Brian Merchant’s article “Fully Automated Luxury Communism”
focuses on the belief of a small but growing political group that predicts that
the world is headed towards total automation and luxury for all. While this seems
like an interesting point of view and I can see how it would sound appealing to
live a life of luxury while machines take care of everything for us I can’t help
but disagree and say that I do not believe that is where the world is headed, and
if it is I don’t believe it is such a good thing. Without work people often
find themselves bored or without purpose. Think simply about how so often people
cant wait to retire, but as soon as they do they have no idea what to do next.
I cant imagine an entire world of people who have nothing to do, and nothing to
achieve. The removal of purpose and schedule from peoples lives could have
tremendous negative impacts. The old saying that idle hands are the devils playground
is no joke, some of the worst decisions that individuals make would not be made
if they had been given a purpose beforehand. Yes a relaxing future where cars
drive themselves, robots make our food, and no one has any stress sounds like
an ideal situation it is one that does not consider all elements of human life.
Although I agree that it would be cool to see a robot and increase technology, I disagree with the writers claim that with without work, “people often find themselves bored or without purpose.” For one reason, I would think people wouldn’t be able to pay for anything without having a job. And communism usually thrives in poorer countries with poverty…which would counteract the idea of a poor country having high technology and robots. Yes, peoples’ basic needs would be provided to them in poverty, but people are often greedy and want more. And if someone wants more, they need money to buy it, and to buy something you need money, which you usually only get if you work. I also disagree with the non existence of credibility by the author. There are no quotations, summarizing or paraphrasing to show that the author did any research to build an argument. So the paragraph is really just the authors opinion of what “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” means without any real evidence that this authors claim is even relevant to the article about communism.
ReplyDeleteThe premise of the idea that robots will make everyones life easier and provide everyone a better life with benefits that were only available to those who were well off financially is a great idea, but the article leaves little to no room for an opposed view. There are so many things that could go wrong with this idea. Being completely dependent on machines could be good and bad. Machines are programmed by computer automated systems which can glitch. Glitches could go unnoticed for weeks before fixed and in turn ruin profits or sales. And in the worst possible scenario, something similar to the move Terminator could happen where computers and machines become intelligent and try to over run humans. Furthermore, if most things become automated, there would be tremendous loss of jobs and many people would be out of work. It would be virtually impossible to get large corporations to stop being greedy and share the wealth because machines are doing all the work. If anything, machines would encourage further greed, where there is no need for workers to be paid so owner of large corporations have and even larger threshold of profits for themselves.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading “Fully Automated Communism” I agree that this is not a good idea and although technology is thriving the negatives of this idea outweigh the positives. I think the ideas of FLAC have good intentions of leveling the playing field since technology is becoming more advanced and times are changing. In the article, there is a quote that states “Many of things we consider necessities today- phone service, automobiles, Saturdays off – were luxuries in the past.” In this sense, I agree with this idea as times change, the necessities change and the luxuries become greater. Another positive is with automation doing the hard work for people, there would be free time to go to school and continue an education or follow a passion instead of stressing about work. In a way, Automated Communism could help to make a difference, but it also could make things worse. The author tells us that “35% of jobs in the UK are at risk of being automated” this leads to people not having a job or having little pay for work. Although people would have free time, where would they find jobs and money to support themselves and their families. In the end, FLAC has its benefits in making work easier for employees and businesses while providing necessities for all. but I agree that this idea does not take the negative impact of the working class into consideration, although it seems like the next big thing!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Brian Merchant’s article, “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” and my peer, Korey Thornton’s blog, I find that my peer is at disagreement with the author. He reasons that it would be a bad thing if we had the luxury of being taken care of by machines. He then goes on to say we would find ourselves bored or without purpose. I feel that the world is indeed heading into the direction of humans depending on machines but which he agrees with, but I feel that humans, as idiotic as it sounds, might enjoy not having to work. I say its idiotic only because after the machines are working and humans are out of jobs, the only people who will be making money are the business owners. There are other ways we can distribute money or resources to where we could all enjoy living off the machines could work. Machines are already working for us in our daily lives, for example, washers and driers, dish washers etc. These machines are at use multiple times a month, if used regularly. I don’t think this takes away our human purpose, then again, we all have our own idea on the human purpose.
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