I've been hearing the promise of technology freeing us up for less work and more leisure for 30 plus years. That 3-day work week never happened for me- my job just got busier, took up more of my time, and seeped into my personal space. Sound familiar? Also those online meetings and work interactions were all business and no fun. We were missing a fundamental human element: fewer jokes, chitchat, and donuts. All the while I had a sinking feeling these interactions and patterns were being mined by the machine to replace us- or our children.
And Instead of better customer service a lot of the so called efficiencies of technology simply downloaded the work to the end user. Anyone been to the grocery store lately? There used to be associates who helped ring up and pack your food. Now we do that work ourselves. With Security Guards watching to make sure we don't steal the food.
Instead of shortening work hours, many countries are increasing how many years you need to work before you retire and recieve social security. Other people are stuck working into their late 70s because they can't afford to stop. Lately I've met a lot of middle-aged women who spent most of their lives in supportive and care giving roles who are really economically vulnerable these days.
Wake up and smell the coffee burning!
What is Musk waiting for? Why doesn't he start giving away his money now? Wait, how did one man get and keep so much money in the first place? And if he's such a generous soul why is one of the first things he did to cut off transfers to the most vulnerable people in the world (in Africa)?
Truly relieved to be old and on my way out. Doesn't mean I'm giving up or giving in--I'll protest this abomination to the end. Always have; always will.
You almost had me, right up until here: "This isn’t about defunding the police or abolishing prisons." If it's NOT about also eliminating the para-military police state that runs the joint, and ending the quasi-slave system of the private prison complex, then WTF is the point of your "democracy?"
It'll just be another version of the caste system society that is the US today, and infected with the same disease from its birth, venerealed with another's subjugation, just so y'all can have cheap gas and a double burger combo at Applebee's.
And if you slipped that in to secretly seduce Maga, then you're playing Trump's game.
Stand on principle CONSISTENTLY, willya? You sound like a corporate Democrat.
Any country with for-profit prisons is NOT a democracy. When the for-profit corporate prison can extend sentences at will (e.g. fighting back while being beaten); when forced labor (at, perhaps, 25 cents/hour) is the rule, then who won the Civil War?
Let's not forget the unpaid labor of participation in social media and Google searches.
Yanis Varoufakis was the first person I heard propose returning that stolen value to the public. Every click is worth something, like each breath. The value of human life itself, actualized and potential, needs to become something we promote and foster. If there is anything sacred in work, it derives from the value of life itself.
And look at how much of it we waste now! Not just with our violent institutions with their threat of violence and the violence of our economic relations, but also on bullshit jobs, wasted commutes, needless worries.
Ya gotta love Musk. He MUST have a trillion dollars right now, but money is soon going away and us riff-raff won't need it because we'll get a monthly check!!
I think you make a really important point, Corbin. Public ownership of fundamental leverage activities is key; and it's important to implement it now, before AI takes over. The worry is that the R's are too busy rigging things so they can reap the economic benefits themselves, and the D's are too busy posturing instead of actually engaging in the fight. Let's hope that the new crop of truly progressive candidates can join forces to do something real and useful when they get to Washington next year. Time is short!
Retired from teaching--arduous and fulfilling for 40 yrs--I spend my time reading everything I can, and looking hard around me when out and about. I attend rallies and write letters, sign petitions, and donate. I agree with you that an enormous Juggernaut is gaining scary momentum. Hearings are being called everywhere about data centers, some notices for hearings declared to be about "battery storage centers." Too many politicians will lie about everything for money and all that comes with it. Too many citizens believed, and even knowing, surely, about the most outrageous acts, and they still believe the liars and criminals--even while they're still being used and lied to yet. They don't get it.
In certain ways, Linda McCaughey, I, too, and relieved to be on my way out.
"Ownership of our economy is the fight we need to be having. That and the restoration of our democracy and the Constitution." Right on!
Yet none of these evils could be happening without the fuel of money. In a capitalist system, "ownership" means money. Yet money currently serves two opposing functions: medium of exchange and store of value. Money was initially invented to serve the former purpose, but the latter has so come to predominate that the former purpose is increasing unavailable for the masses. And it's only going to get worse.
A practical solution would be a wealth cap on monetary holdings - perhaps in the form of a demurrage charge on wealth above a certain level. For starters, I suggest a 1% per month charge on monetary holdings above $50 million.
