Orc_ t1_je8czkd wrote on March 30, 2023 at 3:40 AM

Reply to comment by throwaway12131214121 in My case against the “Pause Giant AI Experiments” open letter by Beepboopbop8

> Yeah but every other system would also not have colonized the entire planet through countless continuous genocides and centuries of exploitation.

That would have been impossible, furthermore egalitarian systems are not inherently peaceful outwards or even ecological. Teotihuacan as an example.

throwaway12131214121 t1_je8dg8m wrote on March 30, 2023 at 3:44 AM

What would have been impossible?

Lots of empires were outwardly expansive. None of them took over the world like capitalism did, because their expansionist goals were motivated simply by power fantasies of their leaders.

Capitalist motivations are different because they apply to everybody in society, and whoever carries them out the best is automatically put into a position of power, so the society is quickly controlled by capitalist forces and becomes hyperfocused on capitalist interests and that doesn’t stop even when the people doing it die; they are just replaced with new capitalists.

That’s why so many elites in modern society are utter sociopaths; empathy gets in the way of profit a lot of the time and so if you have empathy there are people who will outcompete you and you won’t get to the top

Orc_ t1_je8ef0o wrote on March 30, 2023 at 3:53 AM

> What would have been impossible?

For a non-modern system to exist that somehow prevent all wars, genocides, famines, etc. It's High Fantasy.

> Lots of empires were outwardly expansive. None of them took over the world like capitalism did, because their expansionist goals were motivated simply by power fantasies of their leaders.

Power that came from CAPITAL, capitalism has always existed since the first civilization, it even existed in the USSR.

throwaway12131214121 t1_je8sjjb wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:32 AM

I didn’t say that a system existed that prevented all wars, genocides, and famines, I don’t know where you got that from.

No, capitalism has not existed since the first civilization. You’re making the common mistake of conflating capitalism with a market. Capitalism is the system of private ownership that separates the working class, those who make money by selling labor, from the owning class, those who make money by owning the means of production. Prior to around the 16 or 17-hundreds, it did not exist, and before then most of the countries where it originated were some variation of a feudal society.

But you’re kinda right with the Soviet Union thing. The Soviet Union was not capitalist in the same way a place like the United States is, but it was very similar. The key difference being that the owning class was united with the state, which allowed capitalist and state oppression to unite a lot more dramatically.