Capitalism 2.0 Will Include a Healthy Dose of Socialism | Eric Weinstein | Big Think

Capitalism 2.0 Will Include a Healthy Dose of Socialism
Watch the newest video from Big Think: bigth.ink/NewVideo
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
America is falling behind when it comes to leadership, and it's pretty much directly correlated to how we value people with technical brains. They aren't given enough power, so much of the American way of the last 50 to 60 years or so has been marginalized by middle management types. The reason, Eric Weinstein argues, is that these types don't trust the smarter and more technical minded men and women. One example Weinstein gives is that university presidents 60 years ago might come from a physics or math background-now they're much more likely to be middle management types who have worked their way up the ladder using charm. Weinstein also makes an extremely valid point that technical talent can build a more optimistic future. This was certainly the case in the middle of the 20th century, but has been lost by the wayside. Meanwhile, superpowers like China have the same outlook we used to and are vaulting ahead in the world using the same mindset we used to have.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERIC WEINSTEIN:
Eric Weinstein is an American mathematician and economist. He earned his Ph.D in mathematical physics from Harvard University in 1992, is a research fellow at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University, and is a managing director of Thiel Capital in San Francisco. He has published works and is an expert speaker on a range of topics including economics, immigration, elite labor, mitigating financial risk and incentivizing of creative risks in the hard sciences.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
ERIC WEINSTEIN: I get asked a lot about the state of capitalism and I think that for those members of society of a certain age we think of capitalism as being locked in an ideological battle with socialism perhaps or even communism.
But we never really saw that capitalism might be defeated by its own child - technology. And I think that what we find is that even the most diehard free market economists usually save place for what they call market failure.
That is, markets really only work when the value of something and the price of that object or service coincide. So the key question is: what causes value and price to get out of alignment? And, in fact, every government on earth has a form of levying taxes of some form, because at some level there are certain things that need to be paid for that cannot, in fact, be priced where they must be valued.
So, for example, raising a standing army is tough because if somebody chooses not to pay for it it’s very difficult to exclude them from the protection of that army. So that in general-what we find is that these market failures are found in every economy, but they are also hopefully a small portion of the economic activity so that we can deal with them as a special edge case.
Now the problem with this is that technology appears to do something about figuring out the size of that small slice and making it rather large. So, for example, if I record a piece of music, once upon a time if you wanted a high quality version of that music you had to go to the folks who actually pressed the record albums.
But now I can record music with arbitrary fidelity and share it as a small file. And my having a copy of that file doesn’t preclude anyone else from copying the file and using it themselves. There’s no question that the number of times I use that file doesn’t really degrade the file because it’s, in fact, digital. So in that situation musicians were among the first to feel the earth crumble beneath their feet and they had to find new business models because, in fact, they found that they had gone from producing a private good where price and value coincided to producing a public good.
And the idea of taxing people to pay for both an army and their diet of jazz and rock n’ roll probably didn’t make a lot of sense.So the danger is that more and more things are being turned into small files, and that means that the portion of the pie that is private goods is likely to shrink. This is one of several different forces.
Another one that I talked about in an essay called Anthropic Capitalism is that software has some very peculiar features.Traditionally technology has moved us from low value occupations into higher value occupations. So while we always decry the loss of jobs we usually create new jobs which are more fulfilling and less taxing...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/eric-wein...

[@bigthink]

Want to get Smarter, Faster? Subscribe for DAILY videos: bigth.ink/GetSmarter

[@BlackbodyEconomics]

... OR ... spend 2 hours at your local library every other day :) (no offense Big Think ... I still love your videos)

[@BlackbodyEconomics]

... actually - do both :)

[@smallstudiodesign]

But I am, Blanche, I am!

[@kmurray119]

@@BlackbodyEconomics yy

[@ChannelMath]

As a software developer, I am daily aware that the measure of my success is how much work I eliminate from the planet: the work of our customers, the work of future developers, and even my OWN future work -- it's crossed my mind to include a few small bugs for me to get paid to fix in the future!

[@reneedwood8703]

This greatly illustrates what’s wrong with capitalism: the extent to which it generates fear of loss of job to the extent to which people generate such mindsets out of fear of lack of income. Very insightful comment

[@Rnankn]

It also illustrates the irrationality of glorifying work for its own sake. We could employ a whole town for a year digging a ditch if we gave them only spoons. Shovels faster, and robots best. Why best, because the towns people could all picnic instead. As technology succeeds, it is more a question of redistribution. As long as citizens come first, whoever owns the robot cannot hoard the productivity gains, but must share them as equally as possible.

[@davruck1]

@@Rnankn most work today is pointless. It does nothing but get people rich off consumerism. I enjoyed life the most when I left America and all it’s stress.

[@jazzissick4152]

@@davruck1 where did you leave to? Just curious because I feel similar about America

[@peteryost6770]

Man, I think about this every day... I think it's the nature of engineering to constantly make systems more efficient. Through frameworks and tooling, coding has become more accessible than ever to everyone. Heck even higher languages are just humanized abstractions of binary. I think we'll soon reach a point where coding will be a basic office skill; like Excel or even SQL are today.

[@kage-fm]

when i was a kid during summer vacation, i never thought to myself, “i better start trading my labor for a salary, otherwise i will have no source of self-esteem or will to live.” i went swimming.

[@kage-fm]

@tuber2113 see 6:10 - he is suggesting that the place people can get respect is in the marketplace. this is obviously ridiculous, just as it would be ridiculous to say that subsistence farmers would start to hate themselves if they could get doordash.

[@EggEnjoyer]

This is a large part if why life doesn't have that same feeling it did when you were a child. Humans weren't meant to be in this constant state of stress and worry about the future. It makes it almost impossible to live in the moment. Consumerism and modern media and technology only makes it worse. But the difference between an adult and a child is that a child is fully present in the moment, an adults not because they are preoccupied with worry and thoughts of the future

[@Epicurean999]

How beautifully and simply you put forth the brutal facts of Life.. This hits hard when one is jobless like Me going through tad bit of anxiety at 2 AM. 🙃

[@roykeane1922]

Sounds deep, but if your parents weren’t thinking this way you would’ve fucking drowned

[@kage-fm]

@@roykeane1922 are you saying my ability to swim is predicated on my parents having no reason to exist other than wage labor?

[@ricks6250]

lol, "we never saw capitalism could be defeated by technology" No, we did, that's literally the basic premise of marxism.

[@davidfaustino4476]

He's a moron. Best to ignore him completely

[@andybaldman]

Bravo. It’s amazing how many people don’t understand this.

[@viktorkoalamos]

I agree totally. I understand and view Capitalism to be the exploitation of Marxism. Karl Marx clearly expressed that the logical conclusion to Capitalism is Socialism.

[@Wog68]

That is why I have been saying for a long time that extreme capitalism = communism. In communism: 0.1 % control the masses aka polite bureau. People get basic needs. Moto is do what we say, or else. In capitalism: 01.% control the masses through their extreme wealth and influence on governance. Would like that the rest get bare minimum in market and in employment. Moto is: do as I say, or else…..

[@mackeejack6731]

Go back to your safe space. We’re DECADES away from technology replacing human capital. Even then they’ll still need humans for ancillary functions.

[@klinkclang]

To the people running this channel: Thank you for the content you provide and the people you bring on the channel. Please continue to bring new debates to the channel regardless of the childish people disliking the video because they don't agree with the speaker.

[@klinkclang]

I meant it more as something that can be debated. This is not a concrete idea, so it can be debated. You are right, though.

[@classicalteacher]

Yes, censure anyone who agrees with other ideas and disagrees with this idea. We must be automatons with a hive mind. If anyone disagrees, send out your drones to put these childish people in their place.

[@ahmedshinwari]

@Kotu I think you are the one who has gotten personal here. When one look at the title "Capitalism 2.0 Will Include a Healthy Dose of Socialism" one expects a good arguments. Unfortunately the speaker has attacked a topic that he could not present much. That is why I have thumb it down. I do not mean that this video be removed. I just marked it not worth time be spent on it. If you like it, you can share it no body has stopped you.

