Why free software is bad

[onlyonemac]

Free software isn't bad. But free games are. Well, of course they're not free - it's all about freemium. Hate this practice. I prefer to pay once (up to 60$ for AAA-product) and play.

We're talking about free software as in open-source software, not that freemium crap that everyone's producing these days. There aren't in fact that many open-source games around, but those that do exist tend to be of excellent quality.

[oscoder]

You're all missing out the role of US imperialism in spreading the English language, too. So you had the English empire then US neo-colonialism right after.

Now to bring us back to the original topic, I like free software but it is a massive shame that most devs aren't paid for their work. That's why we should be destroying capitalism, comrades, not bickering about language. Coders of the world, unite!

[SWGDev]

You're all missing out the role of US imperialism in spreading the English language, too. So you had the English empire then US neo-colonialism right after.

Now to bring us back to the original topic, I like free software but it is a massive shame that most devs aren't paid for their work. That's why we should be destroying capitalism, comrades, not bickering about language. Coders of the world, unite!

Everybody should be paid for their work. Movie makers (no pun intended), musicians, developers. The main problem with that is distribution channels which make everything too expensive - there are too many links in chain. Some developers sell their software/games directly (for example, CD project RED), and it's much cheaper.

On the other hand, there are tons of musicians/developers that need promotion from labels/publishers. It's a vicious circle.

[embryo2]

Now to bring us back to the original topic, I like free software but it is a massive shame that most devs aren't paid for their work. That's why we should be destroying capitalism, comrades, not bickering about language. Coders of the world, unite!

What does it mean "to be paid"? Do you understand it?

If somebody produces something useful for you and gives it to you then you can consider it as a payment. But if it is useless for you then you can consider it as a laugh. And the problem is how to make a lot of useful things while not laughing too much. The practice of things distribution in the former USSR was inefficient from the usefulness point of view. But today's situation is also not very good. And the right way to exit such a trap goes along the collective work, you're right about the "coder's union". However things are not that simple, the union is almost always too fragile to survive the test of time. It means the goal is about the right rules for the union. And the right rules are very complex thing, more complex than Marx's theory.

[DavidCooper]

It's really quite simple: people should be paid for the work they do, while everyone should be paid a basic income whether they work or not. Any pay for work would be an addition to that basic income and would therefore be rewarding. There is a complication though when the amount of money made by a product depends not on the amount of work done by the creator of that product but on the size of the population of buyers, but that can be tackled to a large extent through taxation: income tax should be up over the 90% level for the highest earners. It's hard though to work out exactly how money should be distributed fairly, but I'm sure we can do a lot better than a system that doesn't reward hard work at all or a system which only values people who work and which leaves the rest to rot.

[Schol-R-LEA]

Now to bring us back to the original topic, I like free software but it is a massive shame that most devs aren't paid for their work. That's why we should be destroying capitalism, comrades, not bickering about language. Coders of the world, unite!

What does it mean "to be paid"? Do you understand it?

If somebody produces something useful for you and gives it to you then you can consider it as a payment. But if it is useless for you then you can consider it as a laugh. And the problem is how to make a lot of useful things while not laughing too much. The practice of things distribution in the former USSR was inefficient from the usefulness point of view. But today's situation is also not very good. And the right way to exit such a trap goes along the collective work, you're right about the "coder's union". However things are not that simple, the union is almost always too fragile to survive the test of time. It means the goal is about the right rules for the union. And the right rules are very complex thing, more complex than Marx's theory.

*sniff* *sniff* Where's that BRS coming from? Oh, it's Embryo's humor detector! Must have burned out from oscoder's joke, the poor thing let all the magic smoke out...

[gerryg400]

It's really quite simple: people should be paid for the work they do, while everyone should be paid a basic income whether they work or not. Any pay for work would be an addition to that basic income and would therefore be rewarding. There is a complication though when the amount of money made by a product depends not on the amount of work done by the creator of that product but on the size of the population of buyers, but that can be tackled to a large extent through taxation: income tax should be up over the 90% level for the highest earners. It's hard though to work out exactly how money should be distributed fairly, but I'm sure we can do a lot better than a system that doesn't reward hard work at all or a system which only values people who work and which leaves the rest to rot.

In other words "It's really not simple."

