03-06-2021, 03:19 PM
Taxing the robots? Slave societies other than Nazi Germany have typically taxed slave-owners, and slave-owners recognize the need for such taxes to enforce slavery -- to recapture slaves who flee and to protect against the theft of slaves. Remember that taxation is in part a protection racket to protect people who have something to lose.
Remember: a robot is a literal slave. Ownership of robots may not have the moral offense that human slaves have. Know well that robot is itself akin to the German word Arbeit, with the Arbeiter as a toiler. In the Third Reich the Arbeiter was anything but a free person. The human slave obviously had feelings and desires, and a robot does not have them. One takes the humanity out of someone only by killing or dementing him... obviously robots have no feeling.
Slave societies, to put it mildly, were not places of economic opportunity for those not in on the system. There was little room for the sorts of retailing and banking businesses commonplace in truly-free societies. Unemployment was typically high -- what opportunity was there? Robots exist to substitute for human workers, so what do we do with the unskilled and semi-skilled workers whose jobs vanish?
Sol let us suppose that our cars, clothes, and consumer electronics are made with the labor of robots. It is best that those who use such robots pension the rest of us off. Businesses can have bloated bureaucracies, but those are more waste than anything else. Maybe some of us will revert to artisan-style work, making stuff too ornate, personalized, or delicate for robot labor. Some of us will work managing the robots. Some of us will sell the wares that the robots make or repair or upgrade them.
Remember: a robot is a literal slave. Ownership of robots may not have the moral offense that human slaves have. Know well that robot is itself akin to the German word Arbeit, with the Arbeiter as a toiler. In the Third Reich the Arbeiter was anything but a free person. The human slave obviously had feelings and desires, and a robot does not have them. One takes the humanity out of someone only by killing or dementing him... obviously robots have no feeling.
Slave societies, to put it mildly, were not places of economic opportunity for those not in on the system. There was little room for the sorts of retailing and banking businesses commonplace in truly-free societies. Unemployment was typically high -- what opportunity was there? Robots exist to substitute for human workers, so what do we do with the unskilled and semi-skilled workers whose jobs vanish?
Sol let us suppose that our cars, clothes, and consumer electronics are made with the labor of robots. It is best that those who use such robots pension the rest of us off. Businesses can have bloated bureaucracies, but those are more waste than anything else. Maybe some of us will revert to artisan-style work, making stuff too ornate, personalized, or delicate for robot labor. Some of us will work managing the robots. Some of us will sell the wares that the robots make or repair or upgrade them.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.