[ExI] self driving truck

Mon Oct 31 14:16:19 UTC 2016

On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 2:01 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> >
>> >
>> … Hedge fund managers will be replaced before car repair mechanics…
>
>
> > 
> Hmmm, car repair has changed a lot too.  Now they plug in a diagnostic
> computer, the software tells the mechanic exactly which subsystem needs
> replacing, done.
>

You're not really done, you might know what the problem is but the car
still isn't fixed.
It's obvious that a new windshield wiper blade is required but the machine
must calculate how the blade should be manipulate so that it is removed and
how the new part must be manipulated so that it is installed, and then
after if figure out what it needs to do it must actually do the
manipulations without breaking anything. And if its going to be economical
the robot mechanic had better be able to do a lot of things besides change
windshield wiper blades.  

> >
>> > 
>> …Yes and it's only a matter of time before everybody is unemployable.
>> Pure libertarian dogma has no answer to this problem, at least none I've
>> seen, that's why I dared to utter the dreaded words "nanny state". If
>> somebody has a better idea I'm all ears…John K Clark
>
>

> 
> My best guess would be to replace nanny-state with nanny-county and
> nanny-city.
>

What's the difference?

> 
Emphasize working with the unemployed

Working with the unemployed to do what? And what happens when everybody is
unemployed?

> > 
> distribute power widely

Yes, the concentration of power (and money is power) is the problem, but
if not the nanny state how will that concentration be broken? 

62 people having as much money as 3.6 Billion people is just asking for
crazy people to be elected as leaders and blood to run in the streets. T
he advance in AI
 will only accelerate this disturbing trend, in 4 or 5 years the number
could drop from 62 into the single digits. Imaging the anger that will
produce, imagine the sort of crazy people all those angry people will vote
for! Actually we don't need to imagine it, we can just look at the news.

> > The higher the central charity or redistribution goes, the more it
> becomes a cherry-red target for the corrupt.

But the wealth certainly goes high so if the redistribution is to work it
must go high too, and that means it must be powerful and that means a
state. I don't think the poor can rely on the rich surrendering to
the better angels of their nature and voluntarily feeding the poor;
recently India's richest man (and #5 on that list of 62) built the most
expensive private house in the world, it cost 1.5 Billion dollars and he
decided to build it right in the middle of the slums of
Mumbai
, India's poorest city, where an orphanage once stood. It's almost as if
he's deliberately thumbing his noise at the poor. Forget the morality if
you like, that's just stupid.

Yes corruption is a potential problem as it is in all human activity, but
does anybody have a better idea? 

John K Clark
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