by
Jaron Lanier
253
Who Will Do What?
0
terms
5
notes
254
In a humanistic information economy, as people age, they will collect royalties on value they brought into the world when they were younger. This seems to me to be a highly moral use of information technology. It remembers the right data. The very idea that our world is construed in such a way that the lifetime contributions of hardworking, creative people can be forgotten, that they can be sent perpetually back to the starting gate, is a deep injustice.
Putting it that way makes the complaint sound leftist. But today's there's also an erasure of what should be legitimate capital. The right should be just as outraged. The proposal here is not redistributionist or socialist. Royalties based on creative contributions from a whole lifetime would always be flowing freshly. It would be wealth earned, not entitlement.
there is literally no such thing as wealth "earned", it is ALWAYS entitlement. you "earn" it by some sort of social and regulatory convention, and the amount is not the result of some universal arbitration process, either ...
we (as a society) need to address this idea of "earning" wealth. it's such a key facet of capitalist realism and so pernicious
In a humanistic information economy, as people age, they will collect royalties on value they brought into the world when they were younger. This seems to me to be a highly moral use of information technology. It remembers the right data. The very idea that our world is construed in such a way that the lifetime contributions of hardworking, creative people can be forgotten, that they can be sent perpetually back to the starting gate, is a deep injustice.
Putting it that way makes the complaint sound leftist. But today's there's also an erasure of what should be legitimate capital. The right should be just as outraged. The proposal here is not redistributionist or socialist. Royalties based on creative contributions from a whole lifetime would always be flowing freshly. It would be wealth earned, not entitlement.
there is literally no such thing as wealth "earned", it is ALWAYS entitlement. you "earn" it by some sort of social and regulatory convention, and the amount is not the result of some universal arbitration process, either ...
we (as a society) need to address this idea of "earning" wealth. it's such a key facet of capitalist realism and so pernicious
256
[...] One side might declare, "The one percent didn't earn it!" and the other might admonish, "The market says they did, so you should stop being jealous." Neither the left nor the right seems to anticipate that the future might hold many, many more legitimate, self-propelled lucky stars.
Is it such an awful thing to suggest that what technological progress should look like is more and more people becoming a little more like lucky stars? What other vision of progress is viable?
omg this is SO ripe for deconstruction. the fact that he uses the word "lucky" makes it clear that even he realises these people aren't fully "legitimate", to use his word--there's always an element of luck involved, and that element always undermines the legitimacy of their achievements.
here's another vision of progress: one where you don't need to be a "lucky star" in order to have access to the material goods needed for survival
[...] One side might declare, "The one percent didn't earn it!" and the other might admonish, "The market says they did, so you should stop being jealous." Neither the left nor the right seems to anticipate that the future might hold many, many more legitimate, self-propelled lucky stars.
Is it such an awful thing to suggest that what technological progress should look like is more and more people becoming a little more like lucky stars? What other vision of progress is viable?
omg this is SO ripe for deconstruction. the fact that he uses the word "lucky" makes it clear that even he realises these people aren't fully "legitimate", to use his word--there's always an element of luck involved, and that element always undermines the legitimacy of their achievements.
here's another vision of progress: one where you don't need to be a "lucky star" in order to have access to the material goods needed for survival
259
So will people in a humanistic economy find enough value in each other to earn a living, once cloud software coupled with robots and other gadgets can meet most of life's needs and wants? Or even more bluntly, "Will there be enough value from ordinary people in the long term to justify the existence of an economy?"
possibly, but only if we manage to convince enough of the corporate world to downgrade their profit expectations. that would be a monumental undertaking just for more of the same sort of exploitation so why even bother????
this book is the most centrist thing i've ever read
So will people in a humanistic economy find enough value in each other to earn a living, once cloud software coupled with robots and other gadgets can meet most of life's needs and wants? Or even more bluntly, "Will there be enough value from ordinary people in the long term to justify the existence of an economy?"
possibly, but only if we manage to convince enough of the corporate world to downgrade their profit expectations. that would be a monumental undertaking just for more of the same sort of exploitation so why even bother????
this book is the most centrist thing i've ever read
261
Someday it might be the case that your offhanded grunt helps an automated assistant interact more successfully with grumpy people. Decades or centuries from now, when the global or interplanetary cloud algorithms for language translation are so refined that there's only very occasional room for improvement, your grunt might turn out to be worth a million dollars. It might sound strange today, but imagine how strange it would sound to a hunter-gatherer from thirty thousand years ago that a star's grunt on a movie screen would be worth a million dollars today.
it should sound strange to someone today because it's inherently absolutely ridiculous. this is not a good supporting point
Someday it might be the case that your offhanded grunt helps an automated assistant interact more successfully with grumpy people. Decades or centuries from now, when the global or interplanetary cloud algorithms for language translation are so refined that there's only very occasional room for improvement, your grunt might turn out to be worth a million dollars. It might sound strange today, but imagine how strange it would sound to a hunter-gatherer from thirty thousand years ago that a star's grunt on a movie screen would be worth a million dollars today.
it should sound strange to someone today because it's inherently absolutely ridiculous. this is not a good supporting point
263
Should a day arrive when it really becomes true that very few people are able to offer anything of value to anyone else--if everything becomes automated to the point that almost no one is really needed, but only needs--then obviously the very idea of a market must be retired.
I see no evidence to support that dark fear.
i am shedding a single tear
Should a day arrive when it really becomes true that very few people are able to offer anything of value to anyone else--if everything becomes automated to the point that almost no one is really needed, but only needs--then obviously the very idea of a market must be retired.
I see no evidence to support that dark fear.
i am shedding a single tear