The tendency of tech society is tyranny

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Technology has leverage, like finance. I like that SM.........

Human beings never were entirely self-contained protein units. That's a conceit fostered from the enlightenment onwards and the American psyche is full up with that toff. Now, as good lil' Last Men, we're gonna try and be as happy as a toad in a hole and utterly clueless on how social dynamics work. On a basic level you limp onwards, but on an amped-up version that technology and global economics provide?....... good luck.....'>.........

[Ibrahim]

Ah, but the migrations you are speaking of are what happened yesterday. Today, as the massive government stimulus that was the Chinese response to the financial crisis of 07/08 recedes, problems loom. Already the ghost cities are everywhere. The expansion of yesteryear has given way to indications of a reverse migration. The Chinese were undercut by Singapore, who lost to Bangladesh, who will lose to Sony and Honda.

As automation increases, it will be a matter of far more than farmers that must be disposed. Drivers, stockmen, maids, mechanics, possibly pace Watson even doctors and lawyers. What do you do with all the bartenders?

You make it so they can't help but fail, steal their labor from them, and cement the power of tyrants.

Ghost cities are a product of excessive building developments, not reverse migration. Nobody goes back to the sticks in China except to visit during the New Year festival.

As for the Chinese dominance in manufacturing being short-term, I agree that this is true but I don't see how its different than anywhere else. Automation put American factory workers out of jobs while "production" increased, and it will happen everywhere else. You try to soak up the losses in other sectors of the economy and/or you end up with Marx's urban proletariat of un/under-employed laborers. But you don't go back to the farms. You see hobby-farming among enthusiasts, and that's great, and you see niche market farming for high end foodies, and that's great, but for the most part farming is industrialized and automated like everything else and we are not going back to agrarianism without some sort of massive science fiction catastrophe. There are no more farmers.

[Demon of Undoing]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

[Ibrahim]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

[Nonc Hilaire]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

N
Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Penitentiaries sell slave labor at slightly less than free market rates to crop sugar cane, lumber, printing industry and telemarketing and then pocket the difference. In states where penitentiaries have been privatized, there are contracts ensuring a minimum workforce which can always be filled by drug arrests.

[monster_gardener]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

N
Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Penitentiaries sell slave labor at slightly less than free market rates to crop sugar cane, lumber, printing industry and telemarketing and then pocket the difference. In states where penitentiaries have been privatized, there are contracts ensuring a minimum workforce which can always be filled by drug arrests.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Nonc.........

In states where penitentiaries have been privatized, there are contracts ensuring a minimum workforce which can always be filled by drug arrests.

Not always........

Recall seeing a program about prison privatization where it didn't work out very well.......

They built a prison and the prisoners didn't come!

I think this is the one:

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/display ... eSupport=1

PLN recently reported on the plight of Hardin, Montana, a middle-of-nowhere town with a population of 3,500 located in Big Horn County about an hour’s drive east of Billings. Hardin made national headlines last April when the city, desperate to find prisoners to fill its vacant 464-bed correctional facility, offered to take maximum-security terrorist detainees housed at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [See: PLN, October 2009, p.28].

[Ibrahim]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

N
Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Penitentiaries sell slave labor at slightly less than free market rates to crop sugar cane, lumber, printing industry and telemarketing and then pocket the difference. In states where penitentiaries have been privatized, there are contracts ensuring a minimum workforce which can always be filled by drug arrests.

But that doesn't entirely offset the cost of construction and operation. They still take government money in the form of contracts to build/operate. The slave labor is the cherry on top.

At least as far as I know, if they've found a way to make the whole thing a moneymaker then they have successfully re-instituted slavery.

[Enki]

The new caste system:

Root
Admin
Moderator
User

[Enki]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Cutting services to the plebes is more expensive as prisoners get far better and more expensive treatment than a free plebe out on the open market. And since the plebescite is losing its market power, it will increasingly turn to crime as a way to make up for the shortfalls in the system. So ultimately the prison structure is more expensive than simply putting people on welfare.

[Enki]

Does anyone remember what I did to Geotima back at the Spengler forum? That was a very transformational experience for me as it showed me how much information I could glean from a person relying upon a very small dataset. Each datum you have on your subject increases your ability to gather more data on the subject exponentially. I used anecdotal data points to find her. "I live in a famous artsy town in the Southwest.", that narrowed it to San Francisco, Sedona, Boulder, Santa Fe and Taos. Then she said it was snowing at a particular time, so I looked up the date of her posting and where it was snowing on that day. She freaked out and thought I hacked her IP. That data right there that I just described was the TOTALITY of the information I used to say, "You live in Taos.", and watch her go apoplectic.

[Ibrahim]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Cutting services to the plebes is more expensive as prisoners get far better and more expensive treatment than a free plebe out on the open market. And since the plebescite is losing its market power, it will increasingly turn to crime as a way to make up for the shortfalls in the system. So ultimately the prison structure is more expensive than simply putting people on welfare.

