Your line of reasoning misses the clear example that China pulled 1.4 billion people out of poverty creating mass-literacy before embracing capitalism.
They certainly turned away from socialism and towards capitalism though, I think as part of embracing capitalism. What parts of the economy are not capitalist? State owned companies? In Canada and the US there are many protected or subsidized companies as well. Genuinely curious on the differences on owning a company in China vs canada
The modern (social or economic) history of China, Europe, Russia, UK, US are all good case studies. In aggregate, I think they underscore the reality of the system. Every year we now have high profile people coming out of the system screaming about how insane it is: bankers, traders, politicians, military intelligence. If you had to boil it down to a single book debunking late 20th century pax Americana international macro-economics, it's hard to go past Confessions of an Economic Hitman, although not written formally. I've personally had chapter one verified by an Indonesian diplomat. Alternatively, take the quippy summary of a world-recognized capitalist, George Soros: Classical economics is based on a false analogy with Newtonian physics.
Picasso famously said "Computers are useless, they can only give you answers."
You can't put things back in the bag. Perhaps the true underlying social problems are:
1. There's too many humans and not enough jobs.
2. The capitalist system only rewards profit seeking and cost externalization.
3. Our democratic representation myth is dead and buried.
4. Even in the developed world, middle-class security is gone.
So here's my question: given the current global system has failed and is clearly in its death throes, as a pan-national species how can we transition to a less mono-focal economic rationalism driven means of governance and self-organization without turning in to an autocracy or reinforcing negative nationalist bloc-level thinking that will tie us in to the same old human-thump-human stone age ape-ism and environmental cost externalization?
Perhaps AI can help in areas like improved education, improved media, proposals for improved government process or process transition for enhanced efficiency. Enforce transparency and accountability in the halls of power by reducing human process and corruption. Public auditable decision making and public auditable oversight. It's at least potential grounds for partial optimism. The best I can summon under present conditions. Of course, we want to avoid a dystopian global AI autocracy, the technocratic basis for which we have already well established, but if you view the present system as a dystopian human autocracy with the same technocratic basis (an increasingly rational perspective given recent events), then it starts to look more rosy.
Yes. Other potential macro-contributing factors may include: breakdown in local community, removal of community forums for discussion, attention economy and tabloid journalism gravitating toward emotional reaction (TikTok) rather than intellectual dialogue (balanced journalism), social media echo chambers, removal of accessible popular education, defunding of public media, unaffordable public access to medicine, credit culture, increasingly unaffordable costs of living and abnormally performative political dioramas. The net result are people, unable to reason about the world around them, drawn in to emotional us-and-them with a dialogue of echo-chamber reinforcement, who decide semi-rationally to "chuck it all in" the second things get out of control financially, psychologically or emotionally. In other words, the modern world has built a perfect breeding ground for recruitment to extremism. <s>Great time to start a cult.</s>
Other potential macro-contributing factors may include: breakdown in local community, removal of community forums for discussion, attention economy and tabloid journalism gravitating toward emotional reaction (TikTok) rather than intellectual dialogue (balanced journalism), social media echo chambers, removal of accessible popular education, defunding of public media, unaffordable public access to medicine, credit culture, increasingly unaffordable costs of living and abnormally performative political dioramas. The net result are people, unable to reason about the world around them, drawn in to emotional us-and-them with a dialogue of echo-chamber reinforcement, who decide semi-rationally to "chuck it all in" the second things get out of control financially, psychologically or emotionally. In other words, the modern world has built a perfect breeding ground for recruitment to extremism. <s>Great time to start a cult.</s>
... and in a classic example, apparently the mere mention of concern regarding the rise in US political violence got this thread flagged. Where can you have a discussion anymore?
I did a lot of research in to the evolution of US fast food culture recently, from a technology angle. If anyone would be interested in a run-down I might put together a video starting ~19th century and moving to present.
I was kinda expecting vim with whatever common plugins I installed to do this already, but no. It does nice highlighting for all sorts of text formats, even non-code things like CSV, but not hex.
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