portuguêsCapitalism is sales talk
Capitalism is a superstructure built on the rhetoric of salespeople.
Follow the reasoning in the form of a dialogue:
Realist Capitalism: “Look, since everything inevitably gets corrupted by commercial relationships and self-centered interests, why not work with this reality of fighting it or at least discouraging it?
If you buy this AMWAY kit, you’ll be able to sell our excellent, highly concentrated detergent—a great product... but the real opportunity I’m offering you isn’t about selling detergent, that’s not the point. The real money is in recruiting others into this process, so they can make money for you, just like I’m allowing you to do for me now. The key is to be an entrepreneur!”
Exploited world: “Wait a minute, isn’t this kind of a pyramid scheme? Won’t it inevitably collapse for those at the bottom, or basically everyone who isn’t at the top—which is practically the entire environmental system and 99% of the Earth’s population?”
Realist Capitalism: “Since that’s inevitable, isn’t it better to try to reach the 1% as soon as possible? Come on, don’t be pessimistic! Roll up your sleeves, work hard, and your descendants will have their guaranteed spot in a cozy little bunker, with filtered air, recycled water, soylent green, and a relaxed 80-hour workweek with no vacations, retirement, health plan or social security of any kind, doing something light like mining iridium or frying artificial meat for the rich on a greasy griddle. What a dream! Way better than radioactive sunburns on the surface.
The key is to produce and sell as much as possible, as fast as possible. Those who don’t jump on board risk being left behind. The time is now—tomorrow the AMWAY kit price goes up 20%. Don’t miss this chance. Bunker prosperity for everyone willing to do slave work!”
Samsara is on sale.
nymagGlitch Capitalism: How Cheating AIs Explain Our Glitchy Society
Of all the buzzy 21st-century tech phrases, “machine learning” threatens to be the most important. Programming computers is slow, but we’re nearing the point where humans give the bots parameters and let them teach themselves. After all, computers can run tons of simulations and figure out the instructions we would have given them if we knew enough. Thus, we don’t try to define a sheep for image-recognition software (that would be hard!), we give the computer a bunch of sheep pictures and let it figure out the most efficient way to define the commonality. It sounds easy enough, except sometimes machines learn the wrong lessons.
YouTubeThe Rise of the Machines Why Automation is Different this Time
Fear the machines... and capitalism.
Ars Technica“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” Goldman Sachs analysts ask
Analyst report notes that Gilead’s hep C cure will make less than $4 billion this year.
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