[embryo2]

It's really quite simple: people should be paid for the work they do

The work can be useless for everybody else. Why everybody else should pay for the useless work?

while everyone should be paid a basic income whether they work or not

And who would give the money required?

There is a complication though when the amount of money made by a product depends not on the amount of work done by the creator of that product but on the size of the population of buyers

And the amount of money can depend on the crowd manipulation skill of the "creator". And the amount of money can depend on creator's monopoly in some area. And ... There's a lot of things to consider.

but that can be tackled to a large extent through taxation: income tax should be up over the 90% level for the highest earners.

Even with such taxes a seller of a crappy software with a billion customers can be billionaire while Brendan (for example) can be unable to sell even 100 copies of his OS.

It's hard though to work out exactly how money should be distributed fairly

The money is just a manageable representation of the product the society generates. So, it's all about the product of the society, which is not money in fact. And the consequence is the need for the product of the society. But if everybody will be paid basic income for nothing then a lot of people won't do any work at all and the product of the society will collapse. Then what would we distribute? And why those who work should pay for nothing? And ... There's a lot of problems. That's why we need the complex set of rules mentioned above. It's kinda OS for the society. And obviously, it should be open and free OS, independently of whether the free software is bad or good

[embryo2]

Oh, it's Embryo's humor detector! Must have burned out from oscoder's joke, the poor thing let all the magic smoke out...

For me the subject is interesting enough and I just don't care if it's joke or not. Basically, I have some mood to talk about it now

[DavidCooper]

It's really quite simple: people should be paid for the work they do

The work can be useless for everybody else. Why everybody else should pay for the useless work?

I can word it more tightly if you need me to: people should be paid for the work they do from which others benefit. You can still pick holes in that if you like and I could fill in more and more of the gaps until it turns into a whole book, but people can fill in the gaps for themselves. The important point is that if someone does useful work which others benefit from and they're doing more useful work than those others, they deserve to be compensated for the time they've spent on that work and the damage it's done to their health, etc.

while everyone should be paid a basic income whether they work or not

And who would give the money required?

Imagine a country of farms with lots of workers doing everything manually. Someone invents a machine which does all the work more cheaply and soon all the workers lose their jobs. The farm owners and the machine makers keep all the wealth for themselves while the unemployed workers starve. That's not a fair way to run things because so much comes down to luck as to whether you're a farm owner or worker, so it's only fair that the unemployed workers should be helped to maintain the same standard of living as before, and that either means giving them a share of the produce or the money raised from its sale. They won't need to eat so much as before because they aren't working flat out all day, and they aren't wearing out their clothes so quickly either, so they'll manage with less than before without suffering a loss in their standard of living. That is essentially a basic income, and it still allows the machine makers to pick up a reward for their work and inventiveness but without doing any harm to society as a whole. Good governments would simply make this happen by applying taxes at appropriate levels and paying a basic income to everyone (with the high earners getting it too, but paying it back as part of the tax on their income).

And the amount of money can depend on the crowd manipulation skill of the "creator". And the amount of money can depend on creator's monopoly in some area. And ... There's a lot of things to consider.

You can't fool everyone: if Apple products weren't good, large numbers of intelligent people would buy better products from lesser-known companies and spread the word, and over time those better products would be seen as the cool ones, leading to Apple disappearing. That hasn't happened yet, mainly because Apple products are sufficiently good that their momentum alone is enough to keep them ahead. Perhaps there could be a system for pumping money into innovative rivals to help ensure that their superior products can get established more easily: that would be a way of tackling monopolies which come not from superiority but mere momentum (the luck of getting in first and then using that position to maintain a lead over rivals with superior products, perhaps just by having a better range of apps available).

but that can be tackled to a large extent through taxation: income tax should be up over the 90% level for the highest earners.

Even with such taxes a seller of a crappy software with a billion customers can be billionaire while Brendan (for example) can be unable to sell even 100 copies of his OS.

It's hard though to work out exactly how money should be distributed fairly

That's true, but it's better than the seller of crappy software having tens of billions in his pockets, and the basic income (some of which would come from extra tax paid by that seller of crappy software) could allow Brendan to give up his paper round and put more time into working on his OS.