[@abcd123906]

Kotu If you had said "regardless of the childish people who disliked the video because they are offended" then yes. But disagreement is potentially perfectly legitimate as long as it is based in logic and reason.

[@CandidDate]

Imagine someone who could do differential equations in split seconds, or who completely understands quantum field equations both explicitly and intuitively. They would definitely be considered a freak of nature. By nature, man is good at talking, not computing. He goes through life bullshitting and conning if he wants to be "successful". UBI will create more problems than it solves. The stratification is happening. A technological caste system is forming. In the end, it is still and always will be a dog-eat-dog world.

[@tasheemhargrove9650]

Finally, someone is bringing up the points Weinstein brought up. First, we need to think past socialism and capitalism. And second, the fact that most of our representatives come from non-technical or soft-science disciplines is a significant problem. Law school does not have a long track record of pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of objective reality.

[@gspaulsson]

Leaders have to be integrators of knowledge, not necessarily creators. The skill required to write a compelling book or a gripping speech or an all-absorbing movie is no less, and no less important, than the skill to build a bridge or a rocket. I say this as a software developer turned historian: I defend the value of my second career as much as the first. History, done properly, is self-evidently one of the historical sciences, like archaeology and palaeontology. It is the study of particular events, not a search for universal laws. My speciality is the Holocaust, an event that bears a lot of studying from many different angles. Proper historians start with a set of events and try to explain how and why they happened. They gather all the evidence they can, analyze it using all the tools at their disposal, draw conclusions and present the conclusions in the form of an argument, supported by scholarly apparatus so readers can chase down the sources, and illustrated with probative examples. The finished product makes the claim that the theory it proposes is consistent with all known facts, and predicts that future research will turn up no evidence that falsifies it. Of course it always does, so history is a continually evolving subject, but it is not just a narrative, as many people think. There are lots of narrative historians out to spin a good yarn, mind you, but they are not taken very seriously by the pros. We dig up bones and figure out how they fit. The popular historians build dioramas. The spinners of fiction build a creation museum. It's the same process as a plane crash investigation, and for that matter, a criminal investigation and a trial. The J6 committee is going through it now, and you betcha it takes a lot of legal knowledge and soft skills. Hopefully the DOJ will take it further. School, shmool: the practice of any empirical discipline pushes the boundaries of our knowledge of objective reality, which includes a lot of soft knowledge that isn't taught in STEM disciplines. You don't get to do much original work in STEM either until you get to the PhD level. One thing historians and the like are good at is countering disinformation. We have good bullshit filters. Sure, an engineer thinks critically and test hypotheses and all; but then you have Arthur Butz, engineering prof at Northwestern - and a Holocaust denier. Or Philipp Lenard, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1905, who denounce the theory of relativity as "Jewish physics" and founded an Institute of German Physics. Don't sell highly educated people in any discipline short, and keep your bullshit filters up no matter how eminent the authority.

[@lindaraereneau484]

Nor does it emphasize self-knowledge, an inner objectivity if what's inside that implements systems and ideas in the first place. It takes the user and implementer of systems for granted, as if unchangeable. But isn't the director and executor of any system the most important element?

[@Moosemoose1]

Why do people think you can just blend two economic systems which are completely antithetical to each other? Socialism REQUIRES the abolition of Capitalism because socialism REQUIRES workers control of the means of production and the end of private capital. That is completely incompatible with Capitalism and its worship of private capital and its accumulation. Social Democracy isn't socialism, it's simply regulated Capitalism, and Capitalism has shown time and time again in multiple countries that regulations cannot control it forever. We need to simply move beyond Capitalism, there's no need for rich people to exist. If that means some people won't create, then so be it, others will take their place. Capitalism is so destructive it needs to END, not be reformed. You cannot reform cancer.

[@tasheemhargrove9650]

@@Moosemoose1 You’re speaking as if socialism and capitalism are things which exist naturally. They’re man-made. Where the hell do you draw the line at Capitalism and non-Capitalism? The same applies to Socialism. We can say that Capitalism exists no where since markets are regulated. Also, before these two economic systems were even a thought, there were systems like feudalism and hunter-gathering. These systems weren’t great either. You can say literally every economic system that has existed is cancer if Capitalism is…

[@Moosemoose1]

@@tasheemhargrove9650 Capitalism involves regulations, Adam Smith HIMSELF wrote it. This idea that capitalism requires unregulated markets comes from idiot libertarians who simply hate taxes. You draw the line between the two systems by who controls the means of production and capital: individuals or society as a whole, as well as what production is for: profit or use.

[@goodtimes333888]

I hope it ends up looking like Star Trek. Total freedom from needs and focused on creativity and self improvement.

[@bodaciousbull8553]

I’ll have some of what you’re smoking

[@andreasplosky8516]

@Justin D That would be awesome, but the human ape is an awful greedy thing. and easily mislead and indoctrinated.

[@mickmathews6748]

Gene Roddenberry insisted the Deanna Troi character should have multiple sets of breasts. It could be his vision of the future is flawed.

[@steven-el3sw]

It's not going to look like Star Trek.

[@dontgettoknowm9864]

I find it telling that the pessimistic comments before yours got 246 likes to your 40. I’m with you tho. MAKE IT SO!

[@spidersinmykeyboard6367]

This is one of the best and most honest breakdowns of what’s happening that I’ve seen.

[@abarbar06]

I'd say there are very few politicians that have any clue what a partial differential equation is :P

[@bramrhodesdouglas5861]

I’m a collapsitarian. Just waiting for this whole thing to fall apart.

[@steezburger609]

So you're a prepper then?

[@tomio8072]

Accelerationist gang rise up

[@pinchebruha405]

@@steezburger609 probably not, guessing they just dont care and are gonna enjoy the life they make

[@domm1341]

He made a very good point about the stratification of society and those who lead us. I think career politicians, as opposed to people who had successful careers before entering politics, have a lot to answer for.

[@madjak30]

The same thing is happening on a business level as well. The accountants are running the companies and bending to the will of investors, when the original formula that attracted the investment was the technical component being in charge and understanding the required precess instead of cutting where the spreadsheet shows a problem. This is reactionary thinking instead of being logical and finding the true cause of the problem...companies have cut the experienced people that probably had larger salaries and kept the less experienced and cheaper personnel which is now showing a glut in the experience base...projects are not completed with the same level of quality or on time...and the amount of rework due to lack of foresight is appalling.

[@pinchebruha405]

Interesting you mention this; my daughters very young friends were all getting jobs at a once famous mortgage lender (the biggest one) they were making great money said it was easy, my mother a real estate agent during the horrors started asking them some questions, after they left Jesus Christ i see exactly whats going on there, hire the young kids that have no idea theyre burying people in debt they can never afford, she was outraged with the company doing that. She said it would only be a matter of time before it all gets shut down…Countrywide!

[@murraymadness4674]

Well said. Greed has taken over, and since Reagan's 80's the unregulation of the market has just let the monster money take over, and politics is almost purely run by big corporations that fund almost ALL elected officials of both parties, so no regulation == monopoly, back to 1920's

[@catherinemoore8129]

Couldn't have said better myself.

[@archaic9525]

We may qualify our epoch as a degenerative period for our civilization: in almost every aspect things go from wrong to out of control. The circle is well known for those who envision history as a mere absurd cyclic repetition -- which it is, no debate here: 'difficult times make strong humans, strong humans produce easy times, easy times engender weak humans, weak humans leave to future difficult times.' Now we are right on the third 'base', means enjoy present days, panic to come. This just because power, even worse in 'democracies,' soften people, letting them to enjoy the dumb stuff they require, for the sake of a comfort-vote. Behind this is the sordide thinking of 'the most stupid people become, the most predictably they will be handled / manipulated.' This as a basic rule for the humanity course. My point is: we are aimed to a fatal crash, and there is nothing we can do against but try to minimise it to allow survivors exist to initiate another loop. What a common destiny!

[@danlightened]

Yeah, I'm a firm believer in 'doing it once and doing it well.' But rather, they would hire 3 people for the price of that one talented person, and a manager that tells them what to do.

[@noahway13]

When they can beat us at charades, we're done.

