cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/33936586
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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It doesn't solve the energy and emissions crisis we are facing but sure.
Nor does it resolve the inherent biases introduced by humans working on it
(the energy and emissions crisis are also byproducts of capitalism)
The Aral Sea is essentially gone and it was killed by poor Soviet planning. Capitalism was not the driving factor rather ignorance was and ignorance is held equally by all sides.
Capitalism isn’t the only thing driving environmental collapse. It’s industrialization
Central planners in the Soviet Union didn't even have computers and they lacked the level of scientific understanding we have today of the environment, of our resources, and of the limits to growth. We've all heard about Mao killing the sparrows in China.
This isn't a reason to never try central planning again.
They don't disappear if capitalism disappears. I agree with you capitalism needs to end in order to deal with them but there are hard issues that we have to deal with even with capitalism gone.
Even if the causes ceased we would still be left with residual emissions and degraded natural systems to try and deal with and a lower EROI society to do it.
They're "hard issues" because we don't have a centrally planned economy, we have to rely on the market to provide solutions.
Through a combination of marshaling the forces of production to build a renewable infrastructure and strict fossil fuel rationing during the build-up phase I think we could get the crisis under control within 5 years.
... I'll admit that's just vibes, though.
I get the sentiment and I wish it were true.
Some of the issues stem from material and energy limitations regardless of human organisation structures. Fossil Fuels are stored sunlight over a long period of time that means that burning them has a high yield and that's given us a very high EROI society (one where there's an abundance of energy for purposes that aren't basic functioning).
I recommend reading The Collapse of Complex Societies by Tainter who discussing the energy limitations of society. Its before our understanding of energy limitations of technology and he's by no means a leftist but it is still a good introductory text to it.
I've read Limits to Growth. I understand there are physical limits and that we can't just grow our way through this crisis. Industrial civilization can not continue as it is.
But central planning would allow for us to transition to a lower energy society.
I agree but there's a lot of detail about what activities a lower energy society precludes and my point is that energy intensive "AI" (mostly thinking about LLMs rather than targets applications of ML) probably aren't part of it.
Deepseek showed that these chatbots can be run much more cheaply than they have been and it isn't really necessary to build giga warehouses of servers. It might be possible to run them on even tighter hardware specifications too.
Of course, chatbots aren't AI and the fact that they're trying to use them as AI isn't going to work out anyway lol
Yes its clear that the path of throwing more and more resource at LLMS to improve quality has been a lazy growth focused approach that we could do better if we actually try a design focussed approach.
For me though it comes back to the fact we are facing a polycrisis and most of our resource should be focused on looking for solutions to that and I'm not sure what problem* this technology solves yet alone what problem relating to the polycrisis.
*I realise what they are designed to solve is a capitalist problem. How can we avoid paying staff for service and creative type jobs to increase profit.
As humans are very bad a predicting the future, centrally planned economies come with so many added problems that market based solutions are frequently more realistic.
Every corporation is centrally planned.
I recommend reading The People's Republic of Walmart. Businesses have figured out central planning, there's no reason it can't be done for nations.
No, they are not and how a business functions amd how a national economy function are incredibly different.
Walmart isn't a federation, it's very centrally planned. It's also larger than a lot of nations.
The only thing missing is a military.
Are you really this poorly educated in economics that you do not get that for profit businesses and nation states function under completely different realities?
Yes, because it's so great that they're trying to run the nation like a business right now.
They're trying to strip the wiring from the walls. They're not even running like a business, they're running it like VC.
Let's not pretend they're trying to centrally plan anything. The doggy department hates central planning. They just tell ChatGPT to come up with things to cut
Corporations are run very differently from countries.
What happens when you don't like the product that the state is offering?
What about independent artists and creators?
Figuring out what things people will like is next to impossible.
Petition the central planners to offer something else. Central planning can still be democratic.
Well without the need to sell their art they could create whatever they want without fear of it being unmarketable. An artist could just create without needing to sell it to anyone.
Businesses do this all the time! They do market research to find out what people want, they monitor current events and customer demands and social media. There's no reason a central planner can't do the same.
Not going to work unless the government has somehow unlimited resources. Otherwise why would they spend money and resources on something they don't know how popular would it be?
What reward do those independent creators receive in exchange of doing their art? Do they just work for free?
And sometimes they succeed and other times they don't. In a planned economy you'd essentially be stuck with whatever the government monopoly has decided to manufacture and you won't have any other choice.
Why wouldn't they know how popular it would be? They can see popular demand and social media and trends, the same as any privately owned company does when they do market research.
They can still do test products to see if new products are popular too, just like private companies do today.
Do you think people only create art when they can get paid for it? It's the exact opposite! Without the need to be paid, they can make whatever art they want. Creating art is its own reward, they can still express themselves and share it with the public.
That's only the case if the central planners need to ration. Surely you can imagine a planned economy that offers choices.
It's not like everyone needs to wear burlap and drinks Soylent.
Because historically this has been ineffective. Nobody knew Harry Potter or hunger games would become so popular. Nobody could have predicted Godzilla movies would make such a comeback. That's why you need more than one creator or entity to produce such things
In their own personal projects of course. But if you want a musician to do music for your project or you want to use an artist for something, they'll inevitably ask for something in exchange.
How would they decide what gets produced and what doesn't? Which clothing brands get funding and which ones don't? Which authors receive money for their books and which ones don't? Which YouTubers and streamers? Inevitably you'll have a shortage of products because trends change easily and it'll take time for the central government to adapt.
There'd be no crisis if we ditched oil and coal companies and just put solar and nuclear everywhere.
Let's say its true that doing that would stop the problem getting worse (e.g. no more emissions after 5 years)*.
We still have the legacy issues to deal with and I need anticaps who are thinking seriously about what can replace capitalism to take seriously how dependent we are on natural systems that are very close to collapse. We are already passed the point where just stopping the harm is job done. The climate is not the one we have evolved and developed civilisation under its far less stable.
And none of the issues are helped by a further moving target by pursuing something that pushes our energy usage even higher like some forms of "AI" that produce very little meaningful outside of capitalism anyway.
So we can have solar and nuclear oligarchs instead of oil oligarchs. Yeah, that would be slightly better
Well yeah, "nuclear oligarch" and "solar oligarch" just sound cooler than oil.
Other than a solar oligarch is impossible since anyone can put up panels.
And other than the premise of the thread is that capitalists are already to blame.