Timely article that continues to show that Elon can't be put in a political corner. Our leftist friends now hate him because he exposed twitter as the online propaganda arm of left wingers. However, what would they think about Elon after reading this?

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/what-elon-musks-age-of-abundance-means-for-the-future-of-capitalism-7c0807df?st=9xvbx36kvjswhyb&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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When it comes to the future, Elon Musk's best-case scenario for humanity sounds a lot like Sci-Fi Socialism.

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For anyone who doesn't read sci-fi (shout out to Faustus for the Culture reference), one of the most common themes is that societies generally have achieved post-scarcity either through technology and/or the unlimited resources inherent in space. So, Elon's take below isn't surprising at all for a futurist and makes sense if you can suspend the basic rule of Economics, somehow.

What I do wonder is what our resident leftists think about his take on socialism below.

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More recently, in talking about the technology positively, Musk likes to point to another work of Sci-Fi to describe how AI could change our world: a series of books by the late-, self-described-socialist author Iain Banks that revolve around a post-scarcity society that includes superintelligent AI.

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"Digital super intelligence combined with robotics will essentially make goods and services close to free in the long term," Musk said at a conference in July.

Musk has cast his work to develop humanoid robots as an attempt to solve labor issues, saying there aren't enough workers and cautioning that low birthrates will be even more problematic.

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"I believe the need to work in society will disappear in 25 years for those countries that adapt these technologies," Khosla said. "I do think there's room for universal basic income assuring a minimum standard and people will be able to work on the things they want to work on."

Forget universal basic income. In Musk's world, he foresees something more lush, where most things will be abundant except unique pieces of art and real estate.

"We won't have universal basic income, we'll have universal high income," Musk said this month. "In some sense, it'll be somewhat of a leveler or an equalizer because, really, I think everyone will have access to this magic genie."

All of which kind of sounds a lot like socialismexcept it's unclear who controls the resources in this Muskism society. A few years ago, Musk declared himself a socialist of sorts. "Just not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive, pretending to do good, while actually causing harm," he tweeted. "True socialism seeks greatest good for all."

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A comment on his personal thoughts around his life:

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Still, even as Musk talks about this future, he seems to be grappling with what it might actually mean in practice and how it is at odds with his own life.

No one embodies tech's hustle porn better than Musk, running multiple companies and touting sleeping on factory floors to build his business empire that spans from rockets to tweets.

"If I think about it too hard, it, frankly, can be dispiriting and demotivating, because…I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into building companies," he said earlier this year. "If I'm sacrificing time with friends and family that I would prefer but then ultimately the AI can do all these things, does that make sense?"
"To some extent," Musk concluded, "I have to have a deliberate suspension of disbelief in order to remain motivated."

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Maybe one or two hundred years into the future he could be onto something if technology keeps growing exponentially like it has in the past, but I think the odds of his view becoming true is low because our current world society has devolved too much and has near no moral compass.

The difficulty in this mode of thinking is that it depends on ab endless stream of benevolent overlords to ensure that the masses receive abundance as distributed by the state instead of the overlords giving the masses just enough to keep them distracted and under control.

Given our current state and the state of our welfare system, the way government controls the media and the various attempts by our current overlords to keep the masses sated, what kind of overlords do you think the human race will produce?

Would take a world war or two with the right people winning to set up civilization this way.

Ags4DaWin said:

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The difficulty in this mode of thinking is that it depends on ab endless stream of benevolent overlords to ensure that the masses receive abundance as distributed by the state instead of the overlords giving the masses just enough to keep them distracted and under control.

Given our current state and the state of our welfare system, the way government controls the media and the various attempts by our current overlords to keep the masses sated, what kind of overlords do you think the human race will produce?

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I think the reality will be closer to the other common theme in sci-fi. Governance via global government with policy and enforcement essentially meted out via mega corporations.

That model is actually already happening now.

The Probability Broach, 1979 novel by L. Neil Smith, uses a completely libertarian society to posit the same result of wealth and non-scarcity.

