Exactly why no social ism works. Capitalism, communism, Georgism, liberalism, Marxism, anarchism, socialism. They’re mostly all good on paper but awful when put into effect because they don’t factor human nature. So long as there is the same trait within that led to our wild success as species number 1, we can never have good ideas play out how they were thought to. Instead we have we have those always looking for advantage to be number 1 of the number 1s. Psychopaths love power and personal security.
Arthur C. Clarke said something along the lines of “communism could’ve worked if only they had microchips” meaning that communism had problems with humans. An algorithmic socialism that requires everything to be fair is the only way to do it.
Someone with a provable, undeniable, zero stakes in the outcome of publishing said algorithm, while being of such moral fortitude as to be un-corruptable. IMO, if you find such a person, you’re probably better off just putting them in charge.
Best bet is to raise the bar on any coordinated attempt to sabotage things. Multiple algorithms must be made by distinct parties, and the submissions compared against one another, and somehow averaged out (e.g. multiple running algorithms that vote amongst themselves) so that the only way to game the system is a very large and unlikely conspiracy.
Presumably anyone can, and people democratically vote on which algorithm is used. Direct democracy like this has its problems, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the oligarchy/plutocracy that we’re currently dealing with.
Would still need to figure out a solution for tyranny of the majority, though. Left unchecked, a majority populace can easily vote their way towards being a strict ethnostate.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that is how future civilizations (assuming we live that long) handle their administration. Laws are written algorithmically, almost like computer code, and simply translated for laymen to interpret. Maybe with an integrated parser service available to everyone that is capable of answering queries based on the strict programmed definitions it references.
This still invites the very likely possibility of one’s interpretation of a law differing from the intent, but that is already the case today, with the bigger problem being that there are often major disagreements at an institutional level where there should ideally be no uncertainty.
Yep, not sure there will ever be a way around that either. An algorithm could possibly facilitate a more unbiased demographic representation of lawmakers, but that would require an original algorithm to establish those conditions in the first place.
The other factor is changing priorities/needs over time. People in the future could discover more problems that we are oblivious to today, and any algorithmic structure of law would need to be able to be easily amended in order to adapt. How would they prevent opportunists from abusing the amendment process?
At best, we see a streamlining of the court. Laws that are rigidly defined cannot be open to interpretation by any particular judge. But the act of creating laws would still be just as problematic unless we let ChatGPT do it, which invites the possibility of adding cyanide to public drinking water supplies because it’s better for the environment.
Communism is the perfect form of government when you have essentially infinite resources to the point where personal wealth is meaningless and a society that functions as a perfect meritocracy.
And also killing off the less fit if they’re not our own. Especially if resources are at stake. Or general conquest or control over a valley, zone, region, or some other thing for your kin, clan, group, community, eventually country, etc. The same behaviours we still exercise now, whether for political tribe, sport tribe, oil, subculture, parts of Gaza, religion, property portfolio, etc. You see now the etc. is just a long-standing timeline cut short.
Basically if it’s backed by a flag, colours, or other such meaningless symbolism of a group, it’s the underlying human nature still going hard. It is the “this is good for me therefore it is good to commit to” behaviour and the strongest come out on top whether decidedly good or evil.
But we do tend to band together when there’s an immediate threat bigger than ourselves—not like climate change since that’s us and is a slow threat easy to ignore day to day. I think it’s more a self-preservation thing than an everyone else preservation thing though. People jump ship for a better ship all the time, but they’ll fight for the fleet so long as they’re part of it.
And in between that the naive have exoected social ideologies can have any chance of achieving the blueprint of Eutopia they all envisioned. Yet history has only ever constantly said “Nope”.
the first paragraph is exactly “the law of the jungle” aka how other animals behave - it couldn’t have been the difference, since it’s the same. and then this extended to less tangible things
so it seems you agree, but you don’t realise it: humans are unique because they don’t follow this rule.
i read a book back when i was religious about the “temptation for good”, which the author argued was the proof for the existence of god, but i think it’s what made us different
it might be just me, but i feel bad for not helping people (i mean like beggars and the like), but the world has conditioned me that it’s a bad idea - you’ll get screwed over, you won’t have stuff, etc.
as to climate change - there are many people spending billions of dollars and countless hours to make sure the average person doesn’t get to or doesn’t feel motivated to do anything, i don’t think it’s “natural” behaviour
history seems to forget that cuba exists, despite the fact that most of the world (especially the cia) trying to destroy it for more than half of a century
not that i’m saying cuba is a utopia, but they managed to survive and keep their more equitable system, again, despite constant assassination attempts and decades long embargoes
By working “pretty well” you mean mass starvation, mass murders of the civilian population and complete government authoritarianism. Communism’s death toll rivals ww2 and thats with no foreign intervention.
