Essays on Technosocialism

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find that overnight, magic robots had shown up all over the world. They could do anything that a human could do, but better and faster, and they could make more robots. What’s the first thing they would do? The answer is crash the world economy. Because a capitalist system runs on consumers, and people can only become consumers by selling their own labor, the robots effectively put the entire human race out of work. Obviously, the risk of overnight magic robot appearance is pretty low. But as technology advances, and automation becomes possible in more and more fields, the demand for labor has been steadily falling. We are seeing the magic robot effect happen in slow motion. In this book, author Wiley Sherer attempts to analyze the problem in detail and provide one possible solution: a post-currency, post-government economic and social system that combines the calculating and incentivizing power of a free market with a fundamentally socialist model of society. But it also has pirates and dragons in it, and more humor than you might think. Because if you’re going to ponder the inherent instability of our economic system, you might as well get a laugh or two along the way.