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QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M
Depends on what you mean by socialism.
If you're talking about expanded social services, welfare/safety net policies, etc - built around a relatively free market capitalist economy? Sure, it would work if you weren't retarded about it.
If you're talking about seizing the means of production and doing the whole planned economy deal? That shit doesn't work anywhere, and until we have all-knowing AI overlords running the place, never will.
If you're talking about expanded social services, welfare/safety net policies, etc - built around a relatively free market capitalist economy? Sure, it would work if you weren't retarded about it.
If you're talking about seizing the means of production and doing the whole planned economy deal? That shit doesn't work anywhere, and until we have all-knowing AI overlords running the place, never will.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@QuixoticSoul
I could not have put it better myself - except without the crudity.
Unfortunately a lot of Americans seem to be terrified of anything that even countries like Britain do, regarding the principle of a nation trying to look after its citizens as verging on Communism.
No political system ever works quite as well as hoped, but I think I'm right in that the USA is pretty well alone among the developed "Western"-style democracies in having a sink-or-swim attitude rather than risking being thought "socialist".
Another SW contributor told me one radio presenter told his audience that the EU is "Communist", though to be fair it seems this was some parochial little local station in the middle of the continent. I wonder though, how widespread such myths are.
Didn't Barak Obama want to introduce at least a very basic version of the NHS, but faced enormous opposition on purely political-theory grounds?
As for "AI overlords"... No computer is "intelligent". "Artificial intelligence" is no brighter than a gnu. It is merely a programme that makes strings of Boolean decisions (AND, OR, etc), and that programme has to be written by humans, so the strings of decisions can only reflect its designers' or commissioner's intentions, knowledge of the system under control, and programming skills.
[Edited to clarify a point]
I could not have put it better myself - except without the crudity.
Unfortunately a lot of Americans seem to be terrified of anything that even countries like Britain do, regarding the principle of a nation trying to look after its citizens as verging on Communism.
No political system ever works quite as well as hoped, but I think I'm right in that the USA is pretty well alone among the developed "Western"-style democracies in having a sink-or-swim attitude rather than risking being thought "socialist".
Another SW contributor told me one radio presenter told his audience that the EU is "Communist", though to be fair it seems this was some parochial little local station in the middle of the continent. I wonder though, how widespread such myths are.
Didn't Barak Obama want to introduce at least a very basic version of the NHS, but faced enormous opposition on purely political-theory grounds?
As for "AI overlords"... No computer is "intelligent". "Artificial intelligence" is no brighter than a gnu. It is merely a programme that makes strings of Boolean decisions (AND, OR, etc), and that programme has to be written by humans, so the strings of decisions can only reflect its designers' or commissioner's intentions, knowledge of the system under control, and programming skills.
[Edited to clarify a point]
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QuixoticSoul · 41-45, M
@ArishMell They wouldn't exactly be AI overlords, if their decisions could be encapsulated by human programming alone. Give it time. No computer is "intelligent" - but what do you think is sitting between your ears?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@QuixoticSoul That's exactly my point: that any so-called "artificial intelligence" is still only something designed by human brain-power. It emulates "mechanical" decision-making that can be reduced to Boolean Logic steps to solve practical problems, and can do so much faster than a person, but that is an analogue to intelligence, far from the human brain's real power and subtlety.
The computer exceeds human speed, accuracy and memory in mathematical calculations, but has no intellect and is still only a puppet in the hands of its human programmers, who still have to tell it what chains of logic-steps to take.
For an AI computer to rule over us, would NOT be the "decision" of a non-sentient, passive box of electronics, but of the [i]people [/i]who build and operate it in such a way we become over-dependent on it - to suit those [i]people, not[/i] the computer.
In a sense, the Internet is being allowed to go that way, but neither the network and its servers, nor the individuals' computers or so-called "smart"-'phones connected to them, are at all sentient or "intelligent". The real intelligence, decision-making and power are in the handful of mainly-American*, financially-giant companies and their advertising-agency clients who now dominate the system - and they are all groups of [i]people[/i]!
+++
* (at the moment - I foresee very strong future competition from, and possibly eventual domination by, China.)
The computer exceeds human speed, accuracy and memory in mathematical calculations, but has no intellect and is still only a puppet in the hands of its human programmers, who still have to tell it what chains of logic-steps to take.
For an AI computer to rule over us, would NOT be the "decision" of a non-sentient, passive box of electronics, but of the [i]people [/i]who build and operate it in such a way we become over-dependent on it - to suit those [i]people, not[/i] the computer.
In a sense, the Internet is being allowed to go that way, but neither the network and its servers, nor the individuals' computers or so-called "smart"-'phones connected to them, are at all sentient or "intelligent". The real intelligence, decision-making and power are in the handful of mainly-American*, financially-giant companies and their advertising-agency clients who now dominate the system - and they are all groups of [i]people[/i]!
+++
* (at the moment - I foresee very strong future competition from, and possibly eventual domination by, China.)