Robot Tax - Now

Discussion in 'Markets & Economies' started by Holdfast, Mar 16, 2017.

  1. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    "If you're actually interested in the issue of corporate power versus humanity" - actually I'm not interested in the slightest, the notion that corporations are evil, despite the fact that thousands of them function more than effectively in meeting the need of individual consumers, and despite the fact that when most property infractions occur it is because individuals and corporate players collude with our political masters in order to gain special privileges (as do such "eminent" institutions such as Unions, the AMA and Greenpeace) is lost on you indicates I'm wasting my time.

    This assumption is indicative of the ignorance and dangerous mindset that is destroying our social institutions and retarding the wealth of humanity. To attempt to argue that profit is not the most desirable outcome in ensuring that the interests of individuals, and thus civilisation are achieved just shows how ignorant and stupid the leftist position is. Unfortunately, the Left won the hearts and minds of the electorate in most Western nations throughout the whole 20 century. It's why we're so screwed now.

    I don't see much point in expending any more effort on the topic.
     
  2. Dabbler

    Dabbler Member

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    + many for JW ;-)

    "Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make a profit, to put their economic and profit interests first above all else. Clearly, civilization and democracies are not built on the premise that money takes precedent over all else." !!!

    Just eight individuals now have the wealth of our 4B 'poorer' third chimps - & money talks: witness [our] parasitic pollie$!
    Even under our antiquated british adversarial legal system (of [bought] Champions) I'm surprised that corporates can make political donations - buying PROFITABLE outcomes?

    IMHO corporates shouldn't be placed on a legal parity with individuals.
    Shouldn't they serve? ... Not be a holy trinity of mammon, power [& sex] ;-)

    Demos & equality[/fairness]!

    PS: My impression is that modern western corporates are primarily run for the SHORT-TERM benefit of executive$ & board - NOT shareholders?
    No different to pollies everywhere - 'our' self-styled leaders :( :( :(
     
  3. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Actuaries figured that it was more profitable for Ford to pay compensation for fiery deaths caused by rear end collisions in the Pinto, than to recall the model and apply a minor design repair.

    The 140 or so deaths so caused were a consequence of the fiduciary duty of Ford to its shareholders. Morality doesn't appear on balance sheets. Personally, I would execute the CEO for mass murder.

    To simply drop back to "the Left are retarding humanity" seems to be the default cop-out around here.


    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IssR_J0QWr4[/youtube]
     
  4. Stoic Phoenix

    Stoic Phoenix Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    I have posted the below link before but Michael Moore had this Pinto argument with Milton Friedman over 30 years ago and didn't fair too well.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYW5I96h-9w[/youtube]

    Instead of just trying to shut you down as you allude to in your last post I hope you view the healthy discourse above...and its under 7 minutes rather than the near 2.5hr thing you posted.
     
  5. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Isn't that a problem of an individual responding to the incentives relating to the compensation laws? I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that it was people vs companies.

    Worth noting also, that many economists (and non-economists) since that episode have pointed out the flaws with the original analysis and the guy(s) basically made a f***ed up judgement call. They ended up paying waaaay more in legal fees and loss of brand value than what they could possibly have saved from not doing what the hundreds of thousands of other people/companies have done in conducting voluntary recalls.
     
  6. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    @ bordsilver, I haven't forgotten the Rand post, just been distracted.
     
  7. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    "The principle that a million people should starve so that Ford can provide one car that is completely safe"

    I understand young Moore was idealistic and outclassed by a Nobel prize winner. Doesn't absolve Ford of the guilt of those murders. Same way that the James Hardie directors should be pilloried for their actions to avoid payouts to their victims, or the tobacco companies that knowingly continued to pollute tobacco to create addiction and add to the death toll.


    The confusion is that corporatism is capitalism.


    I can walk to Bunnings from my house. I choose to drive to a slightly more expensive old style hardware shop when I need those sort of bits. I can walk to Coles. I choose to drive to a small shopping centre with a grocer and a food store. Why would I make any sort of distinction and choose the specific capitalist ventures to support? Shouldn't those little shops just go out of business? Bunnings and Coles undercut them, even though they use 'postcode pricing' to average out their loss leaders.

    Because corporatism is not capitalism. It's the wolf in sheep's clothes
     
  8. Stoic Phoenix

    Stoic Phoenix Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    ^ In an attempt to get this thread back on track how are you relating this to taxation on robots?

    That point was also covered in their debate

    Im also wondering if you even noticed the glaring flaw in your argument of going out of your way to spend your funds.
    In a conscious effort to avoid handing money to certain corporations you use products made by some of the largest corporations such as your motor vehicle and petroleum products to avoid them. :|

    Obviously you do make some sort of distinction and also choose some corporate ventures to support.
     
  9. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Yes I'm aware of the issue concerning car travel but choose to support, in the main, capitalists versus corporatists. You can only walk as softly as you can. I disposed of a "clean" diesel car (corporate lies!) and would have wrecked it if I could have afforded to. Now I have a "clean" petrol car. Once globalism dies and we go local, I'll get back on a bike.