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Greg Costikyan reviewed The Probability Broach in Ares Magazine #2 and commented that "The writing is less than sparkling, but serviceable. The Probability Broach is entertaining reading, but not recommended for socialists or others of delicate political sensibilities."[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Probability_Broach#cite_note-Ares-2][2][/url]

The Probability Broach won the 1982 Prometheus Award, which L. Neil Smith himself had created, and which is awarded by the Libertarian Futurist Society.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Probability_Broach#cite_note-3][3][/url]

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The problem with this future, as socialist never acknowledge, is human nature. If people don't need to contribute anything and feel valued, what exactly will they do? (Hint, we got a glimpse of that during COVID.)

rynning said:

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The problem with this future, as socialist never acknowledge, is human nature. If people don't need to contribute anything and feel valued, what exactly will they do? (Hint, we got a glimpse of that during COVID.)

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It would be a massive problem in the near-term which would last a hundred years or more, if you can survive it as a species.

If you can punch through that, sci-fi novels generally solve this problem by essentially applying federalism at the galactic level. Marxists that wanna marxist go to their own planet and run it that way. Capitalists go to their own planet and run it that way. Anarchists do their planet....and so on and so forth.

IOW, people gravitate to the ideology that appeals to them and live in that bubble. And then human nature tends to take over after a time and that bubble gets upended because humans naturally can't co-exist in harmony on any kind of scale or long-term time frame. Humans require change via violence if it comes to that.

Elon is just a smart dude that made some good investments and got lucky. Not sure why we treat him like he's any more than that. I like him, but I don't consider him a leader or a deep thinker.

lead said:

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Elon is just a smart dude that made some good investments and got lucky. Not sure why we treat him like he's any more than that. I like him, but I don't consider him a leader or a deep thinker.

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This is illogical.

". Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though that were so necessary-- that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. "

Tea Party said:

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Maybe one or two hundred years into the future he could be onto something if technology keeps growing exponentially like it has in the past, but I think the odds of his view becoming true is low because our current world society has devolved too much and has near no moral compass.

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Agreed. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We have to get to the abundance for everyone part before we can even consider something like this. And once again, free markets have a solution for this…it's called supply and demand. There's no need for any governing or corporate body to distribute these things. If abundance reached the point Musk is suggesting, prices would fall to absurdly low levels. Of course, that's if the government doesn't completely destroy our currency. We know that they will, further suggesting that this is not possible in the near term. Or maybe that's why Musk thinks it needs to be distributed rather than let the free market work.

We are regressing, not progressing. The next generation wants to be social influencers on TikTok and YouTube. Who is going to build and maintain these robots when we can't even replace engineers, plumbers, electricians, etc? If the answer is robots will build and maintain themselves, that's a little too much Terminator for me.

Didn't past generations think computers would reduce the work week, and we ended up working even more?

The West has used naive idealism like this to justify fascism for well over a century.

Helicopter Ben said:

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Tea Party said:

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Maybe one or two hundred years into the future he could be onto something if technology keeps growing exponentially like it has in the past, but I think the odds of his view becoming true is low because our current world society has devolved too much and has near no moral compass.

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Agreed. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We have to get to the abundance for everyone part before we can even consider something like this. And once again, free markets have a solution for this…it's called supply and demand. There's no need for any governing or corporate body to distribute these things. If abundance reached the point Musk is suggesting, prices would fall to absurdly low levels. Of course, that's if the government doesn't completely destroy our currency. We know that they will, further suggesting that this is not possible in the near term. Or maybe that's why Musk thinks it needs to be distributed rather than let the free market work.

We are regressing, not progressing. The next generation wants to be social influencers on TikTok and YouTube. Who is going to build and maintain these robots when we can't even replace engineers, plumbers, electricians, etc? If the answer is robots will build and maintain themselves, that's a little too much Terminator for me.

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The thought in this world is that prices don't matter. They are irrelevant in a post-scarcity world. Constraints are lifted because resources are essentially infinite.

Even if you could achieve this, I don't think humanity can handle it. We would self-destruct and sabotage it. It would be akin to humanity winning a species wide lottery. Imagine the self-destructive behavior on that kind of scale.

Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

Remember the Jetsons?

Last time we had a huge leap forward in technology:

1) The people that worked hard worked harder
2) The people that worked harder got a lot richer
3) The people that didn't work hard worked less
4) The people that didn't work hard got a little richer

The Jetson's imagined a 4 hour work week, with the increases in wealth being evenly distributed throughout society. This did not happen. This will not happen in the future.

The rising tide will float all boats, and everyone will be better off, but the majority of the new creation in wealth will be concentrated on the massively talented, the incredibly hard worker, the lucky risk taker, and the insanely manipulative. That's what happened in the 400s, 1700's, 1890's, 1920's, 1990's, 2010's. Why we think it will be any different is stupid.

What Elon wants to do with Optimus is exciting, but I think a post scarcity society will bring out the worst of humanity.

Once the US became the sole super power we put our guard down.and no longer worried about threats to our society. America has turned away from the responsibilities of being the sole global superpower and we're now getting threats from everywhere.

The same concept applies when you remove people's responsibilities to themselves and to others: chaos.

We are familiar with the problems created by poverty.

The problems caused by plenty are lesser known but just as bad.

YouBet said:

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The thought in this world is that prices don't matter. They are irrelevant in a post-scarcity world. Constraints are lifted because resources are essentially infinite.

Even if you could achieve this, I don't think humanity can handle it. We would self-destruct and sabotage it. It would be akin to humanity winning a species wide lottery. Imagine the self-destructive behavior on that kind of scale.

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I get your first point, but if your grocery bill in todays dollars was like $0.17 or a fast food meal cost $0.05 or you could travel 500 miles for $0.05 wouldn't that have the same effect? My point is that there's no need for a central planner to distribute these things like a government or megacorp. If supply really exploded like that, supply and demand price mechanisms would generate the same outcome. Assuming we had sound money that held its value of course…

The fact that survival has already become so easy attests to your second point. It's never been easier to get by and in most cases even thrive. Rather than taking the free time to better themselves, many choose to self destruct. That still doesn't mean we should stop striving for abundance and productivity.

Robert L. Peters said:

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Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

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There is no basic human need for struggle. There is a basic human need for self worth.

rynning said:

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Robert L. Peters said:

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Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

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There is no basic human need for struggle. There is a basic human need for self worth.

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You don't know anything about human nature.

Ags4DaWin said:

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rynning said:

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Robert L. Peters said:

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Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

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There is no basic human need for struggle. There is a basic human need for self worth.

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You don't know anything about human nature.

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Enlighten me.

Helicopter Ben said:

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YouBet said:

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The thought in this world is that prices don't matter. They are irrelevant in a post-scarcity world. Constraints are lifted because resources are essentially infinite.

Even if you could achieve this, I don't think humanity can handle it. We would self-destruct and sabotage it. It would be akin to humanity winning a species wide lottery. Imagine the self-destructive behavior on that kind of scale.

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I get your first point, but if your grocery bill in todays dollars was like $0.17 or a fast food meal cost $0.05 or you could travel 500 miles for $0.05 wouldn't that have the same effect? My point is that there's no need for a central planner to distribute these things like a government or megacorp. If supply really exploded like that, supply and demand price mechanisms would generate the same outcome. Assuming we had sound money that held its value of course…

The fact that survival has already become so easy attests to your second point. It's never been easier to get by and in most cases even thrive. Rather than taking the free time to better themselves, many choose to self destruct. That still doesn't mean we should stop striving for abundance and productivity.

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I think we are actually saying the same thing.

Most human beings want a sense of purpose. If they have needs met, then that sense of purpose, wherever it is, will still motivate most people to work towards goals, even if that goal isn't explicitly profitable production. I'm not terribly concerned about this "Star Trek" plenty for all through technology future, but I am wary of premature or reckless attempts to declare we are there or rush it's arrival before it self emerges from our trend towards it through capitalism. And even such a place wouldn't end capitalism. It would just change the purposes for which we aggregate capital for joint endeavors to achieve some ends that the participants find desirable. The motive would be less for economic returns than for intellectual or emotional satisfaction.

