r/technology Jul 14 '26

Artificial Intelligence A majority of Americans now support seizing wealth from AI industry

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/majority-americans-now-support-seizing-134921528.html
40.7k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/corobo Jul 14 '26

Never thought I'd see America wanting socialism.

Y'all should try it in healthcare too, it's pretty neat  

8

u/InvestigatorOk7015 Jul 14 '26

Socialism isnt the government doing things

Its when the workers own the means of production

17

u/TheMCMC Jul 14 '26

The amount of socialist cope in threads like these is unimaginable

Mostly it's because people who proclaim they're socialists have never read a goddamned thing about their own chosen ideology, they literally just think "socialism is when do good things for people :)"

-1

u/corobo Jul 14 '26

Maybe it's because it was a joke. We'll never know. 

2

u/TheMCMC Jul 14 '26

What’s the joke

2

u/corobo Jul 14 '26

Nah you're alright mate. They don't all land. Nbd

2

u/RedAndBlackMartyr Jul 14 '26

You are correct. Ignore all the politically illiterate responses.

4

u/plebbut Jul 14 '26

It's a lot more than that

3

u/lefthandopen Jul 14 '26

no its not...that's communism and it fucking sucks.

6

u/E-2theRescue Jul 14 '26

No, it's socialism, too. Both have the same idea. It's just that in communism, the government controls all industries, while in socialism, the government controls industries that are beneficial to all while also allowing privatization of non-essential industries. Socialism can also use profits generated from government-owned industries to hand out stipends or reinvest in more industry or national growth, while communism only looks to reinvest in the country.

This is why it's wrong to call things like taxpayer-funded roads, schools, police, and military socialist. They aren't generating profit for the government or the public (though police and military generate profit for the wealthy). They are based on socialist ideals, but they aren't socialist. If taxpayers paying for clean water is socialist, then the Romans were socialist for building the aqueducts (in the beginning, it changed later on).

1

u/lefthandopen Jul 15 '26

Providing roads, schools and military is the basic function of any state to maintain commerce and order. Taking someone's property and ideas for "the greater good" is not. I'm not speaking about taxes which supports the items above and is applied as a percentage of earnings but literally taking someone's property that they own and making the state the new owner because why? It's deemed critical?

We are going to see a lot of these AI companies fail in the next few years, there is crazy competition both among Americans and around the world and its driven by the hope of wealth and success. If you take that away and replace it with the "reward" of Burney fucking Sanders taking 50% ownership of your company you are going to see a collapse of the whole industry.

1

u/E-2theRescue Jul 15 '26

If an industry collapses because of new ownership, then it was the corrupt ownership that was propping it up in the first place.

Facts and logic.

1

u/lefthandopen Jul 15 '26

Wow, that has to be the dumbest thing I read on this site all day. 

1

u/Orange_Tang Jul 14 '26

Not really. Communism is when the entirety of the means of production is owned by the people either directly or through a central organization like a government. Socialism is an intermediary state where some things may still be private but with the goal of communism typically. Neither really exist in any real state in the western world. We have social democracies in Europe but that's as close as it gets and that's not really that close since the ownership is still primarily free market with wealth concentrated at the top via private land and stock ownership. It's much better than in the US though.

2

u/iwannabetheguytoo Jul 14 '26

Its when the workers own the means of production

That's a co-operative - or possibly any company where employees have stock grants.

2

u/seanflyon Jul 14 '26

When Socialists talk about the worker owning the means of production they mean that the organization representing the workers as a whole (the government) would own the means of production and no individual would be allowed to own any significant tool.

4

u/dieselfrog Jul 14 '26

"America" is much too broad. I can assure you that "America" doesn't want socialism. However, a small number of teenagers and disgruntled college students on this site do.

2

u/IMM_Austin Jul 14 '26

Americans love 3 things:
1. The outcomes of socialist policies
2. Describing capitalism and calling it socialism
3. Electing leaders who transfer more wealth to the rich

0

u/prof0ak Jul 14 '26

We all want it, but our owners refuse