article submitted by R.B. Baird
Jeremy Bentham wrote this kind of thing in the 18th to 19th Century.
The RICH Economy
by Robert Anton Wilson
by Robert Anton Wilson
from The Illuminati Papers
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If there is one proposition which currently wins the assent of nearly everybody, it is that we need more jobs. “A cure for unemployment” is promised, or earnestly sought, by every Heavy Thinker from Jimmy Carter to the Communist Party USA, from Ronald Reagan to the head of the economics department at the local university, from the Birchers to the New Left.
I would like to challenge that idea. I don’t think there is, or ever again can be, a cure for unemployment. I propose that unemployment is not a disease, but the natural, healthy functioning of an advanced technological society.
The inevitable direction of any technology, and of any rational species such as Homo sap., is toward what Buckminster Fuller calls ephemeralization, or doing-more-with-less.
For instance, a modern computer does more (handles more bits of information) with less hardware than the proto-computers of the late ’40’s and ’50’s.
One worker with a modern teletype machine does more in an hour than a thousand medieval monks painstakingly copying scrolls for a century.
Atomic fission does more with a cubic centimeter of matter than all the engineers of the 19th Century could do with a million tons, and fusion does even more.
For instance, a modern computer does more (handles more bits of information) with less hardware than the proto-computers of the late ’40’s and ’50’s.
One worker with a modern teletype machine does more in an hour than a thousand medieval monks painstakingly copying scrolls for a century.
Atomic fission does more with a cubic centimeter of matter than all the engineers of the 19th Century could do with a million tons, and fusion does even more.
Unemployment is not a disease; so it has no “cure.”
This tendency toward ephemeralization or doing more-with-less is based on two principal factors, viz:
- The increment-of-association, a term coined by engineer C.H. Douglas, a meaning simply that when we combine our efforts we can do more than the sum of what each of us could do seperately. Five people acting synergetically together can lift a small modern car, but if each of the five tries separately, the car will not budge. As society evolved from tiny bands, to larger tribes, to federations of tribes, to city-states, to nations, to multinational alliances, the increment-of-association increased exponentially. A stone-age hunting band could not build the Parthenon; a Renaissance city-state could not put Neil Armstrong on the Moon. When the increment-of-association increases, through larger social units, doing-more-with-less becomes increasingly possible.
- Knowledge itself is inherently self-augmenting. Every discovery “suggests” further discoveries; every innovation provokes further innovations. This can be seen concretely, in the records of the U.S. Patent Office, where you will find more patents granted every year than were granted the year before, in a rising curve that seems to be headed toward infinity. If Inventor A can make a Whatsit out of 20 moving parts, Inventor B will come along and build a Whatsit out of 10 moving parts. If the technology of 1900 can get 100 ergs out of a Whatchamacallum, the technology of 1950 can get 1,000 ergs. Again, the tendency is always toward doing-more-with-less.
Unemployment is directly caused by this technological capacity to do more-with-less.
Thousands of monks were technologically unemployed by Gutenberg.
Thousands of blacksmiths were technologically unemployed by Ford’s Model T.
Each device that does-more-with-less makes human labor that much less necessary.
Thousands of monks were technologically unemployed by Gutenberg.
Thousands of blacksmiths were technologically unemployed by Ford’s Model T.
Each device that does-more-with-less makes human labor that much less necessary.
Aristotle said that slavery could only be abolished when machines were built that could operate themselves.
Working for wages, the modern equivalent of slavery — very accurately called “wage slavery” by social critics — is in the process of being abolished by just such self-programming machines. In fact, Norbert Wiener, one of the creators of cybernetics, foresaw this as early as 1947 and warned that we would have massive unemployment once the computer revolution really got moving.
Working for wages, the modern equivalent of slavery — very accurately called “wage slavery” by social critics — is in the process of being abolished by just such self-programming machines. In fact, Norbert Wiener, one of the creators of cybernetics, foresaw this as early as 1947 and warned that we would have massive unemployment once the computer revolution really got moving.
One of the things Chris Langan (the smartest man in the world) is promoting aligns with the social justice and feminism of Critical Theory* and which the Hegelian Dialectical forces of social engineering are calling Cultural Marxism. He would like genetics to weed out bad medical and social outcomes which cost a woman all manner of pain (financial as well as emotional) unnecessarily. It is not eugenics as the boob from onemansblog asserts.
I would go far further and insist on parents having taken multiple courses on parenting approaches. I would want existing families to address the Cycle of Violence so rampant in our many varied cultures. That would require a proactive Rainbow Coalition such as Jesse Jackson once promoted but it would have to be implemented with some haste due to burgeoning technological opportunities to implant new mind controls. The chances of a political person saying you have no right to force society to pay for your kids to be wild and crazy deviates like you are – is nil.
Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the reflective assessments and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities. As a term, critical theory has two meanings with different origins and histories: the first originated in sociology and the second originated in literary criticism, whereby it is used and applied as an umbrella term that can describe a theory founded uponcritique; thus, the theorist Max Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.”
In sociology and political philosophy, the term critical theory describes the neo-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which was developed in Germany in the 1930s. Frankfurt theorists drew on the critical methods of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Critical theory maintains that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.
But I can imagine a politician saying what George McGovern started to say – we need a society where people get a guarantee of security and basic wealth through a guaranteed minimum income or negative tax plan. We need to decrease government and managing people in prisons and on welfare or having tax corruption in the IRS and on Wall Street.
J. K. Galbraith was a great economist who documented how society would improve it’s GDP with fewer man hours of wasted work, The Club of Rome experts and Bucky Fuller knew these things our new technologies will allow – long ago.
J. K. Galbraith was a great economist who documented how society would improve it’s GDP with fewer man hours of wasted work, The Club of Rome experts and Bucky Fuller knew these things our new technologies will allow – long ago.
Contrary to what Robert Anton Wilson says about employment and the lack thereof we have many people buying into an attack upon Critical Theory and actual planning for a future with robots doing menial tasks and the resultant improved productivity and wealth.
We get a result which is exactly what these attackers say they do not want when we do not insist upon thinking through a plan to stop runaway religions and attack feminism (thus support Makow and misogyny) or social justice. We get ignorance or dumbocracy!
In Canada we had many attempts to implement the ideas of C. H. Douglas in politics. It was called the Social Credit Party and won a lot of power. In Brian Mulroney’s third bid for election (While ripping off millions – later admitted) he tried a watered down minimum income. In the US Steve Forbes has promoted a flat tax which would cut billions of dollars off the IRS payrolls as well as many other bureaucracies. I say it could tie in with social programs that encourage personal growth and mutual instruction education or caring. Those who do nothing positive (which they like – even writing poetry) will get a different kind of program.