Comment on Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea

onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• s_i_m_s@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sometimes I wonder what they would do if you could make endless perfect copies of objects like you can mp3s.

  Dududdo you wouldn’t copy a car. You wouldn’t copy a cheeseburger Copying is a crime.

  Like remember it’s only been recently that it became possible to make endless copies of media at effectively no cost.

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  • Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Can I introduce you to Star Trek?

    In The Orville (Seth MacFarlane Star Trek-like show) they actually have a brief discussion about how if that technology was plonked into a world like we have today, it would not be used to make life better for everyone. It would be capitalised on.

    Imagine if you could create food at no cost. You think everyone is getting fed, or do you think one company is going to have massive profit margins selling food that it costs nothing to produce?

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    • s_i_m_s@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I don’t remember that bit but I think I only watched the first season of the Orville and that was years ago.

      But yeah really depends on how difficult the equipment itself is to replicate.

      If it’s some massive machine the size of a room it’s going to make some company extremely rich, they’d sell product for slightly less than normal market value taking over the market with perfectly consistent product and insane margins allowing legal capture.

      Why feed everyone when you can almost literally print money?

      If it’s something small that can be easily transported and duplicated? Piracy. Nobody will give AF about patents and everyone will have them within a couple years no matter what laws they try to implement or how they try and prevent it.

      This has actually already happened with media and this is exactly how it has played out and a lot of people still seem to be in denial.

      They can complain and sick lawyers on as many people as they want but they can still make a million copies of something that cost 400 million to make for less than than the cost of a gumball.

      The law surrounding it is completely broken and it’s crazy that so many industries are trying to continue on like nothing has changed.

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      • Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I think it was a 30 second part of the last episode in season 3, I watched it (for the first time) recently so remember it.

        I guess it depends who develops it. If Apple invent it then you can be sure they aren’t selling them to anyone else, it will just be secretly used to print iPhones and no one else will have access to one, so no piracy of iPhones.

        If a third party company invents it then starts trying to sell them to other companies, then maybe that outcome will be better.

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  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They would figure it out some way to enforce artificial scarcity

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• Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  We do if we want to pay the rent.

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  • onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    From the employee perspective yes, we have to work 4 days a week, but from the employer perspective, there’s no need to work 4 days a week. In fact, it’s even less productive than working 5 days a week.

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