I agree entirely. Its a combination of ideology and effective lobbying that those public funds go to prisons rather than programs that prevent people going to prison. The statistics of US crime and corrections vs. any other Western nation bears this out, unless a person wants to go the "yeah, but blacks..." route.

Arguably the private profitability of prisons is a kind of technology, and relies on certain technologies, and I think the for-profit prison complex fits nicely into DoU's theory of techno-totalitarianism.

Arguably totalitarianism itself is a product of the modern (i.e. 20th century) era.

[monster_gardener]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Cutting services to the plebes is more expensive as prisoners get far better and more expensive treatment than a free plebe out on the open market. And since the plebescite is losing its market power, it will increasingly turn to crime as a way to make up for the shortfalls in the system. So ultimately the prison structure is more expensive than simply putting people on welfare.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Tinker.

prisoners get far better and more expensive treatment than a free plebe out on the open market.

This can sometimes be true and has been so for decades.... Recalling people deliberately committing crimes to be placed in prison and get dental care......


However the conditions in prison can be otherwise hazardous to your health........

Food wise especially...... Remembering Gordon Liddy talking about his time in the slammer.........

Ass well as the obvious stuff like soap in the shower......

And generally living with somewhat more Depraved than usual Sinful Egotistical Chaos Monkeys in Cages........

And then there is Joe Arpaio's jail...... ........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio#Jails

And it could get worse.......... AIUI in China prisons/prisoners sometime serve as Organ Banks/Involuntary Organ donors.........

Recalling this timeline........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organleggi ... nk_problem


Note also that:

Arpaio also started the "Have a Heart" program in which inmates may volunteer to be organ donors.

[Enki]

Monster Gardener The individual may want to stay out of prison, but my point was that it was more expensive to the state on a per capita basis.

[monster_gardener]

Monster Gardener The individual may want to stay out of prison, but my point was that it was more expensive to the state on a per capita basis.

Thank You Very Much for your kind reply, Tinker.

You are probably correct under the current system unless the cost is balance against the damage some criminals due to property or people.

But that is not a fixed given.

I have read that the Penitentiary was an invention of the Quakers who wanted an alternative to try to reform criminals as opposed to retributive punishments which many of the other colonials preferred because they were cheap and quick: stocks, pillory, whipping, branding, hanging etc.....

Stuff like that or worse could come back.......

Such as Organ Banking.....

One of my points is currently sometimes individuals want to get into prison to access the medical especially dental services...

BTW IMHO Medical tourism to Mexico is a better alternative.

[Enki]

The issue is the end of jobs as we know them. In the interim we are going to see a spike in mass incarceration. We'll probably get to the point where 1 out of every 20 Americans is in prison.

[monster_gardener]

The issue is the end of jobs as we know them. In the interim we are going to see a spike in mass incarceration. We'll probably get to the point where 1 out of every 20 Americans is in prison.

Thank You Very Much for your post, Tinker.

We'll probably get to the point where 1 out of every 20 Americans is in prison.

Perhaps it could go even higher.........

Recalling a planet in the Venus On the Half Shell (by Kilgore Trout/Phillip Jose Farmer) timeline where the whole planet was in prison except for the Last Free Man.....The Warden

http://www.amazon.com/review/RJ47TD5N2A ... tore=books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_on_the_Half-Shell

[Ibrahim]

Does anyone remember what I did to Geotima back at the Spengler forum? That was a very transformational experience for me as it showed me how much information I could glean from a person relying upon a very small dataset. Each datum you have on your subject increases your ability to gather more data on the subject exponentially. I used anecdotal data points to find her. "I live in a famous artsy town in the Southwest.", that narrowed it to San Francisco, Sedona, Boulder, Santa Fe and Taos. Then she said it was snowing at a particular time, so I looked up the date of her posting and where it was snowing on that day. She freaked out and thought I hacked her IP. That data right there that I just described was the TOTALITY of the information I used to say, "You live in Taos.", and watch her go apoplectic.

I think that was before my time, but didn't you also figure out who Spengler was like years before he announced it?

[noddy]

i dare say that for the near future it wont be much of a problem for most people and the west will become indistinguishable from the east in terms of freedom - some of us think that already.

provided you dont upset TPTB (private or public) you will get away with most opinions no matter how odious they may be... if you somehow get popular or viral then you will suffer.

its always been that way to a certain extent and now it will just be "more so" .

how long this lasts is absolutely tied to the percentages of society which are content with the status quo and provided that percentage remains high enough it can go on for a long time indeed...

stay irrelevant, stay free

[Enki]

Does anyone remember what I did to Geotima back at the Spengler forum? That was a very transformational experience for me as it showed me how much information I could glean from a person relying upon a very small dataset. Each datum you have on your subject increases your ability to gather more data on the subject exponentially. I used anecdotal data points to find her. "I live in a famous artsy town in the Southwest.", that narrowed it to San Francisco, Sedona, Boulder, Santa Fe and Taos. Then she said it was snowing at a particular time, so I looked up the date of her posting and where it was snowing on that day. She freaked out and thought I hacked her IP. That data right there that I just described was the TOTALITY of the information I used to say, "You live in Taos.", and watch her go apoplectic.

