- geoffrey douthat
- Homeless
- Australia
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this is an open letter to all those that believe in and want to help create a better world for all of humanity within our lifetime.
I have concerns over the social repercussions of the actual end of industrial revolution, being unemployed and near homeless I already know hardship like a ever increasing number of blue collar workers throughout the western world as well as the countless poor of the rest of the world.
Now when robots take the majority of jobs from all people within the next 10-20 years what will happen to the people who have no jobs? Not to mention the capitalist system? No jobs, no money, no consumption, no capitalism, what then, social collapse, war, death?
I have a solution to this unrecognised problem, end hunger and poverty and secure humanity into the future. If the Governments of the world along with the U.N. agree to the principles of this proposal and the outer space treaty-1967.
Create a organisation that is Not for Profit, Non Government Organisation dedicated to the depiction, design, dissemination and delivery of global solutions to the endemic civil poverty and conflict on earth.
continued in part 2 below
John Dunbar 10+
Technology is currently being used like religion, drugs, alcohol, and materialism. They all keep you content and mindless. So long as the vast majority of people are to busy fighting amongst each other for scraps thrown down from the ivory tower, in which the rich elite sit, then the masses will never have the fortitude to make legitimate lasting change.
The pleasure principle always applies and must be understood when attempting to control a population. Until we as a people can understand and apply the results found by Walter Mischel when he ran "The marshmallow experiment" will there be any hope for justice and peace in our current world. I pity these large executives who have had their altruism hijacked by the almighty dollar. I see the consequences of these survival instincts when they become over developed and all i can say is, I hope one day people will stop seeking instant gratification and put in the long term effort to make for a more fulfilling existence for all.
I am no better than anyone and struggle with certain aspects of myself that can be destructive. But with enough steadfastness and self awareness I hope I can meet my ideal self and in the process make life more meaningful for all.
Enrico Petrucco 20+
World Development Movement
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace
People and Planet
Amnesty International
Transition Towns
World Wildlife Fund
Barefoot College
End Poverty Now
Make Poverty History
Never Again International
Occupy (Take The Square)
MANY MANY MANY more Charities, Social Enterprises, Coalitions, Movements, NGO's etc to be added
If one wants change then make change happen: get involved
Only society can bring around social justice, are you part of society or an observer?
Freedom comes with responsibility, if one relinquishes responsibility then freedom too is relinquished.
I could make more statements along those lines but I feel it may be patronising and the point is already made, this is all meant in good faith.
I am sure there are many people who have current NGO's resonating powerfully in their lives.
Sandra Awood
Zaz Tao 30+
They never let me leave the grocery store without paying money: paper or plastic as they say. My landlord seems to have this recurring need for the stuff too.
Bharath Kumar Kunjibettu 10+
I really admire your vision. I can only suggest you not to go by only your emotions/gut feeling , its best to go by your intellect too . I too have a vision of global reform .Let me know if I can help. I am hoping you have a blue print of your vision too.
Wishing you all the very best!!
Regards,
Bharath
BILL HOLLOWAY
Zaz Tao 30+
The same idea crossed my mind before, or maybe I read it somewhere. The idea of financing a massive job-creating space effort by monetizing expected mineral wealth in asteroids, the Moon, etc.
We need to get past the current monetary nightmare first.
Do you have many unemployed in your immediate vicinity that you are in communication with?
Mitch SMith 50+
We cannot even perceive the present with total exactitude.
Part of your solution seems to be in progress right now, as currencies fail around the world.
The blame is being layed at the feet of rapacious usury and financial gambling such as derivatives, hedge funds and .. maybe even futures beyond the limits of teh risk curves.
Not to worry - all that is crashing down as we speak.
We will all be forced into currency reform one way or another.
Massive debt write-offs are inevitable, this is going to leave those who are exposed to instant bankruptcy.
What is important is what we do after that? DO we simply do it all over again? Or do we separate speculative investment from the real economy?
And .. who are "we" anyway?
After all the high-sounding talk of the nobility and primacy of humans, I have come to conclude that we are no more than simple animals with a comms bolt-on. And that bolt-on has not fully integrated in our species.
All proposed solutions have to recognise that.
A big downside of the partial integration of comms is that we remain stuck at a tribal limit of about 200 individuals. No matter what you do, humans will form-up into tribes and potential conflict will persist at the boundaries of those tribes.
Automation is only an issue in an economy based on psychopathy. This promotes the ponzi-scheme of competition (aka: divide and conquer).
It redefines the exertion of human expression into units called "jobs".
Jobs are done for a single thing - to get "money". Hence, all those exerting in jobs are granting their expressive life to a thing called money - they stop living and money starts living.
Some (like me) do not have jobs - we have work.
Work only uses money as a convenient tool, the true worker's expressive exertion remains the property of the person, that person remains alive.
The destruction of jobs is a good thing.
People will then be free to find their work.
Zaz Tao 30+
Mitch SMith 50+
I work for my contribution to the musical community.
Money is a tool like my lathe.
I "spend" far more of my lifes energy than I spend money.
Often the transaction does not involve money at all and my needs come to me directly.
Sandra Awood
Mitch SMith 50+
I can see a time when teaching returns to a ballance with objectives.
The classroom model has its place, but gets bogged down in broadcast one-way communication.
I was a terrible student at school, I asked too many questions for the teachers to get through the day's quota of fact regurgitation. Perhaps it's a matter of style, but it would be refreshing for the teacher to start out each lesson with "what do you want to learn?".
I observed my autistic son learn how to read by asking about car badges, number plates and street signs. He was reading books by age 2. At school, all he learned was fear, frustration and profound unhappiness. He is now home schooled .. which means we let him loose on the internet - he has most of the curriculum nailed, and well in advance of his age. He is strange and he is happy.
