The true argument against inequality

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Cheers, thanks :smile:

You wouldn't believe how many right-wing freaks whined about Elysium, calling it "Hollywood Marxist propaganda", merely for depicting a future society where the poor had no healthcare and no employment rights, and the rich lived in splendour, safety, in good health and peace.

Many American right-wingers literally found it deeply offensive to portray the rich as anything other than job-creating heroes. They were deeply offended by what they perceived as an offensive portrayal that depicted a society where the poor are not provided with even basic healthcare (even though that is the reality in the US today) To me, that is frightening that right-wingers were offended by a movie portraying this below. And tbh, I am frightened that many Britsh right-wingers want us to become like America

[video="youtube;QILNSgou5BY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QILNSgou5BY[/video]

It's because the elite have done a brilliant job with their Propaganda Machine. We have been indoctrinated to refer to these parasites as "risk takers" and "wealth creators", and too many people continue to hold on to this myth that the wealthy are hyper-intelligent superhumans who taught us the beauty of capitalism and to whom we should be grateful to even have the opportunity to serve. The elite have induced in us this kind of Stockholm Syndrome towards them. This economic system is entirely illegitimate. People have to sell themselves to tyrannical property owners to survive. This is a prison, and just like how the captive will come to love and be grateful towards the captor for merely allowing them to survive, so we have been taught to feel gratitude and admiration for our corporate masters who see us as burdensome production resources. It's extremely saddening.

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Reply 41

Dalek1099

Original post by MostUncivilised

What do you mean they're not going to let them? The US already has a drone air force that kills its enemies. Why would the police object, they literally have no oversight or connection to a drone buildling programme? The police lierally have no say or oversight over private factories that would build such drones

Arrested by who? And why? Under what charge?

You actually have to put in place these arrest mechanisms, you are being exceptionally naive if you think that the elite couldn't build such a drone army at factories and then slowly introduce them.

You seem to believe that everything will just be okay if you have faith. You're worse than religious idiots. You actually need to do something about it, you can't just naively think everything will be okay

How? If protestors try to attack a power station, the drones will easily beat them away and arrest them.

Again, you seem to be relying on everything will be okay, rather than planning ahead and making sure we don't end up in this situation.

The drone air force is run by the Government not the elite and the police also work for the Government.I think you are being overly pessimistic as I have identified robots have a lot of key faults and if the public get their hands on bombs then they would be able to blast their way into the power station and lets not also forget that other people outside this elite/government would have skills on technology and would be able to hack into them and maybe make their own robots.Think about how computers were built with the best resources and scientists and yet they still manage to be hacked with viruses created by ordinary people and the same could happen with robots.How would the robots know who to obey if someone made a replica clone of the prime minister and what if contradicting skills were sent to the robots or what if the robots were tricked with illogical questions and answers.You have got to remember that the elite may be the elite but they will have to battle against the much larger but on average dumber public with such a wide range of people a lot of good ideas as suggested above could be implemented to defeat these robots.Another way this wouldn't work is that the elite would become competitive and there would probably be multiple branches each crating robots so there would be no control over the public because they all would be fighting each other.

Reply 42

MostUncivilised

Original post by Dalek1099

Think about how computers were built with the best resources and scientists and yet they still manage to be hacked with viruses created by ordinary people

I'm sorry, you don't know that. That's mere speculation driven by Hollywood optimism based on movies like Terminator. You hope we would be able to. That's different from we would be able to. And you are highly irresponsible to say we should proceed on hte assupmtion we could

How would the robots know who to obey if someone made a replica clone of the prime minister and what if contradicting skills were sent to the robots or what if the robots were tricked with illogical questions and answers.You have got to remember that the elite may be the elite but they will have to battle against the much larger but on average dumber public with such a wide range of people a lot of good ideas as suggested above could be implemented to defeat these robots.Another way this wouldn't work is that the elite would become competitive and there would probably be multiple branches each crating robots so there would be no control over the public because they all would be fighting each other

I'm sorry, the rest of this is just stupid adolescent crap. To be honest, I don't think you're quite at the intellectual level (almost certainly based on your age, not fundamental intellect) to be able to join in this conversation.

Maybe come back in 2 or 3 years? I simply don't think you have the analytical skills to understand what is being discussed

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 43

universal_set

This is inequality:

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Reply 44

MostUncivilised

Original post by Abstraction

I completely agree with your comment, very perceptive and spot on.