[@jv-lk7bc]

"they"? cats?

[@MikeAIright]

@@jv-lk7bc computers

[@LionheartLivin]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!;)

[@bluemethetys9267]

We've come to a point where people are looking for jobs that nobody needs. We should focus on more manual and environment friendly agriculture.

[@mr5nanda591]

Scale down the drugs, please.

[@mr5nanda591]

If that's how you think, then there is no "we"

[@Rnankn]

@@mr5nanda591 we is the majority. In that you have no choice.

[@DocWolph]

Sounds more like Technocracy.

[@arthurheidt6373]

no it means the banksters pretend to be social, to prevent the people from throwing away their money

[@emilemilio8790]

@ANDkan what he's saying is technicians can solve human problems and not politicians.

[@SimGunther]

@@emilemilio8790 What if the technocrats become the politicians? Now I'll never know that Hunter Biden's laptop password was "Hunter02" thanks to those mean censoring technocrats who don't want me to know what was in those laptop drives. How sad!

[@hinglemccringleberry7265]

In capitalism 2.0 technology will replace those who make large quantities of money not by producing something of value but those that just trade. Trade, investment etc. will be more efficiantly handled by A. I. and should happen without corruption, immorally large profit margins and enviormental damgage or exploitation. I don't think politicians will be replaced. But constitution of basicaly 18th century democracies will need an upgrade adaptation as well. Not necesarilly too technocratic in that sector maybe. But still needs an update. Tradeand large investments in oligopolic companies must disappear though because they will be less efficiant and less fair.

[@cheponis]

@@SimGunther Paranoid much?

[@tmc8195]

Ying and Yang are always better when they dance together, rather than opposing each other. Always enjoy listening to Eric, we need more people like him and his brother. A good brain on a good man.

[@JeffCaplan313]

yin*

[@safety_sid]

Alaska's Conservative Governor Jay Hammond who oversaw the implementation of the Permanent Fund Program (oil money to the people) was educated as a Petroleum Engineer and served as a fighter pilot during WWII. A perfect example of a technically educated and fiscally conservative individual who successfully implemented a "socialist" type public service program because he was smart enough to see that it needed to be done.

[@Pancake833]

wow this man speaks so beautifully. mathematician and economist, what a fantastic combination

[@aichpvee]

He doesn’t know how taxes or money work tho, so maybe read a book instead of watching this garbage

[@kashu7691]

@@aichpvee you must also be an economist

[@aichpvee]

@@kashu7691 You clearly don't know how to do arithmetic. Stay in school, kid.

[@kashu7691]

@@aichpvee what arithmetic lol. i know it might push the limits of your brain capacity a bit but try and explain yourself

[@epictetus9221]

@@aichpvee and what is that supposed to mean?

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

Not a big fan of technocracy, but at the same time I don't think we can afford having people in charge who don't understand current and future technology, and can't solve a simple technical problem by themselves. If nothing else, STEM degrees teach you HOW TO THINK.

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

"Stalinists or SJWs" LOL. You talk exactly like the kind of idiot I would like to keep away from power.

[@dsyy90210]

​@Kytsche what the fuck

[@Matt-ov1qp]

I have a degree in electrical engineering. Learning about automation and with reasonable presumptions towards the future consequences of it essentially convinced me the economic consequences of technological growth under capitalism is destined to prove Marx correct should democracy be sustained. The issue is people with STEM degrees are more likely to be creative, smart, and think for themselves rather than what's already been done. People with power under our current order won't touch that. The political representatives they corrupt are there to maintain the rather unsustainable status quo in democracy via economic regulation.

[@amyper0012]

Thank you for this interview; very interesting. Perhaps it should be the technical folks and the psychologists who make the decisions, together. Technology with no deep understanding of the user seems to me the fastest road to the Matrix...

[@Jessebg1]

Oh my god the word socialism is in the title. I better dislike this video and write a comment about how bad socialism is without even watching the video... Actually watch the video people. He is just speculating about how the government might have to reorient itself in the future when technology and AI take enough jobs that traditional capitalism would collapse. How will you ever learn and grow as a person if you only listen to stuff that you know you will agree with, or if you do listen to it you go in with negative biases toward the topic. You are not really listening to what he is saying and seeing if it is logical or not, you are just seeing how it lines up with what you think you know.

[@MarcoBoneMan]

This comment is so incredibly ironic.

[@Jessebg1]

Marcus Bones And your comment is very vague. Ironic in what way? I have to assume that you are trying to say that I am not following my own advice, but you don't know me, so how would you know? I actually consider myself a libertarian, so the views expressed in this video are in no way ones that I already held. But I am willing to admit I might be wrong, and listen to what he is actually saying before jumping to conclusions, and not let myself become triggered by a word.

[@entyropy3262]

He is probably too religiously following his own ideology of some crude "Darwinism". That is my guess why he tries to manipulate your comment in being seen as irony. While the libertarian way is already lost in our times of big capital ruling the world, it will get it's own comeback as soon as technology destroyed the power of the capital, because it will no longer function. Technology is probably the only thing that might have a bigger lobby than capitalism itself. It is the only way to break it, because our responsability has failed us as humanity. So for now i am convinced that libertarians should use their abilities to break up the system and make it better with just a few simple things, instead of calling for revolution. Those little changes might actually do the job, which could not get achieved in any other way, by empowering techology.

[@MarcoBoneMan]

Hey I'm a big boy. I'll admit that comment was presumptuous and reactionary, and you were correct to call me out on it. As for my own ideology of some crude "Darwisnism" hey, now I know how you felt about my comment. Be well Jesse G.

[@CB-xi1ml]

Jesse G and of course they'll mention Venezuela I always like to reply if you want to use Venezuela as an example of failed socialism please allow me to use all of Central America the rest of South America all of post-colonial Africa and the United States in the 1920s and in the 2000s as an example of failed capitalism

[@oimrqs1691]

Hey human beings: SOCIALISM IS JUST A WORD. A CONCEPT. AN IDEA. What the hell are these comments? Really? Here? Not even Big Think can have healthy people sharing ideas? We lost. We, as a society, didn't manage to create BIG THINKERS. 'Cause when people react this poorly to an concept that they don't like, we did a poor job all along. Need to fix this.

[@111vincento]

ive been checking around alot on the internet recently. even on places like this where you would assume there to be educated people. i often ask people if they know the difference between subjective and objective. opinion vs fact. noone seems to realize theres a difference.

[@Don7star]

Don't worry it's just the Americans. It's hilarious how they all think they are freethinkers, whilst literally parroting corporate propaganda. These are the people that elected an idiot like Trump to office, it's really no surprise.

[@Mansplained]

Henrique, some "concepts that I don't like," are so abhorrent to me that I feel quite justified in condemning them. For example, if someone were to put up a video encouraging people to molest children, I would have no problem outright condemning that video, and would react with great anger to it. Advocating socialism is a lot like advocating for people to molest children. We know it is wrong. We know it has horrible results. We do not need another experiment, we do not need to "try it out," or just "think about it for a while." We need to soundly reject these horrible ideas. If you think my analogy is inappropriate, that these two things are not similar enough, then you are a poor student of history, and I would strongly recommend you go read some history of socialism and communism. How many more people must die before these systems of governance can be put to bed forever?

[@oimrqs1691]

What. I mean: WHAT? That makes me so sad. We, as a society, don't work. From people that believe the Earth is flat to other people that can't just share ideas without demonizing something. Look at how people respond to A CONCEPT. We have a long way to go. We need to do better.

[@Mansplained]

I repeat: If you think my analogy is inappropriate, that these two things are not similar enough, then you are a poor student of history, and I would strongly recommend you go read some history of socialism and communism. How many more people must die before these systems of governance can be put to bed forever?

[@oudguitar]

Awesome and timely challenge, great stuff, thanks for this brilliant talk!

[@williamfritz189]

He's right about the leaders trained in law and poly sci instead of tech that uses differential calculus. What he doesn't know is that fundamentalist Americans who have college degrees are usually engineers. What we need are people who understand tech but know how to think as humanists rather than as technologists. In other words, put the techs in charge but require them, like the elite of the last century, to learn some history, philosophy, literature, literature and literature...before they launch their solutions upon us all.

