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@Grimeandreason

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Here is a question: If we kill the ability to accumulate vast, billionaire fortunes, clearly there will be less inequality - given the tremendous work those shits put into hoarding. But would our species-level rapacity stop? Would overconsumption halt? War? My feeling is no.

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If anything, capitalism grew *from* those structures & processes... it's a dysfunctional c&c system, but it is just that - it isn't a root cause. If you take your point about feudalism, capitalism is more like a dysfunctional sovereign than a system unto itself, I think.

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All of these polluting megacorps, exploitative billionaires and so on are bootstrapped on top of industrial technologies that lack any historical precedent, unless you're a biblical literalist or something. There is no telling how bad we could make alternative control systems.

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I think there are two roots to this problem that capitalism did not create, and the end of capitalism will not solve (in and of itself): - the human organism is massively maladapted for the environment we engineered, and our hegemony is an ecological risk unto itself - pollution

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So my feeling is, until we get really serious about how to solve a 10 billion plus population boom, or our ludicrous destructive capabilities vs. our very limited species-level coordination, or the staggering inefficiency of our tech, capitalism remains an academic issue.

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Here's the idea I don't trust: The idea that people will get together worldwide and agree that capitalism kinda sucks and should be replaced AND that they figure out how to create a system that pollutes minimally, repairs ecosystems, distributes resources equitably...

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We're thinking in tandem, here. Some options: - destroy/replace worst polluters & technologies - asteroid mining & renewable tech - kill 5 billion+ people, start over (ok, am half-joking)

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Here is something I can't parse well: We can simulate, by some rudimentary criteria, the intelligence of certain not-so-quick animals. By combining that with superhuman processing speed, memory handling, clarity about goals etc., you can create pockets of superhuman performance.

5:48 PM · Mar 30, 2019Twitter Web App

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Yes, I am not suggesting these systems are conventionally intelligent. I am suggesting they are embodied agents with force behind their decision-making structure.

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You can give these severely-limited-but-selectively-superhuman intelligences mechanical bodies, or strap them to control systems that make decisions with real-world ramifications. What effect are we seeing from these things being released with various operational directives?

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People keep going at Facebook, Youtube, China and the US and EU, etc., for creating supposedly-intentional oppressive & exploitative systems. But more and more, those systems just run on autopilot. There really is no meaningful way to pilot them without rendering them inert.