Oh, it has been tried! For example, the Free People Territory in what is now Ukraine. Killed off by authoritarians pretending to be communists in the the USSR. Also, Neozapatistas in the Chiapas region. Cuba is doing a pretty fair shake at it, as well, and a lot of suffering there happening because of the myriad invasions, assassination attempts, and now economic embargo on them by the US. Rojava is doing a system that borrows a lot from communism (Democratic Confederalism).
So, since we’re doing economic death tolls: What is the death toll from just the US capitalist system? Like, 1 million dead during COVID, 40k per year from gatekeeping health care, how many died in Iraq? Afghanistan? How many indigenous people in the US have died from capitalism? I think just the last one puts the holocaust to shame…
Where has capitalism been tried that hasn’t resulted in massive death tolls?
Ironically, you completely fell into proving my point.
You mean, by supplying actual examples of when it was tried, and when it worked?
Somehow, I don’t think you’ll figure that out… Not today, maybe, but in the future, hopefully.
Someday, you’ll figure out that capitalism is basically just “Might equals right”. Not today, by in the future, maybe. I don’t hold out much hope, though.
This is the, “If I don’t do it, someone else will,” argument. Which is true.
There is always all least one other ass hole out there.
Exactly why no social ism works. Capitalism, communism, Georgism, liberalism, Marxism, anarchism, socialism. They’re mostly all good on paper but awful when put into effect because they don’t factor human nature. So long as there is the same trait within that led to our wild success as species number 1, we can never have good ideas play out how they were thought to. Instead we have we have those always looking for advantage to be number 1 of the number 1s. Psychopaths love power and personal security.
Arthur C. Clarke said something along the lines of “communism could’ve worked if only they had microchips” meaning that communism had problems with humans. An algorithmic socialism that requires everything to be fair is the only way to do it.
Who designs the algorithm?
Extraterrestrial aliens.
Perfect
Elon Musk vibe coding with grok.
Someone with a provable, undeniable, zero stakes in the outcome of publishing said algorithm, while being of such moral fortitude as to be un-corruptable. IMO, if you find such a person, you’re probably better off just putting them in charge.
Best bet is to raise the bar on any coordinated attempt to sabotage things. Multiple algorithms must be made by distinct parties, and the submissions compared against one another, and somehow averaged out (e.g. multiple running algorithms that vote amongst themselves) so that the only way to game the system is a very large and unlikely conspiracy.
Presumably anyone can, and people democratically vote on which algorithm is used. Direct democracy like this has its problems, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the oligarchy/plutocracy that we’re currently dealing with.
Would still need to figure out a solution for tyranny of the majority, though. Left unchecked, a majority populace can easily vote their way towards being a strict ethnostate.
For sure, though the tyranny of the majority is still strictly better than the tyranny of the minority, which we currently are dealing with.
I will
I’ll only skim a little off the top, promise
Just fractions of a socialism on every socialism. It adds up. I saw it in a movie.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that is how future civilizations (assuming we live that long) handle their administration. Laws are written algorithmically, almost like computer code, and simply translated for laymen to interpret. Maybe with an integrated parser service available to everyone that is capable of answering queries based on the strict programmed definitions it references.
This still invites the very likely possibility of one’s interpretation of a law differing from the intent, but that is already the case today, with the bigger problem being that there are often major disagreements at an institutional level where there should ideally be no uncertainty.
the problem will be the implicit biases of the lawmakers
Yep, not sure there will ever be a way around that either. An algorithm could possibly facilitate a more unbiased demographic representation of lawmakers, but that would require an original algorithm to establish those conditions in the first place.
The other factor is changing priorities/needs over time. People in the future could discover more problems that we are oblivious to today, and any algorithmic structure of law would need to be able to be easily amended in order to adapt. How would they prevent opportunists from abusing the amendment process?
