Scientific Advancement to Liberate the Masses

[Outinleftfield]

I know I'm about to get restricted for this. I've basically lost faith in Marxism, although I've taken a lot of great ideas from it in the process.

I've come to realize a more realistic way of achieving world peace justice and equality would be to promote scientific advancement.

The more we understand about the world the more control people have over their own lives(provided of course they take the time to use the information).

A more realistic route to a worldwide peaceful, just, liberated society is through advancing scientific knowledge.

Nanotechnology could eventually be used to replace any defective part of the human body including telomerase(which controls aging), and if linked to a central computer system could take care of all human labour.

In the end while the conflict between rich and poor exists now, and policies to help alleviate human suffering are important and more should be promoted the realistic thing to do in the meantime is reformist social policies to make things as good as possible given the moment-to-moment circumstances, along with heavy government(and social, through all avenues really, the best way to help depends on where you are in society right now and what you can do) promotion of the sciences. When it reaches the point of saturation where science can liberate humanity from (mandatory) labour, liberating our energy to be spent on pursuits of individual choosing then the rich would have no quarrel with the end of class distinction, because the advancement would be a huge leap forward for all humanity including themselves. Even the richest people today live with limitations far greater than what they would have in this high-tech utopia. With that technology there would be no reason to hold on to exclusive ownership of the means of production or of anything other than personal things, and exclusive ownership of the means of production could no longer be justified as nobody would be doing any more work.

In a way this conforms exactly to what Marx said, except its evolutionary, although in a way revolutionary(it will vastly transform our society when technology reaches this point), just not revolutionary in the sense he was thinking as the upper class will see no reason to oppose this. But even though what I am promoting actually can fit Marxism with a certain interpretation of Marx for me to call myself a Marxist would be semantic confusion, it would not fit the present context of what "Marxist" means in society. I'm more concerned with what my politics actually is than what label it fits, I don't forge the details of my politics around labels, I never have, I've always looked for a label to put on them. As the substance is what really is important, the labels are just forms of communication, shorthand ways to tell society what you believe, and right now "Marxist" does not express my true beliefs, even if Marx would shake my hand and congratulate me on figuring out how to reach utopia if I met him and described it to him(or he might laugh at it, but that doesn't matter). I guess in modern day society you could call me a "pro-science liberal".

I think this is an even better, more magnificent way of reaching utopia than other proposals, since in the end it would make everybody happy, including the rich, even while abolishing class distinction. If we can better everybody's lives versus just certain classes of people(rich or poor), why not better everybody?

[Madslatter]

Dude, people were saying this 100 years ago, and look whats happened. We've had massive scientific advancement since then and yet the masses are still fucked because of a lack of political and economic change that is necessary to liberate the masses. Science isn't going to do it, specifically not when it's working for capitalist interests!

[Outinleftfield]

Dude, people were saying this 100 years ago, and look whats happened. We've had massive scientific advancement since then and yet the masses are still fucked because of a lack of political and economic change that is necessary to liberate the masses. Science isn't going to do it, specifically not when it's working for capitalist interests!

Though most capitalists aren't aware of it, this sort of ascension is possible and in their interests too.

It just seems so far off they don't consider it.

If it could be shown how this sort of society could be created there would be no opposition from the rich, since it would also show them how they stand to benefit as well.

EDIT: Also, when you say "Science isn't going to do it" remember "Science" is an abstraction. There is no science incarnate that is going to refuse to advance. Many geniuses have come up from time to time, such as Einstein and individually contributed a great deal to our understanding of the world, and these geniuses are rarely concerned with the money, their passion for learning and knowledge drives them. Even with monied interests working against some aspects of scientific understanding now they can't stop independent, determined scientists from revealing the truth, and even though they can dismiss things as pseudoscience at first all it takes is for the scientist to figure out how to communicate his ideas with the rest of the world and then those in power who had an interest against that particular science overtime are unable to hide the truth. A good example is with cannabis. Many interests wanted to hide the truth of its great medicinal power from the public, but over time scientists have revealed the truth. The thing about science is that in the end truth triumphs. Lies can only be maintained temporarily.