Isn't there a distinction between wage work, paid labor, and unpaid work we should consider? Not just childcare and care of family members historically, but also what we do for fun or the live of it without someone telling us what to do.
Is this writing you do work? Is it sacred? What about cooking at home or knitting a sweater for a friend?
There's a potential fly in that ointment. I read in the past 48hrs that the American AI bubble IS going to collapse, and very badly, and to avoid that the oligarch-captured State will pick up the bill - and continue the build-out, with the plan to use AI to turn most of the population into serfs, as you warn.
So there's a decent chance that US AI WILL be 'nationalised', but as in the neolib playbook, the profits will be private, and the costs socialised. The tax-payers will be paying for their own technological enslavement, and lets not kid ourselves that 'Western democratic votes' are clean anymore, the rigging in virtually every Western country is off the charts towards Empire Establishment loyalists.
Who could possibly have guessed that open source, mid-level-aimed AI would win over oligarch-owned proprietary AI? Lol.
Western AI was always designed to become a dystopia, a 'social credit system' FAAAR beyond anything (wrongly) ascribed to China.
I doubt that voting will be allowed to change that path.
This is off-topic but rather than sending you a DM I thought I would just put a comment here so others could watch the segment as well. You were fantastic on The Context tonight, the night of July 29. Thank you for saying all the things you did, particularly about the insanity of getting in bed with the Saudis! 🤯 They are not our friends.
Generative AI as currently architected is a complete dead end. Superintelligence is not just around the corner. We have not entered nor are we anywhere close to the singularity. There is no upside to the current architecture; scaling laws are a marketing ploy dreamt up by OpenAI and Anthropic, not laws of physics or anything that honest scientists have discovered, like the laws of motion or thermodynamics. Big Tech is lying to all of us and mongering fear as hard as they can to get us onboard.
If we nationalize the frontier labs we will own their massive unsustainable debt; we the people will be on the hook for the biggest misallocation of capital in recorded human history. A bailout of the tech billionaire oligarchs. No. Thank. You.
I've been hearing the promise of technology freeing us up for less work and more leisure for 30 plus years. That 3-day work week never happened for me- my job just got busier, took up more of my time, and seeped into my personal space. Sound familiar? Also those online meetings and work interactions were all business and no fun. We were missing a fundamental human element: fewer jokes, chitchat, and donuts. All the while I had a sinking feeling these interactions and patterns were being mined by the machine to replace us- or our children.
And Instead of better customer service a lot of the so called efficiencies of technology simply downloaded the work to the end user. Anyone been to the grocery store lately? There used to be associates who helped ring up and pack your food. Now we do that work ourselves. With Security Guards watching to make sure we don't steal the food.
Instead of shortening work hours, many countries are increasing how many years you need to work before you retire and recieve social security. Other people are stuck working into their late 70s because they can't afford to stop. Lately I've met a lot of middle-aged women who spent most of their lives in supportive and care giving roles who are really economically vulnerable these days.
Wake up and smell the coffee burning!
What is Musk waiting for? Why doesn't he start giving away his money now? Wait, how did one man get and keep so much money in the first place? And if he's such a generous soul why is one of the first things he did to cut off transfers to the most vulnerable people in the world (in Africa)?
Truly relieved to be old and on my way out. Doesn't mean I'm giving up or giving in--I'll protest this abomination to the end. Always have; always will.
Hi Corbin, I would like to connect you with a group working on public banking at https://moneyontheleft.org/
So inspiring - as always, Corbin! Let's all continue to spread the gospel of Public Ownership!
Jeffries wears rose colored glasses and will not be able to do the tough things we need to get us to where we can get back on track.
Jeffries ideas and thoughts are 40 years past their expiration date.
You almost had me, right up until here: "This isn’t about defunding the police or abolishing prisons." If it's NOT about also eliminating the para-military police state that runs the joint, and ending the quasi-slave system of the private prison complex, then WTF is the point of your "democracy?"
It'll just be another version of the caste system society that is the US today, and infected with the same disease from its birth, venerealed with another's subjugation, just so y'all can have cheap gas and a double burger combo at Applebee's.
And if you slipped that in to secretly seduce Maga, then you're playing Trump's game.
Stand on principle CONSISTENTLY, willya? You sound like a corporate Democrat.
Any country with for-profit prisons is NOT a democracy. When the for-profit corporate prison can extend sentences at will (e.g. fighting back while being beaten); when forced labor (at, perhaps, 25 cents/hour) is the rule, then who won the Civil War?