At best, we see a streamlining of the court. Laws that are rigidly defined cannot be open to interpretation by any particular judge. But the act of creating laws would still be just as problematic unless we let ChatGPT do it, which invites the possibility of adding cyanide to public drinking water supplies because it’s better for the environment.
Communism is the perfect form of government when you have essentially infinite resources to the point where personal wealth is meaningless and a society that functions as a perfect meritocracy.
what is “the same trait within that led to our wild success as species number 1”?
i think the thing that made the difference was helping the “less fit” so that they could keep and transfer knowledge, do thinking and make tools
And also killing off the less fit if they’re not our own. Especially if resources are at stake. Or general conquest or control over a valley, zone, region, or some other thing for your kin, clan, group, community, eventually country, etc. The same behaviours we still exercise now, whether for political tribe, sport tribe, oil, subculture, parts of Gaza, religion, property portfolio, etc. You see now the etc. is just a long-standing timeline cut short.
Basically if it’s backed by a flag, colours, or other such meaningless symbolism of a group, it’s the underlying human nature still going hard. It is the “this is good for me therefore it is good to commit to” behaviour and the strongest come out on top whether decidedly good or evil.
But we do tend to band together when there’s an immediate threat bigger than ourselves—not like climate change since that’s us and is a slow threat easy to ignore day to day. I think it’s more a self-preservation thing than an everyone else preservation thing though. People jump ship for a better ship all the time, but they’ll fight for the fleet so long as they’re part of it.
And in between that the naive have exoected social ideologies can have any chance of achieving the blueprint of Eutopia they all envisioned. Yet history has only ever constantly said “Nope”.
the first paragraph is exactly “the law of the jungle” aka how other animals behave - it couldn’t have been the difference, since it’s the same. and then this extended to less tangible things
so it seems you agree, but you don’t realise it: humans are unique because they don’t follow this rule.
i read a book back when i was religious about the “temptation for good”, which the author argued was the proof for the existence of god, but i think it’s what made us different
it might be just me, but i feel bad for not helping people (i mean like beggars and the like), but the world has conditioned me that it’s a bad idea - you’ll get screwed over, you won’t have stuff, etc.
as to climate change - there are many people spending billions of dollars and countless hours to make sure the average person doesn’t get to or doesn’t feel motivated to do anything, i don’t think it’s “natural” behaviour
history seems to forget that cuba exists, despite the fact that most of the world (especially the cia) trying to destroy it for more than half of a century
not that i’m saying cuba is a utopia, but they managed to survive and keep their more equitable system, again, despite constant assassination attempts and decades long embargoes
Communism tends to work pretty well until the US shows up with their military, and stamp it out.
By working “pretty well” you mean mass starvation, mass murders of the civilian population and complete government authoritarianism. Communism’s death toll rivals ww2 and thats with no foreign intervention.
Communimsm and authoritarianism are opposites. Cannot have authoritarianism with a stateless and classless society.
What’s that death toll? Because in the US alone, capitalism kills about 40k per year, due to gatekeeping things like healthcare.
If that’s your opinion then no matter what I say you are going to hit me with the “true communism has never been tried”
Oh, it has been tried! For example, the Free People Territory in what is now Ukraine. Killed off by authoritarians pretending to be communists in the the USSR. Also, Neozapatistas in the Chiapas region. Cuba is doing a pretty fair shake at it, as well, and a lot of suffering there happening because of the myriad invasions, assassination attempts, and now economic embargo on them by the US. Rojava is doing a system that borrows a lot from communism (Democratic Confederalism).
So, since we’re doing economic death tolls: What is the death toll from just the US capitalist system? Like, 1 million dead during COVID, 40k per year from gatekeeping health care, how many died in Iraq? Afghanistan? How many indigenous people in the US have died from capitalism? I think just the last one puts the holocaust to shame…
Where has capitalism been tried that hasn’t resulted in massive death tolls?
Ironically, you completely fell into proving my point.
Somehow, I don’t think you’ll figure that out… Not today, maybe, but in the future, hopefully.
You mean, by supplying actual examples of when it was tried, and when it worked?
Someday, you’ll figure out that capitalism is basically just “Might equals right”. Not today, by in the future, maybe. I don’t hold out much hope, though.