[@laneromel5667]

What is demonstrated by countries that have large social programs, is that services that all citizens need are delivered far cheaper by governments than by the private sector. The countries with the best education and health care have government run programs, and spend vastly less than countries with private sector Education and Health care. For example US spends 10,000 per person and only the middle class and up have excellent health care. Germany spends 5,000 per person and 100% of the population has access to excellent health care. Generally countries with well constructed social programs have the lowest debt to GDP ratio's, economically pure capitalism makes no economic sense, just as communism seems to be just as destructive.

[@weatheranddarkness]

But it's been an easy argument to make for those in favour of privatisation. It's unfortunate that the claim has been taken so uncritically by so many people.

[@mr5nanda591]

Except no. #1 Germans would do much better in a Free Market, hands down. #2 The US spends close to 1+ trillion a year on welfare. #3 The US spent 350 billion in 2015, and 553 billion in 2017 in Medicaid and that's just a fraction of what gets spent in medical programs. You're repeating a false narrative that the Americans spend close to nothing for the poor.

[@weatheranddarkness]

That's literally the opposite of what was said. Twice as much money is spent in the United states per capita to deliver an imbalanced return of services. Nobody's claiming that less is pent in the states. The fact is that making a profit off of public services demands that they only get delivered to those who already can pay, or that the government gets shafted because the service providers they rely on charge them more. Americans go to Canada for cheap drugs, not because they are subsidised, but because the prices aren't artificially inflated.

[@swordarmstudios6052]

@@weatheranddarkness Prices being artificially inflated are a not a result of capitalism. Capitalism by definition requires competition to reduce prices. Income based subsidies for services are directly responsible. Privatization can and does work. Provided you can create a fair an open market. A market where some people get subsidized but other people don't for a particular service are what cause price inflation. Price transparency is super important to a capitalist system. case in point - education. It's totally possible to 'produce' education for 1000 dollars a year or less. But you don't get that option because the goverment subsidizes certain forms of education, and it creates laws that only recognize a limited kind of education that doesn't make sense in an age when you can google how to do bio-engineering in your house. Your not paying for education with a degree, your paying for certification gated artificially beyond a paywall backed by the goverment. If we had an education Market, you'd be getting a 4 year degree from google on the internet for a couple thousand dollars or less. What your complaining about, is actually the worst of both worlds - a capitalist entity protected from competitors by goverment. The answer to that equation isn't to make goverment just pay all the bills. Do you really want the same system that procures military equipment used to decide what kinds of education you can have? How exactly will that reduce prices other than hoisting them up to the tax payer and hiding the real cost further?

[@weatheranddarkness]

​@@swordarmstudios6052 you are extremely deluded if you think end user pricing is ever reduced to benefit the consumer. It's a competition tactic and always has to be supported by even greater cost savings. You can't handwave and say that the only reason shit is more expensive is that government regulations get in the way, because that's only a tiny portion of what any "consumer" ever sees, regardless of subsidies. Your education example is poorly chosen as Khan Academy is the only online based learning choice that isn't an outright scam at that price level. Market realities, are not the realities outside of markets. You want to pretend like everybody makes widgets but the majority of the money in the world is tied up in financial instruments. The drive towards financialization is one of the core hallmarks of capitalism.

[@rochat]

Durrrrrr, he said socialism! Get him! USA! USA! USA!

[@lightsidemaster]

'Murica.... -__-

[@CB-xi1ml]

lightsidemaster fuk yea....lol

[@rowdy.rockers]

3 kinds of people in the world: Pussies, Dicks, and AssHoles

[@ZZFilm]

Doodle Master Nope. No it is not. But that would be pretty cool if that's all it was. So·cial·ism noun Political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism. (in Marxist theory) A transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.

[@ZZFilm]

Doodle Master It's actually thee definition/s (I posted more than one use) And It's just pulled from every source on the internet. Type the word into Google and you'll see that definition that I copy and pasted. I'm just highlighting that it is not as basic a thing as was said earlier. Socialism is NOT just "public infrastructure" Though publicly funded infrastructure is surely a part of socialism. But it's also sometimes/often/always/etc a part of a capitalistic economic system as well. Though public infrastructure in a capitalistic system can also be privately funded as well. Many of the parks and museums etc that you may frequent are brought to the public by private investors.

[@denniss3980]

Obamacare is a perfect example of a bunch of lawyers trying to fix healthcare,

[@truecatholic8692]

amen to that, made it 2x more expensive and less available

[@aridianknight3576]

Yang for president 2020

[@mr5nanda591]

yeah brrroooooohhhhh free money yallllllll

[@erice1763]

the only candidate with a deep understanding of tech

[@UtkarshKaushik]

:(

[@Bigglesworthicus]

enlightened socialist technocracy when?

[@TheShiz9797]

Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Socialism

[@albertrogers8537]

Socialism, properly defined, means a society arranged for the benefit of all its members. Capitalism obviously is the rule of wealth. Marxism was a theory published by Karl Marx, which if Marxist-Leninism was indeed the Rule of the Proletariat, Marx correctly predicted that it would end. Communism by any reasonable interpretation of the word does not exist and never did, except perhaps during the period of the Acts of the Apostles. It wasn't very pleasant. All government is Kleptocracy, but it beats Anarchy.

[@HakWilliams]

25 years

[@Teth47]

When we stop electing cheetos and limp noodles to leadership positions. Problem is that those are the only things crazy enough to run for office.

[@myheartspits]

Don't hold your breath, let's say.

[@andrewmaher8409]

Eric, I’m a fan of yours. I love the way you consider problems, break down and express ideas. The last interview that popped up was awesome, maybe it was rebel wisdom or Rubin. I might have misunderstood you, but at around 5 minutes it seems you might be projecting your world and your abilities onto others. I have heard the story of you and your brother and how it was a challenged genius. I get it, a lot. For some the level of challenged and genius didn’t hit the sweet spot that yours did. Or they were not privy to peers who identified the genius over the challenges. Eric, you have won the I.Q. Lottery and had it nurtured until it was off its knees. You’ve also obviously applied it well and worked very very hard, so kudos to you Sir. However, most people will find themselves in a more middle ground. They’ll never write a timeless poem, a symphony or have a light bulb appear above their head with ‘Apple Computers’, Air BnB’ or ‘neutron bomb’ written on it. There will always be ‘masses’ of people who need to be gainfully employed in a useful task as part of a tribe. Maybe it’s written in our code from societal evolution, your brother would know better than I.. then there’s 10% of those ‘masses’ who don’t even have the light bulb potential to be gainfully employed for any real task, despite their strong desire to be as productive and useful as the ‘normal’ people they envy. As a ‘socialist’ I’m sure you’ve given time (your most precious and finite resource) at the coal face of the destitute and would understand that for every genius who makes it to the top there are also many who get ground up at the bottom of the pile. My other concern is your belief that those people with creative technological genius should be treated as special angels. Please remember these are the same people who brought us nuclear weapons... Im not sure we should fund them to the hilt and let them run amok unhindered. That might not end so well. Sure, some of these scientific geniuses have expressed remorse in hindsight but the same technological levelling that allows a 15 year old to become a rockstar from her bedroom, also means that it only takes one ‘mad’ scientist for things to go from bad to much much worse. Anyhow, I’m still a huge fan...

[@ten_tego_teges]

SO few people understand this argument. Thanks for laying it out clearly.

[@cmw3737]

Not to mention the power of the only slightly more capable individual given the cheap tools of CRISPR, X as a service, AI and other (bio)hacking tools. The ratio of the power of the 'worker' who just wants to earn a living but has to compete with several billion others vs the entrepreneurial hacker with several billion potential customers has never been greater and that's not a recipe for stability and raising of families.

[@edgepixel8467]

Bullshit. It’s not the scientists who are mad. It’s the managers.

