thesis thursday

long socialism short capitalism

post agi capitalism = rule of a machine, socialism = rule of humans

if we squint, machines owning all capital and giving humans fixed ubi without exposure to upside of investments is basically the definition of capitalism

A doodler and computerer. I like permissive/permissionless open source, smart contracts, p2p systems, room-scale VR, and NixOS.

shazow.net

Currently: WhatsABI

There are many socialisms, but this doesn't describe any of them.

Closest thing might be Democratic Socialism, which is quite different from other socialisms (just as nazi National Socialism). However democratic socialism is ordered by a technocratic welfare state, not machines.

In Marxist socialism, the machines might be owned and directed by the workers using them for productive purposes. Or in Libertarian Socialism, they might be owned in common and controlled by those most impacted by them.

"That's socialism" rarely captures the nuances of the material reality in question, nor any actual socialisms which exist in reality or philosophy.