I must disagree with you about the prospects of revolution. As I've come to see it, a radical cultural shift is taking place, or is about to take place, in the technological fabric of most post-industrial societies.

This is related to the growing trend, or rather movement, to redesign central databases in terms of blockchain-based, cryptoeconomic systems. As the vast majority of the world's Internet, its economic, political, and legal institutions, are built in a way that concentrates management of central databases between vested authorities, there is now a very real threat to re-appropriate, if not entirely automate into irrelevance, the state's most important functions.

This is profound on many levels since it doesn't depend on the currently existing system. You don't need to believe in the futility of the current system. It's not set in stone. It can be challenged in a very realistic sense. In truth, the most essential aspects of economic life and governance can all be re-created and re-engineered in the code of social networks. All this can all be done without violence. All this is possible without trusting a single politician.

If that's not a recipe for revolution, then nothing is.

> An important question if you believe in the abolition of work as a worthwhile goal: how do we get there?

I think we're already seeing much discussion elsewhere on what's most probably the best way there -- the UBI. There are some historical results that are either too modest, or too inconvenient, to refer to or rely upon. But many more experiments seem to be on the near horizon.

One such story was posted on HN a few days ago[1] -- and in turn it was a toe-dipping exercise to proper UBI, in that only welfare recipients would receive the payment (so more BI, less U). Still, lots of people will be watching, talking, and thinking -- all good things.

> I hope we're all suitably convinced by now that revolution doesn't seem to work that well, which leaves some kind of iterative evolutionary approach.

Out of curiosity do you mean it doesn't work well in transition or just in terms of results? The transitional phase is rarely much fun, but I'd be curious if there's any evidence for it being ineffective. (Note, I'm not a fan, but historically these things aren't usually a heads-or-tails option for the people involved.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9817209

Revolution seems to work well as a way of wiping away a system that has become so corrupt or dysfunctional that there is no hope of iteritavely improving it.

That's not to say the successor system would be any better. They often are not. Perhaps society sometimes needs that clean slate approach though.

I'm beginning to think our hyper-dependency on financial institutions to the point of fear of punishing them for wrongdoing is unfixable in our current system. It's too corrupt.

> Revolution seems to work well as a way of wiping away a system that has become so corrupt or disfunctional that there is no hope of iteritavely improving it.

I don't think that this has generally been the case.

A total dissolution of social and legal structures tends to make conditions very conducive to psychopaths and sociopaths.

Your dickhead boss, who previously could only make your working life a living hell, can now scale up his ambitions.

That conniving neighbour from the block association is suddenly on the Committee for Public Safety.

Everyone who dreams of revolution dreams of one in which they are the selfless, noble heroes, overthrowing the monomaniacs who control the evil system. Then everyone is surprised when the most ruthless people of all rise to the top in very short order.

Basically, revolution is a fantasy. The actual outcomes are abysmal. The more intense the revolutionary outburst, the worse it goes for the common person.

The English Civil War, which was a form of revolution was arguably a positive thing. Without it Britain would have remained a tyrannical monarchy for long afterwards. This event led to a democratic parliament actually being useful.

The French revolution was bloody but ended immense corruption and repression on the part of the aristocracy. Again, this led to France being declared a constitutional Republic.

Even the Bolshevik revolution. It was corrupted later but it began positively.

Nobody is saying revolutions are clean or even desirable. I'm definitely saying that they seem inevitable at a point though. People can only take so much shit before they snap.

You should've led with the American Revolution, which was more of an insurrection than a true revolution. It's usually the poster child for a "good" revolution, though.

But all of the ones you cited support my argument: the process of revolution is brutally destructive and rapidly promotes psychopaths into positions of murderous authority.

Reform is often possible without them, which is why (fortunately) true revolution is relatively rare.

> But all of the ones you cited support my argument: the process of revolution is brutally destructive and rapidly promotes psychopaths into positions of murderous authority.

I don't think they do. Both the English and French revolutions led to better societies for the average citizen in spite of the bloodshed and chaos that was present initially.

I would go so far as to say it was necessary. What group of powerful elites will relinquish total control willingly?

Very few elites start with total control. Most of the reforms that have led to modern liberal democracy were taken voluntarily, even if begrudgingly.

I feel we should get there by empirically studying the whole thing. We need more data. Also we need this research to be more user friendly, that everyday people can read and then decide for themselves if that can be the way forward.

Changing because this guy talked about something on his blog isn't certainly the thing I want. Funny that that's exactly how real-life politics works: just people talking with little backup of actual data.

The abolition of work is one of the most important political essays after the situationist international. It was published in 1986 and also published in over 30 languages.

While what you want from Black is hard data, he wants from you to think and discuss. It's not a post in a blog, it's not a paper, it's an essay and that's what it aims.