I think that was before my time, but didn't you also figure out who Spengler was like years before he announced it?

No, someone else did and told me about it.

But anyone willing to read every online paper about Rosenzweig could have figured it out.

[Demon of Undoing]

My point exactly. They do not go back to the farm. In China, they go to camps of unemployed and possibly back to the old villages to spread discontent as shiftless, uppity extra labor that will never be married. I am thinking in was an Esquire piece that spoke of this. I will find it shortly.

But I agree with your assessment. No amount of professional malleability will make up for the fact that the unemployed simply isn't high- end AI, and this will do nothing but get worse. That's why the perpetual criminal system ( note: NOT justice system) is a thing of beauty. You don't need to employ than. They are employment when they're put into tiny little boxes. At that point, you can just have them bust rocks. They won't be much trouble.

Well coping with a discontented population is the basic game of all government through history. I haven't yet seen a solution that appeared to be workable long-term. But then civilization hasn't collapsed yet so who knows?

The prison system in the US is an interesting method that I don't think has been tried before (Stalin's gulags, the only historical comparison, had a different motivation). The problem I see is that the prison system, while privately profitable, is still a public expense, and the public purse in the US is getting a little strained. In fact that's the interesting question about the entire techno-totalitarian concept: how does it pay for itself? I guess the first step will be cutting all services to the plebs.

Cutting services to the plebes is more expensive as prisoners get far better and more expensive treatment than a free plebe out on the open market. And since the plebescite is losing its market power, it will increasingly turn to crime as a way to make up for the shortfalls in the system. So ultimately the prison structure is more expensive than simply putting people on welfare.

I agree entirely. Its a combination of ideology and effective lobbying that those public funds go to prisons rather than programs that prevent people going to prison. The statistics of US crime and corrections vs. any other Western nation bears this out, unless a person wants to go the "yeah, but blacks..." route.

Arguably the private profitability of prisons is a kind of technology, and relies on certain technologies, and I think the for-profit prison complex fits nicely into DoU's theory of techno-totalitarianism.

Arguably totalitarianism itself is a product of the modern (i.e. 20th century) era.

Well, in reality, prisons change function depending on where on the timeline you are. At first, prisons were used( in addition to holding dangerous people) reinforce racial class structures. This is where it is still very much at today, but prison mutated during this time. It became a way to keep a permanent economic underclass under monitoring and supervision.

But all the while, the real mechanisms of control were being laid on. In the media, in the culture, from all quarters, choices multiplied but all remained in approved- of margins. You don't keep a cow out of trouble by staking in to the ground on a four foot leash. You give it a safe, clean pen to chew its cud. The mechanisms of control that are more subtle than shackles are already doing their work. Playstation civilized New York, not Giulliani. The best chain imaginable is the one a prisoner begs to wear.

[Mr. Perfect]

The issue is the end of jobs as we know them. In the interim we are going to see a spike in mass incarceration. We'll probably get to the point where 1 out of every 20 Americans is in prison.

And they'll be blacks in Democrat cities.

So if jobs are at an end what was the trillions in stpn for.

[Mr. Perfect]

Playstation civilized New York, not Giulliani.

Why didn't playstation civilize Chicago, South Central LA, etc.

[Simple Minded]

stay irrelevant, stay free

truer words have seldom been posted.....

Big Brother knows if you just control the fads the cool kids buy into, the rest of the herd will fall in line (on line?).....

At least that's what Beyoncé said in one of her tweets.....

[Enki]

stay irrelevant, stay free

truer words have seldom been posted.....

Big Brother knows if you just control the fads the cool kids buy into, the rest of the herd will fall in line (on line?).....

At least that's what Beyoncé said in one of her tweets.....

I would argue that you may not have an interest in politics, but politics has an interest in you.

That's the nature of totalitarianism. You might be able to escape it by dying before it reaches your shores, but your children will not.

[Mr. Perfect]

stay irrelevant, stay free

truer words have seldom been posted.....

Big Brother knows if you just control the fads the cool kids buy into, the rest of the herd will fall in line (on line?).....

At least that's what Beyoncé said in one of her tweets.....

"stay irrelevant, stay free "

This is actually an example of not being free, and exposes the errors in the outlook of both posters, SM and noddy. If you aren't willing to actually kill people to be free then you are only ever one of freedom's freeloaders and not a champion of or believer in freedom itself.