EDIT: If I had some magic wand I could just wave and peacefully usher in a classless, stateless world of abundance for all I would, but the flaw in Radical Leftism is that it's impatient. It's heart is in the right place and many radical leftists contribute a great deal to human progress and alleviate people's suffering through political activism. But from a pragmatic standpoint when trying to apply it to politics it ignores the present-day circumstances, or at least vastly underestimates them.

Of course pragmatism doesn't necessarily mean you have to stop activism. In fact a more practical understanding can help push for real changes and sooner.

[hatzel]

Through sheer coincidence I was just reading Theodor Hertzka's Freiland, ein soziales Zukunftsbild, written in 1890, the very first paragraph of which reads:


The economic and social order of the modern world exhibits a strange enigma, which only a prosperous thoughtlessness can regard with indifference or, indeed, without a shudder. We have made such splendid advances in art and science that the unlimited forces of nature have been brought into subjection, and only await our command to perform for us all our disagreeable and onerous tasks, and to wring from the soil and prepare for use whatever man, the master of the world, may need. As a consequence, a moderate amount of labour ought to produce inexhaustible abundance for everyone born of woman; and yet all these glorious achievements have not – as Stuart Mill forcibly says – been able to mitigate one human woe. And, what is more, the ever-increasing facility of producing an abundance has proved a curse to multitudes who lack necessaries because there exists no demand for the many good and useful things which they are able to produce. The industrial activity of the present day is a ceaseless confused struggle with the various symptoms of the dreadful evil known as 'over-production.' Protective duties, cartels and trusts, guild agitations, strikes – all these are but the desperate resistance offered by the classes engaged in production to the inexorable consequences of the apparently so absurd, but none the less real, phenomenon that increasing facility in the production of wealth brings ruin and misery in its train.

That science stands helpless and perplexed before this enigma, that no beam of light has yet penetrated and dispelled the gloom of this – the social – problem, though that problem has exercised the minds of the noblest and best of to-day, is in part due to the fact that the solution has been sought in a wrong direction.

[gendoikari]

I've come to realize a more realistic way of achieving world peace justice and equality would be to promote scientific advancement.

Stick with marxism my friend it's better at this. By a large factor.

[Tommy4ever]

:rolleyes:

Not a very new idea. Not by a longshot.

In fact, from around the time when Stalin took over the whole purpose of the Soviet Union shifted from establishing utopia through Marxist ideas to establishing utopia through science (''Soviet power plus electrification equals communism'' - shame they forgot about the Soviet power).

The idea of science liberating makind was extremely popular in both the West and East from (roughly) the 40s to the 70s. For a while it seemed to be working very well indeed. Then people started realising that not everything science accomplished was necessarily 100% beneficial (enviromental problems, disillusionment with nuclear power after accidents, later global warming etc etc). Since then science has been looked upon with greater suspicion and the dream of the technological utopia has died.

I'm not saying that the electrification isn't important, or that its not extremely beneficial. But lets not forget about the Soviet power as the USSR did. ;)

[Rafiq]

Science is a product of the mode of production, which means scientific advancement is in a constraint in capitalist society...

[CommunityBeliever]

Also, when you say "Science isn't going to do it" remember "Science" is an abstraction. There is no science incarnate that is going to refuse to advance.

Science doesn't "refuse to advance" or "choose to advance." There is no definite "wheel of progress" that keeps turning. Have you heard of the dark ages? Think of all the advancements lost because of that or because of the burning of the library of Alexandria, etc.

Some people even say that we are currently in the middle of a technological dark age resulting from the loss of AI and the Lisp machines in the AI winter, the end of increasing core processor speed resulting in the muliticore age, the disestablishment of NASA and other serious space exploration programs, the dwindling supply of oil in conjunction with a lack of any serious effort into building fusion power, etc, etc.


