Techniques for Influencing Time

[Clinamenic]

That is, it would make for a good agenda for the "globalist green technocracy" as its adversaries would be inclined to refer to it.

 

[Clinamenic]

Whats greater that reconciling consciousness with its thermodynamic reality? Reconciling mass consciousness with its thermodynamic reality.

 

[Clinamenic]

I think one of the biggest impediments to economic growth is that not everyone has a non-trivial stake in the system, i.e. not everyone is synchronized in their incentives for systematic prosperity.

In fact, I'd say there will always be an elite few who are actually incentivizing to obstruct such progress, for their means of deriving wealth from the system involves the exploitation of systematic inefficiencies and/or the preservation of the status quo of disenfranchised subpopulations.

One could reasonably argue that much of the value in this system operates in an extractive, almost zero-sum fashion, but it also seems like our enslavement of machines will become an increasingly sufficient extractive source of value. We get to have our cake (slavery as a lucrative economic paradigm) and eat it too (without actually subjugating other humans to subhuman treatment).

 

[Clinamenic]

Because, as I've mentioned multiple times now, 'robot' etymologically means slave. Think about what servers do.

 

[luka]

Actually what do servers do? I have no idea

 

[Clinamenic]

Actually what do servers do? I have no idea

My basic, and probably insufficiently nuanced, understanding is that servers are computers that don't need user interfaces (monitors, keyboard, etc), and they are programmed to receive data requests and deliver said data according to the protocols that comprise the internet (IP, TCP, HTTP, etc).

edit: typo fixes

 

[Clinamenic]

They do (what for humans would be) intellectual labor, almost 24/7, and likely for the equivalent of dirt-cheap wages.

 

[Clinamenic]

I just had an extensive train of thought about this.

To my understanding, the academic consensus on macroeconomics, for a while, was that economic growth was driven by A) population growth and B) increased work weeks. More people working more hours.

But then people (Solow, etc) starting pointing out how "technological and related innovation" was a third, and seemingly way more scalable factor in economic growth. It followed that it was critical to invest in research and development of technology.

With servers, we can max out their work week, and exponentially scale compute power (equivalent of population size), as seen in the phenomena predicted by Moore's Law.

 

[Clinamenic]

Whats more interesting yet, is that this economic paradigm can only persist in an ethical vacuum so long as artificial consciousness isn't the status quo. Once people start getting the sense that hardware and/or software is conscious, this robot slave economy will gradually become ethically problematic.

 

[IdleRich]

Because, as I've mentioned multiple times now, 'robot' etymologically means slave. Think about what servers do.

I thought - actually I'm pretty sure - that robot means worker not slave?

In Russia you see signs about working hours or whatever and they say "rabotiy" or somesuch.

In fact, here you go, according to google translate, the Russian word for worker is рабочий (rabochiy).

Liza tells me that the word for slave does also derive from the word for worker but that's not the etymology of Robot in English.

 

[Clinamenic]

I thought - actually I'm pretty sure - that robot means worker not slave?

In Russia you see signs about working hours or whatever and they say "rabotiy" or somesuch.

In fact, here you go, according to google translate, the Russian word for worker is рабочий (rabochiy).

Liza tells me that the word for slave does also derive from the word for worker but that's not the etymology of Robot in English.

Yeah its all cognate.

robot
1923, "mechanical person," also "person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical," from the English translation of the 1920 play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots") by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik "forced worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery," from robotiti "to work, drudge," from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota "servitude," from rabu "slave" (from Old Slavic *orbu-, from PIE *orbh- "pass from one status to another;" see orphan).

 

[Clinamenic]

The kind of economic growth we are seeing, which in my opinion is far too consolidated, is all the more understandable in light of how we rely on IT infrastructure, not unlike how the US's meteoric geoeconomic rise was undeniably the fruit of slavery, specifically the cotton trade.

 

[Clinamenic]

As I said, this time around, we get to have our cake and eat it too.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah its all cognate.

robot
1923, "mechanical person," also "person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical," from the English translation of the 1920 play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots") by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik "forced worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery," from robotiti "to work, drudge," from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota "servitude," from rabu "slave" (from Old Slavic *orbu-, from PIE *orbh- "pass from one status to another;" see orphan).

My emphasis on "slave" over "worker" is largely rhetorical, but also to draw a comparison between our current IT infrastructure and the generic slave economy.

 

[Clinamenic]

Anyway, the spectrum of worker to slave seems to be measured in rights, ultimately, and we don't need to grant rights to servers, hence they are at the slave end.

 

[Clinamenic]

We work them until they literally burn out, or else are rendered obsolete by newer computers that we can work just as superlatively for greater output of value, as inferable from Moore's Law.

 

[Clinamenic]

Right now, the glaring ethical problem is whether or not this trend will go on benefit a greater and greater percentage of humanity, if even unevenly. I think it has, and will, but there is ample opportunity for monopoly/oligopoly of perhaps unprecedented proportions.

 

[DannyL]

I've never experienced it myself but when I read lots of "reality based" martial arts stuff, quite a few of them reported time dilation when having fights. I think you should put this to the test Version.

 

[Clinamenic]

I totally believe this. I've experienced it on a broader scale when I was deeper in a state of hyperintellectual neurosis, constantly churning through concepts, a phase where time felt slower. The pace of things have picked up since then, but I sense there were benefits to that state of mind.

 

[Clinamenic]

With the fighters I'd imagine its a result of channeling your attention to such a temporally fine cutting edge that its as if time slows down, as far as your experience is concerned.