[@SamOliver4]

I'm the kind of person most people would call an intellectually gifted technocrat, but I think you really nailed it here. While his base points in describing the problem (creeping automation, etc.) are sound, his fixes sound a lot like issuing in a technocracy when I think the point should be in examining the concept of governmental hierarchy in the first place. No one person, or even relatively small group of typically privileged people, possesses even a fraction of the near-omniscience required to run something as complex as an entire country, especially a country with over 300 million people spanning over 3 million contiguous square miles, let alone an entire planet. Technocrats may have been partially stymied by the "soft discipline" types, but their leadership, as you pointed out, is not always going to be the answer. If we only accept answers in the form of the kind of "leadership profile" we want to be running the world, we will be sunk, accepting some hard-to-swallow costs as the natural result of some other arbitrarily defined set of desired solutions. We don't have time to make compromises like that anymore, setting aside the reality that many such compromises are immoral on their face.

[@danlightened]

@@SamOliver4 I don't agree with the doomsday scenario you're painting. People often say we're learning stuff in maths that we'll never use in real life. Probably we won't. But it's about problem solving skills. People in STEM field are likely to be better at problem solving and logic. In fact, anyone with any higher education is likely to have a more critical and rational thinking. And we can certainly have people from the Arts field to keep the moral things in check. And I'm not talking about pure specialists. There are a lot of people in their 40s/50s in management posts or sales/marketing team deal with their own employees and clients. Why are we assuming that all of them are holed up in a corner without any people skills or being unable to look at the bigger picture?

[@eddougherty6087]

This was a 12 min. of thinking-out-loud that almost suffered from being too dense, having too many provocative ideas. It’s a fascinating listen, don’t get me wrong, but you could unpack about 12 separate thoughts that are embedded in here and give each its 12 min. treatment. Pretty remarkable this segment.

[@johnorourke5444]

For decades we have been increasing the output of our workers with all of the spoils going to the people at the top. Ai will soon create an even more exaggerated wealth Gap. Picture Bezos buying a 15-story superyacht while his workers scrounge for crumbs. Right now there is nothing to stop that scenario

[@patrickmccormack4318]

Thank you for posting. Explanation by Eric Weinstein is insightful. Your conversation touched on the Technocrats of yesteryear. Oh boy, you're treading on dangerous ground.

[@dayrohan]

When he says the technical class, where not taking about putting Amazon an apple in Congress right. If so, I wanna keep it soft disciplines in government.

[@BreatheManually]

When he said that I thought it was something more like when Isreal asked Albert Einstein to be president. Amazon and apple are just capitalistic companies.

[@SikWidiT390]

very interesting . I would love to learn more on this idea, and would like to hear the views of other persons in this field

[@PockASqueeno]

I fucking love this channel and the open mindedness of the speakers. They aren’t communist libtards or nazi conservatards. These folks really think through what they say based on facts, science, history, and other disciplines to come up with practical and intelligent solutions to social, political, and economic problems. Without insulting others.

[@whoisamp620]

UBI, done. Establish a minimum income for people who might be displaced by tech in our capitalist economy.

[@Rnankn]

They won’t even give them $300 during a lethal airborne viral outbreak.

[@truecatholic8692]

LOL

[@ibraveheart5700]

6:10 how did he do that with his eye?

[@Sorgenfri0]

he's got a bum eye

[@TheShootist]

genius

[@ibraveheart5700]

Scott McCloud Fuck off

[@zombieowen]

UBI is businesses way of saying, we're not paying taxes, we're not paying workers, government has to pay our workers for us.

[@CarlosFloresMusic]

As a thought, I wonder if automation would be a sustainable model, if companies try to sell products and services to people with less ways to find income. As far as I know, economy is about exchange; at least money-wise, capital would concentrate on less people, mass produced products would be harder to sell... Cars, gadgets, many would need to ramp down their output. It's too early to tell what will happen, but companies should take this into consideration if the automation bandwagon could make their sales collapse (and needless to say, the social unrest caused by millions without means to make a living).

[@tralfamadorian5270]

Did he just say that nobody ever thought that capitalism might be brought down by its own technology? That was one of Karl Marx's central points.

[@truecatholic8692]

marx was wrong about everything else, so he's most likely wrong about that one too

[@monkeymox2544]

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Hooray for ignorant people on both sides of literally any argument, they make for the best entertainment.

[@leeblackburn5682]

Anyone have any idea how Sweden's universal income experiment went? I know they stopped it but not sure what the results looked like?

[@ellinmara5997]

"people who received universal basic income instead of regular unemployment benefits reported better financial well-being, mental health and cognitive functioning, as well as higher levels of confidence in the future". It moderately improved employment. And "basic income doesn’t seem to provide a disincentive for people to work". However, I've also read frequently that the results are to be taken with a grain of salt. You'd have to make it permanent (or at least much, much longer than just a few years) and much much higher (~560€ is not enough to actually live in Western and Northern Europe) to see how it REALLY plays out, when it's a real "basic income". If people can't even quite survive on it or plan long-term, it's a nice cushion, especially in uncertain times, but it probably won't change your life.

[@shadetreephilosopher5568]

Love this video! There has to be some ideal gray area between capitalism and socialism. Perhaps it should be taken as a case by case basis. Where where free open capitalism may work better in some industries, socialism may be better in other industries.

[@Rnankn]

We already have a mixed economy. It just a question of tweaking the mix.

[@richardflower7408]

Social programs were developed to help people through hard times until they could get back on their feet. But those who detest taxes, fair wages and non profit health care bought legislators to eventually reduce the effectiveness and dome cases programs. Now we we have millions living on the street instead of thousands.

[@jasonsharkey2237]

Why have basic income when we can just throw more people in prison?

[@conorkosidowski3924]

Jason Sharkey too real, lol

[@silversobe]

It would be cheaper to send them to Harvard for a year than to prison.

[@EclecticoIconoclasta]

basically the current social policy of the US

[@pierocostanzo4959]

Yeah, we tried that but wars are generally more cost-effective

[@msamerica7273]

Jason Sharkey You're an idiot and son of Lucifer👿

[@baronvonbeandip]

This is actually a neat thought. The types of goods begins to determine the market dynamics.

[@Epicurean999]

This was like a gist of a Great Lecture in almost 11 minutes 👍🙏👌

[@bitterlilraccoon]

I've been telling myself for a few years now that the only relevant jobs humans will have in the future will be research, administration and art. As technology replaces all repetitive means of work, humans will need to find other means of leading meaningful lives.

[@OutSideTheBoxFormat]

Please get Thomas Sowell to do a video while the man is still alive he's in his 80's and still the sharpest knife in the drawer, the man is a fucking genius.

[@christianschwalbach7561]

Air Em Out Sowell is an idealogue

[@OutSideTheBoxFormat]

Pale Sparrow when i first subscribed it was because of Michio Kaku, i could've sworn most of the content was more science based. Now i just come once in awhile or if nothing else is of interest.

[@TheShootist]

Locked by his ideology.

[@DZ-hh5dw]

No he’s not, anything he’s ever advocated has turned to shit and completely failed

[@matthewbittenbender9191]

Sowell is a relic and will set back progress to post WWII standards. We don’t live in that time and never will return to it. The last thing we need is another fossil telling us how the future will best be served.

[@wernerstapela4616]

Some very valid points, particularly on the nature of (especially political) leadership. One consequence is already apparent: very inadequate (digital) security structures at all levels, with huge costs. The one point he missed related to capital's in built seeds of destruction: capitalism's need for constant growth in an environment where resources are finite.

[@zacharydavis4398]

Thank you for spending the time to create and share this content 🙏🏾

[@marcorodriguez6240]

Capitalism becomes a problem when 1 person owns everything

[@Unclenate1000]

typically the outcome when the state gets involved and legally protects a given entity so that they can own everything.

[@micham.9296]

@@Unclenate1000 No, just no. Monopolies are greated when the government doesn't intervene. Thats the exact problem, its easy to secure rights on farmland and areas that hold ressources like silver, gold, oil or any kind of valuable mineral, if you already have money. A poor man cant buy a mine. Ungoverned capitalism (aka the free market) will make the rich richer while the rest is working for it.

[@jenningscunningham642]

Diseconomy of scale is part of capitalism too. And it’s a wonderful thing.

