Machines | Paul Mason: "PostCapitalism" | Talks at Google
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Paul Mason joined us in London to talk about his book PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future. Recorded in December 2015, London. About the book (press release): Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change - economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust - and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason wonders whether today we are on the brink of a change so big, so profound, that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system by which entire societies function, has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that, as Mason shows, has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership - in fact, he contends, it is already doing so. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swathes of economic life are changing.. Goods and services that no longer respond to the dictates of neoliberalism are appearing, from parallel currencies and time banks, to cooperatives and self-managed online spaces. Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. In this groundbreaking book Mason shows how, from the ashes of the recent financial crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable global economy. Moving beyond capitalism, he shows, is no longer a utopian dream. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape, rather than simply react to, seismic change. More about the book on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Paul_Mason_PostCapitalism?id=2yNqCAAAQBAJ&pcampaignid=MKT-AC-global-none-all-OO-oth-bk-GoogleTalks-Jul1415-1
Comments
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By 2030 PC's would be as smart if not smarter than humans, you just have to feed them concepts, they will do the work for you. google's Stated misison statement was to organise all the knowledge of the world and the time line set for it was 300 years so that takes care of machiene that knows everything cos if it knows the entire content of wikipedia that would be online by 2035 it'd know about learning too. My ethical problem is if everyone doesnt know about it all than that puts them at a disadvantage. For example i saw a movie called "Anatomy" and its sequel "Anatomy 2" now in 2040 a machiene would be able to know if the crime(for example lord swaraj paul's son falling off his penthouse to his death) was commited by human using BCI or was an accident but increasing access to internet would take care of that too(internet would be accesible to 5 bn by 2025 and more later), Now the dellima is that AI which is smarter than human gets on the corporate boards by 2035 or not? and voila the small niche of high paying jobs the speaker was talking about that would be up for competition amongst genders, ethnicities would all disappear, what we have left in 2035 is, in most advanced economies, a generation that has Wikivarsity at their disposal, that basically have to take care of food, housing and clothing and choose what they want to pursueand have until age 25-30 get it over with and than in any case decide to pursue a job as a standup comic and still not worry about going below the poverty line. Marriage as it is going to be a outdated concept for many born in 2015 or later or would be on the way out, woman would know better than not to want more than 2 kids, (i know of a lady who says who wants that strain on my health for 9 months anyways and calls her unborn child a disease she'd have to live with for 9 months and have after effects of it for 5 years teaching the kid stuff. As if there aint enough problems in the world as it is) so we can safely say population of the world would begin to stabilize slowly and as it is is already declining in the developed world, So lets say there is a ball park figure of 1 billion in Europe, N & S America combined by 2050 (It would increase a lot in ROW but that is a different story and another talk google), So we can have Robots Automation for manufacturing, an economic council governing the 2 billion comprised of AI (Not connected to the internet unless they wanna talk to their collegues so no skynet issues) no increase in money supply since population is declining and we dont want hyper inflation or too much disparity in wealth distribution, so we get to the last question what do the bn do? well we can employ 50 mn in the Government sector, another 100 mn in the law enforcement, 600 mn in Entertainment, Internet, Hospitality industry/Tourism, Mass media, Healthcare/hospitals, Public health, Information technology, Gambling, Retail sales, Franchising, Real estate, Financial services like Banking & Insurance & Professional services like Accountancy & Legal services, So that solves your problem of jobs, basically all we have to do is adjust to the fact that humans will not always be the most intelligent species on the planet and AI will prove it as it is. The problem than would be this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Troubles_of_the_World I'm kidding the Work would be divided amongst the AI too cos there would be many of them and not a single one LOL & maybe is should muck around and reduce the number of jobs cos not everyone will work, some would still live in family, some would retire, kids wont work and stuff and maybe add defense too which should be fully automated too with a laser on a sattelite for most world powers keeping the peace like it should..
