"Free market capitalism, however, has the best historical track record for improving living conditions."

Only when you cherrypick your examples.

Please, first define capitalism, then upon your definition, let's see why Somalia is not as capitalist -or even more, than USA. Once I have your definition and some examples about how you work out it, I'll tell you how cronyism/corporatism becomes unavoidable.

Not that I'm excusing myself, it's only I'm tired of the true scotsman game.

"3) A failed revolution attempted after deployment of robotic military / police, the 1% crush the 99% and live happily ever after"

We manage to do astounding technical feats but still there they go, mosquitoes and cockroaches. How is it that us 1% haven't managed to crush them 99% cockroaches?

4) the 1% puts out of "the system" the other 99% and don't give a damn about them except for making sure they don't get their head out of the water. I.e. quite alike to Huxley's 'A Brave New World'.

"they've convinced a lot of people that capitalism is the problem"

But capitalism *is* the problem: current cronyism/corporatism/fascism seems to be an unavoidable outcome of capitalism, just as tiranny seems to be an unavoidable outcome of comunism.

Maybe your "pure" capitalism is free of those problems, but then comunism is also problem-free... in theory.

"Would you sacrifice the industrial revolution to make the lives of farmers easier?"

No, I wouldn't.

Would I look for ways for the industrial revolution not to be so damaging for millions over decades instead of just leaving it to the "market forces" which really benefit less than 1% of the population? Certainly yes.

"You can either do what you can to protect yourself and your family or not."

Unless you are already in the less than 1%, helping the majority will also help yourself.

"A barbarian was someone who didn't speak the language (Greek and later, Latin). That's all the word means. If these slaves of yours still speak the prevailing language of English, they won't be barbarians."

No, they wouldn't be barbarians; they'd just be slaves which were not considered proper human beings.

"Alarmist articles about how the latest technologies are going to destroy all jobs is not new. Most of the time the job destruction is either overestimated or temporary."

Yes, it's only that:
a) You don't want to be on the side of the jobs being destroyed when "temporary" can mean up to 150 years.
b) All trends have their limits (see Malthus). So it might be the case that this time there're no new jobs to be created for human hands (at least not enough for all the hands avaliable) once current ones are taken off of human hands.

"... over the short term jobs may be lost. They were after every previous advancement. But then the market found a place for the labor that was freed up in the process."

Yes. It's only that in the case of the industrial revolution it took, what? 100 to 150 years to recover. Are you ready to destroy the lives of yourself, your son, your grandson, your grand-grandson and the son of your grand-grandson for the one-percenters to be more wealthy?

"For a whort while, the extra richess will go to the capitalist, but society will eventually balance itself."

For a short while? What makes you think it will take a short while or even that will happen at all?

Steam engines destroyed both jobs and quality of living. They eventually got to produce a better society for everybody (for a definition of "everybody"). It's only that "eventually" meant century a beyond.

"Easy. Basic income and land value tax."

That's just the 'to be' and it is quite far from the 'as is'. In any project the critical factor is the process going from the 'as is' to the 'to be'.

I don't see your proposal for such a process and without it, it just won't happen.

"That model doesn't really exist today other than by force (taxes), and it will be interesting to see how the great divide will handle that."

What does make you think it will handle in any way? History shows that aristocracy is quite acquinted to do nothing about it and if 90% of population becomes unshelted pariahs, so be it. This has only changed when the 90-percenters have taken care of it by means of revolution and revolution only happens when the 90-percenters are really starving *and* the get a minimal support to revolt from some people of higher ranks. What makes you think this will happen again in the future?

"But humans have a long history of having to work in order to get food, clothes, shelter and other essentials."

In fact, that's not the case.

It's a matter of how you define "human". If you think a bit about it, "human" has only meant "all of us, Homo sapiens" in the very recent past. Get, let's say, ancient Greece: for all practical purposes, "humans" were only affluent men, and those didn't work for a living. All the other H. sapiens were not humans but slaves/women/barbarians, not to be taken into account. Now the role of slaves will be taken by machines and all the other H. sapiens not privileged to be considered humans will just be barbarians.

"you don't want to destroy the redundant people, they're what really makes your economy."

Please, apply a bit more of imagination.

*Current* economy, not much more than a century old (since Henry Ford, to put an obvious time tag) is based on a middle class buying production.

But for basically all history, wealth distribution has managed to work on a basis of a very short affluent/powerful class with a majority of peasants/slaves/outclassed. Maybe the 20th century has just been an exception along history and we are just returning to the standard trend.

"No, because the "backdoor" is getting a judge to sign a warrant for the police to wiretap you"

The police and the police only? In each and every case?

"It isn't a matter of right or wrong. It is a matter of HOW right and HOW wrong.

Newtonian mechanics is right enough for most everyday living"

Well, ptolemaic astronomy is right enough for most everyday living too, just as much as newtonian mechanics.

In fact, now that you told about forgetting GPS, you probably know that ptolemaic astronomy not only is good enough to navigate your way all around the world, by land, boat or plane, but the way navigation is tought to pilots and ship captains *is* ptolemaic, not copernican, right?

Why we don't stop teaching about Copernicus, then?

"So no, it's not "utterly wrong"."

Yes, it is. Other ancient theories are crazily maddining wrong and certainly Newton's Principia is a shinning cathedral honoring the human intelligence but it still is utterly wrong.

Good you mention Asimov, since he was quite on the ontological path (against the pure mathematical path ala Dirac).

Now, forget about the numbers: it's about quality, not quantity. Newton thinks that there exists an absolute coordinate system and that things like mass, speed, length or time are therefore also absolute. Einstein demonstrates that he can't be any more wrong.

Ptolemy thought that the Earth is in the center of the universe and that objects in the sky circle around it by means of a dance of composed circles (epycicles and deferents) and it offers a magnificent math that "it's mostly right with many decimal places" and his model is also a magnificent show of human ingenuity. The problem with ptolemaic astronomy are not the numbers -ptolemaic astronomy can offer very precise numbers; it is the axioms: the Earth is not even near to the center of the solar system and there's no specific reason for orbits to be exclusively based on circles, so it is not a matter of how good its numbes are, just like there's no absolute coordinate system as Newton thought, no matter how good his numbers are.

As I see it, it's not that it would be mindblowing for the students to understand the basics of relativity or quantum mechanics but a matter of laziness from the teachers to find the proper way to teach them instead of "doing it as it has always been done".