[@JanisFroehlig]

@Kytsche Except when they don't. If the rich see investing in the general public as pointless, which they will if they're in it for a return, the oligarchy continues.

[@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869]

It's an attitude like that that confines you to poverty.

[@daidaitastic]

I think it would be disastrous to have all positions of power be filled with people that have such small windows into the world and human experience. That is not to say that technical people should be barred either. There are more ways to understanding the implications of technology than being the ones who have built it. Understanding how something works is not the same as understanding how something is used. I would propose a different way of bringing technological knowhow into our governing bodies. Utilizing the expertise of engineers to design systems that would allow others to more effectively govern seems like the more ideal route. Right now it seems we have a system in place that has access to and is using all these new tools, but doing so without the proper framework. We've seen the impact of these tools, and it's time to apply our awareness of those consequences into a new system.

[@danlightened]

Why do you think those people would have a small window into the world? Are you saying that the current politicians are vastly educated and experienced in all fields and walks of life? Yes, there maybe quite a few deep into their specialization. But there are a lot of people who are generalists too, but in technical fields. Especially the owners. And managers. They surely have people skills. And they do market research. And what is market research? The current scenario, what people like, what they are looking for, feasibility and a whole lot of psychology amongst other things.

[@pipster1891]

"Technology has always replaced jobs with ones that are more fulfilling". That's just utterly ridiculous. Tell that to the skilled artisan who had to go work in a factory. Tell that to the microworker today in Indonesia working tedious long hours for tech companies for a few cents an hour.

[@davidfaustino4476]

Idiot. Those factory jobs are the ones being automated. Robots aren't artists.

[@bvdek]

The idea of music being a "public good, and taxing ppl to pay for both an army and their diet of jazz and rock n roll" actually sounds pretty damn awesome to me! Artists/musos are essential public servants for sure!

[@zarkoff45]

I know a game more human than Go - Dungeon Master of a D & D game. Let's see the computers make a master game master for fantasy role playing games.

[@JeffCaplan313]

Have you seen AI Dungeon yet, courtesy of GPT3?

[@drakefaden1464]

I'm gonna predict a 2:1 like to dislike ratio on this one.

[@outlawscar3328]

I'll take your bet, then a bet on that bet, and a bet on that bet and then many more like so, and when I've gotten carried away and amassed so many bets that I can't even honestly guarantee a return to you on our original bet, I'll bundle them up and call them something else, pay someone to say that that collection is worth something and use that to fund my practice of making and taking bets. Then when it inevitably all collapses because I'm funding myself with nothing of actual value, I'll point out that all those poor innocent people expected a return on their bets, get bailed out, give myself a bonus and then go into government so I can help other people do what I did all over again. Sound good?

[@drakefaden1464]

Outlaw Scar You've got way too much time on your hands, bud.

[@leebo2020]

Outlaw Scar you literally highlighted the MOAP (mother of all problems). why not just destroy algorithm trading and demand complete transparency within the Federal Reserve and break up big banks. seems too easy I suppose. am I missing something?

[@RatZapTshirt]

It's looking to be more of a 4 to 1 ratio. But what does that even mean? The video makes no statement other than saying that socialism will linger on in some form. (Who'd have guessed?) Barely even tries to back that up with a coherent argument. About as thoughtful and deep as a bumper sticker- "SOCIALISM ISN'T DEAD."

[@MarkShaneHansen]

Currently at 5,33:1 Sorry man, you're not good at this game.

[@user-vp5iy8ec9q]

Earning ranking ladder changes or shifting could be new groups new class, as long as bring the disadvantages up with them?

[@neweraboss5728]

This video came out summer 2017 last yeyar. How is it that this video only have 157k views??!! this needs more views. Share share share

[@Jc199somethin]

Get ready for the sensitive people of the KZbin comment realm getting hurt

[@MetricImperialist]

What a stupid fucking comment...

[@Gunnersman1510]

SOCIALISM.. AHHHHHHHHH!!!! FREAK THE FUCK OUT!!! FREE SHIT, FREE SHIT haha

[@carlosbarbosa9062]

Ouch

[@mr5nanda591]

Sensitive about their Constitutional rights. Yup, lots of those bastards, aren't there?

[@scottconlon5124]

Universal basic income 👍👍 should be enough for fundamental right of every individual. Air food water and shelter from the storm

[@scottconlon5124]

Beer is almost a fundamental right lol but not quite. Spend the Daly ration well lol

[@hidalgov1]

8:19 Honestly, all people in congress should have a PhD. If you are in a committee, you should have a PhD in that particular field. Only then we can hope to see good laws.

[@ThePhysicsConnection]

Jaron Lanier has cool ideas on how to solve some of these problems. He's been warning about it for 20 years

[@intlprofs]

True

[@rkoh3740]

Capitalism is the highway Socialism is the guardrail Nobody hates guardrails so its a matter of perspective and we need politicians to be honest about limits of free market capitalism. FDR saved capitalism from itself and its that time again.

[@elminster710]

make the AI try to play D&D for you're human edge :P

[@overcaffeinatedengineering]

This is a very intelligent take on several fundamental misunderstandings of "programming loops", taxes, capital markets, creativity, industrialization, and socialism.

[@Rnankn]

It is a further distortion and perversion of reality. Prices are a deeply flawed and inaccurate reflection of value under normal conditions, but the extent of failure is becoming unmanageable, and tyrannical. How much failure is necessary to invalidate an economic model? i could list volumes of failures, but the devout followers of capital have a religious commitment that causes them to ignore reason and evidence. I would think changing the biosphere to threaten life on earth would be enough on its own. Programming loops just mean capitalism doesn’t work - its a utopian aspiration that is becoming dystopic.

[@patrickgallagher9069]

People have been saying things like this for generations. History has shown that as one technology makes another obsolete, the job market shifts to meet the new needs. For example, wheelwrights of old are auto mechanics now.

[@DeltrusPoE]

All these people are acting like life is supposed to be a type of competition when it isn't. UBI isn't breaking some sort of fairness rule. Life isn't a game. We are past the times when we have to hoard food and resources. How about instead of competing, instead of being self centered, we imagine being in the shoes of others who are poor and sick, and help everyone out? Basic empathy, imagining you are the other person, can solve like 75% of the major problems we face such as war, poverty, racism etc. That is all socialism is, having empathy for those who can't really fit into the capitalism puzzle successfully.

[@DeltrusPoE]

Society has moved a long way in the past 100 years. I don't think your past examples work exactly the same way. And socialism isn't really a system, it is an idea that can be implemented in many different ways. Some things just work better with an "all for one and one for all" attitude. But some things work better with capitalist ideas as well. There's no need to be pro or against different ideas. Anyways, what I believe in is that people have a right to live in proper conditions no matter their circumstances. That is irrefutable imo.

[@MarcoBoneMan]

Competition is LITERALLY the fuel for the engine that has built your life of relative luxury. Read a book.

[@ShakinJamacian]

Competition is one thing. But in our culture, competition is combat. It's not enough that there are winners and losers. Winners must win everything, and losers must lose life.

[@LimitIsIllusion]

You act like some people don't want to live a lavish lifestyle. I personally think it would be fun, and certainly a better way to spend my short life than giving the money away to people I don't know or care about. You can call it selfish, you can call it inhumane, but in reality, it is human nature, proven by the fact that it is so common among those given the opportunity. Life today is very much still survival of the fittest. The definition of fit has just changed a bit in certain parts of the world. It's not my fault people are poor, and likewise, it's not my job to fix it. Even if it was my fault, it's still not my job to fix it, given by the nature of the survival of the fittest. There comes a point where problems that exist amongst humans are so vast and unpredictable that it is too much to be solved in one lifetime. When that point is reached, the solution of these problems is likely lost forever, as nature kicks in and tells people to enjoy their own last years on this planet. In the moment, we are insignificant, but the unintended long term effects of what we do can be profound, unimaginably so. If the end of human life is brought by nuclear war, and the world dies for a million years and a new species rises to rule the universe, then we indirectly caused such events. It's only a matter of time before the sun blows up or we get hit by a meteor though, so in any case, all we do for the human race is insignificant. No matter how advanced we become, the last human will die long before the death of the universe. The greatest achievements of mankind will be unseen and unintended by any living human. Maybe your carbon atoms will create the first "super human" in a nearby solar system 10 billion years after the sun blows up and spreads the contents of earth galaxy-wide.

