https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNXmjhHZaY8 Trust me when I say The US learned from the best and Europe copied...

How does technological advancement fit into the picture, especially in a hypothetical computer-controlled system that doesn't have an imagination with which to come up with ideas?

I don't think that a planned economy would work because of the reasons that some here already mentioned. Like "modern" capitalism - modern in inverted commas because the idealized system of recent times looks the same like in the 18th to early 20th centuries - planned economy works great on paper as long as humans are not involved. Both systems reduce the complex human nature to just simple concepts:
capitalism - greed and selfishness
planned economy - humans like predictable clockworks

btw.: I consider myself a "lefty" in the European sense or socialist.

Not sure what you mean......

Are you talking about, Artificial Intelligence?

That would not be included in planned economy, different subject ;)

If you are talking about incorporating NEW inventions into the system, it is already a problem nowadays.

Just look at big pharma: They are ´renewing´ expiring patents, for example, just by modifying it a bit without making it better, just to prevent that this medicine or similar is getting free......

Look how many small companies are being bought out or run into bankruptcy just to avoid them as a competitor, best example

http://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/959651/Netscape-Files-Suit-Against-Microsoft-for-Antitrust-Violations.htm

And both in the US and Europe it has been decided that MS violated anti-trust measures........

Edit: spelling mistakes

Assume that the program allows for new technology to be introduced into its logic. Each time a new major development occurs, the program would need to be changed. Changed by humans, which puts their fallibility back into the program.

That is, if the programming allows for technological advancements in the first place. And if it does, can it direct the limited resources to the "right" places, whatever those are? At what point does it decide that a certain tack is not working out, and how does it then decide where those freed-up resources go?

On a different tack, say Hurricane Katrina occurred while the world is run by the Big Logic. Would New Orleans have been rebuilt? Any computer in its 'right mind' would look at the terrain and the history of weather in the region and decide, "Uh, we're not putting a million-plus people back in that spot. Are you guys nuts?" And yet we did. Should New Orleans cease to be? It makes no sense to build a city under sea level, and yet the world would be a poorer place without it.

"Well, we'll just modify the program to allow New Orleans to be rebuilt." And then human bias and fault are yet again placed into the code.



An old quote from the 70s: "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer." In other words: we get the errors of humans, but at a multi-threaded 4 GHz.

hmmm......

Staying with a better example: roughly 1/3 of the netherlands is below sea-level, even in the moment. so by following your logic (as you assume), it would need to cease to exist.

But your logic has a big error in it:

IF they would have followed the same standards as the Dutch do, it ]would have never happened. The Program would have enforced the proper rules ;)

Actually, for directing the limited resources to the right place, it would be easy.

And no, the program would not need to be altered, just think of chess, most programs nowadays DO learn by themselves. So as all products, would be an alteration of an existing one, it would be ´just´a cost/return-analysis, where programs are already being used for.

It is a ´simple´ calculation, what makes it nowadays so problematic is actually the tax-laws and the loopholes in it.

Most of our laws are not logical to begin with, plus think of how many errors our legal systems are making........and not talking about the political system ;)

In a prefect world, wou would know ´precisly´ how many units of X you would need, so you would know how much you would need to produce and so on........if X is finished move to Y and so on......

Just thought of how much (sorry) f*cking money we could save in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just by getting rid of the political systems....................

back to your part about human error:

The problem is, that our political systems runs the show, you have people deciding about something, where they have no (oh no the same word again, sorry) f*ucking idea what it is about. And it even gets worse with PARTIES and not longer INDIVIDUALS deciding. That was one reason why Marx had the idea, that ´laws´ shall be made by the specialists effected..... as example: techs deciding about tech issues....was never implemented, so kind of mood to talk about........

And now comes the biggest problem: If we would implement such a program , it would try to get rid of the human race, as WE would violate the framework set by ourselves ;)

It's not like the alternative (market economy) is not using computers or planning. Even Google or GOG or whatever must have a plan what they want to do in the next 5 years. Just the central part of central planning does not work very well.