Reply 45

MostUncivilised

Original post by redferry

I would say its also often upper middle class - well at least what I would call upper middle. The word socialism makes most private schoolers apopleptic

From my perspective, the upper-middle class is almost invisible. It does not attract media in the way the super-wealthy do, it doesn't draw attention to itself in terms of conspicuous consumption (if your parents have £10 million, you're not out there driving £1 million cars, having massive decadent parties that attract the paparazzi, etc)

I think the upper-middle class is quite elusive and relatively unknown

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 46

Dalek1099

Original post by MostUncivilised

I think you are overoptimistic. The power station would merely need automatic-controlled machine guns hooked up to TV/infrared cameras, it would shoot anyone who approached without authorisation.

And again, it is so stupid to rely on some putative ability to rebel to keep a control on the economic elites. You're basically saying, "Well, yes they could dominate society but we could always rebel".

It is naive to assume that we would be able to overcome drones, automated guns, AI strategy computers, and so on. And it is stupid and naive to take that risk, when we could merely legislate now to prevent such an eventuation.

I'm sorry, you don't know that. That's mere speculation driven by Hollywood optimism based on movies like Terminator. You hope we would be able to. That's different from we would be able to. And you are highly irresponsible to say we should proceed on hte assupmtion we could

I'm sorry, the rest of this is just stupid adolescent crap. To be honest, I don't think you're quite at the intellectual level (almost certainly based on your age, not fundamental intellect) to be able to join in this conversation.

Maybe come back in 2 or 3 years? I simply don't think you have the analytical skills to understand what is being discussed

Would legislation work?I would imagine the majority of this drone building would be done behind the public's back because I doubt anyone would legislate for it.From what I have seen the Government will simply be more powerful in the future with robots replacing police which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing because police aren't respected at the moment and at the moment it is businesses that seem to have all the power particularly banks I would like to see more Government control,with these robots crime rates should go down which would have a lot of benefits.

You seem to be obsessed with how good these drones will be, from what we have seen from technology it can be very unreliable and can break very easily and wouldn't be surprised if this was the same for the drones, what would happen if bad weather made the signals fail and damage them and then protesters attack.I don't seem to get where you get this idea that these robots will be 100% invincible and reliable from no technology has been like that-technology can be very unpredictable and unreliable.

Reply 47

MostUncivilised

Original post by Dalek1099

Say the government, today, asked the police and armed forces to effect a fascist coup; that is obviously completely implausible, it simply wouldn't happen. The police and armed forces would not go for it, as the police and armed forces are themselves of the class that would least benefit from such a coup and are at present totally enfranchised.

Have you heard the term "policing by consent"? Do you understand just how important it is to British democracy? And do you understand what would happen if most of the police were replaced with droids and didn't have to police with consent?

You seem to be obsessed with how good these drones will be, from what we have seen from technology it can be very unreliable and can break very easily

You seem to think that drones in 2050 will have the same characteristics as drones in 2014. It's almost like you're in the early 1980s, and saying handheld computers that can transmit speech data and record and transmit video would never work, because computers are too unreliable and chips too expensive.

It is quite clear that your analytical abilities and predictive capabilities are rather simplistic, and entirely stuck in the present paradigm.

I'm not saying you're stupid, to be fair, you are 17 and as you get older, your brain will evolve and when you're at university, you will learn more and be more able to apply your intellect to future scenarios.

But at present, it's quite clear your ability to contribute to this conversation is rather limited. You don't appear able to detach yourself from the present, and apply your mind to what the future might be

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 48

scrotgrot

Original post by Rakas21

Fantastic movie but based on the notion that a small elite would have a technological monopoly and thus restrict access. While I see a large division in wealth I see no reason why competing companies or people won't build their own space stations ect.. Offering access for more people.

That article is simply a scare story.

What are you talking about, everywhere you look today you see rich people pulling up ladders behind them. As we approach a technological singularity, we stand on the brink of a pivotal moment in the history of the human race, and I absolutely believe it will kill us off if we allow our animalian elitist urges to prevail. I would much rather technology become a common good, a gift to mankind in perpetuity, which frees humanity from the yoke of work and currency, allows the economy and human happiness to become one with each other, and builds the springboard for the human race to go forth and multiply through the solar system and beyond.

Now, as long as states remain the only entities large enough and long-lived enough to co-ordinate investment in monumental infrastructure projects like space stations, at least that comes with a duty of care, however muddied by corruption, to all those who are citizens of that state.

Heaven forbid that it should get to the point where private individuals or companies owned undemocratically by private individuals can amass enough money to see such a project through to completion and commit to its maintenance. Because companies and private individuals are beholden only to themselves, there is no duty of care, much less a voice for those excluded from decision-making.