<story><title>14 People Make 500K Tons of Steel a Year in Austria</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-21/how-just-14-people-make-500-000-tons-of-steel-a-year-in-austria</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marvin</author><text>Also, there is absolutely no abuse of power in Banks&amp;#x27; society. This would certainly be a problem in a fully-automated capitalist society. I think Banks is a great inspiration, but it is not a world we will get by default. It needs active political effort.</text></item><item><author>seer</author><text>I think iain bank&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;the culture&amp;quot; novels explore this future in depth quite well. I will not spoil it but the basic idea is &amp;quot;games&amp;quot; - people will just be able to play all the games they want and compete with one anoher without the need to survive.</text></item><item><author>savanaly</author><text>I agree with this for the most part. There is a real human need though, and not one that makes a lot of rational sense, but a need nonetheless, to &lt;i&gt;be needed&lt;/i&gt;. And for a lot of people in that world you described it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be met. It&amp;#x27;s kind of perverse right, because people don&amp;#x27;t want you to artificially create need for them (it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be fun to receive your basic income in compensation for digging and then filling in a big hole), they want it to be a genuine need for their talents. And unfortunately although we evolved that yearning to be helpful, we also evolved the ability to automate away most of the tasks that would have stimulated that.</text></item><item><author>guimarin</author><text>We should not be employing people in jobs that can be automated. We should try and automate everything. We should develop technologies, processes, and abilities so that everyone can learn new things. The people that want to learn will be incredibly leveraged and provide a ton of value to society. Those who don&amp;#x27;t want to learn should be given enough for basic subsistence. A stipend which covers food, shelter, clothing, catastrophic healthcare, reasonable water access, and unlimited data. I would also push that all humans can be close to nature in some way, be it a park or otherwise. We have the technology to do this. Instead we have protectionism and fear.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>db48x</author><text>This is abuse of power in these books, sometimes even quite blatant. Player of Games has probably the best example, since it has blackmail and extortion of a Culture citizen by an AI, with the help of a ship&amp;#x27;s Mind. Not to mention cheating at a board game.&lt;p&gt;That said, the Culture does seem like it would be a nice place to live, over all.</text></comment>
<story><title>14 People Make 500K Tons of Steel a Year in Austria</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-21/how-just-14-people-make-500-000-tons-of-steel-a-year-in-austria</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marvin</author><text>Also, there is absolutely no abuse of power in Banks&amp;#x27; society. This would certainly be a problem in a fully-automated capitalist society. I think Banks is a great inspiration, but it is not a world we will get by default. It needs active political effort.</text></item><item><author>seer</author><text>I think iain bank&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;the culture&amp;quot; novels explore this future in depth quite well. I will not spoil it but the basic idea is &amp;quot;games&amp;quot; - people will just be able to play all the games they want and compete with one anoher without the need to survive.</text></item><item><author>savanaly</author><text>I agree with this for the most part. There is a real human need though, and not one that makes a lot of rational sense, but a need nonetheless, to &lt;i&gt;be needed&lt;/i&gt;. And for a lot of people in that world you described it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be met. It&amp;#x27;s kind of perverse right, because people don&amp;#x27;t want you to artificially create need for them (it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be fun to receive your basic income in compensation for digging and then filling in a big hole), they want it to be a genuine need for their talents. And unfortunately although we evolved that yearning to be helpful, we also evolved the ability to automate away most of the tasks that would have stimulated that.</text></item><item><author>guimarin</author><text>We should not be employing people in jobs that can be automated. We should try and automate everything. We should develop technologies, processes, and abilities so that everyone can learn new things. The people that want to learn will be incredibly leveraged and provide a ton of value to society. Those who don&amp;#x27;t want to learn should be given enough for basic subsistence. A stipend which covers food, shelter, clothing, catastrophic healthcare, reasonable water access, and unlimited data. I would also push that all humans can be close to nature in some way, be it a park or otherwise. We have the technology to do this. Instead we have protectionism and fear.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>Banks&amp;#x27; society is explicitly post-ownership; it&amp;#x27;s fully-automated luxury anarcho-cyberism. It relies entirely on benevolent near-omnipotent AI.&lt;p&gt;Banks himself was distinctly anti-capitalist.</text></comment>