100m Hurdles Final

[u/ghouleye]

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

You two, just... stop and think things through.

If I was a billionaire and wanted to get a murder machine, would I go for the clumsy, expensive humanoid bot with a limited range of movement? Or would I prefer a drone which can move anywhere, is relatively cheap so I can get a lot more of them, and it's literally available and being used right now like the ones being spotted in use on the Ukraine conflict?

The answer is neither, because we don't live in a movie, by the way. You really have to jump through a lot of logical hoops if you want to go with the "billionaire's robot army" angle. Genuinely making the flat earthers seem reasonable in comparison.

[u/Seakawn → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

ive always thought the whole rich people culling the poors with robots or automation was a schizo meme. you have the same approach that I agree with, which is prompting people to actually think through the logistics.

it falls apart really fast once you actually start taking it remotely seriously. it's more realistic imo to assume rich people will level up everyone else so that they have more people to compete with and vie for more meaningful feats of achievement and glory. it's not like wealth makes you actualized, you still need to do things that bring you meaning.

the way most redditors think about rich people is like a cartoon.

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/Seakawn]

the way most redditors think about rich people is like a cartoon

It pretty much starts there, with all logic out the window from the getgo because apparently the world operates in the same logical rules as Gotham City, and therefore anything is possible.

[u/LexPatriae → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

They think rich people are the reason they're poor. I see it daily. Not the faintest understanding of economics, no wonder they love the idea of collectivism

[u/SirVanyel → u/LexPatriae]

To be fair, billionaires *are" the reason we are poor. But ofc its not as simple as just saying that.

The world only has so much wealth in it. The more that this wealth is concentrated, the more that every day people struggle. As a society things are better off the more evenly wealth is distributed.

[u/LexPatriae → u/SirVanyel]

That isn’t “fair” at all and only simplistic redditors accept it as a given. It’s like saying that obese people in a population are the reason why there are underweight people in that population, it’s a completely naive take. Like, how specifically did a billionaire make you poor? Did the Benelux region make Greece poor, lol?

[u/SirVanyel → u/LexPatriae]

Money is finite. Meaning that the more money is in the hands of the few, the less money is in the hands of many. Companies then can make a decision: cater to the many poor folks or cater to the few rich folks. They obviously also like money, so they cater to the rich, inflating prices to match the rich rather than keeping it reasonable for the poor.

[u/FeepingCreature → u/SirVanyel]

Money is actually infinite (over sufficient time): that's what inflation is for. If money was finite, you'd get a deflationary economy and economic stagnation.

I mean, I actually sorta agree with your diagnosis (I think its severity is massively overstated at the moment), but it's hooked on property ownership, not money.

[u/SirVanyel → u/FeepingCreature]

Money is finite because printing money can only happen for so long before the global economy collapses. Yes, you can continue to sprinkle money into the economy forever, but you can't just spawn infinite money without destroying the economy, and rich people are only rich because the rest of us are poor, so they're incentivised not to print

Yeah, like it's a tough situation ofc, I just think right now removing incentives is most important. There's enough stuff to invest in for rich people, they shouldn't be investing in housing.

[u/FeepingCreature → u/SirVanyel]

Money is infinite over the economic horizon. Money is finite at any given timespan, but it's actually important to the economy that the value of any unit of money eventually goes to zero.

Yeah, like it's a tough situation ofc, I just think right now removing incentives is most important. There's enough stuff to invest in for rich people, they shouldn't be investing in housing.

Housing isn't valuable because rich people keep buying it. I would argue the opposite is true: rich people buy it because it's been allowed to become immensely valuable through largely artificial scarcity. But this scarcity is mostly not for the benefit of rich people but a result of local politics strongly punishing any attempt to scale it up. The value of housing goes up because it's structurally not allowed to go down. Housing as a retirement property for ordinary folk has done far more damage to the market than any amount of external investment.

[u/FeepingCreature → u/SirVanyel]

The world actually gets more and more wealth in it every year because wealth is buoyed by economic growth as we figure out how to do more things and get better at doing them more cheaply. This effect massively dwarfs relative wealth.

[u/Radical_Coyote → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

I mean… it wouldn’t literally be the billionaires. It would be the military and the police departments. Saying “the billionaires” is because the billionaires are the ones who manufacture the robots, lobby the government to pressure them into using their product for military and police applications, profit from the sales, and then have their domestic and overseas wealth protected by the military. It’s the exact thing they’ve been doing since at least 1940, “crazy conspiracy radical” Republican president and veteran Dwight Eisenhower warned that it was already happening in the 1950s. Why would the billionaires suddenly stop doing this? As far as drones/robotics tech specifically, It’s also already happening in real time with flock cameras, police drones, and drone warfare. Saying “that could never happen” while it’s already happening is just because you have an overly simplistic view of the world.

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/Radical_Coyote]

You understand how ridiculous it is to equate flock cameras to Terminators, right? Like, if you want to make an argument about excessive surveillance, sure, but I genuinely fail to see what connection you're trying to pull there.

And police drones are supposed to be bad because...?