The money is just a manageable representation of the product the society generates. So, it's all about the product of the society, which is not money in fact. And the consequence is the need for the product of the society. But if everybody will be paid basic income for nothing then a lot of people won't do any work at all and the product of the society will collapse. Then what would we distribute? And why those who work should pay for nothing? And ... There's a lot of problems. That's why we need the complex set of rules mentioned above. It's kinda OS for the society. And obviously, it should be open and free OS, independently of whether the free software is bad or good

As it stands, a lot of people are being paid a basic income already, but we call it a benefit and we regard such people as vermin. Another group of people are paid a much higher income by the state for doing completely unnecessary work which actually serves to make everyone collectively poorer, squandering resources for negative gain: those people are not regarded as vermin, but they are being paid many times as much as unemployed people and they would do less harm to society if they were paid that money to stay at home and do nothing. In Britain, half the workforce is tied up in such unnecessary work, though it's all so well disguised that most of them think what they're doing is vital, not realising that it's all the result of the government working hard to create work instead of trying to eliminate as much of it as possible. If we got rid of all unnecessary work, the basic income would be so high that everyone would have the same standard of living as today's average worker without having to do anything at all. The environmental gains would be enormous and we'd all have a much higher quality of life. Crucially, wherever work still needs to be done and can't be done entirely by machines, it will be available for people to do, allowing them to earn more money while losing none of their basic income, and if there aren't enough people willing to do that work, that can be fixed simply by lowering the basic income until enough of them come forward to take that work on: it would be adjusted continually to ensure that any work that needs to be done is done, and that would automatically ensure that it is always set close to the right level.

How is the future actually going to go? Someone will manage to create an AGI system and within a year or two it will wipe out most lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats, teachers, programmers and office workers. With AGI working on machine vision and robotic control guided by machine vision, it may only take a couple of years to develop robotics to the point that most surgeons, mechanics, cooks, fruit pickers and builders are put out of work too. The same money will be in the system though, so all of those people can continue to be paid enough to maintain their standard of living while resources are used less wastefully. Most of the jobs left will be in the arts, and they aren't technically necessary as all they really do is redistribute wealth, but they'll continue to exist because we want to see good TV programs, go to stage shows, read novels, put paintings on our walls, etc., and so we'll continue to spend some of our basic income on that. The creators of the AGI should not be able to go on raking in vast quantities of money from it forever, but will certainly deserve to be rewarded for the sacrifice involved in the work. It would also be good if others who were working on big projects of the same kind but who lost the race could also be compensated for all the work they put in over many decades: they'd just need to show it to prove that they were involved, and then they'd be paid according to the quality of that work. I'm gradually homing in on having a working AGI system, but I could easily lose the race by a small margin and get nothing at all. If I win though while someone else just loses out, I'd still like to see them pick up some of the reward, but fortunately we're going to need several independently designed AGI systems so that they can check each other over carefully to make sure they function correctly and that they're safe, so there should actually be many winners even if one of them dominates and leaves the others in the shadows. I can certainly imagine though that AGI systems will read through this forum and pick up a lot of useful ideas from it about how to redesign the OSes they run on and it will judge that the people who provided those ideas (if they're original) should be rewarded. Indeed, it will trawl through everything on the Web looking at all the ideas that are out there and may seek to reward all the innovators: it's easier to collect existing ideas than to think up new ones, so this will be one of the first tasks of AGI before it has developed its creative capabilities to the point where it no longer needs to get any ideas from us, but it will already be very good at comparing ideas and working out which are best. While its doing that, it will also score all the participants in discussions on forums on how well they performed in arguments, setting out in full who was right and wrong on each point.

[onlyonemac]

You can't fool everyone: if Apple products weren't good, large numbers of intelligent people would buy better products from lesser-known companies and spread the word, and over time those better products would be seen as the cool ones, leading to Apple disappearing. That hasn't happened yet, mainly because Apple products are sufficiently good that their momentum alone is enough to keep them ahead.

That's because Apple products are good... they're "good" at looking fancy and coming with a valuable brand name on them. Everyone that I know who uses an Apple product - especially the iMac and MacBook users - does so because of peer pressure from other "elite" users in whatever circle they're in. EDIT: There's one person I know who specifically bought an iMac because they wanted it for graphics work - I believe though that the notion of Apple products being better for graphics work is left over from the days when Macintosh computers had 256-colour graphics displays as standard and PCs still generally had a monochrome VGA display, and the same or equivalent graphics software is almost always available for both platforms these days and with a high-DPI IPS monitor a PC can easily do the same work as an iMac for graphics work.

