Mass Destruction in the Technocracy

[Trapper John, M.D.]

So according to technocratic marxists here, the material condition for socialism would have to be a level of post-scarcity that is brought about by sophisticated robots, machines that substantially reduce scarcity, automation, etc. Only at this point can socialism be achieved. Correct me if I have interpreted the theory wrong.

Lets say, that in this socialist(or Communist, maybe?), post scarcity society, a group of terrorists get a hold of a doomsday device that is capable of mass destruction. They use the device. Most of these machines are destroyed and scarcity is reintroduced.

My question is, would society now have to revert back to capitalism and wait for these machines to be created again in order for socialism to be achieved...again?

[Charles Xavier]

Are you writing a bad movie?

[Anarch_Mesa]

I really didn't even know that there was such a thing as a technocratic Marxist. If so what would that have to do with Socialism.

[Trapper John, M.D.]

Are you writing a bad movie?

Why would the concept of terrorists with a doomsday device in a post scarcity society be a bad idea for a movie? If something like "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" can make decent money at the box office, I'm sure this could too.:lol:


I really didn't even know that there was such a thing as a technocratic Marxist. If so what would that have to do with Socialism.

I've seen the term "technocratic marxist" used before to describe a marxist who sees a post-scarcity technocratic society as the only society that can foster socialism(and then later, communism).

[Demogorgon]

Given doomsday devices are about as realistic as technocracy, the two go together rather well.

I wouldn't concern yourself with it.

[ships-cat]

We would be talking about hundreds of millions- if not billions - of industrial robots with quasi-autonomous decision-making capabilities (within the limits of their purpose). These may be networked into a local control node (e.g. all robots on one farm might have a central node), but that's about it.

There is - therefore - no ultimate central 'node' to attack. No single point of failure. What sort of weapon could destroy all those hundreds of millions of robots simultanously and worldwide ?

A computer virus might cause industrial disruption, but it doesn't actually physicaly DESTROY anything... the factory/farm managers etc would simply have to reload from backup tapes, and then they're back in business.

You might hypothesize a bacteria that eats silicone (hence attacking computer chips etc), but that's somewhat fancifull. If such a thing WAS found, it would take a while to propagate, and would surely be detected. The chip factories would just have to switch to another semiconductor base. (perhaps moving back to Germanium ? )

So the question seems somewhat redundant.

Meow Purr.