@hosford42
I absolutely agree that the root of the problem is an economic one, and things must be dealt with there in order to be properly fixed. However I don't think that we can reform the market system in a way that will prevent this from happening again. I think that as long as we use a money based system, people will find ways to accumulate it, as well as use it to subvert any laws we enact to prevent it. That's how we got here in the first place. It would only be making things a little better for a little while.

But even if we could do that, our troubles are deeper than that. Because we have long been capable of producing a much higher standard of living for everyone, but continuing to use a scarcity-based economic system, not only have we been simply keeping most people poorer than they need to be, but we have been wasting massive amounts of resources in doing so, resulting in the environmental degradation we are seeing the results of everywhere. We have to ditch the outdated system that is creating artificial scarcity by its very nature and employ a modern, scientific system that was designed for this very problem, that has both sustainability and efficiency built right in. Howard Scott's Technocracy is such a system: https://www.technate.org/tiki-index.php?page=IB28
The result would be no more environmental degradation (by whatever countries use this anyway), no rich or poor classes, a much higher standard of living for everyone, very little work needed to produce that standard of living, and much more.
#Technocracy #Technate

@JeremyMallin
Yes, that is certainly what we deserve. However, while it may be theoretically possible to make every such entity non-profit, as long as money exists there will always be the temptation to find ways to circumvent and eventually change the laws to allow accumulation of profit again. We've already seen this happen. The Soviet Union made profit illegal, and backed it up with a brutal dictatorship, and it still succumbed to this temptation, changing the laws bit by bit until it became the kleptocracy it is now.

What is needed is to change the rules of the game entirely, from a method of exchange to one of distribution. That would make accumulation of wealth require physical effort, and thus greatly reduce how much can be done. Combine that with a post-scarcity society (yes, we can do that today, and have been able to for nearly a century now), and the motivation to do this virtually disappears.

Fortunately, we have such a system already developed, one that takes into consideration all the problems one might think of having read just what I've written above: https://www.technate.org/tiki-index.php?page=Begin
#Technocracy #Technate

@obtener
Inexcusable since America has had the resources and technology to provide all of its citizens with a high standard of living for about a century now.
https://www.technate.org/tiki-index.php?page=IB28
#Technocracy #Technate

@jessta @MorpheusB @MrLee
This sounds more like you're describing Howard Scott's Technocracy. In that system, the efficiency of all production and services is maximized in order to give everyone the highest standard of living possible, while as the same time freeing them from any work that they don't want to do by breaking the link between labor and that standard of living. So just like you said, everyone gets the best possible housing, health care, education, etc., because we are more than capable of it, and have been for a while now.
https://www.technate.org/tiki-index.php?page=Begin
#Technocracy #Technate

@ubi4me
Your first paragraph basically describes Howard Scott's Technocracy, which we could have had for almost a century now. Instead, we have a society that is using technology in almost all the wrong ways, like AI (as you show here). But this idea can't happen until enough people know about it (that really is the only thing holding us back), so until then, UBI would be a big help to almost everybody until we can get that going.

Plus I think that it would help demonstrate the idea that investing in people beforehand without expecting anything in return actually gives a greater "return on investment" (in the general sense, not just profits) than making them have to pay for the things they need to be able to thrive. This idea is integral to Technocracy.
https://www.technate.org/tiki-index.php?page=Begin
#Technocracy #Technate

@bixfrankonis
A big part of the sadness of the situation is that--at least in North America and possibly elsewhere--we have the technology and resources to provide *everyone* with a high standard of living, regardless of contribution, all while making work as we know it virtually obsolete. And it wouldn't even be hard to do. It wouldn't require AI, or nanotechnology, or even humanoid robots. In fact we could have had it decades ago. Our biggest obstacle is just that most people don't know this.
#technocracy #technate

@dave
I'll have to give this a look. I originally learned about this topic from Howard Scott's Technocracy, written about almost 100 years ago.
#technocracy #technate

@elaurian
And the fun irony is, that when you set up the system to value people intrinsically instead of for their contributions, many of them suddenly will be able to contribute more. 😲

#ubi #technocracy #technate

@paco @Sheril
The problem is the system itself, because it promotes and rewards bad behaviour. You need to change the rules of the game so that better behaviour is allowed to thrive, and then we can let scientists and engineers do what they were trained to do. The best system I've found for that was devised by a team of top engineers, scientists and other experts of various fields called The Technical Alliance, and they called their system Technocracy, long before it's meaning was changed to what you may know it as now. They picked it because it means "rule by skill", in other words, get the politicians and business people out of the way and let the experts just do their thing of making people's lives better. More information here: https://www.technate.org
#technocracy #technate

"Mr. #Musk’s grandfather was also a flamboyant leader of the political movement known as #technocracy.

