Autonomous Truck Completes driverless run

[Madner Kami]

While we aren't post scarcity, we are at a doubt where most of the scarcity is artificial in nature.

My need to eat, sleep and invest my literal lifetime to afford even my most basic needs isn't artificial.

[clearspira]

On the one hand, scarcity is partly artificial. If everyone obese in the First World donated their food to the Third then there would be no famine.

On the other, that is not how real life works. A lot of communists seem to think that all we need to do is share everything out and we'll all be singing Kumbaya around a camp fire holding hands. It is a complete disregard of how humans actually act. We are creatures of WANT not just NEED. There will always be someone who wants your wife, who wants that particular piece of land by that particular river that you are on, who wants to rule over others.

Also, what about China and Russia? What if they do not adopt this post-capitalism world? It seems to me that this would need to be a global shift or it will not work.

[clearspira]

One other thing now that i'm thinking about it. How would communism work on the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, or moons of Jupiter?

Moon and Mars colonisation will be this century. Jupiter the next. This is not a pointless question, this is something that is probably going to happen within our lifetimes. Do we assume that these colonies will also be post-scarcity or will there need to be a capitalist system for governing the land, resources, food, air? Because that seems like a very big assumption as this is not sci-fi. Our actual real life transit speeds are slow as hell so they will not be able to rely on help from Earth.

[Madner Kami]

One other thing now that i'm thinking about it. How would communism work on the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, or moons of Jupiter?

Moon and Mars colonisation will be this century. Jupiter the next. This is not a pointless question, this is something that is probably going to happen within our lifetimes. Do we assume that these colonies will also be post-scarcity or will there need to be a capitalist system for governing the land, resources, food, air? Because that seems like a very big assumption as this is not sci-fi. Our actual real life transit speeds are slow as hell so they will not be able to rely on help from Earth.

How space colonies will be run is mostly a question of who establishes them. If it's the governments of Earth, then it will be a quasi-socialist/near-communist system. If it's Musk and Bezos, it will be neo-feudalism. Capitalism can't work on these small scales, particularly because the colonies can't offer all the products that would be needed for a long time and they've got no resources to offer for trade with Earth (outside some sort of tourism and science to a degree), so their relationship with the Earth-economy will be complete dependence on the benevolence of their owners with everything that entails.

On the one hand, scarcity is partly artificial. If everyone obese in the First World donated their food to the Third then there would be no famine.

This line of thinking is fairly silly, as you point out yourself in literally the next sentence. The real point behind that isn't that the rich countries need to share more, the point is that the poor countries need to find ways to integrate into the world trade in order to become rich as well. Some are more lucky in this regard, through natural resources for example, while others are entirely void of anything marketable, but that's not an argument worth discussing in any direction, because we simply can't do anything about it other than charity and whether that's helpful without an exchange in return is up to debate.

[Nealithi]

Maybe I am naive. But I thought capitalism is not technically a method of rule the way a feudal or democratic system is. But more an economic style? And the whole economy thing means there will always be money in some form. It is just the medium to trade labor and product from one place to another. It is not by itself the root of evil. Overthrow the government and capitalism does not go away.

This driverless truck thing is cute. And I bet you that businesses want to get rid of those pesky drivers that keep telling them DOT regulations, and can't this or that. But the fact is that these driverless trucks will be treated the same way trucks and drivers are now. Nature is not changing that fast. So trucks that cannot pass inspection will be on the road. With a computer control that is static. IE it never gets better than its base will need to drive with tires about to blow. Brakes failing. in inclement weather. How many big crashes before there is a big push to put people behind the wheel again? Because the driver is liable if he agreed to drive a faulty truck. The company has to eat it if the equipment (computer) fails and they have no fallguy. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep regulations and regulators from demanding they keep the gear in top of the line condition as that costs money. Till attitudes in industry change massively this will be another dream that will not quite pan out.

[Madner Kami]

Maybe I am naive. But I thought capitalism is not technically a method of rule the way a feudal or democratic system is. But more an economic style? And the whole economy thing means there will always be money in some form. It is just the medium to trade labor and product from one place to another. It is not by itself the root of evil. Overthrow the government and capitalism does not go away.