Many geniuses have come up from time to time, such as Einstein and individually contributed a great deal to our understanding of the world, and these geniuses are rarely concerned with the money, their passion for learning and knowledge drives them. Even with monied interests working against some aspects of scientific understanding now they can't stop independent, determined scientists from revealing the truth, and even though they can dismiss things as pseudoscience at first all it takes is for the scientist to figure out how to communicate his ideas with the rest of the world and then those in power who had an interest against that particular science overtime are unable to hide the truth.

What you fail to understand is that we need proper forms of social organisation in order to have scientific progress, individual "geniuses" like Einstein can't really progress matters much all by themselves.

We have had thousands of geniuses come along with fantastic ideas, but they never amounted to anything because of problems like a lack of funding that are systemic to capitalism.

As the forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organisation become inefficient and stifle further progress. When you realise this I think you will come back to Marxism.

[Outinleftfield]

:rolleyes:

Not a very new idea. Not by a longshot.

In fact, from around the time when Stalin took over the whole purpose of the Soviet Union shifted from establishing utopia through Marxist ideas to establishing utopia through science (''Soviet power plus electrification equals communism'' - shame they forgot about the Soviet power).

The idea of science liberating makind was extremely popular in both the West and East from (roughly) the 40s to the 70s. For a while it seemed to be working very well indeed. Then people started realising that not everything science accomplished was necessarily 100% beneficial (enviromental problems, disillusionment with nuclear power after accidents, later global warming etc etc). Since then science has been looked upon with greater suspicion and the dream of the technological utopia has died.

I'm not saying that the electrification isn't important, or that its not extremely beneficial. But lets not forget about the Soviet power as the USSR did. ;)

But science didn't cause these things to happen, greed did. Besides that science=/=technology, science=knowledge. Science is about learning more about our Universe. Technology is about applying it. I agree we need to be a lot more careful about applying technology, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. In fact at this point the only way to fix the environment would be with science. We could stop all the pollution tomorrow and there'd still be things to fix.

And science can study the human body itself. There may be things we don't know about yet that we can do with our own bodies.

[Outinleftfield]

Science doesn't "refuse to advance" or "choose to advance." There is no definite "wheel of progress" that keeps turning. Have you heard of the dark ages? Think of all the advancements lost because of that or because of the burning of the library of Alexandria, etc.

Some people even say that we are currently in the middle of a technological dark age resulting from the loss of AI and the Lisp machines in the AI winter, the end of increasing core processor speed resulting in the muliticore age, the disestablishment of NASA and other serious space exploration programs, the dwindling supply of oil in conjunction with a lack of any serious effort into building fusion power, etc, etc.

What you fail to understand is that we need proper forms of social organisation in order to have scientific progress, individual "geniuses" like Einstein can't really progress matters much all by themselves.

We have had thousands of geniuses come along with fantastic ideas, but they never amounted to anything because of problems like a lack of funding that are systemic to capitalism.

As the forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organisation become inefficient and stifle further progress. When you realise this I think you will come back to Marxism.

Isn't this more of a reason to support a politics that stresses scientific advancement? If there is a risk of a dark age, we should get to work trying to prevent it from happening and fast.

I'm talking a politics that focuses on the whole of what is needed for scientific advancement, not just throwing money at it. That means developing alternative energies to stave off reliance on oil. That means figuring out the full potential of the human body and mind. That means open access to scientific information for the public. Money's part of it too, those thousands of geniuses you mentioned would do a lot better if they were receiving funding.

And the politics is sellable to the capitalists, because scientific advancement helps improve their lifestyles as well. Even though scientific advancement brings us closer and closer to the point where the means of production renders capitalism obsolete the capitalists only care about saving capitalism for as long as capitalism is in their best interests. Leaving capitalism through liberating mankind from labour wouldn't harm the capitalists any, so they wouldn't stand in the way.

Ultimately everything in the Universe is connected, so everything has to fit together somehow. There is a Theory of Everything out there. If we knew all there was to know in the Universe we'd be free. As they say the Truth shall set you free.

EDIT: As for proper forms of social organization there's more social organizations than just the state. Someone should(I would if I had the resources available) organize some kind of large-scale science self-help program to gather the necessary funds and resources to set up and test experiments. Personally I have come up with numerous theories I'd love to test myself but I don't have the capital.