SteppenAxolotl t1_jd0b7do wrote
Reply to comment by 2cimarafa in A technical, non-moralist breakdown of why the rich will not, and cannot, kill off the poor via a robot army. by Eleganos
>there's no really viable scenario for a tiny number of rich people to preserve all their wealth and power while exterminating the rest of the population through some covert scheme
Sounds like a failure of imagination.
Let’s err on the side of generosity and assume that countries won’t be building gas chambers to solve the problem of unwanted former labor, whether due to the exigencies of realpolitik or for first-order moral reasons. There are many ways to accomplish the same result without the burdens associated with such deliberate actions.
What would happen to the birth rate if the state provided a free unlimited supply of birria nachos, VR video games, three kinds of double IPA and 12 kinds of drugs?
>those who happened to be rich in 2025 get to stay rich forever
It always struck me as a kind of trap that you'll never be able to escape if you're poor due to the dynamics, the only off ramp is extinction.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd0ekbo wrote
Who cares if people stop breeding? All we need to do is invent longevity medicine and we can perpetuate human civilization with the humans alive now, no inherent reason for spawning more babies.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd2kdp9 wrote
The point is how the rich might be able to get rid of the poor. So presumably not by sharing such medical advancements either. Also, the hypothetical kill-off of the poor could proceed the discovery of any such medical discoveries.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd2lxkt wrote
There was already a post yesterday on why those ideas wouldn’t happen.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd2q4mu wrote
With which everyone agreed, of course.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd2qao4 wrote
Well do you have counterarguments? Perhaps many people disagreed but simply didn’t know how to refute the points.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd2rnf2 wrote
Killing people is technologically possible now, but human biological immortality is not. The latter is simply a harder problem than figuring out how to kill even large numbers of people. So probably medical advancements are not relevant to this debate about whether the rich might kill off the poor.
Also, biological immortality wouldn't make poor people un-kill-able. So again, it doesn't seem to be relevant.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd2rztr wrote
If biological immortality becomes possible, it will be more cost efficient to simply make it more widely available than to kill off massive numbers of people who will undoubtedly fight back (and as mentioned before it would lead to a civil war among the rich as well). You didn't address most of the other points though, whether the poor could theoretically be killed or not isn't really relevant.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd2v5xe wrote
Biological immortality is irrelevant. It won't exist any time soon and we aren't debating if the rich might kill off the poor 150 years from now, but in the near-term future.
Also, you can't fight back if you are dead. This is about advanced AI and robotics. Presumably the responsible party would kill everyone on the same day.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd2vb5c wrote
Again you're not responding to the points being made in the post. Also, it could easily exist by like 2050, we really don't know.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd2yykr wrote
I don't have to spend my time responding to all the points in your post.
EddgeLord666 t1_jd2z8lb wrote
It's not even my post lol, whoever wrote it is way more knowledgeable than me. My last word is this, if you don't have any counterarguments then stop bitching.
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd335my wrote
Shhh
FusionRocketsPlease t1_jd3dupv wrote
Who are these rich monsters you're talking about?
Smart-Tomato-4984 t1_jd3pcty wrote
It probably won't happen but if it does, perhaps people who haven't been born yet or who are children now, since societal change is often the province of young people and the technology isn't quite there yet.
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