I realise that I am a fringe dweller, my comment about work is quite obvious from where I stand - you can see the contrast in the difficulty some have to see it. The primacy of money is a clear danger to humanity..
Sandra Awood
Mitch SMith 50+
You might find Marvin Minsky's website valuable.
He is a great hero to me - his work contains great insight in the neural and topological fields - mostly applied to artificial intelligence, but he also has some critical observations on public education.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/
Trevor Rose
I agree with the post of Krisztian that automation itself isnt a problem, though i do not agree with his stance that you have posted a non-solution to a non-problem... because whether you worded it well or not, i can understand your sentiment... perhaps it would have been better to say this:
As technology, systems, politics, economics, and other things change in the world over time... there is an inequity that arises where people and other animals, and plants are marginalized, because they did not gain the resources to be ahead of the game before the game changed... in the case of non-human animals & plants, one distinct species of them goes extinct every 20 minutes on average, in much the same way as so many people enter poverty.
This problem is not due to those people plants & animals being useless or redundant or obsolete in any way... it comes solely because the economic systems of the world driving consumption do not care for their welfare, and this system has been oblivious to any loss of those marginalizations & extinctions, because the only things it cares about, is the needs of those who already HAVE.
Anyway... let the fight begin :-)
Remember, the one rule on the internet: How to start a fight = express an opinion, then wait
Liezl Anne Naing
Krisztián Pintér 200+
2. the problem itself is nonexistent. automatization and tool use is at least 10000 years old. machines and tools are replacing human labor for ten millennia. back then, majority of the work went into food production. it could have been a valid question at that time, if machines take over the food production, what will people do? but it happened, today 3% of work goes into food production, and it includes managers and drivers too. but we don't have 97% unemployment, do we? so what other people do? a bunch of other stuff. that is the answer to the so called "problem" of automatization. the number of workers won't decrease. the amount of stuff they produce will. and so we can not only have food, but also clothing, houses, cars, televisions, cellphones, computers and one day spaceships, life extending medical treatments, VR and whatnot.
so in short, you have a non-solution to a non-problem.
geoffrey douthat
ok, so in the next 10-20 years when robots like asimo "http://youtu.be/R8UeT9r4cmg" are stronger, smarter and more robust than humans, and dont have to be payed wages, you dont think that they will be in all the shops selling goods, driving all vechiles, caring for the elderly, and yes, doing your taxes? Im not sure were all these new jobs will come from that you talk about, we already have massive un and under employment, targeted at low skilled workers in the west, coupled with non accessable retraining/education and with a ever increasing user pays world its hard for me to see how.
Even before the GFC hit, it the profitable days, there was never enough money to properly fund social programs, healthcare, education and the like or even begin to address poverty and enviromental degeration so i dont understand how you see this as a non problem to a non solution.
By the way i think you got this line wrong too: "that is the answer to the so called "problem" of automatization. the number of workers won't decrease. the amount of stuff they produce will."
Because i thought automation meant that less workers produced MORE stuff, im sure you meant that too, only it dosnt read that way to me. Thanks for feedback
Zaz Tao 30+
no but we do have around 15% unemployment and I would bet over 50% of work is unnecessary.
There you are in a comfortably socialist country projecting your grief to folks like us who have little or no safety nets. Here in California? If you don't have a job or substantial savings to pay hundreds per month for health insurance, you have only the health care you can pay for out of pocket. Not the same where you are I am sure. You have a real socialist party, the entire U.S. with over 300 million people have a socialist party of just a few thousand. Most people here aren't even aware it exists. We USED to have a welfare-state, but it was decimated over time down to a Catch-22 pretense.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
the 15% unemployment has nothing to do with automation. in 1850, automatization was rampant, but unemployment was largely nonexistent. the causes of unemployment are taxes, red tape, minimum wage and similar state interventions to the economy.
i'm in a comfortably socialist economy, earning slightly more than the poverty limit in your country. and i have a high paying job. i bet you don't dream of living here, do you?
Zaz Tao 30+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Rhona Pavis 50+
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
But its much more complicated than that, because humans, have individual complexities of view. Unity has hardly ever been our strength. Sometimes it is not the systems that are failing. It is humanity.
Your idea is great in theory. Practically, how will humanity unite to make this happen?
geoffrey douthat
Thanks for feedback n support mate
Zaz Tao 30+
You, sir.
Make those films, spread the word! It only takes five, ten little humans to make a super human by acting together!
edward long 100+
geoffrey douthat
thanks for your positive feedback n suport mate.
geoffrey douthat
Deliver sustainable, environmentally sound infrastructure on a global level, unifying all nations of earth in peace and prosperity through self determination, mutual consent and commitment. Funding the biggest capital investment in the history of civilization to the benefit of all life on earth as we reach for the stars.
The main core objectives of this organisation can be described by these sayings "there's nothing money can't buy", and "we can't afford it". Simply meaning that with the right amount of funding most of the worlds problems can be fixed. Of course the right amount of funding needs to also have mutual commitment from all involved to succeed.
OK, so the big question is were you are going to get all this money from, easy, sort of, by using a small portion of the mineral wealth of the solar system, traded on the Futures Market and stabilising the worlds currencies from inflation buy this action, an amount of U.S. $18,000 Trillion dollars is projected to be needed for this plan. The aim is to develop key Infrastructure programs for Power, Water, Food, Health, Education, Housing, Transport and Jurisprudence.
Once security of basic infastructure and production has been accomplished in the majority of the world then currency and law can be standardised and a Universal Trust Fund can be rolled out ensuring that we all have access to capital in perpetuity, thus saving humanity from a ugly mess.
I look forward to your input.