    The link to robots was a few posts back, concerning Hawking on the potential for corporate greed to create a feudal society by controlling robot resources and rent.
     
  10. Stoic Phoenix

    Stoic Phoenix Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    ^ Hawkings is a physicist not an economist, a taxation expert or a business analyst.
    A theory that shows one extreme possibility out of many made by someone outside of their own field is not grounds for taxation.
     
  11. Big A.D.

    Big A.D. Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    The outcomes? Universal health care, a high standard of public education, child care, welfare for the old and unemployed including cash, food, shelter...electricity...

    So in that respect it's kind of like religion: don't question anything, don't try to mess with God's plan The Market and if you have any problems in your life there will inevitably be a passage from the Book of Mises that will explain why it's your own fault.

    I'd have more respect for Austrian economic theory if it relied a more on empirical evidence and a little less on deductive reasoning. If someone is prepared to expand the Austrian economic school of thought into the Austrian economic school of real life, it might be more interesting. As it stands - and you can take this all the way back to praxeology - you may as well just say "meh, stuff happens", which is a perfectly valid response if the only interest is in observation, but not at all helpful if the world is under threat of being taken over by robots and everything that entails for humanity.

    You implied that it was better for people to be earning money and "working toward greater financial independence" than relying on government welfare.

    If circumstances dictate that robots will be doing so many of the jobs people do now then I don't agree that it will be possible to work for the purpose of greater financial independence. If there's no requirement for labour in order to improve living standards, we'll have to start considering what life will be like when the majority of people working are doing it because they like it and the majority of people who aren't working are being looked after by some kind of social welfare system.

    I'm not convinced that the Austrian view that "it'll be fine, things will just balance out back to an equilibrium" is necessarily going to happen in that scenario. Or, more specifically, does the "things balancing out" part involve mass starvation and violence like it has at other stages in recent history where things have gone wrong.

    For any given individual's entirely subjective value of "wrong".
     
  12. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    Damn! Just spent the best part of 50 minutes replying and accidentally deleted it.

    Edit to add: and the first person that thanks me..................

    :p
     
  13. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    I was actually after the means by which they achieve those ends. But no matter. We all know they steal, just like Australian governments.

    Though you've hinted at something that is true with the Scandinavian countries, their social values. Historically they've been independent and hard working, as well as mostly culturally homogenous (which helps in passing down those values). Scandinavian immigrants took that mindset with them, that's why they have a higher level of wealth in the US than average, and a higher average level of wealth when compared to those in their home country. This helps explain the great wealth these countries have accumulated over the past century, that's changed now. They're welfare dependent and their wealth is being plundered. The social and economic upheavals have been trending higher over the past 20 years - it bodes poorly for their future.

    If there's one thig you can't accuse Austrians of is that there should be a master plan and that we shouldn't question anything, Austrian are highly critical of the theft of economic theory by the elites. There's nothing in any Austrian text that says that one's problems in life are entirely the fault of the individual.

    Economics is a behavioural science not an empirical science. You don't need a modern economist with Physics Envy constructing a formula that explains that if someone has something I want, and I have something they want, by engaging in voluntary mutual trade we satisfy our needs, resulting in both of us being wealthier for the exchange.

    http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-1002028.html#p1002028

    "What does the owner of the robot factory making 10,000 shoes a day do with the shoes?"

    That's not the Austrian view. Equilibrium is a tendency, not a stage. There is no progress made if the market is in equilibrium. It is precisely because of emerging maladjustments between production as it is and as it should be that opportunities arise for those to profit.

    Malthus was wrong, his warnings and prophecies about an impending human catastrophe never eventuated thanks to entrepreneurial risk and technological advancements that have "pulled humanity up by the boot straps". It hasn't stopped his false message echoing down to us though, unfortunately.
     
  14. BuggedOut

    BuggedOut Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    This thread became a bit of a rehashed yawn-fest a little while ago, but I came across this one today which is probably relevant to the AI evolution debate.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-27/elon-musk-launches-company-hook-people-computers

    I have for some time believed the future would be transhuman, hybrid or even cyborg (take your pick). This kind of tech is likely to be the start of it.

    For me it still has to be better than redundancy and extinction for the human race.
     
  15. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Ooh. I like that story. Paints a very exciting possible future :)
     
  16. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    A super-rich collection of humanoids enjoying a vast national park planet tended by robots and with pesky humans a thing of the past. I will, thankfully, be dead, or close to, in this new scenario.

     
  17. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    ^ It would raise the level of debate on silver stackers.

    Edit to add: and make religions obsolete.
     
  18. JulieW

    JulieW Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Unless the robots were anti-libertarian?

    edit to add: :lol:
     
  19. mmm....shiney!

    mmm....shiney! Administrator Staff Member Silver Stacker

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    Logically impossible. ;)
     
  20. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    I'd become a little homunculus living inside a superior cyborg body like the aliens in Independence Day (except I'd make myself sexier with bigger boobs and a high powered machine gun that comes out of my ass like Astroboy).
     

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