Cowbee [he/they]
Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us
He/him or they/them, doesn’t matter too much
Marxist-Leninist ☭
Interested in Marxism-Leninism? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!
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You are correct, but this isn’t just about automation, it also extends to improvements in manufacturing technique and other forms of improving productivity per worker. Wages are stagnating because they are largely pressured towards a floor of “subsistence plus replacement,” and generally trend below that until crisis and correction.
The solution is, of course, Socialism. Marx makes very compelling arguments that regularly prove more and more useful with respect to his predictions for the course Capitalism would take, and Marxist economists like Lenin and Hudson continue to analyze Capitalism’s monopoly phase and deterioration. The crumbling of the US Empire we are currently seeing is something that has long been predicted.
Sort of. Automation temporarily eliminates jobs, but just like steam engines and other tools employed by workers, only transfer value, they don’t create new value outright. For the purposes of profits, automation merely offers a temporary upper hand until the market equalizes, unless a point of absolute monopoly has been reached, at which point it is unquestionably more in the favor of workers to rebel.
Workers will resist machinery taking their jobs regardless, as it is a threat, but this process is inevitable and must be fought the same way it always has, by organizing so it can be made to benefit all.
That’s a part of it, but generally increasing automation and productivity through advanced industrialization is China’s strategy for the long term. The more they can get out of each hour of human labor, the better a position China will be in to direct that productivity into solving social issues. This is the “correct” choice, but isn’t always the most profitable, so many Capitalist countries are lagging behind on that front.
I’m aware of the design process, Engineers frequently write specs and requirements for manufacturing in addition to schematics, dxfs, etc. My point is more to why you seem to keep a 1990s attitude towards Chinese manufacturing and seem to think a USian-made commodity would be better than a Chinese-made commodity. US manufacturing is lagging behind because the US’s manufacturing has atrophied.
This conclusion was foregone when China began to focus on developing the Productive Forces and the US took that for granted. Without a hard pivot, the US can’t even hope to catch up to the productive trajectory of China, and even if they do hard pivot, that doesn’t mean they even have a chance to in the first place.
In fact, protectionism has frequently backfired, and had other nations seeking inclusion into BRICS or more favorable relations with BRICS nations.
The ones designing the vast majority of IP are paid in wages, the ones who own the IP have not actually designed it, or played a minimal role, ie outlining what they want designed. Copyright is something that is truly unnecessary in general, it is at its best when protecting the vast minority of small producers who own their own designs and can actually afford to manufacture and sell them, but the bulk of the economy is not at all organized in such a fashion to begin with.
My next PC will be small, Linux-based (probably NixOS), and focus on power efficiency. AAA gaming more often than not loses to indies, and there is currently a library of games you can play on PC that could never be completed by one person alone anyways that run very well with even modest “modern” specs.
I’ve been playing Crosscode and it’s been such a stellar game, meanwhile titles like S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 are less feature complete and far more buggy than S.T.A.L.K.E.R Anomaly and GAMMA (which don’t require super computers to run, and are free).
Here’s a gameplay trailer from 2020. It’s still in active dev, it just takes a long time and the team prefers not to give updates frequently, you can check the discord server.
As someone who played The Frontier and even finished the NCR questline for it, I’ve been playing London a lot. I do want to say that those looking for full New Vegas level roleplaying are going to be disappointed. There are SPECIAL checks, and traits do make a return, but by and large this is closer to Fallout 3 than it is to New Vegas. Checks aren’t that frequent, this is more of a return to Fallout 3’s “horror RPG” style where roaming and exploring makes up the backbone of gameplay with quests meant to take you to new areas and dungeons, largely.
That being said, it’s a great game. There are problems with some of the writing, the Strike Quest where the outcome no matter what seems to be a resolution of two individuals and not the much larger number of striking workers is a horrible depiction of labor rights movements. However, the level design is generally really cool and atmospheric, and a lot of the concepts are extremely fresh.
More than anything, it makes me super excited to see the release of Fallout 4: New Vegas, Fallout: Cascadia, and Fallout: Miami. It’s a surprisingly great execution on a non-US Fallout, and feels fresh, but doesn’t reach the height of New Vegas.
That last detail is why I am so thrilled for Fallout 4: New Vegas. NV modding is incredible, don’t get me wrong, but the visual upgrade going from New Vegas fully graphically modded to Fallout 4 Vanilla is stark. Imagining playing through New Vegas but with nicer gunplay and graphical fidelity has me incredibly hopeful.
Don’t need to subscribe to anything, just need a GOG account. The mod is hosted on GOG because Nexus denied them due to size.
Definitely would be preferable over the US.