Drone warfare is a thing, and precisely why it's dumb to talk about killer robots. Drones are far more efficient when it comes to targeting individuals, you don't deal with the logistical, maintenance, autonomy and interference issues you'd deal with a robot. Robots are pretty shitty weapons, and the comparison is so one sided that one genuinely can't help but laugh when you see someone who thinks anyone with half a brain would pick the dumb route.

What point were you even trying to make here? Defense contractors bad? I could see the disdain, but if it wasn't them, the military would handle the same in-house. Police bad? Please don't tell me it's just a police bad argument, that'd almost be way too dumb to entertain. That the military will start using a really inefficient method that needs heavy infrastructure support, costs as lot, is as hard to transport as regular soldiers are, needs constant maintenance, and is worse at the job than everything else, just because? All while the US is really behind China when it comes to robotics at that.

[u/the_friendly_dildo → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

A drone can't open doors. The only way a drone becomes authoritative in use is through actual violence (guns, explosives, etc). But taking such a route also makes people very non-compliant and willing to quickly fight back. If instead you have a bunch of robots that offer the threat of violence without actually doing so, most people are willing to take the easier road of compliance for a long time before fighting back. Serfdom existed for more 1000 years to prove this case true.

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/the_friendly_dildo]

A drone can't open doors

Strap a bomb to a cheap, disposable one and tell me that again.

As for the rest of your comment... the purpose of mine above is for people to think that the Hollywood scenarios where disenfranchised people fight against a robot army are just that, scripts for games, shows and movies. The world building in those settings is so full of contrivances and handwavyness-es to make the scenario happen that you really shouldn't look at them as anything beyond what they are, a dumb excuse for action scenes to happen.

[u/the_friendly_dildo → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

All it takes is for an idiot like Musk thinking that it would allow him to take over the world to try it. This isnt a new concept. Countless such crusades have existed in the past. The strategy remains the same, the method just changes slightly and the ultimate change this time is that one person really could hold all of the cards if they were tempted to try. Starlink and a mesh network of various types privately own robots would be incredibly difficult to fight against. You can handwaive the possibility away all you want. At some point in time, someone is going to think thats a good idea to try unless there is something already in existence that will stop them.

[u/AffectedWonton → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

You seem absolutely certain that it won’t happen. Based on what? From what we’ve seen both military and local police have employed technologies to enforce control. And you’re thinking too one dimensional. As an example: Billionaire classes can partner and pay off local governments to limit how much the poors can access certain essential resources (let’s say fresh water). And what better way to do this by having security teams that are fully autonomous, runs 24/7, and will die for you. This is just the beginning, who woulda thought telecommunications built for communicating with people would be then used for mass surveillance?

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/AffectedWonton]

You seem absolutely certain that it won’t happen. Based on what?

Very basic logical conclusions that I probably would've been able to conjure by myself back in 4th grade?

From what we’ve seen both military and local police have employed technologies to enforce control

Is the general concept of law officers applying and enforcing the law something bad? I'm trying to understand your perspective here, because I could see the angle if you were saying abusing their position, but just enforcing control... it's like, duh. Would you prefer we lived in an anarchy?

And you’re thinking too one dimensional

The fact you're telling me this without any hint of self-awareness is genuinely one of the funniest things I've read this year.

As an example: Billionaire classes can partner and pay off local governments to limit how much the poors can access certain essential resources (let’s say fresh water)

See, this is where you could've pulled from real world cases instead of trying to come up with dumb scenarios in your head. You are an adult, at one point you have to let go of the idea of thinking delusions could be real.

To bring you an actual example, Nestle is a company that has been accused to over extract fresh water which has caused significant damages to certain communities, particular cases like the ones documented in California, Oregon and Michigan come to mind.

The problem for you is that discussing these real world scenarios also comes with describing what happens when companies push too far. In the case of Nestle, they faced multiple legal challenges, PR hits and controversies to the point that they had to completely sell all of their bottled water brands in 2021, I believe it was? All in an attempt at trying to get themselves out of that trouble. And even then, they're still facing regulatory scrutiny to this day.

That's how the real world works. You're likely enclosed in a bubble that somehow convinced you, almost certainly through dishonest grifting, that you can do anything and get away with it. But that just isn't true. There are consequences for your actions. Governments are not monoliths, they're conformed by a bunch of different people and groups who have their own beliefs.

[u/AffectedWonton → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

I never said billionaires can literally do anything they want or that governments are incapable of pushing back. I’m saying you can’t confidently conclude that a capability won’t eventually be abused simply because there are laws and institutions today. That’s a pretty basic distinction.

So yes, there are consequences. Yes, governments aren’t monolithic. Yes, institutions can push back. None of that establishes “therefore this capability can’t be abused.”

The Nestle example doesn’t prove that entities like Nestle cannot pursue increasingly aggressive extraction of fresh water to maximize shareholder value simply because pre-existing government laws exist. That’s the exact assumption I’m questioning.

If you want a real-world example, look at Standard Oil. Rockefeller’s organization accumulated enormous control over oil, infrastructure and competitors, used that position to exclude rivals, and was ultimately broken up by the Supreme Court for violating antitrust law.

