Globalisation.

[peter]

Could it be that globalisation, far from being the demonic force of the 'Occupy' movements envisioning, might actually turn out to be the saviour of the world? We all know the old 'Macdonalds' thing in which it is said that no two countries where the famed golden arches are found will ever go to war, but more seriously with the world actually showing signs of becoming more politically fragmented, might it actually be that commerce will replace political diplomacy as the glue which holds this fragile balancing act of a world together?
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Political genius relies upon extracting success even from the people's ruin. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[Zarathustra]

It's happening. No one can stop it. Of course it will bring the world together. We're a global civilization now.
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Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

[Avatar]

I don't know if "saviour" is the right word, but certainly it's inevitable.

It has its advantages and disadvantages, but I suppose we might as well come to terms with it. I often suspect that something like Gibson's corporate states will eventually be reality.

--A
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It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.

[Zarathustra]

From my link/quote in the anti-American values thread:

[Vraith]

One of those situations where I agree with Z, at least in the broad strokes.
It's gonna happen...the only choices are in how we set it up: centralized and hierarchical or diverse and heterarchical.

If you look at it closely, peter, even the current flux of fragmentation has two characteristics: It's driven mostly by the fear experience of old people and tyrannical/traditional ideologues AND it is global itself.
The main threat/difficulty with ISIS [and the extreme rightist movements] is precisely that they're like Walmart. Outsourced, multinational, connected, aided by billionaires and corrupt financials. [[[OK, Z, might not agree with all that last ... it's probably a BIT much---but only a bit, and fundamentally true. ]]]
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Spoiler:

Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.

the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.

[peter]

Interesting balance between the resigned and the positive in those posts ...... but [not to be too pedantic ] would it be true to say that without the overarching power [not to big a word here I think] of economic ties and forces exerting their mediating influence, we'd actually be entering a pretty scary stage now? Globalisation is not merely advantageous - it's absolutely essential!
_________________
Political genius relies upon extracting success even from the people's ruin. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

I'd say that the forced-choice between Globalism and Localism seems to be a function of badly-posed problems.

Rather, I would say that the living, organic "solution" (a solution which, being living, admits of no perfectly stable equilibrium) is a tension betwixt Universality and Subsidiarity.
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[Ur Dead]

Globalism will only be effective when there is a one world government.
Not before. When you take away the power from a local entity or state then
you have issues.
Look at Brexit, US elections and the problem arising in the EU.
and as it stands baring a super world shaking event. (ie like a pandemic that kills 90% of the world pop.) it isn't going to happen for thousands of years.
(again I'm using the EU as an example as oppose to the US. The US are 50 countries under a single controlling system. They started with 13 and as each state was admitted they agreed to the controlling economic body. it is a micro
global example.)
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What's this silver looking ring doing on my finger?

[hierachy]

I think this is actually a much more complex question than it seems at first. You cannot simply project current trends into the future because we stand on the precipice of an entirely new epoch of technological advancement that will make the rapid societal changes of post-industrialisation seem in comparison like the droning centuries of slow development that preceded it.

It has already begun with the fruits of machine learning enabling the automisation of complex tasks. This field is exploding already and if we can achieve a human level artificial general intelligence then it will go truly supernova. This is happening in conjunction with advancements in synergetic technologies such as robotics and 3D printing.

I don't see how you can have a meaningful discussion about how globalisation may proceed without considering the implications of a radical restructuring of the mechanics of our society due to current technological trends and the tendency towards exponential acceleration of these advancements.

What role will multinational corporations play in a society where human workers are obsolete? What role does the state play, for that matter? This is no longer a question to be reserved for the speculations of science fiction, but rather a very real one that we should be prepared to answer within our own lifetimes.

[peter]

Now that is coming close to the nub of things; that both globalisation and politics are globalising and politicking to a world that is on the cusp of a surge of compressed change the like of which it has never seen before - and are in the main facing backwards in their activities rather than confronting the realities of the world they will in short order find themselves functioning in. The hurdle we face is nothing less than performing a complete re-evaluation of our role in the world and a redefinition of what constitutes a life well lived.
_________________
Political genius relies upon extracting success even from the people's ruin. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[Zarathustra]

Globalization will be most effective without a single, global government. Peter is on the right track, it is our economic ties that bind us together into a somewhat stable equilibrium of competing forces. Capitalism, free markets, division of labor, supply/demand, these are bottom-up structures of organization that are infinitely more efficient, adaptable, and fair than any top-down structure could ever achieve.

Again, it is the logic of nonzero-sum relationships that define how we interact, not bureaucracies. Game theory, not laws and regulations. It is inescapable, like natural selection. It happens whether we know it or not, whether we resist it or not. The world is being organized into a global civilization without us even trying. There is no need for a one-world government to do it for us. In fact, that would just slow it down and make it unfair, taking crony capitalism to a whole new level.