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46:00 shows perfectly how he has no real answers for them and is just wasting their time. Left believes that creation itself is a goal, but we all know that it is being best that matters. To create BEST product you need billions to reward everyone working at it. Same with his six different communicators, we don't need this many, otherwise we would have them. Only real answers he gave are those already written decades ago. Waste of time.
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For all it's sophistication and master minds Google is about annoying people by stereotyping who they are through algorithms and selling junk made in China to people. I don't think it has a "vision" beyond making money through advertising revenue. It's A.I. obsessions are I think the religion of the cult who run it.
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Glastonbury may sell out in three hours, but one cannot live on that income alone. And there's no saying you'd be accepted into it every year. What a stressful and exhausting way to make a living.
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It sounds like we're totally fucked.
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Hmmm Paul applauds Google for addressing diversity, yet all questions and interaction from white males, except a female hands out the microphone.
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paul mason still trying to solve the problems the world whilst still trying to retain the use of money......got to get rid of money...
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I work an organic garden. We give food away to the local soup kitchen. The land we are using was abandoned and a notorious local fly tipping zone. I'm on benefits and I don't want to be bullied into doing something else. The only reason I even need the benefits is to pay the capitalist landlord and the community tax. I'm not gonna work to make the Barclays or Phillip Green nor any other person wealthier, especially when there are more and more people around me who aren't doing well.
We are just gonna bypass this corporatism. It's already starting. Food is free. -
If by what you say about Post-capitalism is correct, can we see an adaption of the Wizard of Oz in terms of this epochal change be written some time in the future?
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paul mason is an arsehole..
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I don't understand what his point about the dramatic disparity between the number of plays a solo artist must get on a single track on iTunes and Spotify has to do with the argument that effective competition will necessarily serve to reduce prices.
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Wonder what happens to economics if we just grow up and abandon the Monetary System and agree it makes sense to share. Evolution of thought ? Are we ready ?
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For all you Socialists... Stop blaming the "boogey man capitalist" for your failure in life. Become a strong individualist, self improve and be a success. Sucking on the Government Tit and eating their free cheese will never improve your life. Stop being weak crying out for someone to take care of you. Grow up and be adults.
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The first questioner reacts to Mason's "..being richer and denser", by saying how can that be the case when he stands on a platform with 100 strangers all on their cell phones commuting to work.. Obviously the information age has brought with it alienation in the way migration from the country to the city did much the same, but... Mason is talking about engagement with ideas. The ideas he is engaged in appear richer and deeper, he uploads and downloads these ideas transmitting them across the network. His engagement with humans is not the same, but the engagement is just transplanted to another site: The Screen.
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Christ, google is basically a huge corporate university where the workers are researchers.
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This guy is talking in riddles and never pins himself down. "Major things happen every 40 years" - that is his theory.
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just finished reading PostCapitalism. well worth the time to gain other perspectives on how we live and how we could live. Nonetheless, I was disappointed he didn’t include animal exploitation and environmental damage caused by it. He correctly identifies many of the dangers facing humanity and writes it’s absurd that we can change from a 40,000 year old system of gender oppression, but not see the utopia of a revised economic system. Yet he doesn’t see beyond carbon damage to the bred animal pollution. Worse, he writes of automating society to free humans from work, but includes “meat-packing” machines. Should slaughter be by machine too? I like much of what he writes, but he should consider detrimental aspects of the energy and economics of animals as food… meatless eating is a solution addressing many of the issues raised in his book. Good book nonetheless.
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We need new ideas a different way to run our society.Paul knows it is like a vicous cicle.Boom bust wars and then we start again.
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an interesting recent essay on this issue: The Discreet Charm of Economic Growth (http://www.amazon.com/Discreet-Charm-Economic-Growth-Bilinguals-ebook/dp/B01CWCV4WG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460213954&sr=8-1&keywords=the+discreet+charm+of+economic+growth)
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I cannot listen to any more of this guy's ramblings. He sounds like he needs to get out more, like he's living in the ideas inside his head from books. I have no idea what he's even trying to say. Whew....