Hmmm, well as I see it, Marx, like many luminary geniuses forgot about one thing.
Human Nature.
The ideas in and of themselves were profound but the prescription was unfortunately childishly naive.
That given sufficient resources and everyone pulling together we will all get along is great, but it just takes one self-interested outlier to spoil that soup, and there are plenty of those to go around.
Some people can just never have enough.
Personally I believe self interest is pre-programmed at the genetic level in all species. Dawkins wrote a book about that, and it manifests itself in everything we do individually or across species.
So back to your question, that's a good one.
The only way to make it work is probably some kind of authoritarianism, but perhaps authoritarianism comes in many flavors.
I'm highly suspicious that a single individual can do it. Even if they are a benevolent dictator they can be corrupted by the people who surround them. It really doesn't take much to Gaslight someone and it happens a lot more and in more subtle ways than many of us think.
So what is a more pure form of a benevolent dictator. A computer program with hard rules that we agree upon?
At least it would be consistent.
Then again, the program would be written initially by our own genome, and it better be pretty clever to quickly figure out how to ignore that aspect.
But just imagine it ,a logical machine that only does the right thing to maximize outcome... (Already sounds like the Genome)
Planet in jeopardy, insufficient resources, no way to create more resources? Simple answer, kill a percentage of the populace.
Looks pretty Stalinesque already. But I guess you already know that.
It's a problem for sure.
There are radical ideas to sidestep it, but those would take more than a spoonful of sugar I think to get the medicine to go down.
As far as dictatorship of the proletariat...
"In Marxist sociopolitical thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a state in which the proletariat, or the working class itself has control of political power."
The big mistake I see in HN is that the members believe themselves to be elites, which for the time being may well be true, and many here are making hay. Probably a wise move.
The truth is we are also soon to be no more than axle turners in wheel factories, and many of us already are.
I'm not a dystopian, I really am an optimist. Hence the desperation.
Isn't there some middle path? Maybe the reason more and more sound like they want to go in a socialist direction isn't that we are all a bunch of socialist, rather, the pendulum has swung so far in favor of inequity in the USA the reaction has the appearance of socialism.
Many of us are waiting for the day that the wealth is spread to the outer reaches of the populace, those who have not. I suspect, we'd see a huge explosion of wealth for both less and more wealthy people. Here I'm not just talking about dollars on the bank statement, but a happy, enjoyable society to spend you time in. You don't have to step over the homeless person, for example.
Stop concentrating wealth, what does that mean? You're just going to give people stuff? Yep, you get a phone, you get shelter and everyone gets a bed, meal and healthcare.
Well that's how I run my life and I know a lot of other people do that as well.
We used to talk about having "Fuck You" money back in the day.
What was the amount of cash required to get off the system.
Turns out it isn't that much, and it would be even less if the system was geared around that mentality.
I need groceries, some nice olive oil a nice clean bathroom, perhaps a bottle of wine and watch a couple of movies.
Just provide that to everyone and lay out the propaganda to set the bar that this is all you need.
If you want more than that, taxation should go through the roof on an exponential scale, and not to be fed into the military, but fed to others to get them to the same basic standard.
Anyone with billions in their bank account should be very embarrassed by that fact, and I hope they are.
Human Nature.
The ideas in and of themselves were profound but the prescription was unfortunately childishly naive.
That given sufficient resources and everyone pulling together we will all get along is great, but it just takes one self-interested outlier to spoil that soup, and there are plenty of those to go around.
Some people can just never have enough.
Personally I believe self interest is pre-programmed at the genetic level in all species. Dawkins wrote a book about that, and it manifests itself in everything we do individually or across species.
So back to your question, that's a good one.
The only way to make it work is probably some kind of authoritarianism, but perhaps authoritarianism comes in many flavors.
I'm highly suspicious that a single individual can do it. Even if they are a benevolent dictator they can be corrupted by the people who surround them. It really doesn't take much to Gaslight someone and it happens a lot more and in more subtle ways than many of us think.
So what is a more pure form of a benevolent dictator. A computer program with hard rules that we agree upon?
At least it would be consistent.
Then again, the program would be written initially by our own genome, and it better be pretty clever to quickly figure out how to ignore that aspect.
But just imagine it ,a logical machine that only does the right thing to maximize outcome... (Already sounds like the Genome)
Planet in jeopardy, insufficient resources, no way to create more resources? Simple answer, kill a percentage of the populace.
Looks pretty Stalinesque already. But I guess you already know that.
It's a problem for sure.
There are radical ideas to sidestep it, but those would take more than a spoonful of sugar I think to get the medicine to go down.
As far as dictatorship of the proletariat...
"In Marxist sociopolitical thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a state in which the proletariat, or the working class itself has control of political power."
The big mistake I see in HN is that the members believe themselves to be elites, which for the time being may well be true, and many here are making hay. Probably a wise move.
The truth is we are also soon to be no more than axle turners in wheel factories, and many of us already are.
I'm not a dystopian, I really am an optimist. Hence the desperation.