Hierachy, I think the fears of automation are greatly exaggerated, and the ingenuity of humans to develop new kinds of jobs greatly underestimated. Taking humans out of the mechanized workforce--i.e. the kinds of jobs that can be automated--only frees us to do more human, less dehumanizing work. Automation has been happening for decades with virtually zero impact on employment rates. Humans just end up doing more, and our productivity keeps going up. The recent rise in people leaving the workforce has more to do with government intervention the market (e.g. extending unemployment benefits, entitlement programs, etc) rather than people losing work because a machine took their job.

Much as people naively expected computers and the Internet to give us a "paperless office," we are similarly naive to believe that AI and robots will give us a "workerless workplace."
_________________
Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

[hierachy]

[Zarathustra]

Hierachy, I don't deny that we're in for some profound changes. I agree that our basic needs will drop to negligible costs. But this won't eliminate producers and consumers. It will simply shift our consumption from necessities to luxuries. It will be like the luxury packages on cars that eventually make their way into base models (e.g. AC, power windows, air bags).

I've mentioned this before ... we'll simply accelerate the current trend of moving from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. More people will provide services to the masses that are currently considered luxury services. People will be employed in all sorts of crazy, creative, personalized, specialized tasks that will never be taken over by robots.

What are some of these jobs that robots will never replace? Well, for instance customer service. There are many highly intelligent humans that suck at customer service. It doesn't matter how intelligent we make a machine, it will never be able to replace the face-to-face interaction with an empathetic, sentient human who is good at schmoozing. Sales are another. No machine is going to talk you into something. You have no problem telling a machine no. A persuasive human, on the other hand, will always sell rings around an algorithm. One reason is that we care what other humans think of us; there is a psychological dance going on with salesman and customer. We don't care what an algorithm thinks, because it doesn't literally think.

Other types of jobs will be creative, specialized tasks, like a personal chef. Machines will one day be able to mix ingredients to a recipe, but that's not the same as a human cooking a meal just for you. Go to a good sushi restaurant and sit at the bar where they make the food right in front of you, offering you samples and suggesting specials. It's a delightful experience that machine will ever duplicate. You feel pampered and special. You taste things that the chef makes up on the spot. There is spontaneity and creativity, human interaction that will never be replaced.

I highly recommend Michio Kaku's book PHYSICS OF THE FUTURE, in which this theoretical physicist talks about these very issues. He mentions the "caveman principle," the idea that we're always going to be creatures of our evolution, regardless of our technological advances. As such, we'll always value things that our ancestors valued--like human contact, face-to-face interactions where we can read the body language of those with whom we're dealing. It is the caveman principle, he argues, that prevented computers from giving us a paperless office, because humans will always need something in their hand, something real, more than just a digital facsimile. And it is this principle that will limit any future technology, molding it to basic human needs. We'll instinctively reject anything that takes us too far from our roots, even as it carries us to the stars.
_________________
Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do-back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

[Vraith]

[Cail]

Zar, you seem to have come around a bit on this topic.

"Customer service" will largely become a thing of the past though. With the advent of inexpensive 3D printing and other tech, we're not too far off from "replicators" like Star Trek has. When we can make items for ourselves, where does customer service fit in?

Certain things will always be done by humans (great example with the Sushi restaurant), but that's not going to employ 160,000,000 people (our current workforce). Right now, only 63% of that workforce is working. How's that going to get better when there's more people and fewer jobs?

I don't know what the answer is. We're going to automate away most of our jobs, and nearly all of the low-skill, blue-collar ones. I fear that as this happens, we're going to shift to a much more authoritarian style of government where the smart people who perform the essential tasks become the de facto rulers while the rest of us stare at video screens.
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"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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[peter]

Are 'the masses' by their nature, indolent? Given the opportunity - think basic (ie automatic and unworked for) income, free internet, TV etc - would the bulk of us just naturally gravitate into couch potato existence. It's a real possibility: lions in Africa can be fed to a given spot so as to be always on hand when the tourists are brought to see them, and they will only rarely move more than a short distance from that feeding ground. Are we at heart like that - and will the answer to that question be the true deciding factor as to the likely general future for the bulk of people in the face of an ever diminishing need to work?
_________________
Political genius relies upon extracting success even from the people's ruin. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[Cail]

[SoulBiter]

Agreed Cail. History has shown this to be true over and over. Look at the number of people that get locked into a Cycle of welfare addiction, where they dont even try to find a job because the govt dole is too easy. There are some that make it out of those, but many will stay near the 'feeding ground'.
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"He torments himself sufficiently."

**"You can deny if you will but the "hens" didn't just happen to show up when they did, by accident. "***

** Note to add that ALL of the hens have since disappeared***

"All of the above is my opinion and thus shouldnt need to be supported by anything other than more of my opinions. "

We miss you Tracie but your Spirit will always shine brightly on the Watch

[Hashi Lebwohl]

[Avatar]

We're evolutionarily pre-disposed to short-cuts. The less energy we had to expend to meet basic requirements, the better. It's a biological reality.

--A
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It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand.