r/comics 9h ago

What if it doesn’t happen

We have to consider the possibility…

42.4k Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

44

u/Proper-Beyond116 7h ago

The general public are bought and paid for. You could get them to vote in favour of being kicked in the balls every morning for the rest of their life via media manipulation. They dumbed down and propogandized the population a long time ago, they're now too stupid to be held responsible for their own choices.

22

u/Top_Meaning6195 6h ago

The general public are bought and paid for.

No.

  • i don't vote liberal because i saw a Planned Parenthood ad
  • conservatives didn't vote conservative because of an ad

Conservatives have been shit-stains upon humanity long before Trump.

Hell, they made abortion illegal in the 19th centry, and have endorsed slavery for 300 years.

We could get rid of all the rich and it wouldn't make a bit of difference because conservatives are allowed to vote.

5

u/f0r3v3rn00b 4h ago

Upvoted. But now, saying conservatives are allowed to vote is the problem, it feels like you're saying that democracy is the problem.

0

u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 4h ago

Of course it is. A benevolent dictatorship would be the best form of government, but humans being what we are, we can't have that. People are stupid, petty, vengeful, angry creatures, and half of them (or more) vote with their emotions, not their intelligence. It's almost to the point where I hope AI takes over the world, because it would at least run things with the most efficiency.

5

u/AeneasVII 3h ago

I'd like to try again a government that's run by scientists and experts and a constitution following humanitarian principles. But they need to be in charge of every country.

1

u/f0r3v3rn00b 2h ago

Science and experts have nothing to say about what’s good and what’s evil. You could end up with a scientifically accurate and expertly ran dystopia.

3

u/SurpriseInitial6202 2h ago edited 2h ago

The cool thing about science, and especially the data that comes from it, is that you can use it to form valuable opinions on things like "what's good and what's evil" by establishing non-religious definitions of those words, and then looking at what policies and societal forms conform most to "good".

For example, the current data on societal happiness, health, purchasing power, etc, favors governments that have strong social safety nets and own their own natural resources, rather than selling them off to private companies (both of which are left leaning but largely free-market other than a few things the government owns).

Some people think that a truly communist world would be best, but we don't have data to support that. Some think that a libertarian world would be best, but we don't have data to support that, either.

There's a reason that most economic models in Europe at least favor the social safety nets part. It's because it's statistically the best way to reduce poverty and crime, which means you have a more productive society.

1

u/f0r3v3rn00b 1h ago

I agree to some extent, but science has nothing to say about morality, and it's probably better this way. Science cannot answer "what is" questions. What is an electron? Science is the best tool we have to answer "how" questions, like "how does an electron interact with an atom".

2

u/AeneasVII 2h ago

Sure, but read about humanism on Wikipedia. We figured these things out long ago, we could easily make them work. But we aren't there yet/ever

1

u/f0r3v3rn00b 2h ago

Efficiency isn’t necessarily good. Nazis were quite efficient at genocide, right? Why would you expect AI to be benevolent? Also AI is built according to billionaire’s vision, so…

1

u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 2h ago

I didn't say I expect AI to be benevolent. Wiping half of us out on day one would be quite efficient.