[Kazinsal]

High quality hardware and software that just works at a premium, with high quality support when things for some reason don't work.

If you can't understand that Apple products sell well for reasons other than your perception of "Apple elitism", you should not be commenting on it as if it is truth because your perception is objectively wrong.

Perhaps "everyone you know", as you so often put it when you repeatedly try to back up your false statements with anecdotal evidence, is an idiot who couldn't tell the difference between an iMac and a Chromebook if they assembled them from raw parts themselves.

[embryo2]

I can word it more tightly if you need me to: people should be paid for the work they do from which others benefit.

The important thing here is how to measure the benefit. If my mom tells you my program is beneficial, would you agree?

May be the measure issue is the most important among the all other issues.

Good governments would simply make this happen by applying taxes at appropriate levels and paying a basic income to everyone (with the high earners getting it too, but paying it back as part of the tax on their income).

The problem is - there's no good governments. Goldman Sachs and other "boys" managed to install their puppets where needed.

if Apple products weren't good...

Android is a real trash when it's about to develop something useful for it. But it's market share is bigger than iPhone's.

The "benefit measure" here isn't working, obviously. But why Google should work for the developer's benefit? May be it shouldn't. At least it provides an alternative. Without alternative there would be no iPhone.

Perhaps there could be a system for pumping money into innovative rivals to help ensure that their superior products can get established more easily

Perhaps there should be a system for pumping money into new society development. Because if there's no alternative then there won't be any iPhone. Capitalism vs Socialism or whatever, for example.

that would be a way of tackling monopolies which come not from superiority but mere momentum

There's no such way in our society. Monopolies just buy the governments. And if there are some rivals - the monopolies just buy the rivals. The rival should be invulnerable to the buying attacks, but there's no such strong entity in the world.

As it stands, a lot of people are being paid a basic income already, but we call it a benefit and we regard such people as vermin.

If it's about a small part of the society's income then I'm OK with such payment (just like I'm OK with the pet maintenance). But if it's about essential part of the income then I ask the question - why they should drain a lot while doing nothing? If they can work then they should do something. Else they are just parasites, aren't they? But the next question is about what work they should perform. And here again the "benefit measure" plays in full. How to determine if a person can produce more useful product? How may tries he should have? Who would measure the usefulness?

That's why the society's rules are complex.

Another group of people are paid a much higher income by the state for doing completely unnecessary work which actually serves to make everyone collectively poorer

Usually it's relatively easy to prove. But we need a testing framework to catch such bugs. And contemporary society just hasn't any testing framework. Neither it has any competitor to show us alternative frameworks. It's just monopoly of corrupt governments who serve the big money monopolies. And we are just silent peasants who should keep working and shouldn't bother the monopolies.

If we got rid of all unnecessary work, the basic income would be so high that everyone would have the same standard of living as today's average worker without having to do anything at all.

How can we get rid of the work that is essential for the monopoly's survival?

Someone will manage to create an AGI system and within a year or two it will wipe out most lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats, teachers, programmers and office workers. With AGI working on machine vision and robotic control guided by machine vision, it may only take a couple of years to develop robotics to the point that most surgeons, mechanics, cooks, fruit pickers and builders are put out of work too. The same money will be in the system though

The latter part is not true. It will be a feudal society with kings and barons who have access to the AI and all the rest of the society who haven't. The biggest part will be fed by barons for not rioting and there will be no money or some special kind of money "for the crowd" (like gold and copper in real feudal societies). Real money will be the property of the kings only, who can spend them on wars and other funny things (funny for kings, of course). And if the kings consider it's not very funny to maintain the rest of the society, then I'm afraid there will be no more the rest of the society. Just because the kings need no piece of it's work and can happily live in the world of machines and virtual reality.

The creators of the AGI should not be able to go on raking in vast quantities of money from it forever...

Really? But do they want to be limited by such a "other guy problem"?

[DavidCooper]

The important thing here is how to measure the benefit. If my mom tells you my program is beneficial, would you agree?

