The Future of the Human Race

[rootbear75]

pKv6RcXa2UIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI

Both the movie Wall-E and this video have gotten me thinking of the future of the human race.

Why does it seem more and more every day that the whole humanity will work at and buy !@#$%^&* at one company.

 

Anyone else have suspicions as well.

[PaRa$iTe]

It is possible. However, there will still be people who will do the development, and people who produce the goods. And I believe that way before we reach any situation even close to a total all-around monopoly, salaries in cheap labor areas will have risen to be somewhat near that in industrialized countries (while salaries here will go way down to be compe!@#$%^&*ive). And, at least in Finland, monopolies are illegal (unless the company is owned by the government).

[rootbear75]

It is possible. However, there will still be people who will do the development, and people who produce the goods. And I believe that way before we reach any situation even close to a total all-around monopoly, salaries in cheap labor areas will have risen to be somewhat near that in industrialized countries (while salaries here will go way down to be compe!@#$%^&*ive). And, at least in Finland, monopolies are illegal (unless the company is owned by the government).

but think of Wall-E... where a corporation basically takes care of the Human Race with autonomous robots.

the "Buy N Large" corp or w/e

 

In the 22nd century' date=' the megacorporation Buy n Large (BnL) !@#$%^&*umed every economic service on Earth, including the government. Overrun by un-recycled waste, the planet eventually became so polluted that it could no longer support life. In an attempt to keep humanity alive, BnL CEO Shelby Forthright (Fred Willard) sponsored a five-year exodus to outer space aboard massive executive starliners, the most famous of which was the Axiom, which left Earth in 2105. These starliners were giant cruise ships in space that supported every need for the humans with a fully-automated robot crew. Hundreds of thousands of robots, known as "WALL-E", were left behind to clean up the planet by compacting the trash into cubes and stacking them into skyscraper-like towers for easy disposal. However, this plan was rejected when Forthright determined in 2110 that Earth was too toxic for return to ever be feasible. By 2815, seven hundred years later, only one WALL-E (voice created by Ben Burtt) remains operational.[/quote']

Edited August 5, 2008 by rootbear75

[PaRa$iTe]

I doubt legislation will allow that anytime soon. Something dramatic would have to happen - something outside current development. A scenario in which the governments would take over every single corporation because of the recession is just as plausible

[FMBI]

Shh, I think Veg might be lurking, but..

 

It is very plausible that, with the influence corporate interests already have in the government (even Obama's gotten something like $100,000 from oil companies, and millions from !@#$%^&*orted other corporate donors), a situation could arise in which a group like BlackRock, a major weapons company like Boeing, or a major manufacturer like Toyota could quietly purchase controlling stakes in a large number of other firms, while simultaneously using money and lobbying influence to break down government regulations against that. Eventually, if a group were large enough, it could theoretically dominate the government and from there on, it would be home free in the race to take over more portions of the global economy.

 

I don't personally believe one company could do this, because the economy's just too big, but if a number of them got together, then they could easily control the entire economy. I'm trying to think of a good sci-fi example, and the only I'm coming up with is Shipstone, from Heinlein's awful novel Friday.

[Aileron]

There have been a lot of doom and gloom future predictions throughout the ages. I believe the first was predicted by H. G. Wells the "Time Traveler", which predicts cannibalism if the world does not accept Communism. All are absurd.

[FMBI]

On the other hand, Wells also predicted the renewed caste-ification (if that's a word) of society, which doesn't seem far off the mark, especially because of future genetic modification technology.

 

Anyone with the money will be able to become nearly immortal, while the majority of the world's population will be left worse off than they were pre-industrialization.

 

Doesn't sound so absurd to me.

[AstroProdigy]

What's with the avatar you're both sharing?

[PaRa$iTe]

Anyone with the money will be able to become nearly immortal, while the majority of the world's population will be left worse off than they were pre-industrialization.

Time to accept communism then, or we'll all drift into economic cannibalism![/joke]

 

No, really, if they start selling Ubermensch status to the highest bidder, while everyone else suffers from it, I support disbanding the company that did it and sending the executives to the Gulag.

[rootbear75]

What's with the avatar you're both sharing?

http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?s=&sh...st&p=230944

[»doc flabby]

Robots will take on alot of the factory jobs (in china, india etc) as the tech becomes cheaper.

[Aileron]

What's with the avatar you're both sharing?

 

Well, for those too lazy to click on the link, my avatar is up because I joined the Army and that's my rank. Finland has it up because while he'd probably move to Russia rather than accept being drafted to the Army, he's an !@#$%^&*.

 

 

Parasite is kinda on track with this topic. The reason corporations can't take over is that at the end of the day, they can't get the physical military power to run things. Boeing maybe, but even then its a stretch, because in order to get military power, they would need the support of an army of people who would want something in return.

