[Comrade_Boris]

Techno-socialism is key to the sucess of the revolution and the emancipation of man. Our destiny is to live like kings, a paradise on earth with unlimited energy, and highly roboticised industry and services. Co-existing with a green and healthy environment due to the target population of 1.5 billion people on earth.

There will still be workers, the bulk of the population will be employed in maintaining the robots. And there will be the core services, a government, admistrators, police, and army, health care employees, and other engineers, scientists and technicians.

People will be free to work less, more time for play and study. Or to debate planning issues in the city district people comittee.

[briansmith]

Are you certain that this is the case?

It occurs to me that, with extensive automation through robotics, there will be less jobs for the people. This is fairly obvious, no?

That being said, what happens to those people who are out of work as a result of the robotics?

Generally speaking, under Communism, people receive what they need and what they deserve. Without working, it's hard to judge what they DESERVE, and, if only some people are working, those who are working hard have the possibility of being frustrated (in a pure back-stabbing capitalist way) and taking out that frustration on those who don't work.

In a perfect Communist society though, those who are working would be receiving more than the people who don't anyway, so I guess in the end my entire point is moot.

:)

[Comrade_Boris]

People will not necessarily be out of work. Everyone who can work, will still have a job but the working day will be shorter. And the working week will be 4 days. There are always things that need to be done, it wont come to the situation of people becoming unemployed because of the robotic automation. If it does come to that, their job can merely be to report in at their local city planning comitee for 4 days a week, and from their they can be mobilised to help any areas of the city labour forces that need a hand. Alternatively they could be trained in new skills, while being payed the standard wage during the duration of the training.

However, people in the core important high-skill labour sectors, may still have to work a 40hr week. Depending on how many people there are who are able to do the work. If there is a surplus of skilled labour then we can look into reducing their working week too.

It is important that such people are rewarded and have incentive to develop their skills to such a level. Better wages, etc. I do not see this as capitalistic. After all, they have earned it as the people as a whole benefit from them.

[Ixa]

Techno-socialism is key to the sucess of the revolution and the emancipation of man. Our destiny is to live like kings, a paradise on earth with unlimited energy, and highly roboticised industry and services. Co-existing with a green and healthy environment due to the target population of 1.5 billion people on earth.

There will still be workers, the bulk of the population will be employed in maintaining the robots. And there will be the core services, a government, admistrators, police, and army, health care employees, and other engineers, scientists and technicians.

People will be free to work less, more time for play and study. Or to debate planning issues in the city district people comittee.

Yes, a world in which all physical labour is replaced with mental "labour". This is the world for which I dream; nevertheless, it is quite utopian.

[A_Technocrat]

Yes, a world in which all physical labour is replaced with mental "labour". This is the world for which I dream; nevertheless, it is quite utopian.

I share that dream, also. Even with our current level of technology this would be 'utopian'. But, with Technocracy's ability to allocate more resources to science (as well to everything else) and its goal to replace all 'man-hours' with 'kilowatt-hours', I can say that Technocracy has the most drive and best plan to achieve this goal.

BTW - have you ever checked out the Trans-human websites?

[Vassili Zaitsev]

But isn't anyone here worried about a "Terminator" scenario where machines take over the earth?

[A_Technocrat]

But isn't anyone here worried about a "Terminator" scenario where machines take over the earth?

Um, I was talking about Trans-human websites and not some AI/robot worshiping cult. Trans-human refers to humans augmented with technology to live longer and better. The 'Terminator' scenario was just an intelligent machine that took over the earth and has nothing to do with this.

I encourage you to take a look at this website: http://www.transhumanism.org after you look over the Technocracy links that Kolzene has provided.

[A_Technocrat]

I'm sure that if these people knew about Technocracy, they'd be quite happy about it. After all, it is a technology itself, and they want to embrace technology, so I say let 'em. They aren't going to acheive their goals in a scarcity limited Price System, that's for sure.

As expected I would have to totally agree with you there. Technocracy would be one of the *most* important technologies they can embrace.

As for your statement: "if everyone thought like [transhumans], things would be better."

I wonder if Technocracy's main premise is: 'if North America used our plan, things would be better.' ?

[A_Technocrat]

Or I guess if we treated North America like a technology (or used a technology to operate it) things would be better. I like things short and succinct. I feel I understand it better if can put it that way. Please bear with me if I keep missing the point.

Although we should just PM each other if it's that way.

[deceasedcomrade]

Well isnt technocracy sort of what marx said would be nessicary when he made the prerequesite of a industrial nation for communism? At that time a job we might consider menial would have been middle class because of the lower technology and thus with the improving technology there is a higher standard for a "good job". With a technocratical state communism would be able to thrive because if everyone has a good plan of what they need to do and what resources are available then the work towards the common good is more direct and with a better plan then the ill fated soviet 5 and 10 year plans. Those plans were a timely predicessor to technocratical plans for production. without those plans the communist state really cant exist without a directorate of where the state is going with the raw resources available to it.

[Metal Gear]

Some would argue the opposite is true. Simply keep people oppressed, and lower their ability to resist, and that can suceed. Pol Pot is such an example.

The only way communism could succeed without oppression is through technocracy.

[Metal Gear]

The debate in the past about economic systems has been between Marxist-Leninism/Communism and Capitalism. These ideologies do not dispute the idea of scarcity of resources; they merely dispute the idea of how to allocate the scare resources.

Technocracy is a way of saying "hold on a second, there is a better way." By orienting a society towards innovation in the way that it extracts and processes resources, and by minimizing the need for resources, scarcity may be able to be reduced. A dictatorship may be useful for implementing the transition from the past to the future (Hussein, Stalin 5 year plan), but the end goal is not Marxist-Leninism, even if a socialist stage is utilized to counteract the leg iron of greedy corporations who see innovation as a threat. Once the old-fashioned reactionaries are out of the picture, socialism becomes irrelevant, hence technocracy cannot be seen as Communism even if it may or may not utilize socialism. Technocracy can be seen as an ideology on its own merit, separate from capitalism and Marxist-Leninism. The government and free market need to be both kept in check, to stop monopolization, with technocrats leading in authoritarian fashion from top to bottom.