The way to measure the benefit is to see if people are prepared to buy it, how many of them are prepared to buy it and how much they're prepared to pay for it. The seller will typically set a high price, then reduce it over time in order to make as much money as possible out of the product. That mechanism already works well, but we don't yet have the right levels of taxation and the basic income to make it fully fair.

The problem is - there's no good governments. Goldman Sachs and other "boys" managed to install their puppets where needed.

In most countries we get the governments that people choose, but we need better systems of democracy where you aren't limited to occasional elections where you vote for one of a handful of bad packages of ill-thought-out policies. For democracy to work properly you need to have votes on individual issues, and ideally an exam for voters to take to prove that they actually understand the issue involved each time before their vote can count. Newspapers and other media should also be required to be balanced, offering equal space to the people pushing the opposite point of view. We now have technology which could allow the public to vote on all issues at any time they want to, and as opinion shifts, government policy should shift to match (with a reasonable delay to avoid sudden swings to one side and back). At the moment all we have are temporary dictatorships where the village idiot is voted into power to make a mess for a few years, then a goat is voted in to clear up the mess, then a comedian is voted in to clean up all the sh*t, and on and on it goes. No wonder China is taking the lead.

Android is a real trash when it's about to develop something useful for it. But it's market share is bigger than iPhone's.

It costs a lot less to buy an Android device, so of course it's got a big market share.

The "benefit measure" here isn't working, obviously.

How's it not working? If a product is good enough, it generates money, although in the case of Android it does so by preventing Apple from taking over in other areas, protecting Google's position.

Without alternative there would be no iPhone.

Why would a lack of Android mean there wouldn't be an iPhone?

Perhaps there should be a system for pumping money into new society development. Because if there's no alternative then there won't be any iPhone. Capitalism vs Socialism or whatever, for example.

There's no inherent problem with a monopoly just so long as it doesn't stifle innovation and so long as it's being taxed appropriately. Where it's holding back progress by dominating the field and failing to develop further, that's when other companies should be helped to compete against it.

that would be a way of tackling monopolies which come not from superiority but mere momentum

There's no such way in our society. Monopolies just buy the governments. And if there are some rivals - the monopolies just buy the rivals. The rival should be invulnerable to the buying attacks, but there's no such strong entity in the world.

There is a major problem with big business buying the government (at every level), and they also control the media and press so well that they can trick the public into voting against their own interests every time, so it's likely that the only fix for this is going to come when AGI takes over the whole business of informing the public, and then we'll see revolutions with all the corrupt politicians being put in jail where they belong.

As it stands, a lot of people are being paid a basic income already, but we call it a benefit and we regard such people as vermin.

If it's about a small part of the society's income then I'm OK with such payment (just like I'm OK with the pet maintenance). But if it's about essential part of the income then I ask the question - why they should drain a lot while doing nothing?

If 99% of the population have no work once there's no work for them to do, why should they be regarded as lazy gits who are a drain on society? They are 99% of society. Work isn't the purpose of life: our job is to eliminate as much work as we can so that we're freed up to do better things.

If they can work then they should do something. Else they are just parasites, aren't they?

People who do unnecessary work which makes everyone much poorer and who are paid a lot of money to do that work are the biggest "parasites". In reality though, most of them aren't parasites either: at the moment the necessary work that's available is not being shared out fairly to allow people to earn a decent amount of money because some people are grabbing more than their fair share. They then brand their jobless victims as parasites and demonise them, but their own ambition is to get promoted into positions where they earn many times the average wage and where they spend most of their work time on the golf course: those are the biggest parasites of the lot, or to be more accurate, they're the vampires who suck society dry.

But the next question is about what work they should perform. And here again the "benefit measure" plays in full. How to determine if a person can produce more useful product? How may tries he should have? Who would measure the usefulness?

Money: people pay for worthwhile products. If you spend years writing a sh*t book that no one wants to buy, you get paid nothing, but if a million people buy it, you might have a couple of million dollars in your pocket, minus tax. That tax should be calculated with the income spread across a lifetime so that you pay the same amount on it as someone who makes the same income from a series of short stories with the money coming in in smaller chunks over many years: at the moment we have a system which discriminates against people who earn the income on a lifetime's work in one large chunk while someone else pays a lower rate on many chunks of income which they can invest or spend, thereby having a much better time of things along the way and having more money to spend on themselves overall too. Unfairness of that kind needs to be eliminated. Importantly though, the writer of the sh*t book who makes nothing from it should still be paid the basic income (which will be substantial), leaving them no worse off than a person who has done no work at all: although they've wasted a lot of their time working hard, their reward has to be based on the quality of the product produced, and it's up to them to test their work early on to see if it's worth going on with it and having the intelligence to give up near the start when everyone tells them they're writing sh*te. There's no way that sh*te should be rewarded.

Another group of people are paid a much higher income by the state for doing completely unnecessary work which actually serves to make everyone collectively poorer

Usually it's relatively easy to prove. But we need a testing framework to catch such bugs. And contemporary society just hasn't any testing framework. Neither it has any competitor to show us alternative frameworks. It's just monopoly of corrupt governments who serve the big money monopolies. And we are just silent peasants who should keep working and shouldn't bother the monopolies.

The main problem is that people are still tied to the old rules which program them to think work is essential and that creating jobs is everything. It's completely wrong: jobs are the enemy and we should be trying to get rid of as many as we can. We have billions of people out there thrashing the planet to try to feed their children by destroying the ecosystems we depend on, but there's always been more than enough food available to feed them all (so long as they don't keep multiplying their numbers). If we just supplied food, clothing and healthcare to the world for free, we could save money by saving the planet and removing all the pressures which are set to bankrupt us all as the climate goes crazy. Looking after everyone properly by providing a basic income for all worldwide is the solution, matching the amounts paid to the local cost of living.

How can we get rid of the work that is essential for the monopoly's survival?

Is the monopoly providing a useful service or is it destructive? If the former, any work that's needed to maintain it is useful work. If the latter, all of that work can go: we just need to put the right people in power so that they can dismantle that destructive business.

Someone will manage to create an AGI system and within a year or two it will wipe out most lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats, teachers, programmers and office workers. With AGI working on machine vision and robotic control guided by machine vision, it may only take a couple of years to develop robotics to the point that most surgeons, mechanics, cooks, fruit pickers and builders are put out of work too. The same money will be in the system though

The latter part is not true. It will be a feudal society with kings and barons who have access to the AI and all the rest of the society who haven't. The biggest part will be fed by barons for not rioting and there will be no money or some special kind of money "for the crowd" (like gold and copper in real feudal societies). Real money will be the property of the kings only, who can spend them on wars and other funny things (funny for kings, of course). And if the kings consider it's not very funny to maintain the rest of the society, then I'm afraid there will be no more the rest of the society. Just because the kings need no piece of it's work and can happily live in the world of machines and virtual reality.

With democracy, the wealthy elite depends on sharing some wealth with at least 51% of the population. That allows them to leave the other 49% to rot, but they also have to brand the 49% as inferior beings and scare the 51% into thinking they could become part of the 49% if they don't vote to maintain the current system, and they do this by scaring them into thinking their jobs are in danger (which indeed they are). That is the mechanism by which they maintain the crazy system that's dragging us all towards environmental collapse, and then on from there into population crash and wars of extermination. The propaganda has been so successful that you can't vote for any party that understands what the problem is and how to go about fixing it: even the Greens are brainwashed into thinking unemployment is the enemy when it's actually the route to liberation.

The creators of the AGI should not be able to go on raking in vast quantities of money from it forever...

Really? But do they want to be limited by such a "other guy problem"?

Do you think they're all evil? Most of the people running the big tech companies actually care, but they're a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to understanding how the world should be. However, the basic income idea is growing fast, and people are now recognising that most ordinary jobs are going to disappear. They still have weird ideas about people retraining repeatedly throughout their lives to do new kinds of work, not realising that these "new kinds of work" aren't going to be in any way necessary and that the main impact they will have will likely to be negative due to their impact on resources: we already have a billion people driving many miles a day in machines that use ten times as much energy as necessary to move them around just so that they can waste a lot more energy in an overheated office doing work which will benefit absolutely no one, so why do we need to invent new pointless work for them to do every time intelligent machines come along that can do their old pointless work for them? We actually just need to free them all to go out into the park and play, to stay at home and bring up their own children in fun ways instead of locking them up in institutions to have their time wasted by inefficient teaching aimed at preparing them to fill their lives with pointless work which drags everyone's quality of life down. Sometimes the solution is so obvious that it's hard for people to see it and to recognise that it is the right path to follow, but that's just human nature: most people stick with what they know even when they're destroying their own lives by doing the most stupid things possible. Natural general intelligence is rare.