 

That being said, in the case of the topic, there is precedent. Coal mining towns for instance could be run by a company, where employees wouldn't even work for money, but for scrip which they could use to buy goods from the company store. The reason it worked is because the towns were isolated and employees couldn't readily move to a different town. Right now, our society is extremely nomadic, and people move from place to place daily. We just don't have the environment for it to work again. Transportation technology makes it impossible.

 

Oh, and when Sam Walton founded Walmart, he did have a policy of only selling American goods. Some bean-counters changed that. Walton's probably rolling over in his grave.

[FMBI]

Parasite is kinda on track with this topic. The reason corporations can't take over is that at the end of the day, they can't get the physical military power to run things. Boeing maybe, but even then its a stretch, because in order to get military power, they would need the support of an army of people who would want something in return.

 

I disagree with that, because if a corporation (or group of corporations) is economically dominating a state (as is the case in many African countries right now, which are yoked to corporations for export income), then it can place demands on that state to use its military to enhance the corporation's goals, in return for some economic benefit. To use an example, suppose that a corporation is involved heavily in two South American countries. Let's say one of them attempts to kick the corporation out, but the corporation is unwilling to give up the income. Therefore, it talks to its other client state, and convinces them to conduct limited military action against the interests of the other nation, while stopping short of an all-out war. Eventually the other state (which does not have economic backing) will be forced to give in, and the corporation will have further cemented its "rule" over both nations.

 

Corporations are very well placed for this kind of thing, because they can use both carrots and sticks, without fearing serious retribution once they reach a certain size. Unlike in the cold war, where there was always a balancing threat, finance and multinational corporations can exist anywhere and hide their !@#$%^&*ets in any country. There's really no way to take them out, short of freezing !@#$%^&*ets and getting international agreement - which is unlikely, and will be more so in the coming decades, when "peak oil" and other factors combine to weaken traditional states.

[Aileron]

But the stronger a corporation becomes, the more of a rallying cry international calls to limit them would be.

 

You did cite some African nations, but those are like the coal mining towns. They are relatively small, isolated areas in which the population as limited access to transportation and economic means to leave.

[AstroProdigy]

Aileron don't be a you know what showing off that you joined the army. You know and I know you only put it up to show off.

[FMBI]

Right now, Exxon alone (OMG! VEG WHERE ARE YOU! I MENTIONED OIL COMPANIES!) has a revenue of around 3% of the US GDP - Wal-Mart has a similar share - there are around a dozen more US companies whose annual revenues exceed 100 billion. A few decades ago, we broke up Bell, and now AT&T is Bell. Now, regardless of the tax issue and all that, that is a massive portion of the economy that these companies control, and that's not even taking into account all the European and Asian companies that make most of their money in the US.

 

Why, you may ask, am I bringing all of this oh-so-obvious material up?

 

Because there has been absolutely no public concern about this. Anyone who does have concerns is promptly labeled paranoid (even though the ones labeling them paranoid generally believe that the EU is satanic and the UN exists solely so Muslims can take over the US, but that's another story).

 

A handful of companies can make or break the US economy, in ways that were inconceivable a short time ago, and they are, through mergers and acquisitions (which are, by the way, though complete failures, not giving way to smaller companies through "creative destruction" for the most part - a worrying failure of libertarian predictions), expanding their share even more. Give it another decade, and I'd be willing to predict that 10 companies will control 20% of the US economy. And if there has been no outcry so far (most people are just thrilled to get those "Low Low Prices"), how can you expect it to happen in the future, when people are less and less well off (as I'm sure you know, a smaller middle class means less political activity)?

 

Nobody will be able to do a thing about it at that point, and, sadly, most people won't even care. It'll be a return to the good old days of the banana republics, except this time corporations won't be limited to the US as a welfare base - sure, Europe will be pissed off at first, but as long as Deutschbank and London get in on the action, I'm sure they'll find a way to accept the new reality.

 

 

Also, Ail.. While I mentioned Africa as a good example, there are many other countries which are just as dependent on multinats. Take, for example, that bane of the media's existence, China. For every dollar China gets in revenue from building crap for our kids (and grown-up kids), the companies doing the trade make 10 or 20. The world's second largest (PPP) economy is just as easy to dominate as a backwater state like Sierra Leone, as long as you have the right economic model. Which we do. Get an immature economy to export raw goods or cheap labor, while making it too expensive for them to develop an advanced economy on their own, thus linking them irrevocably to the more advanced economy whenever they need high technology or increased productivity.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Finland My BorgInvasion

[AstroProdigy]

China is increasingly taking control of its economy, though. It's own exploding middle class is becoming appealing as a market itself and more and more native owned companies are taking root. You can say a lot about the rulers of China, but puppets of the west they are not. They want to see a strong China.

[rootbear75]

A few decades ago, we broke up Bell, and now AT&T is Bell.

wrong.

 

Bell Atlantic was bought up by Verizon