Economy and government are integral to each other. Without a government willing (and able) to protect private property, there's no capitalism possible for example. It's no coincidence that capitalism arose in Europe first, as this general socio-economic area always had a strong emphasize on private property and thus allowed a strong (trading) middle class to arise, as opposed to say East Asia which got stuck in it's more feudalistic economies due to their general cultural emphasize in collectivism and thus a complete lack of a strong (trading) middle class, despite being technologically completely capable of industrializing in the 13th century already.

Now, this doesn't mean that a democracy is automatically capitalist by nature or a monarchy is always feudalistic. Some economic systems tend to be more... naturally fitting for certain governmental systems than others, but there's nothing that says a monarchy can't be capitalist or a democracy can't also be a slaver-society (in fact, there are examples for both in history).

This driverless truck thing is cute. And I bet you that businesses want to get rid of those pesky drivers that keep telling them DOT regulations, and can't this or that. But the fact is that these driverless trucks will be treated the same way trucks and drivers are now. Nature is not changing that fast. So trucks that cannot pass inspection will be on the road. With a computer control that is static. IE it never gets better than its base will need to drive with tires about to blow. Brakes failing. in inclement weather. How many big crashes before there is a big push to put people behind the wheel again? Because the driver is liable if he agreed to drive a faulty truck. The company has to eat it if the equipment (computer) fails and they have no fallguy. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep regulations and regulators from demanding they keep the gear in top of the line condition as that costs money. Till attitudes in industry change massively this will be another dream that will not quite pan out.

Exactly. Eliminating the human factor seems an obvious choice, until you look that little bit further. Machines are excellent at dealing with the predictable. They generally fail completely with the unpredictable though, despite all our advances. For now, this stays true even for the most advanced machines, though this may change at some point in the future, once we've been able to create true AI, but that's neither here nor there, because once we've managed to create true AI, there'll be very different problems and questions on the table than "How can I keep my "simple" job?" (truck driving isn't as simple as it seems at first glance).

[Draco Dracul]

While we aren't post scarcity, we are at a doubt where most of the scarcity is artificial in nature.

My need to eat, sleep and invest my literal lifetime to afford even my most basic needs isn't artificial.

The first two are real, the third is very much artificial. We have more than enough production capacity to keep everyone fed and housed as a basic right while so lowing everyone to work substantially less.

[Draco Dracul]

One other thing now that i'm thinking about it. How would communism work on the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, or moons of Jupiter?

Moon and Mars colonisation will be this century. Jupiter the next. This is not a pointless question, this is something that is probably going to happen within our lifetimes. Do we assume that these colonies will also be post-scarcity or will there need to be a capitalist system for governing the land, resources, food, air? Because that seems like a very big assumption as this is not sci-fi. Our actual real life transit speeds are slow as hell so they will not be able to rely on help from Earth.

How is capitalism an effective way of allocating resources in an extreme scarcity environment like a space colony? Because a capitalist system would mean that the handful of people that control the resources have absolute power of who lives and who dies. And it means those that cannot work will almost certainly be murdered as keeping them alive cuts into profits.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

One other thing now that i'm thinking about it. How would communism work on the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, or moons of Jupiter?

Moon and Mars colonisation will be this century. Jupiter the next. This is not a pointless question, this is something that is probably going to happen within our lifetimes. Do we assume that these colonies will also be post-scarcity or will there need to be a capitalist system for governing the land, resources, food, air? Because that seems like a very big assumption as this is not sci-fi. Our actual real life transit speeds are slow as hell so they will not be able to rely on help from Earth.

How is capitalism an effective way of allocating resources in an extreme scarcity environment like a space colony? Because a capitalist system would mean that the handful of people that control the resources have absolute power of who lives and who dies. And it means those that cannot work will almost certainly be murdered as keeping them alive cuts into profits.

They could always just tax it on the way in.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

While we aren't post scarcity, we are at a doubt where most of the scarcity is artificial in nature.

My need to eat, sleep and invest my literal lifetime to afford even my most basic needs isn't artificial.

The first two are real, the third is very much artificial. We have more than enough production capacity to keep everyone fed and housed as a basic right while so lowing everyone to work substantially less.

Wait, are you accounting for food stamps? Because per my understanding those are pretty easy to get I think.