Let's not forget the unpaid labor of participation in social media and Google searches.
Yanis Varoufakis was the first person I heard propose returning that stolen value to the public. Every click is worth something, like each breath. The value of human life itself, actualized and potential, needs to become something we promote and foster. If there is anything sacred in work, it derives from the value of life itself.
And look at how much of it we waste now! Not just with our violent institutions with their threat of violence and the violence of our economic relations, but also on bullshit jobs, wasted commutes, needless worries.
Ya gotta love Musk. He MUST have a trillion dollars right now, but money is soon going away and us riff-raff won't need it because we'll get a monthly check!!
Of which every penny will be digitally tracked, so we can only spend on 'approved' products and services.
Yeah, thanks Musk. Why don't you go back to South Africa and become part of the "Genocide" there, hey?
Do it for Humanity!
I think you make a really important point, Corbin. Public ownership of fundamental leverage activities is key; and it's important to implement it now, before AI takes over. The worry is that the R's are too busy rigging things so they can reap the economic benefits themselves, and the D's are too busy posturing instead of actually engaging in the fight. Let's hope that the new crop of truly progressive candidates can join forces to do something real and useful when they get to Washington next year. Time is short!
Retired from teaching--arduous and fulfilling for 40 yrs--I spend my time reading everything I can, and looking hard around me when out and about. I attend rallies and write letters, sign petitions, and donate. I agree with you that an enormous Juggernaut is gaining scary momentum. Hearings are being called everywhere about data centers, some notices for hearings declared to be about "battery storage centers." Too many politicians will lie about everything for money and all that comes with it. Too many citizens believed, and even knowing, surely, about the most outrageous acts, and they still believe the liars and criminals--even while they're still being used and lied to yet. They don't get it.
In certain ways, Linda McCaughey, I, too, and relieved to be on my way out.
"Ownership of our economy is the fight we need to be having. That and the restoration of our democracy and the Constitution." Right on!
Yet none of these evils could be happening without the fuel of money. In a capitalist system, "ownership" means money. Yet money currently serves two opposing functions: medium of exchange and store of value. Money was initially invented to serve the former purpose, but the latter has so come to predominate that the former purpose is increasing unavailable for the masses. And it's only going to get worse.
A practical solution would be a wealth cap on monetary holdings - perhaps in the form of a demurrage charge on wealth above a certain level. For starters, I suggest a 1% per month charge on monetary holdings above $50 million.
Isn't there a distinction between wage work, paid labor, and unpaid work we should consider? Not just childcare and care of family members historically, but also what we do for fun or the live of it without someone telling us what to do.
Is this writing you do work? Is it sacred? What about cooking at home or knitting a sweater for a friend?
There's a potential fly in that ointment. I read in the past 48hrs that the American AI bubble IS going to collapse, and very badly, and to avoid that the oligarch-captured State will pick up the bill - and continue the build-out, with the plan to use AI to turn most of the population into serfs, as you warn.
So there's a decent chance that US AI WILL be 'nationalised', but as in the neolib playbook, the profits will be private, and the costs socialised. The tax-payers will be paying for their own technological enslavement, and lets not kid ourselves that 'Western democratic votes' are clean anymore, the rigging in virtually every Western country is off the charts towards Empire Establishment loyalists.
Who could possibly have guessed that open source, mid-level-aimed AI would win over oligarch-owned proprietary AI? Lol.
Western AI was always designed to become a dystopia, a 'social credit system' FAAAR beyond anything (wrongly) ascribed to China.
I doubt that voting will be allowed to change that path.
This is off-topic but rather than sending you a DM I thought I would just put a comment here so others could watch the segment as well. You were fantastic on The Context tonight, the night of July 29. Thank you for saying all the things you did, particularly about the insanity of getting in bed with the Saudis! 🤯 They are not our friends.
Generative AI as currently architected is a complete dead end. Superintelligence is not just around the corner. We have not entered nor are we anywhere close to the singularity. There is no upside to the current architecture; scaling laws are a marketing ploy dreamt up by OpenAI and Anthropic, not laws of physics or anything that honest scientists have discovered, like the laws of motion or thermodynamics. Big Tech is lying to all of us and mongering fear as hard as they can to get us onboard.
If we nationalize the frontier labs we will own their massive unsustainable debt; we the people will be on the hook for the biggest misallocation of capital in recorded human history. A bailout of the tech billionaire oligarchs. No. Thank. You.
Well said!!