But infrastructure, standardization, transparency, quality control, education, ... is all central planned and already works (even before computer technology was used).

So a hybrid is the best (as in most cases).

A planned economy, in which we would give up on capitalism and aim for the common good of all humanity and earth itself would be technically and economically totally feasible - but because the way we people are selfish, its going to be a sweet dream i am afraid.

"Owning" is something that we should try to distance ourselves from, because our current economic system wont be able to handle it in the future. USSR 5 year plans were pretty damn random and shortsighted.

Any country should set some varying goals for say 100, 50, 25 years and so on.

The short period (5 years is short time) have to be aiming at -something- on long term. With USSR (for example) this wasnt the case.

You cant just wake up in the morning and decide that oh yeah, youll totally solve the greenhouse effect in the next 2 years.

Yes. It would be possible, in an absolutely totalitarian state run by a computer. Only problem: whoever programs the computer will have absolute power, which he (or she) will absolutely abuse. So you would have to agree on a set of rules when building the computer once and for all, and after that make it immutable, so that no changes are possible from any human. And woe betide if there were any errors made in the programming of the computer. It's a conundrum: you can't allow for any group of humans to make 'corrections' to the code, because they will abuse their power. But you need the possibility to make corrections, because look around: there isn't a single program in the world that is free of bugs. And in a program that runs everything, bugs are dangerous.

So, the only way would be a self-optimizing AI, programmed with a simple set of ethical rules (e.g. Asimov's robot laws) which then has absolute power over everything. But that isn't possible yet. AIs have a long way to go. Also humans would revolt rather sooner than later against an absolute rule of the machines. Even if that absolute rule is for the benefit of everyone. The alternative would be to make all humans directly controlled via some cyberinterface - ONLY if you remove free will, you will also be able to remove human error and human ambition. ... But then again you might as well go the full way and replace humans by machines completely.

Tl:dr version: if you want a perfect system, you'll have to remove anything human from it.

the solution

Nothing wrong with my logic vis a vis New Orleans. You're positing an IF that didn't occur. In this overall hypothetical question the program would start to operate with the world already existing as it would be at that point in time - it's not starting from scratch with that problem already solved, and it couldn't retroactively fix the problem before the disaster occurred. Nor will the extant problems go away simply because Big Logic comes to be.

And that's just one fairly localized case.


The problem with the chess analogy is that chess has a fixed set of rules, a specific playing area, and a defined set of pieces with limited movement capabilities - and the pieces don't think for themselves. So sure: within the fixed world of a game of chess, a computer can "learn" as it plays. Earth - and more pointedly - humanity do not operate within a fixed set of rules. There are SOME rules (seasons change, people are born and eventually die) but there are many more permutations than there are constants.


RE: directing research logic to the "right" place... I put it in quotes for a reason: who defines what is and is not "the right place"? Some committee chock-full of human faults and biases decides it at first, but then the program would have to determine - based on something that hasn't happened yet (the future advancements) - whether or not to pursue research toward those advancements. How does Big Logic do a cost-benefit analysis on something that doesn't yet exist?

Does doing it this way stunt the potential for what would ultimately become more-important advances in those areas that are ignored by the logic? Probably. We already have that problem to some extent (there's no way to invest in research in everything single possible thing) but for now humans can say, "Screw that - I'll find my funding elsewhere and do it anyway." And maybe something spectacular results from that second effort.


Ultimately, this would come to a small group of people deciding how 7 billion of us should live, and codifying it in a master program written by other people.


For all the faults of whatever political systems we now operate under, we still have our opportunities to do something - maybe just a teeny-tiny little thing, but still something - about those systems.

ok, I see were we differ. It is the starting point of the program ;) I put it before the desaster and you more or less right afterwards. not now.

In the moment, using pure logic, (so it might sound harsh)

1.) It was not wiped of the earth
2.) part of the infrastructure, buildings and so on ist still intact, that goes espacially for drains, waterpipes and similar.

So Main question here: Is it cheaper to build somewhere else or reconstruct?

What benefits do we have from rebuilding or which benefits were there beforehand? (festivals/culture/food etc)

As the benefits do outweigh the possible extracost, even under those circumstances, it would be worthwhile to rebuild.

If we put the starting point right now, as it is already being rebuilt, mood point to talk about and what I mentioned above would kick in again.

You are to certain point correct. But did you know, that even the gaming industry is watering their 'AI' to give us humans a chance? In the last years, we as humans can not beat anymore our inventions in our games.......

That would only be a question of the ruleset. That's I find where it gets reallz interesting: As I mentioned before, we as a race are not following our own ruleset, but for a program, there are only x-amount of expections allowed, what will happen next? If following the given ruleset, the program would need to get rid of those problems, otherwise the ruleset would be useless.....making the whole idea pointless from the beginning.

I am not saying to have a dictator-program, like with a swiss-like voting system, rules could be changed....

I can't remember the exact wording anymore, but somebodz once said, most big inventions were done by mistake, which I think is still true nowadays. Yes, we do have the tedious research work, but still a lot of the real good stuff, was found by poor luck? Can't think of another term.

So, if using planned economics, we might be even able to spare more resources into free inventions and hence profiting even more.Think here for the moment in the way of reduced burocracy, political system and similar. And if on a global scale, even the military budget AND resources being lets say it straight away being wasted there (and the points mentioned before ;) )

About the decision, as I suggested, the swiss system look quite good for this. To explain a bit:
If a certain number of signatures have been collect, it HAS to be put down for nation-wide decision. Used for example for the decision NOT to implement nuclear power, NOT to implent imigration quotas and similar.

So the people can decide about everything. Yes this decision is BINDING for the ruling parties AFAIK.

The implementation: Kind of easy solution, open source ;)

And for the current political systems: Don't want to go too much into detail:

Let's have a look around:

USA: You choose between the lesser evil, when was honestly the last election you voted FOR something? Example here, take the greens, if you like them or not, once they stood for an IDEA! (Shit, getting drunk, had to look up this word as it looked funny in upper case ;))
Germany: Great, the 2 big parties working together, no working opposition anymore, they can do what they want.
UK: Same as US
France: Kind of the same as the US, right wing coming forward.......
Greece: Hmmm it COULD turn out well, but not sure.
Russia: Back to the old days? No opposition at all......
China: Rather devided there......the are moving albeit really slowly, which I DO understand, they do look after the basic need of their people, don't forget they have 1/6 of the world population there......
India: IN the near future, this WILL be a huge problem, uncontrolled reproduction (I know, it sounds rather harsh)

And again, what about the world wide lobbies, taking influence in the political systems as well........

For me lobbyism is high treason:

Wiki:
whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, ......(similar definition do exist everywhere.....)

So, US companies, outsourcing to a known enemy, is clearly fitting into this picture, am I right? Even an economic war is still a war........

So I think, sooner or later, we WILL have to go to a kind of planned economy, otherwise as a race we will go down.

Or we will have endless wars about a lot of stuff. Did you know, that in certain areas water is getting a problem? Some think-tanks are already suggesting, the next battles will be over water, not oil or similar.

The only way out, would be, you can guess, planned economy........

I recently read an article that you may be interested in...

Here it is

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil

Reminds me a bit off the Euro......

Never heard off it before....I once only wondered why Brazil suddenly had the real, now I know why! Thanks for the info

(you might remember the old game: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego ;) they had the cruzeiros in it....)

From reading these posts it sure makes me glad Europe is so free of socialist tripe. It's refreshing to know that everyone has the solutions to all of the systemic problems created by the very system that they support.