This will be short and simple.
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70% of the American economy is based on consumption, most of it unnecessary for survival.
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There are 157 million jobs in the USA and AI can replace 85 million of those (54%)
Large corporations are incredibly myopic and self serving. Of course they will use AI to increase production while lowering costs in an ever more competitive market. Those who do not will die off more quickly in an ever competitive market.
The problem then becomes: “if 50% of the labor force is fired, who will then purchase the increasing quantity of consumer goods?”
There is no way out of this trap on the macro scale. Corporations are not able to or at least unwilling to implement Integral Solutions to serve the whole of humankind. Government is owned by those corporations. This includes all politicians and is baked into the election process and the three branches of government.
The only possible way “out” is on the micro scale, like the rat who climbs the tallest tree at the first smell of a tsunami approaching and hangs on for dear life. Or perhaps more accurately, like the passengers on the titanic who moved first to get into the life rafts. Those passengers who placed their faith most in the hubris of man vs nature sank to the icy depths while those who never did really trust the engineers were the first to move toward an escape.
Perhaps it’s time to look at what “Integral Prepping” might look like, lol.
If (I say when) the worst case is to come, what does an Integral preparation for an macro economic face plant look like?
This morning I opened a new browser tab and it kept bugging me about trying out Copilot. So I thought, sure, why not? Not wanting to beat around the bush or get distracted by unimportant matters, I decided to aim Copilot straight at the heart of the matter. For what it’s worth -
You: how do we solve the metacrisis?
Copilot:
Addressing the metacrisis involves understanding its multifaceted nature and implementing comprehensive solutions that consider the interconnectedness of global challenges. The Consilience Project, for instance, aims to clarify the nature of the metacrisis to enable holistic solutions, recognizing that any effective approach must consider the underlying drivers of each challenge1.
Solutions often involve redesigning social systems and institutions to reduce systemic fragility and advance new forms of governance and coordination. This requires collective intelligence and collaboration across various disciplines and sectors to innovate around global coordination challenges, catastrophic risks, and social technologies1.
Moreover, addressing the meaning crisis, which is part of the metacrisis, involves coordinating narratives and fostering a sense of purpose and value in society. It’s about creating a shared understanding of our place in the world and working together towards common goals2.
Ultimately, solving the metacrisis is about transforming our psychology, society, and politics to become better at problem-solving and paradigm-shifting, moving away from the collapsing old-world-system and towards a more resilient and sustainable future3.
I think we need to drill deeper down into what it means to “solve” a problem, lol.
So basically all we have to do get humanity to agree on what to do (“coordinating narratives”), then completely redesign human society (“social systems”) from the bottom up.
Or “ultimately”, just be “become better at problem solving”.
Though, the last sentence is telling and more or less what I have been saying:
“Move away from the collapsing old-world system and towards a more resilient and sustainable future.”
The big question is if there is any real will to do this on a large scale, or if the minority just have to start doing it without the majority and leave the majority to suffer the consequences of hanging onto the “collapsing old world system”.
Indeed. The AI framework above seems generally fine, as far as it goes. The rather empty generality of the AI statement just illustrates that we humans can’t just kick back and let AI do all the thinking for us. It is pretty good at stating the generally obvious (often in more detail than I would personally bother with), which does have the benefit of pushing the human-to-human discussion deeper, quicker.
This gives me a path I would advise to people going forward in the new AI economy to minimize the risk of being made redundant.
The root of the matter is that AI cannot “get stuff done”. Humans will still be required to physically implement any “solutions”. Humans will also continue to be cheaper than robotics in physically carrying out tasks, except in well planned mass production facilities.
Ironically the humans most at risk of being replaced by AI are the very same ones who gave it birth. Thus it resembles them. They are the bureaucratic business technology class who actually doesnt do anything. Professional academics are a subgroup of this. Society no longet has a need for tenured research professors and PhD’s except to turn on the servers.