"Leading #technocrats proposed replacing democratically elected officials and civil servants — indeed, all of government — with an army of scientists and engineers under what they called a #technate. Some also wanted to annex Canada and Mexico."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/elon-musk-doge-technocracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE8.DkY0.xuUNqvaLaS8R&smid=url-share
#USpol #technosolutionism #oligarchy #TechBros #techOligarchs #FarRight #SiliconValleyRight #ElonMusk #JoshuaHaldeman

Have you ever wondered why the USA suddenly wants to conquer Greenland?

Eva Visser is researching the ‘technocrats’, an American movement from the 1930s. Much of what this group wanted to achieve is resurfacing these days.
#technocrats #technate #musk
https://michaelrasche.eu/technate/

Interesting read about Elon Musk’s technocracy movement and old map of USA from 1930.

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/udland/2025-03-17-et-92-aar-gammelt-kort-deles-igen-og-igen-i-usa?

Is this what Elon Musk is going for? 🧐

#ElonMusk #Technocracy #Technate #Politics #DonaldTrump

Just going to hypothesize something here... for posterity and accountability to weird strategic thoughts I have when I try to channel this Musk creep. The tech-bro's have already taken over. That is why they are now sending the DOGE teams with armed escorts and guns to smash small offices of the government. Trump is the vindictive figurehead. It's the tech lords running the show, and they're going to do a deal with China to get rid of Putin.

🇨🇳 🇺🇸 🔀 🇷🇺

I'm open to the possibility of something beyond shocking happening. There have already been rumors of revaluing the gold at Fort Knox, restructuring the debt, a national cryptocurrency...

What about, a merger / joint venture with China and the US becomes a total one-party state, USA Inc. They'll leave the illusion of elections, and the Dems will continue to be the useful idiots as they have been for a decade.

The game is no longer Dem vs. Rep. There will be no normal midterms. The struggle at the top is between the Christian Nationalists, the technofascist (Nation State) crowd, and the MAGA base that Bannon leads. Think of Bannon's people as the brown shirts they'll eventually use to silence dissent.

Imagine a chip-access deal or some sort of organized takeover of Taiwan (stripping the island of its sovereignty in Trump fashion) over a set period of time for USA, Inc. to be able to scale semiconductor fabs.

The culture war is a distraction. The rich are stealing the future. :earth: :NoNazis: :ExtinctionRebellion: :NonCommercialUS:

#hypothetical #Technology #TechNate #Musk #thiel #Andreessen #Ellision #uspol #feudalism #technofeudalism #ai #solarpunk

These people are gross...

From Drilled News
 
"What if instead of countries there were just a bunch of regions controlled by corporations? Srinivasan posits. Ah, "disrupting" democracy with...feudalism! I'm sorry but as someone who reported on cleantech during the dot-com boom and watched startups "disrupt" everything from laundry to taxis, making all such services worse for people and more profitable for one annoying douchebag, it's hard to take these ideas seriously.

And yet, we must, because for years now Thiel, Andreeson et al have been talking about their disdain not just for democracy, but also for the United States, the dollar, the rights of anyone they deem beneath them, and for the very idea of a "common good." And because they now have an enormous amount of control over not just the U.S. government but several others, and are moving to enact their plans.

...I think it's tough for some folks to wrap their heads around the idea that there are people out there who aren't just self-interested, but actually see self-interest as a virtue. Who do not in fact want to be in a society with you. Who genuinely don't care if they harm the public in their pursuit of whatever they want because they believe they are past such concepts as "the public interest," that they have evolved beyond such things. That there are folks who think feudalism and colonialism are the future so long as they're enabled by AI and crypto, that eugenics is a good idea that just got a bad rap, that if you're smart enough you can cheat death, and that most people are too dumb to know they're serfs.
This is the ideology we're dealing with, any strategy to reverse course must take that into account."

https://drilled.ghost.io/network-state/

#endgame #dontbeaserf #uspol #technofascist #technate

@JustTooOdd
I think that anyone that's been following the Political Compass for the last 10 or more years could see this coming. Anyone familiar with what Technocracy (www.technate.org) has been saying for nearly a century would say that this was inevitable, without adopting a non-monetary economic system like Technocracy. The opportunity for changing course is closing fast. Democracy has proven unable to stop this kind of power grab, as we were warned it would be. Both this article and the Political Compass show that this is happening around the world, not just in the US. It is just the nature of the monetary Price System.
#technocracy #technate

#wisconsin #wi #usa #elonmusk #nazi #elon #musk #supremecourt #courts #legal #law #oligarch #technocrat #technate #midwest #greatlakes #us
https://www.commondreams.org/news/wisconsin-supreme-court-elon-musk