We've discussed before how all governments are partially democracies because people allow rulers to rule. A king is nothing without a kingdom, you need people to do work, and to fight for you, that means that up until now you need to have some sort of support from someone in order to be able to rule, whether it is the majority of the people, or only a minority to keep the majority in check. And in turn, this also means that people who's slogan is "destroy all humans" have a hard time finding any kind of support, even from the dirtiest of mercenaries.
Enter robotics: A lot is say about what will happen as robots slowly take over jobs, including the military. This has a broader implication tho, it means that in the future it might be entirely possible for a company, a rich individual, or simply a very skilled madman to create their own armies, and sustain them, without the support of many people, or any at all. And that's kind of crazy and concerning to think about; You don't need the support of the people, anyone who protest can be eliminated, and replaced by a robot, and potentially you could do this with the entire human population if you are bold enough and it comes down to that.
tl;dr It could be possible in the future for some madman to declare himself King of bumfuckhill, take it with an army of robots, and then kill everybody, and have the robots do everything from farming, to mining, to fighting, and essentially be truly a king of that land, even with no (human) subjects.
A lot of these kinds of posts seem to make the assumption that humanity will make almost no meaningful developments in the areas of transhumanism or electronic warfare. Who's to say that the future won't be fought with no robotics whatsoever because all the electronic equipment is fried, hacked or jammed almost 100% of the time?
Jeremiah Carter
I think it's easier to shield electronics from EMPs than it is to create EMPs powerful enough to do significant damage.
Logan Garcia
Technology is a double edged sword but it is doubtful that a "lone madman" would ever be able to jump through all the legal and capital hoops to actually do it.
If it were to happen my bet is that it would be a syndicate of corporations/labor unions, depending upon the economic goals of the syndicate. This "syndicate" would also need to have the logistical capabilities necessary to get a jump on the government already in place, which maintains an active security force to prevent shit exactly like this.
This is simply too far off for us to worry about it. The state is still far too powerful, if the US for example caught wind of a force trying to do this within its own borders and somehow managed to allude waves of FBI/ATF/National Guard sieges then the pentagon could always just release some skunk-work drone swarm attack on their base/headquarters to make a point.
US govt has absolutely no qualm with using excessive force to quell perceived threats to national security/stability
For now that is true. But who knows what the future holds for technology like that.
Liam Allen
I would also imagine it'd be a corporation of corporate group doing something like this in a more realistic scenario, the "lone madman" example was more to extrapolate what could be within the realms of possibility.
Of course if you can think of it, there is probably people doing something to prevent it, but then one would have to hope that the people trying to prevent it are smarter than the people trying to do it, it is unlikely within borders of nations like the US, but it could happen somewhere else, and end up affecting first world nations in the long run, this without even factoring in things like potential corruption, or the fact that this kind of technology might just get lose on the wild like the blueprints for nukes.
Nolan Watson
2nd or 3rd world nations weakening themselves internally would be used advantageously by the west. western nations still have a hard time not embarking on ethically questionable economic and diplomatic initiatives for profit in industrializing nations.
if anything, western nations would utilize destruction and destabilization in the 3rd world for immediate profit, provided they could carve up territory with russia and china (probably with more ease than you would think).
>who knows indeed, who knows and therefore war machines replacing soldiers is a possibility
Austin Torres
>ome madman to declare himself King of bumfuckhill, take it with an army of robots and then the government's army of robots shows up and fucks that nigger hard or if you prefer an anarchist scenario, he gets powned by a composite army of all his neighbors for violating the NAP i'm not saying it will be impossible, just really hard and very improbable
Thomas Scott
What about the opposite argument ? Assuming we eventually manage to create an intelligence superior to our own but that doesn't go rogue (using whatever means we can to also prevent it from doing so), would a state governed by machines be, if not perfect, superior ? It could make communist and totalitarism work by avoiding corruption inside the state, and the machines overlords could even find original solutions to improve the system we couldn't think about or couldn't implement on our own. To summarize, is the cybertechnocracy the future ?
Henry Flores
Dictatorship of the robo- proletariat
Jacob Price
I'm not, I have to see and report his moron posts again now.
Gavin Barnes
When the king of Bumfuckhill manages to create his robot army, the global superpowers of the time will already have a robot army hundreds of times larger and more technologically advanced.
Lucas Campbell
Yes, but not an inevitability.
Michael Mitchell
Getting materials to manufacture robots requires other source of power(getting the metal, space to build etc...) so your idea of monopoly on power isn’t necessaryly complete...
Ethan James
It slowly builds up over time, you make machines to extract material and turn it into equipment, which is then in turn made into more worker robots.
It would not be an easy thing to do, that I am aware of, but it is worth noting that brilliant strategists have defeated superior enemies against the odds.
Leo Peterson
The real question is to what degree is it possible to automate the entire chain of production, from mining to piloting your murder-drones. Once you only need a small team of technicians to oversee everything we're in deep shit, because at that point complex economic systems cease to matter and society becomes obsolete. The only hard part will be retaining the engineering/programming knowledge to maintain the level of technological sophistication.
Charles Bell
If the robots can repair themselves it's over
Justin Foster
>Once you only need a small team of technicians to oversee everything we're in deep shit Isn't that where we're headed though?
Less and less people are need to manufacture complex products like cars. I can see a future where we'd only need 10 technicatians to oversee manufacturing millions of cars.
Surely the same thing will happen to the rest of the supply-chain manufacturing terminator drones.
Oliver Cooper
>Isn't that where we're headed though? Yes. I worry a lot even though it's futile.
Samuel Bell
The assumption usually is that if we reach that point, most people will just live off some sort of universal income or something along those lines, so here's a question for that scenario:
What incentive would engineers, technicians and scientists have to work, while everyone else just fucks around doing nothing? They probably won't see that as fair.
Bentley Hughes
They can get paid more, have more advantages and so on. Also some people like to work, it's as simple as that. They can't stand to not do shit.
Daniel Ross
>They can get paid more
But what good is that on, say, a post scarcity society?
>Also some people like to work
True, and those people will be our only hope then.
Jackson Ward
>god of poetry Polytheist really had no logical thinking at all.
Chase Baker
Paid was not the right word. They can get material advantages
