So...Kyle Kulinski is once again freaking out about the AI apocalypse, and honestly...ugh. As much as I love this guy on other topics, he's so cringe on this one. He's just too jobist for me. And his takes are terrible. Comes off as a luddite. Anyway, it looks like the AI apocalypse might be real this time, and that AI might make unemployment go up to 10-20% in the next 5 years. Gee, if only someone could have warned us about this...
Now, I'm going to be honest, I've been skeptical of the narrative that AI is gonna take our jobs. Here's why: because we've been artificially dragging out this "working for a living" thing and the powers that be seem scared to death to actually let the crap hit the fan where we actually do have the larger discussions about things like, property, and work, and work ethic, and how we really don't need to work any more but we keep people working because we fear change. And honestly? I'm to the point, I WANT the crap to hit the fan. Because it seems like the only way we will ever actually address these questions is if it does.
The system of working for a living has been dragging on for far too long. A hundred years ago we were talking about the economy being so productive that we didn't need to work as much any more, and that slumps in demand that led to recessions and unemployment were LITERALLY due to "overproduction." But then when the great recession hit, and the crap hit the fan then, we went in this direction of endless job creation and consumerism. Since then, we've been obsessed with endless economic growth. Which itself isn't going to be sustainable for much longer as we will eventually hit the material constraints of what our planet can support, and guess what? We might be just 15 years away from THAT crisis! For the record, I dont know how trustworthy that model is, but I did actually run it by chatgpt, and they seemed to suggest it had some validity, so, ya know...maybe?
Anyway, my point isn't to speak doom and gloom from an environmental standpoint, I don't want THAT crisis to happen. That crisis could mess us up as a species and a society, dooming us to a second dark ages where in the future we DO gotta work harder for less due to us screwing up our country from overconsumption. But...how do we avoid that? Well, by pulling back on growth NOW. And how do we do that? By working less, that's how.
I've said it for years, when a new technological breakthrough allows us to do the work of, say, 2 people with 1, we have a choice, we can either work as much for twice as much stuff, or work half as much for the same amount. Economists and mainstream thinkers will ALWAYS do the former. Because for them, work and jobs is a pathological obsession. This dogma of growth is so obsessive that if given the choice, these frickers would keep us working forever, with society still having all of the issues with poverty, economic coercion, etc.
And you know what? I hate it. I hate this society in some ways. it sucks. I hate that our society is this never ending race for more stuff. I hate how we're all kept in poverty in order to coerce us to work. I hate how we give all of the money to rich people and expect them to create jobs for us, and we're supposed to be grateful to them for offering us an "opportunity" to work for them in exchange for our basic needs. Quite frankly, we shouldn't glorify work. We created this society that enslaves us, and all I've really wanted all along is to be freed from this crap. It's one thing if work is a necessary evil for us to survive due to scarcity, but it isn't. And it seems clear that the entire problem of our society economically is that we seem to just give all of the money to rich people, and expect them to work for them under the threat of poverty. It's messed up. It's slavery with extra steps, and I'm serious. I HATE THIS. And you know what? That's what we really need to discuss here.
When Kyle is going on like ERMAHGERD THEY'RE COMING FOR OUR JOBS, AND WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO, THE RICH PEOPLE ARE GONNA HAVE ALL OF THE MONEY AND WE WILL HAVE NONE!, it's like, he's missing the point. He's literally defending this set of relations in society because it's functional and provides SOME prosperity for people. But again, it's like we seem to forget, work and jobs is never great, and despite this "pro labor" left that keeps hugboxing about "the dignity of work!" yeah, it really is just servitude of rich people. And we want to keep this system of servitude going because we fear the alternative.
BUt...my brother in progressivism, you're asking the wrong questions here and focusing on the wrong things. We need to think about how messed up our society is that we expect people to work for rich people in the first place. Again, it's one thing if this was necessary, but it isn't, it hasnt been for a while, and quite frankly, I've been disillusioned with this crap since 2012, if not earlier. Seriously. The economy never worked for me. I left college, couldn't find a job, and the only crap that was available was minimum wage crap that would make me hate my life. And a huge reason I've developed the opinions that I have is because I understand how dismal the economy actually is. And that's why every election cycle since, I've been advocating for MASSIVE SYSTEMIC CHANGES.
But...no one wants to listen to me. And we keep just dragging this system along as it is, where as long as the system works well enough for just enough people, it'll just keep going on as it is. But you know what? If the bottom falls out, and we get great depression 2.0, it WILL force a change. And at this point, I welcome it. We need to have this discussion. If AI taking all of the jobs and creating a massive jobs apocalypse causes us to have this necessary discussion as a society, then so be it.
Now, to be fair, it is scary to some extent. Trump is in office, he's an authoritarian training the military to suppress mass protests (hence why congresspeople decided to remind people that they have the right and obligation to defy illegal orders), and to be frank, yeah, the billionaire class a la the dark enlightenment probably would want to cull the population before they give up their wealth and riches. I discussed that recently with the freedom-slavery-death political spectrum. The slavery people (where Kyle is) wanna preserve the status quo because they fear what's next. And the billionaire class, when they have no further use for the rest of the masses, might become genocidal for the rest of us because they are a bunch of literal sociopaths. To be fair, that possibility is the one aspect of this where Kyle is right. But at the same time, does that mean we should just be happy to be the slaves of rich people forever? That's messed up too. Quite frankly, the whole situation is messed up, where basically it's like we're just livestock for this billionaire class, where either we spend our days being useful to them, or we're culled like cattle. But that's why I'm for freedom. And quite frankly, at least people like me, Andrew yang, the rest of the UBI activist community, at least we have a head start on these discussions and where society needs to go. If anything I'm MORE equipped than yang, because while Yang still seems to be in the mindset in responding to this crisis our of necessity, I'm someone who has actively been wanting change since becoming old enough to work, quite frankly.
Because let's face it, I DON'T WANNA DO THIS CRAP! I don't want to spend my life working for some billionaire! Like, that's the thing, I'm to the point that I'm not afraid of saying it, I DONT want to work! I DONT think there's dignity to work. That jobs are a good thing. i think we're brainwashed as a species by this billionaire class to domesticate us INTO basically being their willing slaves. And it seems quite obvious that no relief will ever come unless some massive jobs crisis comes along and forces us to rethink things. So if it takes AI taking all of the jobs and creating great depression style conditions to force this conversation, well...at this point, so be it. Screw it. Rip the band aid off already. I'm getting to the point that I don't care. Just let it happen so we can have this difficult conversation and push for something better.
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