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Comment by blacksmith_tb | Hacker News Reader

The problem with a vision of robots manufacturing things for 'wizards' seems to me that it replaces the production side of our current system, but not the consumption side. If we are all made redundant, how will we buy their wares? Or, if you take the more sanguine view, why would they need to make them at all if no one would buy them? Either way, it would be a dramatically unbalanced arrangement...

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They don't need anyone to buy their wares if they are self reliant and can produce everything they need. We're not talking about making more and faster cell-phones with less labour, we're talking about a small group of people making everything they need without the need for any labour at all.

That might not be a "handful" of people, but it's certainly a smaller number than our current population.

Who needs coal miners if we have all the cheap solar we can use? Who needs farmers if we automate farming? Who needs drivers, maids, schoolteachers, cooks, etc. if we can have the machines do it for us?

Who needs lawyers if our disputes are simply settled by some AI judge? Who needs cops if our streets are patrolled by security robots and we have a Minority Report style crime-prediction system.

In a way, it's paradise -- if you're at the top.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure they suggest democracy as we know it is dead. One person, one vote? Only in an age of massed human warfare. If you can take out a million or a billion people with high-tech biological warfare (and those people aren't producing anything anyway) what good are they and why do they deserve the vote?

Not saying it's right, but the logic of megapolitical violence is cruel and unyielding. It's quite the lens.

So where does everybody go when their jobs have been eliminated? What will young people do to make themselves valuable and provide for themselves and their families?

Eventually the losers in this equation will risk everything to correct the inequality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Muammar_Gaddafi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

Technology has radically shifted the kill gap. A more technologically advanced soldier can kill exponentially more combatants who have less technology.

And that gap is just getting bigger and bigger until we get rid of that soldier entirely and he is replaced by a robot or drone swarm.

18 U.S. soldiers to 300 enenmys dead(20 years ago) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993)

4000 to 24,000 enemys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

That kill gap is just getting bigger and bigger as the years go by.

American soldiers can use I.R. to 'see through walls'...how can a guy with an AK47 and a canteen compete with that.

To be honest, they might be impressive figures but the whole military campaign has been quite a failure. Maybe the solider is able to kill more, but it doesn't seem like much has been accomplished.

It's because the goal isn't killing and they're not allowed to use the vast majority of their power.

What's going on with the numbers you quoted here.

Battle of Mogadishu is a 16:1 kill ratio, where as the Iraq war is 6:1 as you've written it.

I'm confused.

Sorry haha posted it in a hurry. Those were meant as equivalent examples of modern kill gaps. You see kill gaps increase historically everytime a group gets a more advanced technology, i.e. chariot, phalanx, rifleman, airplane.

The problem is...back to O.P.'s comment...we're getting to the point where a battle can be won with 'wizards in a tower' the technology is so advanced soldiers wont even be needed. drone/hellfire missile, a tomahawk missile...drone swarms, remote tanks, etc. This seems pretty much unbeatable to an armed force who has to put actual human beings on the field.

One was a short battle, the other was an occupying and peace keeping force from almost day 1.

> how can a guy with an AK47 and a canteen compete with that.

suicide attacks (bombs, airplanes, nuclear radiation) ...which is exactly what we see today.

Yeah but as the military gets more automated, and we're seeing it already with drones, hellfire missiles, tomahawks, autonomous tanks, the 'wizards in a tower' will not be affected by those.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/show-daily/ausa-glo...

But that is a nuisance more than the ability to own/maintain control.

not one person, a group acting without concern for the individual. sacrifice, die for the greater good. turn the enemy's strength against them.

In regards to your links, take a look at Syria, especially Aleppo. Look what brutal application of airpower without regard to collateral damage can accomplish. In the scenario that the posters above are talking about, the winners will have vastly more killing power at their disposal.

In addition, the likelihood is that this killing won't even be ordered by a human. The AI will detect that the masses are revolting and start killing people until either the revolt stops or all the people are are eliminated. Those at the top will be blissfully unaware that this is even happening.

'All the people'? I find it hard to visualize a future where NOBODY is in charge. Why would AI do anything? Why would it care about some pesky humans?

So if somebody is in charge, you are talking about a difference between the haves and the have nots. The natural result is the have nots deminishing until they are gone, but I think human politics inside the have demographic will be just as treacherous .. rife with in-fighting and similar territorial disputes.

Sort of a might makes right situation where power is seized or transferred in an 'orderly' way.

>and we have a Minority Report style crime-prediction system.

Off topic but since you mentioned it... I was so disappointed when the prediction system turned out to be just magic and no technology at all.

Funny, to me it's the opposite; one can't imagine such a fantastic technology without making it sound like magic anyway, and I respect PKD for avoiding the inevitable technobabble-laden "explanations" of how it would work.

I understand your reaction but the movie was supposed to be a dystopian view of future technology and this "technology" was the central concept of the movie, not some peripheral interesting idea. The entire structure was built on a mushy foundation, in my mind anyway.

Exactly we are a consumer based economy. Robots don't wear blue jeans, the most important job we do is consuming.

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