Speaker 0
0:00 – 2:55
So access stake is interesting because he talks about the potential of autonomous organization and what that means, if you no longer need to make profits and how costs would, inevitably decrease over time And how this is related because no person is needed when there are self driving cars and everything is automated through smart contracts and they're, you know, paying each other, etcetera. But he's also very vague. You know, he says who knows And he's skeptical about reaching that point anytime soon. It's, like, a perfect example of Zizek's idea of the liberal communist. It's the perfect liberal communist take and that he's using this sort of communist imagery of, fully automated luxury communism, but he's doing it from from a very liberal place, and he doesn't really, acknowledge any of the class conflict that it's that is inherent to capitalism at the moment. So I'm not saying that this is really a dumb take or anything like that. I think it makes sense. And it's really not in the interest of liberals for people to think that maybe very soon, technology will finally be good enough so that we will actually reach fully automated luxury communism. You won't have to work. You have everything, worked out for you. You don't have to, slave away at your job in order to make ends meet. He also seems to acknowledge the discomfort of that possibility where work working people are no longer needed. I think that's part of the reason why he says, you know, who knows? I'm skeptical that it'll reach any of that time soon because working people like, if if you don't have if everything is automated so much that you don't have the skills to to get a job or you don't own any of the factories, then, like, know, I mean, this is just, like, the classic, you know, dystopian future that plenty of movies and and shows have already talked about ad nauseam. But he uses this example of the Luddites who famously destroyed the machines of textile factories that took away many of their jobs and their businesses. So I think there's some unconscious understanding that technology can cheapen the labor of the working class without acknowledging the class conflict that creates this scenario. So, you know, under a fair economic system, automation would always be a good thing, but this is not so under capitalism, and it's very awkward to acknowledge that contradiction, especially if you're, like, a business executive talking about blockchain, which is, like, the hottest thing in in venture capital world. Also, one more fun fact, actually, is that his father, Don, actually once ran for mayor in a Canadian city under a Trotskyist communist party. But, unfortunately, he ended up, of course, becoming a business executive. So he either became disillusioned with the communist revolution or he was a psyop the entire time. But, of course, I don't know for sure, but it's a fun tidbit.