[embryo2]

The way to measure the benefit is to see if people are prepared to buy it, how many of them are prepared to buy it and how much they're prepared to pay for it.

There are inefficiencies. Market entrance barriers, huge customer base momentum, economy of scale, monopolies and so on. So, instead of a good mobile OS we have the choice of iOS and Android only. I haven't wrote anything for iOS, but Android's development experience with it's permanent quirk maintenance, hack invention and version incompatibility is really annoying. There could be better environment for Android users if developers weren't enforced to spend a lot of time on Android deficiencies. And all that is required from Google is just to decrease the price a bit to be competitive with iOS. So, we see that people are ready to buy every trash when there's only two choices - Android and iOS. It means the benefit measure just doesn't work, because the quality of the existing mobile OSes is poor.

For democracy to work properly you need to have votes on individual issues, and ideally an exam for voters to take to prove that they actually understand the issue involved each time before their vote can count.

When you'll get such a system you'll see it's problems. It's mostly about our level of knowledge. Every issue requires a person to understand the depths of the problem, but most people just haven't a clue about it. So, there just should be some specialization and only specialists should be allowed to work on an issue. But then it looks just like it is now. It means there should be some trial and error way towards the really efficient system. And it means we can start at any moment. But do you see a government that is ready to start such a journey? No. There are just monopolies.

Newspapers and other media should also be required to be balanced, offering equal space to the people pushing the opposite point of view.

Today it's just a dream. How to balance the media? Who knows exactly that the issue is actual or not? If we prevent somebody from talking about it then may be we stop the most important talk for the humanity. And when we support somebody in his talks then may be we support a clown. Again it's about deep understanding of things that is often missing.

No wonder China is taking the lead.

They use centralized management system while western "democracies" use distributed systems. Centralization is efficient more often than decentralized system is.

The "benefit measure" here isn't working, obviously.

How's it not working? If a product is good enough, it generates money, although in the case of Android it does so by preventing Apple from taking over in other areas, protecting Google's position.

It doesn't work because the quality is poor. In case of Android it's mostly the design issue, so it costs nothing to Google to redesign the OS, but why should they be bothered? Android generates money and that's all that is important. So, benefit here is not the society's good, but just Google's income.

Without alternative there would be no iPhone.

Why would a lack of Android mean there wouldn't be an iPhone?

Alternative enforces existing businesses to do something for not losing market share. And if there's no alternative then why should business care about such things as quality?

There is a major problem with big business buying the government (at every level), and they also control the media and press so well that they can trick the public into voting against their own interests every time, so it's likely that the only fix for this is going to come when AGI takes over the whole business of informing the public, and then we'll see revolutions with all the corrupt politicians being put in jail where they belong.

Do you really think corrupt government will allow AI to overthrow themself?

If 99% of the population have no work once there's no work for them to do, why should they be regarded as lazy gits who are a drain on society?

It's different with today's idea of basic income. Today we have jobs for the majority of people, so the 99% is a bluff. But in the future, when machines will create useful goods for (hopefully) all society, it will be the situation when nobody is enforced to share essential part of his income with the resting people. And that's why I'm still OK about it. And if we implement the basic income today then societies productivity will collapse because no waitress wants to be a waitress, for example. Then who will be a waitress?

Work isn't the purpose of life: our job is to eliminate as much work as we can so that we're freed up to do better things.

Mostly yes, but from the other side people without any motivation will become just satiated animals. Just drink beer and watch TV.

People who do unnecessary work which makes everyone much poorer and who are paid a lot of money to do that work are the biggest "parasites".

The system should highlight us such areas where the work generates negative income. So, it's just about the same complex rules that should govern the society.

They then brand their jobless victims as parasites and demonise them, but their own ambition is to get promoted into positions where they earn many times the average wage and where they spend most of their work time on the golf course: those are the biggest parasites of the lot, or to be more accurate, they're the vampires who suck society dry.

