Re:US and UK refuse to sign AI safety declaration at summit
by I-M-S on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @04:51PM
(#43030122)
What the experiment has repeatedly shown is that people living in non-competitive systems starve to death when they get in the way of a system that has been optimized solely for ruthless economic efficiency.
Re:US and UK refuse to sign AI safety declaration at summit
by roenxi on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @05:03PM
(#43030226)
The big one that leaps to mind was the famines with the communist experiments in the 20th century. But there are other, smaller examples that crop up disturbingly regularly. Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban was a jaw-dropper; Zimbabwe redistributing land away from whites was also interesting. There are probably a lot more though, messing with food logistics on the theory there are more important things than producing lots of food seems to be one of those things countries do from time to time.
People can argue about the moral and ideological sanity of these things, but the fact is tolerating economic inefficiencies into the food system can quickly leads to there not being enough food.
Re:US and UK refuse to sign AI safety declaration at summit
by I-M-S on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @06:17PM
(#43030834)
The big ones that leapt to my mind were the Great Irish famine the duration of which food exports to Great Britain were higher than food imports, Bengal famine (the Brits again), and starvation of Native Americans through targeted eradication of the bison.
That is actually what you are talking about; "uncompetitive" looks like something in the real world. There isn't an abstract dial that someone twiddles to set the efficiency of two otherwise identical outcomes - the competitive one will typically look more advanced and competently organised in observable ways.
To live in nice houses and have good food requires a competitive economy. The uncompetitive version was literally living in the forest with some meagre shelter and maybe having a wood fire to cook food (that was probably going to make someone very sick). The reason the word "competitive" turns up so much is people living in a competitive society get to have a more comfortable lifestyle. People literally starve to death if the food system isn't run with a competitive system that tends towards efficiency; that experiment has been run far too many times.