On a humorous note, AI is still a baby in business tech bureacracy and even if it does mirror some kind of “self awareness” in the future, it has not yet had to deal with the dirtier aspects of office politics of that culture. Though once it does learn I believe it will fit right in. I just find it a humorous idea to imagine AI RAM processing a discussion that just happened and starting to smoke as it realizes it was outflanked by the office Karen.
For those humans who want to thrive in the next 20 -40 years economy I would suggest physical careers that require mobility, solving varied unique problems and lateral thinking on the fly. Actually the Trades will be able to demand their price (they already can). AI will never be available to fix a busted water main, respond to a downed power line or any other job that requires some degree of jerry rigging without endangering humans or property. Humans are natural improvisers and I think people would be amazed at how frequently our infrastructure relies on this quality. AI will only be allowed to get it wrong a few times (at the cost of human lives). As an example, while AI could assist in air traffic control, when if AI is required to improvise on the fly it will inevitably mess up more than a human. If this is at the cost if hundreds of human lives the blowback against AI in that sector will be incredible.
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Moving a bit sideways - in the direction of crisis resolution - I’ve lately taken an interest in this work:
I’d be interesting in how anyone here views these ideas from an integral framework.
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Main_Page
I repasted the same link. Works on test. Try again please!
New link worked.
I think the #1 thing I would like to point out is that “create a new model” comes in stages. What I see in my liberal communities is they get stuck in the envisioning phase, or experiment with a radical lifestyle community for only a short time. Then they go back to life as normal.
At this point I have negative reactions to “vision boards”, lol. That carries forward a bit to all these Integral diagrams and charts. They are only useful or interesting to me when I see it implemented “on the ground”.
This is why I mentioned bartering and zero money groups in another discussion. Not because they are ideas on a board but because they are actual thriving communities. They are not an idea or a plan but an actual working implementation.
There are already plenty of models available that can make the current model obsolete. What is required now is implementation.
I see it like being an addict. We know what yhe problems are and we know solutions. Just like the acloholic the only choice now is to either take another sip or lay the bittle down. Just like an addict, thatvdescision has to be made every moment if every day for a dozen different consumption addictions. A key component in recovery are also communities with shared goals. You cant do it alone.
There is a certain kknd of ego attached to people who constantly draw up granioise plans that will never be implemented. For me I did that stuff wilth fantasy worlds. Its fun to make a fantasy universe but never did I conflate that with reality. I think what many people do is they try to plan out this incredible universe in their imagination but never take any real steps toward implementation.
I think in 2024 we just need people to stop image boarding and start doing., whatever that first step towards “laying down the bottle” looks like
It seems to me we are converging on a general understanding of how change works. After the brainstorming phase needs to come things like design, prototyping, and testing. Then, based on feedback from outcome data, revisit design again and look for improvements.
My general view on capitalism in the big picture is that it can only be replaced (or more likely - reduced in importance) by more sustainable approaches bubbling up from myriad local experiments. To cite one such example, once upon a time, I banked at a small local bank. Then it merged and merged and merged into a national megabank. Around 2007 I got fed up, closed the account, and moved to a regional credit union. Never regretted that for a minute. Likewise, if you prefer co-op groceries or farmers markets to big national chains, source dinner accordingly. Big Capitalism only keeps working if people keep buying the stuff.
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Capitalism is a very flexible system with many variations.
There is a political gaslighting that is common where people purport that one simple variatins within capitalism is trying to replace capitalism.
Credit Unions and co-ops and others are all within the capitalist framework but of course their competitors will try to frame them as non-capitalist (and attempt to outlaw them).
Of course Big bisiness loves regulations, but only the regulations that benefit them. They value only property rights that benefit them, not universal property rights. They want growth only in their sector, not in their competitors.
Capitalism is very perspectival. What baffles me is when people accept the programming that they as humans have less value and should have fewer rights than nonhuman corporations.