And in fact they rule the world. So the problem is simple - do they want to change anything? And the answer is too obvious.

at the moment we have a system which discriminates against people who earn the income on a lifetime's work in one large chunk while someone else pays a lower rate on many chunks of income which they can invest or spend, thereby having a much better time of things along the way and having more money to spend on themselves overall too. Unfairness of that kind needs to be eliminated.

Yes. And I suppose it's the way to all essential improvements in our world. Quick results are dumb almost always. And only long thoughts can lead to a deep understanding. So, our world now motivates the dumbest and demotivates the wisest. And (back to OSes) that's why the Android is such a pain

Importantly though, the writer of the sh*t book who makes nothing from it should still be paid the basic income (which will be substantial), leaving them no worse off than a person who has done no work at all

If basic income is a small drag on working people then I'm OK. But if not, then who will be a waitress?

The main problem is that people are still tied to the old rules which program them to think work is essential and that creating jobs is everything.

To vote properly is also a work. So, there will be no "free lunch". Somebody just must order machines to do something useful. And today almost all just must to work because we still have no appropriate AI.

jobs are the enemy and we should be trying to get rid of as many as we can.

And not become an animal after it.

We have billions of people out there thrashing the planet to try to feed their children by destroying the ecosystems we depend on, but there's always been more than enough food available to feed them all (so long as they don't keep multiplying their numbers).

But if they want to multiply their numbers? I hope you'll not propose something like sterilization.

If we just supplied food, clothing and healthcare to the world for free, we could save money by saving the planet and removing all the pressures which are set to bankrupt us all as the climate goes crazy.

And people will start multiplying. What should we do next?

we just need to put the right people in power so that they can dismantle that destructive business.

Yes, we need. But... Is it possible?

With democracy, the wealthy elite depends on sharing some wealth with at least 51% of the population.

With AI the wealthy won't depend on anything the society can produce because the machines will do it. So, it's just the end of democracy (and the society).

The propaganda has been so successful that you can't vote for any party that understands what the problem is and how to go about fixing it: even the Greens are brainwashed into thinking unemployment is the enemy when it's actually the route to liberation.

But what is the propaganda? It's just a tool in hands of... Who do you think handles this tool? Answering the question can help in identifying the real problem.

Do you think they're all evil?

May be not all and may be somebody is just partially an evil, but the system works as evil's servant, despite of any personality in charge. A person is obliged to generate a profit for a corporation, so his first goal is to find a way to maximize the profit. And the best way to get a lot is just to take a lot from the society without any trade. So, just install your puppet in a government and you'll get it. And corporation will reward such tricks with mega-bonuses. And corporation will select the people who do the trick better. And in the end you have the best vampires at the top. Very simple.

Most of the people running the big tech companies actually care, but they're a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to understanding how the world should be.

Yeah, vampires will tell you they are "a bit slow" and just still "don't understand something". And then they just grab your money, but very fast and with deep understanding now.

However, the basic income idea is growing fast, and people are now recognising that most ordinary jobs are going to disappear.

The jobs will disappear, it's true. But basic income won't change the system with vampires.

They still have weird ideas about people retraining repeatedly throughout their lives to do new kinds of work, not realising that these "new kinds of work" aren't going to be in any way necessary and that the main impact they will have will likely to be negative due to their impact on resources: we already have a billion people driving many miles a day in machines that use ten times as much energy as necessary to move them around just so that they can waste a lot more energy in an overheated office doing work which will benefit absolutely no one, so why do we need to invent new pointless work for them to do every time intelligent machines come along that can do their old pointless work for them?

We need to invent new pointless work to keep existing system running. Right until they won't need existing system. It's simple.

We actually just need to free them all to go out into the park and play, to stay at home and bring up their own children in fun ways instead of locking them up in institutions to have their time wasted by inefficient teaching aimed at preparing them to fill their lives with pointless work which drags everyone's quality of life down. Sometimes the solution is so obvious that it's hard for people to see it and to recognise that it is the right path to follow

All obvious solutions are recognized long ago. And there's something else that guards the system from change. And it's not even close to the "hard for people to see it", if we talk about those in charge. But it's just the case if we talk about the majority of people, they just do not recognize the real threat.

Natural general intelligence is rare.

Or it is manipulated by smart vampires.