A Luddite, as it is commonly used, is someone who believes that technological advance will cause harm to some segment of society, and the term is applied independent of whether the fretter believe they will be harmed by that advancement or not.
>You're fooling yourself if you think "society" will magically fix itself when nobody has to work and thus nobody gets paid.
If no one has to work, then there is no shortage of goods to supply everyone's needs. If there is no shortage of goods to supply everyone's needs, then no one HAS to work. Or are you worrying about a small group of people controlling the vast majority of automated production, and thus being able to enslave everyone else?
Seriously? No, really... Are you seriously worrying about this? You DO realize that even if such a scenario were ever to actually occur, it won't be in our lifetimes, or even in our children's lifetimes, right?
Worrying about this is akin to worrying about an asteroid slamming into earth 200 years into the future. It's kind of silly.
>Now, remind us what happened to Rome once there was abundant free bread and entertainment?
Oh, correlation, how often you are confused with causation!
The Roman Empire most certainly did not fall due to overabundance.
> This discussion has gone from bad to ridiculous.
Indeed - at this point I can't even tell what your argument is. We are not Luddites, no matter what you erroneously believe the definition to be.
You do realise that you are not the first person to have imagined the post-scarcity society, right? Well, yes, of course it would be nice to live in a socialist utopia of plenty. The trajectory we are on does not appear to lead to such a utopia, however - hence the conversation.
And I believe we will see the beginning of this within our lifetime, absolutely, in fact we are seeing it right now. In 20 years' time it may well be much too late.
Wouldn't it be good to manage the transition gracefully, rather than risk 200 years of near-feudalism, fighting to regain something akin to democracy in the face of an immensely empowered capital-class aristocracy?
A Luddite, as it is commonly used, is someone who believes that technological advance will cause harm to some segment of society and then wants to stop that technological advance.
We're talking about creating technology, within our own lifetimes, that will make most human labor obsolete. This will require a massive restructuring of society. I'm aware of one local company that is laying off over 100 manufacturing jobs and creating a small number of engineering jobs in their place. The way our society is currently structured, if those 100 people can't find some other labor to perform in exchange for money before their unemployment benefits expire, they will go without shelter and starve. It doesn't matter how much food there is, if they don't have the money to buy it.
>You're fooling yourself if you think "society" will magically fix itself when nobody has to work and thus nobody gets paid.
If no one has to work, then there is no shortage of goods to supply everyone's needs. If there is no shortage of goods to supply everyone's needs, then no one HAS to work. Or are you worrying about a small group of people controlling the vast majority of automated production, and thus being able to enslave everyone else?
Seriously? No, really... Are you seriously worrying about this? You DO realize that even if such a scenario were ever to actually occur, it won't be in our lifetimes, or even in our children's lifetimes, right?
Worrying about this is akin to worrying about an asteroid slamming into earth 200 years into the future. It's kind of silly.
>Now, remind us what happened to Rome once there was abundant free bread and entertainment?
Oh, correlation, how often you are confused with causation!
The Roman Empire most certainly did not fall due to overabundance.
This discussion has gone from bad to ridiculous.