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Comment by saulpw | Hacker News Reader

You mean like all the benefits of industrialization? The real externalized human/environmental costs of our fast/cheap fashion, of our iPhones, of cars, of electricity, of agriculture?

I saw a video today, talking about how this is really the end goal of what we've been working towards for 200 years. Automation and scale and convenience uber alles. As structured it's not a good idea and it seems that Dr. Kaczynski wasn't wrong in diagnosis, only in the treatment. But here we are and we're pretty pot-committed, so I guess we have to see for ourselves what's on the other side.

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Yes the fact that we have seen this pattern play out in the past and are very aware of all of the positive and negative effects it has should be sufficient to slow us down but naturally people are too selfish. The people who benefit will happily step over the graves of those of us who are fucked by the "benefits of industrialization" and then whoever survived will pat themselves on the back for a job well done while the rest of us rot

But there's no reason for us to be angry about it or resist it, of course

The only people who even somewhat successfully resisted industrialization are the Amish. Is that what we should be doing, forming religious communities that are increasingly isolated from the rest of humanity? Unable to contribute meaningfully to the discourse, but still subject to the externalities of the dominant paradigm?

As if the only possible two options to how society can operate are "Amish" or "Hyper-extracting wealth from labour"

Throwing shoes into the mechanism doesn't seem to have done anything but coin a new word. But I'm all ears! What other options do you see that could work at a larger-than-village scale?

Call me crazy but the tone of your writing doesn't inspire me with much confidence that you're actually even remotely receptive. I think you just want to argue

I'm not into it. Go ask Claude instead. It has more patience for this sort of ignorant attitude than I do.

You're crazy, I'm...not even arguing. You'll see that even in the course of this one thread that I've been quite ambivalent. And I've already talked with Claude about it plenty, and few ideas that feel workable in our present climate. I don't feel like I'm "ignorant" but then we never do, right? Would love some pointers to ideas. What you got? Communism? Georgism? UBI?

We don't even have to go that far. Why don't we start with "capitalism that takes meaningful antitrust action against overly entrenched corporations"?

Maybe "capitalism with more substantial taxes for large corporations and the wealthy and fewer loopholes"? Can we try either of those?

Shoot—if the true believers are right and there's ultimately never again going to be an economically viable justification for anyone without an MBA to have a single independent thought, maybe the Amish were onto something after all.

They at least have the notion that you've got a soul, and that it's a thing that should be tended to. A boss who has genuinely internalized the belief that the value of all human knowledge and expertise has gone to zero—such a man is unlikely to be similarly burdened in his assumptions about you.

First, I don't trust the elites to share in the wealth. I expect fuedalism to ensue.

Second, I think what is healthy for humans to yearn for is purpose and meaning, and convenience and idleness are almost counterproductive to that. Ok it's hard to argue with convenience, but nowhere in all of this has AI threatened to make my life more convenient by doing the chores for me, it just takes away fun creative tasks that I can get paid for.

> nowhere in all of this has AI threatened to make my life more convenient by doing the chores for me, it just takes away fun creative tasks that I can get paid for.

And this is, of course, the bitter irony. As that meme goes, I don't want it to write my prose so I can do the dishes, I want it to do the dishes so I can write prose.

> First, I don't trust the elites to share in the wealth. I expect fuedalism to ensue.

They will share just enough so people are content enough not to riot. Keeping the masses at bay will mean they get to build even more wealth.

When enough people stop being able to buy food is when revolution happens.

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