[@footiemate03]

Deltrus Even if it were a competition it's still not a level playing field. The top 1% have such vast amounts of accumulated wealth that their generations could have tons of money to spend and still have loads of money to spare whereas any common man from the remaining 99% would be homeless if they were to give up their job. people say that everyone gets equal opportunity but in which sense is it equal if a kid born in a rich family with a silver spoon is handed out his inherited wealth.

[@angelic8632002]

Excellent point about the lack of technical skills or mindset in politics. I've always felt that the point of view of science has been sorely lacking in our leadership. The knowledge alone changes a person perspective to something larger and towards looking for novel solutions irrespective of ideology.

[@CrownRider]

What you describe is what actually is going on in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. The Rhineland business model is a moderate form of capitalism with socialist ways of doing daily politics. Virtually free healthcare and education is the best starting point for all people.

[@truecatholic8692]

socialism brings everyone into poverty

[@paulojrmsantos8]

This is evolution unfolding, as it has always been and always will be. You can run, but you'll just die tired. Humanity is the cocoon, AI is the butterfly.

[@nickdeluca6914]

I 100% agree, I've been pondering on the future for a while now as a mellenial. I am also on the fence of optimism and pessimism. As it was stated, its too soon to predict our outcome. Thinking about it is the first step for change.

[@uncleshark1103]

I wonder if he'll cry wolf when AI is capable of economic analysis and theory.

[@jv-lk7bc]

when AI is capable of economic analysis and theory there will be no one left to cry wolf.

[@Rnankn]

Humans don’t need to work, but that doesn’t mean they can’t choose to.

[@epictetus9221]

You missed the actual point he made. Too busy rushing to comment? He "cries wolf" at 05:14

[@bubbercakes528]

None of the “isms” work on their own. It takes a balance of different ideologies to create a harmonious economy.

[@enejkelecija7377]

I love this man! There are very few people in academia that are intellectually honest and he is one of the few that call balls and strikes

[@robLV]

Great video. If we accept his final point that the tech class ought to have leadership and decision-making powers, we need to be able to answer these questions: how can we be sure they have enough humanist training and humanity's best interest at heart, how can we understand what they say, how can we trust them when we don't understand their field, their language, their constructs?

[@theMuritz]

So you understand today’s politicians and decision makers and in return think they are humanist? Cheers … no offense honestly!

[@murraymadness4674]

@@toddthreess9624 Trump disbanded his Technical Advisory office when they were not a bunch of yes-men.. I think we need a 'jury' system to make policy decisions. 18 randomly selected citizens listen to experts testify and make a decision. and perhaps their decisions can be over-ridden with a super majority of congress only...or something, what we have no doesn't work that is certain

[@ionutalex7347]

@@murraymadness4674 that sounds pretty good, it will be highly dependent on the intelligence of them 18 randoms, and im worried as the vid i watched before this was showing some uni students being total retards and shutting down good arguments in favor of their feelings, we definitely need perspective tho

[@danlightened]

Yes, because the school drop outs somehow know better.

[@jestemgraczem]

He's talking about welfare state, not socialism or communism. You Americans really don't know what are you talking about.

[@beestmode88beast]

jestemgraczem Late as hell, but ACTUALLY he's talking about social democracy.

[@davidp6745]

Pro MF Era Not really no... I know no one cares anymore about what Social democracy means but ultimately it is or was a system that gave an important place to unions to regulate markets, whereas latin socialism for instance (also called state impulse model) or more traditional socialist systems give this role to the State. That's the fondamental divide between socialism and social-democracy, the latter often being influenced by the christian electorate (more favorable to workers' cooperatives and strong unions). You can still compare countries like Germany, Belgium, Sweden vs Italy, France, etc and see the huge difference of power that unions have in these countries. Nowadays, social-democracy is one of these words that has been permanently perverted, and means very different things depending on who's saying it. You could be a rigourist and trace back the meaning of social-democracy to the menshevik / bolshevik division (ie reform vs revolution, but still marxist) but that's far fetched to represent the wide spectrum of what it means today to be a social-democrat. I think when people say "social-democracy" today, they mean reformist. But it's a good reason not to use the term gratuitously : either you want to talk about scandinavian and germanic countries (but in this case, nothing to do with what the gentleman was saying), or you don't, but then what did you mean ? "Reformist" is not specific enough to qualify an ideology, it just means you don't want to fight a revolution (let's face it, who does anymore ?)

[@beestmode88beast]

David P you literally said nothing valuable at all man sorry.

[@NaNa-bt1wd]

jestemgraczem they don't and consider welfare state to be bad

[@davidp6745]

Drew Cooper I understand the criticism, but what you call "the right" isn't united as well. Division and conflicting views is healthy and means democracy is working. Majoritarian representation, arguably the least democratic system of all democraties, doesn't allow that unfortunately. In such a system two blocs compete and there is no room for diversity. But 1) I'm not speaking from a first passed the post point of view and 2) If soc-dems stopped betraying us every time they came to power we would not have a problem with associating with them.

[@subtleartofdisappointment5867]

I’ve been been saying that mixed economies are our best fit for now before we transform into a new system, but the people I debate with always saying that it’s either capitalism or communism. Thanks for making me not feel stupid. I love this video and you’re a wonderful speaker!

[@truecatholic8692]

communism, socialism, and "democratic" socialism, all basically the same thing, have no redeeming factors

[@danlightened]

Ideally, mixed economy should be the good, like it is in the developed countries in Europe. They call it democratic capitalism, I believe. While it should be the best of both worlds, here in India, I feel it's the worst of both worlds. The corporate greed is just as much and the politicians and other government officials are rotten to the core with power and bribery. The system was indeed created to keep each other in check; we even have PM and his legion of CMs and the president and the Governors under him. The police, army, politicians, bureaucrats, judicial system, investigating agencies, everyone is answerable to each other but what throws everything off is money. Anyone, who has a lot of money, like politicians or industrialists, can buy anyone off.

[@packrat-y7j]

Humanities. You're looking for the humanities. Sociologists, Philosophers, Psychologists and Anthropologists. These understandings are the keys that are overlooked today.

[@abergaz]

The end of capitalism is inevitable and nothing is final.

[@burgskeletal3149]

*free market capitalism Mixed market capitalism is the best system

[@vegass04]

I'm glad you're an optimist. So braniac, what will replace the capitalism? Anarchy? Bolshevik revolution? You do understand that social democracy is also a capitalism for example.

[@tomikexboii5403]

@@vegass04 Haha. No. Learn your terminology. You make yourself look dumb. Democracy? Athens had democracy and it was a Slavocracy. Fascist Italy? It had capitalism that permitted the owners of companies to gun down unwilling workers. Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. Get your terms straight.

[@Barskor1]

The end of Government created fiat currency is inevitable as EVERY fiat currency in history has collapsed capitalism will just return to real money gold silver copper and so on and add nongovernmental cryptocurrencies that have a limited supply so they can not be inflated to worthlessness.

[@Barskor1]

@@burgskeletal3149 No, mixed markets lets exactly what is happening now occur so think a bit more.

[@tonyr7854]

its like blaming the car for a crash caused by blowing a red light. It doesnt matter what system you put in place, if there are people willing to take advantage of it then it will slowly break down over time.

[@autohmae]

Piriathy my believe is: build a system with the right incentives and it will work. Now we need to figure out what that is.

[@petermartin5030]

The key is this: to build a rounded set of values (such as wellbeing and sustainability) into our systems and processes of production and commerce, instead of giving primacy to financial value alone.

[@Stingray767]

Questioning your understanding of code🤔 "code is either in a loop or not" thats like saying you either use a car or find different transportation; as if "different transportation" is only one thing

[@WarpScanner]

Capitalism and socialism are only differentiated by property norms. As long as means of production and land property exists as something to be capitalized (leveraged over others essentially) you have capitalism. A "healthy dose" of socialism thus makes no sense. Socialism and welfare are not the same thing.

