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ForHackernews • today at 1:36 PM • 9 replies • view on HN

Presumably you are a human, not a horse, yes? Presumably there is more to your life than dragging around carts all day every day?

HN: A site full of bold futurists where it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than the end of capitalism.


Replies

swid • today at 1:45 PM

> the % of jobs not doable by AI and robotics approaches 0 over time.

Horse are an analogy. When they were more economically useful, there were about 5x the number of them. Now they are basically pets and we get comments like this suggesting the work they do is virtually meaningless.

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TFNA • today at 2:00 PM

This is the Chinese century, and even if China charts a somewhat different course than Western capitalism, it still believes that human beings should spend most of their days in some employment, even if it is just makework. A population with mostly leisure time is viewed as very threatening to social stability. I can see that model being exported to the rest of the world far more than I can imagine your utopia.

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sceptic123 • today at 3:20 PM

Isn't the end of the humanity also the end of capitalism?

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pixl97 • today at 6:22 PM

Explain a world in which capitalism ends without a fight?

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layla5alive • today at 1:47 PM

Because the capitalists have very big guns and a monopoly on violence.

Its very easy to imagine a better world.

Its much harder to imagine the Scrooges in power willfully giving it up so that we can build that better world.

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alastairr • today at 4:03 PM

> HN: A site full of bold futurists where it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than the end of capitalism.

That's an underrated comment! Totally agree. So so much of discussion on this topic sort of assumes business as usual (both literally and figuratively) and that AI quickly diffuses through the economy, sucking up all economically useful activity, with humans falling by the wayside as inevitable collateral damage.

There's a failure of imagination taking place here that there's no other outcome. Capitalism is an evolved solution to how human community works, but is not inevitable.

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bluefirebrand • today at 5:47 PM

> HN: A site full of bold futurists where it's easier to imagine the end of the humanity than the end of capitalism

HN is literally owned and operated by venture capitalists why are you surprised by this.

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0c3ca83 • today at 1:53 PM

If you're not economically useful, what pressure would you be able to bring against the government and it's drone-based police force if it does things you don't like? General strikes don't work in a world with no human labor needed.

Iran recently shot thousands to tens of thousands of its own people when they protested. If a sociopath were in power, what would stop them?

harimau777 • today at 6:02 PM

What's your proposal for ending capitalism in our working lifetimes?