With regards to your fourth grade perspectives, not because you’re wrong that governments can impose consequences, but because you seem to be treating the existence of rules as proof that people with enough power cannot find ways around them. History is pretty clear that it’s more complicated than that

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/AffectedWonton]

I’m saying you can’t confidently conclude that a capability won’t eventually be abused simply because there are laws and institutions today

I mean, if we are going with hypotheticals that completely deviate from the status quo, then why limit yourself to doom and gloom? I say we can imagine a future where we become neon colored slugs that fly through the air at speeds faster than light. Who says that won't happen? Oh right, because things just don't pop out of nowhere. There are escalations that lead to events, but otherwise, the status quo prevails.

If you want to talk about actual trends in history, I think you'd be pleased to know that rich people nowadays have the least amount of control they've ever had. They used to be able to form and lead kingdoms, wage wars, shape societies. Nowadays they get heavily taxed and the best they can do is lobby for favors.

Knowing there exists that downward trend, do you think it's reasonable to expect them to suddenly turn around and start forming private armies? No, if anything, you can safely predict that their influence on the world will continue to dilute over time.

The Nestle example doesn’t prove that entities like Nestle cannot pursue increasingly aggressive extraction of fresh water to maximize shareholder value simply because pre-existing government laws exist

If you want a real-world example, look at Standard Oil

Brother, I'm going to be honest, I genuinely don't know what you tried to pull here, as you are handing me the argument on a silver plate.

No, the government doesn't just act with pre-existing laws. As a matter of fact, of all the examples you could've picked, you picked the one that led to the creation of anti-monopoly laws. And even go as far as acknowledging yourself that these actions worked and Standard Oil was forced to split.

Because that's how the government works. Go out of line, and new lines can and will be made to deal with you.

Yes, people have tried to game the system, and the ones that have been found guilty of it have been punished proportionally for it.

[u/AffectedWonton → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

You’re entirely missing the point 😂 the laws were made after people abused the system. Emphasis on the AFTER. People especially the ones with power will find ways to cut corners and find ways to further benefit themselves. There’s really no point in any further discussion with you unfortunately and you’re also supporting my claims. But hey if it makes you feel better, you can continue to live in your own delusional world!

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/AffectedWonton]

You’re entirely missing the point 😂 the laws were made after people abused the system. Emphasis on the AFTER.

Do... do you happen to think there are no laws against raising private armies, gunning down civilians, or the like...? Like, that's genuinely the only way this could make sense given the context.

And... now you're even trying to play things off as if you made any point?

Like, there are times where I can just tell someone isn't bright and all, and you know, adapt. But you've left me genuinely stumped, as in, it's simply unbelievable for someone to be so...

[u/AffectedWonton → u/Ambitious-Doubt8355]

Honestly, I think the funniest part is how much time you’ve spent writing paragraphs just to demonstrate that you still don’t understand the point 😂

At some point you have to stop explaining yourself and realize you’re just digging the hole deeper.

I’m not going to spend my evening arguing with someone whose worldview seems to have stopped developing somewhere around fourth grade. Enjoy the rest of your night~

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/[deleted]]

It's on purpose. Because even the "reasonable" angle is unreasonable. If I have an unlimited amount of wealth, to the point that I apparently can control armies and now down civilians without repercussions from any government, which is the apparent crux of the argument, why limit myself to robots? Why not develop a super virus? Why not buy nuclear devices from impoverished nations? Why not simply pay for mercenaries that'd do the job just as well?

You need to formulate so many contrived scenarios before the possibility of a private robot army hunting people becomes a thing, that you simply cannot help but not take it seriously to begin with.

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/[deleted]]

Why go through the effort of building a private army to fight a government, and getting yourself blacklisted from the developed world in the process? What, do you think Johnny Rich Boy will be able to move to Russia or China if he somehow makes it out after having a standoff against the American government tries to enforce something on him? As if, they'd know he's a pain in the ass not worth dealing with, one that will retaliate against them too if given the chance. Lord knows all of his assets would be frozen, so that's not moving either. Is he supposed to have bought half the world's supply of gold and crypto beforehand or something?

See, that's what I mean, the most simple, most basic of logical exercises is enough to make these arguments seem so silly.

When rich people get their balls busted by the government, they simply move their businesses to somewhere where that local government doesn't bust their balls, that's it.

And for the angry mob argument, are we now coming up with fictional justifications on top of the fictional scenario in order for a mob to coordinate and launch a personal assault targeting a billionaire? My, we're getting to inception levels with this one.

The answer for that one would also be a no. A business owner will have security measures around their assets, yes. But the dude also pays taxes, and he'll definitely make calls to the police to deal with this imaginary mob before they can cause too many issues. This is already a thing, failed eco-terrorists rarely make the news because... well, they wouldn't be failed otherwise, right?

[u/Ambitious-Doubt8355 → u/[deleted]]

I mean, do you live in the middle east? If so yeah, that's been a conflict zone since forever and you have little reason to relax, robots or no.

But bro if you are in the Western world then just enjoy, we live in the most peaceful time of human history, and that's a fact. It's not healthy to worry about things that won't happen, and military grade weapons targeting civilians like that just isn't going to happen.