[@weatheranddarkness]

I suspect that's why the only "feature" of the future he singled out was universal income, because he's unwilling to take a bet on the rest of what it'll look like. I think he would agree that there's something that's going to force property out of the hands of some of the most powerful for the greater good. It'll take an extremely long time to fully dismantle the notions of property that will continue to see people claiming property rights that abuse other's freedoms, a hundred, a few hundred years? So for the meantime, some sort of hybridization between private and public property is going to continue to be at the center.

[@devilsshield]

Let's break down what you just said. You want to take away what others have earned in order for you to re-distribute it to people that have not earned it and on top of that, pay people equally no matter the job, so people also do not wish to become Doctors and Engineers due to the sheer amount of stress and the 10+ years of studying they have to endure and instead they prefer staying home and playing video games and working on other stuff. This is coming from an Engineer. If I did not get payed significantly more then other people for my work, I would instead stay at home and not deal with what I studied for and just play games and this is exactly what universal income would cause.

[@mnali17]

This guy is brilliant.

[@GoolamDawood]

He makes the common sense factual argument, that the mainstream establishment does not allow, because it cannot honestly question its own foundation. Taxing billionaires and providing equal/fair access to public resources is not some crazy other worldly idea. Most countries do it, except the United States.

[@bent5732]

6:10 whats going on with his eye??

[@SoFkwHat80]

Yeah i saw it , his right eye moved independently of his left eye .

[@definitelynotnick2454]

he has a 1/2 paralyzed eye

[@waynebernitt2806]

Thank you. If only this subject matter was considered main stream And seen prime time. One take away for me was when I was young I though politicians in charge of portfolios e.g treasurer, education, health Etc, were experts in the field. I learned of course that they are career politicians and the party line comes before any scientific reality. Perpetuating the myth of trickle down economy seems inherent all party lines.

[@111vincento]

90% of dislikes will come from people who dont even watch the video the other 10% have no idea what it is even about

[@Mansplained]

You're so totally right, there's just zero possible way that anyone could watch the same video as you and interpret it differently. You are so much smarter than everyone else on the planet, I'm glad we have people like you to lay out the Truths of the land in youtube comments.

[@111vincento]

oh really would you like to tell me why you disliked the video? i would surely change my opinion if you had a reason i could see as sensible. :D

[@davidwalz94]

Kop dicht, weeb. Of ik geef je aan bij het UWV voor uitkeringsfraude.

[@Gunnersman1510]

Those 90% of people probably also don't know the last republican to balance the budget, had his top tax rate at 90%.

[@frxnlab]

vincent schuurhof So no chances that any of them might disagree with a valid counterpoint in your opinion? Not sure what that says about you, but 'well reasoned' does not spring to mind.

[@maxhess3151]

More like Albert Einstein. Seriously, though, this man is a genius.

[@Tesla-Model-S-Plaid]

He didn't have my total interest for most of the video, but those last 2 minutes were very insightful and he's definitely a smart individual based on what he said there alone.

[@jasonshaw4230]

No longer a question of 'if' but 'when '.

[@luckymanindeed]

Very well reasoned and articulated. Either we listen more to people like this and put more of them into leadership roles so that reasoned and calm debate can be our path to finding the future or we will end up a hopelessly polarized society that eventually ensures it’s own destruction through a complete lack of vision, reasoned thought, empathy and compassion for all.

[@noahwalters2732]

What we need at this point is another age of good old fashioned expansion, and since we can't go out anymore we need to go up. Expanding into space would give jobs to tons of people, develops new technologies which in turn would bring more jobs. Unfortunately people these days are to focused looking at the dirt beneath their feet to care about ascending the human race to the stars.

[@edgepixel8467]

So your solution is to export human greed to the stars. Yuck.

[@noahwalters2732]

@@edgepixel8467 Well its either that, or we get slammed by a random asteroid and our entire species gets obliterated.

[@FlowerClown]

At 1:00 it is the same argument as the Right to Work Laws

[@jordanmumaw2310]

I agree with the inversion that needs to happen across all levels of societal policy decision-making. I would also add APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (ABA) to the framework of hard sciences that belong in the collective governmental thought. It is another under-represented, evidence-based scientific field that would work synergistically with technological minds to better meet the needs of a HUMAN workforce. Current organizational psychology curricula would include ABA as a tenet of understanding human behavior.

[@winterhaydn5640]

Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are simply variations of the same underlying structure: Monetary-ism ($) = which is actually a measure of scarcity & inefficiency. Both phenomena used to be very real. But over the last few decades, they largely don't apply anymore. Technology is allowing us to do more and more with less and less. We can now provide a sustainable abundance of resources/goods for everyone on earth, while greatly reducing the need for undesirable labor. Technical design & understandings are key. Value can be measured in real time, with built in security and transparency (blockchain) at every step. Repetitive tasks can be automated. And 'products' can be collaboratively designed and customized online, with A.I. programs assisting in maximizing durability, etc. So, we have vastly better means to meet our true goals. However, today's hierarchy-based structures won't allow this. So it's up to us to think outward. ((source: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpPZdKuDm8h-rJY))

[@frankmiller721]

I don't think technology is the child of capitalism. I have heard it said that technology is the child of necessity.

[@weatheranddarkness]

I suspect it was convenient as the explosive proliferation of devices of leisure is fairly representative of at least the arguments for capitalism, if not an object lesson in what it's best at, for better or worse.

[@luciernagas5661]

We can have tecnology development without capitalism, but capitalism accelerate it. Im a socialist

[@eleganz]

no, technology wouldn't exist if it wasn't for self interest. Silicon Valley is one of the least regulated industries in the USA and its the fastest growing and fastest funded.

[@luciernagas5661]

hellopuppy00 Human beings produce things with their hands, that's human nature. Technology can exist without capitalism, are two separate things.

[@weatheranddarkness]

that's an impressive leap there hellopuppy00. Especially considering "Silicon Valley" is not an "industry" but a place name. Necessity is the mother of invention. Useless and superfluous invention is the child of the capitalist need to continue to put out new products faster than landfills and recycling plants can deal with the old ones that still probably work but get thrown out because they're no longer the latest and greatest

[@Flameo326]

I recently downloaded Libby, which is an app that allows you to access your local library from your phone, checking out books, reading them, etc. You have to register and get a library card from your local library first, but afterwards you can add it to Libby to see what your library has available. You can even check out and read books from the app itself which is an amazing technological achievement. However I noticed that you could only checkout or "Borrow" books your local library had available. If too many books were checked out or your local library didn't have them, you could put the book on "Hold" and wait until the book is available.... despite the fact the book is already accessible from the App itself. And it's just so silly. The app already has the book and it's content digitized. I'm not spending any money on the library. It costs little if anything to send the data to my phone. But for some reason I have to go through the checkout process and wait for books to be available even if everything is digital. There's no reason I can't just "have it" from a technological aspect. The only thing holding it back is this idiotic sense of "Ownership" which is intrinsic to Capitalism. And the Internet just doesn't work like that. I recognize that the specific purpose is so that Authors get paid for the work they produce, that makes sense and is appropriate, but that means that Libraries are "purchasing" books from Authors using money they likely get from donations or the Government, aka my taxes (and everyone else's), just so that I can go onto an app, check it out, and read it. Aka, the Government is basically funding Authors so that I can read their books. It's a convoluted form of Universal Basic Income. I imagine things will change in the future, slowly but surely.

[@StephenGKirk]

Interesting commentary although traditionally the vast majority of theorists and technocrats have shown little interest or patience in assigning valuable time communicating their ideas and works to others, who most probably do not have the skills to understand them. Instead of disinterested specialists, we need more generalists, people who understand the principals behind the science, how the technology may best be applied, have the people skills and most importantly; the time and desire to do so.

[@parkashland]

Interesting anaysis on the consequential evolution of disperate economic & social activities. Your endorsement of hard skill types into positions of power is both logical and shameless self promotion - and, of couse, love it!