/mass murder, as there are somewhere between 10-100x more people than the planets resources can sustain long term, at a developed world rate of consumption and the current level of technological efficiency/advancement.

      • Dioxid3@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Okay but how does AI/Automation/etc. cause a mass murder if the preoccupying assumption of automation is, quite literally, increase of technological efficiency and advancement?

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          That’s a classic one. All the money flows to the top. It leaves the majority of the population without jobs or money. If there are no serious welfare programs, people get very angry and hungry. Humanity is hardwired to start to revolt, riot and plunder in the face of large inequalities and with the astronomic levels it will be massive. The Hamptons and other places like it will be burned to the ground. It’ll be very ugly.

          • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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            4 months ago

            It seems like our only hope is that maybe the uber rich will decide that turning the world into a bloodbath just to max out their high score isn’t how they want to spend their time on Earth. I’m not optimistic on that front.

            • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              uber rich will decide that turning the world into a bloodbath just to max out their high score

              That’s several chapters of my country’s history book summarized

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Who do you think will control the kill bots? It’ll be the ultra wealthy who lead the remaining governments and corporations. Populations have historically revolted under severe economic stress, even when unemployment reaches 30-50%, and capitalism requires people receiving money in exchange for labor, so they can pay for goods and services; at a certain level of automation/unemployment that cyclical system shuts down. Robots don’t get paid, and they don’t buy goods or services.

          When that happens the ultra wealthy will no longer have any need for the unemployed majority. They will have a means to suppress them (kill bots, wealth, political power), and numerous ecological/environmental reasons to cull the population down to a more manageable, sustainable size.