We just need to remain wary of authoritarianism promising utopia by halting us at a point in our progress and declaring it all that needs to be.

For the first time we will eventually have the ability to replace almost every job. I am not sure what this will look like over the next 50 to 100 years, but I promise it will be far more drastic than the PC, the first car, and airplanes.

AI will solve most of our basic problems, do most of our tasks, and make most work unneeded. So how do we generate value and income? What will that look like? Will personal skills become more important than intelligence if you don't have to know things anymore? Maybe being handy and have the ability to fix things beyond a computer?

I know that we have no idea how it will play out, but life as we know it is going to rapidly change at a rate we've never seen before.

rynning said:

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Ags4DaWin said:

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rynning said:

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Robert L. Peters said:

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Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

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There is no basic human need for struggle. There is a basic human need for self worth.

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You don't know anything about human nature.

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Enlighten me.

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If you look at people who have grown up with family money who have had to struggle for very little in their life and eho have been given every want and necessessity you would realize that struggle, overcoming adversity, and finding something to contend with and succeed at is a key component of the human experience and necessary for proper human development.

The individuals who never experienced that in development are vain, shallow, incompetent, and create trouble in their lives to the tune of self destruction and the destruction of others because they are subconsciously trying to create something to struggle against.

This notion of "self worth" you say is more important which is a 1960's fantasy is actually the sense of competence and security someone develops over time as they contend, struggle, and overcome in their life.

Elon will lead us into the future.

Ags4DaWin said:

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rynning said:

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Ags4DaWin said:

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rynning said:

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Robert L. Peters said:

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Dear lord, what are we going to do when the basic human need for struggle is removed?

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There is no basic human need for struggle. There is a basic human need for self worth.

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You don't know anything about human nature.

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Enlighten me.

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If you look at people who have grown up with family money who have had to struggle for very little in their life and eho have been given every want and necessessity you would realize that struggle, overcoming adversity, and finding something to contend with and succeed at is a key component of the human experience and necessary for proper human development.

The individuals who never experienced that in development are vain, shallow, incompetent, and create trouble in their lives to the tune of self destruction and the destruction of others because they are subconsciously trying to create something to struggle against.

This notion of "self worth" you say is more important which is a 1960's fantasy is actually the sense of competence and security someone develops over time as they contend, struggle, and overcome in their life.

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I actually agree with everything you say, but I'd counter that "struggle" and "self worth" are two sides of the same coin. It's impossible to achieve a sense of self worth without struggle. If it's given to you for nothing, it's as worthless as a participation trophy.

Let's assume that we can have all the food, clothing, shelter, and transport we need, all for free or close to it.

Do you really think that will stop man's struggle?

We will still contest for mates. We will still want the best food, clothing, shelter, etc, there is. In Musk's future, you might have a roof over your head, but some will still want a mansion, not a trailer house.

And there will still be limited resources. Assuming people still want to watch football games, Kyle Field only holds 100,000. Yellowstone can only handle X number of visitors a year. Some will still want sports cars, not the Tesla sedan.

Humans are driven by relative comparisons. Universal income will not satisfy human desire to be above other humans. We can have a nanny state where adults are perpetual children due to government care giving, but that won't make people any happier or more fulfilled or give them any meaning in life.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Let's assume that we can have all the food, clothing, shelter, and transport we need, all for free or close to it.

Do you really think that will stop man's struggle?

We will still contest for mates. We will still want the best food, clothing, shelter, etc, there is. In Musk's future, you might have a roof over your head, but some will still want a mansion, not a trailer house.

And there will still be limited resources. Assuming people still want to watch football games, Kyle Field only holds 100,000. Yellowstone can only handle X number of visitors a year. Some will still want sports cars, not the Tesla sedan.

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The part I put in bold is huge, not going away, and we shouldn't want it to go away.

True. But the broader point is that there are soon going to be 8 billion people on earth. And there are not 8 billion of everything. Something is always going to be scarce, valuable, and in demand. Therefore, there will always be conflict because there will be things that only one can have, and >one will want them.