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[Lord Thrappleper The 49th]

Easy.

The government will own everything. No more individual companies, resources will be allocated to whom needs it for what ever service they provide. Everyone gives up their property. And housing will be assigned to you. Your daily food will be given to you. Your electricity will be given to you. This is the governments requirement. Even if you are a deadbeat. You are entitled to be given these things along with health care.
You will be given a job to work for the state that exemplifies the qualities you have as a person. Your choice of what job you want will also have an impact. If you work your allocated 30 hours a week over 4 days. You are given a 3 day weekend. Once you complete your hours logged with the government you will be rewarded with what ever you want. All jobs will be rewarded equally. If you want to go to the beach, or abroad, or get a new tv, or get a new xbox game. These will be given to you as rewards for helping society function.

If you refuse to work, your needs are met, but you will be given no rewards. If you cannot work, your individual case will be reviewed and a service you can provide will be actioned.
When you are a child, you will live with your parents. When you reach 18 you will be assigned a flat. If you meet someone and decide to live together, you can be assigned a larger flat. When you reach 25 a house will be provided for you. If you wish to move you may trade houses with any citizen anywhere. You may do what you wish with your house. When you and your significant other either dies or are unable to live independantly, your house will be assigned to someone else. The government cannot take your house away from you, even if you commit a crime.

This is a brief introduction. I could provide more information on any scenario or specific thing. I believe this is the best form of government.

I understand this will never happen due to greed/not trusting the government. But a man can dream.

 

[Poppy]

So what is your contribution to this thread? Were you just trying to let us know that Capitalism is still a thing?

i mean i was just responding to someone i didnt bother quoting (which was probably a rhetorical question) but i guess not, seeya

 

[thefil]

I find this deeply deeply problematic. These things might happen, but operating from this standpoint of technological optimism/cornicopianism assumes that they must.

The historical accident is that Malthus was totally right, at least in spirit obviously he was wrong about the geometrical/arithmetic thing, about every time before his own. What industrialization did was jackup the ceiling of production by a massive amount at one time and thus create the illusion that there was no ceiling.

I guess I disagree that this was a one time increase to the ceiling of production. I agree that there is an eventual ceiling and at that point, and hopefully sooner, we will need to enforce population controls and so on. I don't think we're very close though, and the ceiling and mean/median global wealth will continue to rise for some time.

It seems like the natural consequence of your view that the cornucopia has reached capacity is that we must immediately reduce the standard of living and enforce population controls. Am I misunderstanding?

 

[kirblar]

Vulgar Marxism is bad in the same way vulgar applications of any theory are bad. Saying everything is about class all the time is wrong, and not what Marx was even saying. Saying class impacts everything because class will always impact society is probably right. The second one is a lot more nuianced and doesn't mean that class is always the operative or driving factor in developments.

Any version of Marxism fails as a framework because while Marx did correctly identify issues w/ economics and capitalism, his framework for analyzing those ideas and proposing policy ideas was horrifically off base and isn't worth considering as anything other than a warning to future generations.

There is no "non-Vulgar Marxism", just like there is no "good" version of Austrian Economics.

 

[Kthulhu]

pigeon made a comment on this idea:



So if we're going to define all human actions as selfish (which I don't disagree with, actually), then perhaps we can move on to a different question, which is: do people need *economic* reasons to do good/work hard/etc.? I would say that, considering the available research on motivation, the answer is no.

People may not expect money specifically, but they will want something that they see as having value in exchange for the service or good they provide. We've seen this in every economic model in human history. You get something for providing a good or service.

All the more reason why all labor needs to be automated in order for a socialist society to exist in proper, yet this contradicts the idea of the workers owning labor.

Therefore I ask: why pursue socialism at all? Why not pursue an economic model based solely around automated systems providing for humanity in a way that eliminates class and discrimination?

 

[The Technomancer]

Racism isn't an "economic" idea at its core. Yes, it expresses itself through economic actions/outcomes/etc., but it's not intrinsically about economics and emerging through there.

This is the issue w/ trying to fit everything into a "class" paradigm - it blinds you to other axes that are operating independently.

I would express a similar sentiment but clarify that racism was invented by the elites as justifications for colonialism and enslavement, however racism has long since ceased to be a tool that is simply deployed by the elites to create intra-class conflict. It is self generating now.

I would go further and say that the idea of "class" as a purely economic entity is outmoded. Classes are constrained economically, they typically do not cross the layers of power and ownership, but they are further constrained by very strong local values, including religion, race, and cultural attitude

 

[thefil]

Socialism is NOT the government doing things. It is workers owning the means of production.

Democratic Socialism is infinitely more fair than capitalism.

Under this model, where do the means of production come from? Often the reason the workers do not own the means of production is because they did not have the resources to create them - the capitalists do. Is the state the provider of capital in this model, or can a group of workers only start a business if they have the resources already.

Just asking for clarity. If it's the state, this sounds similar to China's late 70s/early 80s model, where the state owned all the banks but started dissolving state-owned enterprises in favour of private businesses.

 

[RedSwirl]

Kim Stanley Robinson on Post-Capitalism: (This is from 2009)

I was just about to post about an article I found cone and I think this is it, or it may have been referring to this piece.

Might be something else though. I remember it talking about how today's sharing economy might be the start of something new replacing capitalism the way capitalism emerged out of feudalism in the 1500's.

 

[sphagnum]

People may not expect money specifically, but they will want something that they see as having value in exchange for the service or good they provide. We've seen this in every economic model in human history. You get something for providing a good or service.

All the more reason why all labor needs to be automated in order for a socialist society to exist in proper, yet this contradicts the idea of the workers owning labor.

Therefore I ask: why pursue socialism at all? Why not pursue an economic model based solely around automated systems providing for humanity in a way that eliminates class and discrimination?

Democratic control over industries or states that own the automated systems is a form of socialism. The ultimate goal of socialism is to liberate humans from work (that's what communism is). Obviously Marx couldn't foresee exactly how automation was going to work, so in his 19th century context he proposed overthrowing the bourgeois state with a state controlled by the workers, but the purpose was always in the end to emancipate the workers from their station.

 

[andythinkpad]

no one works for selfless reasons, however, helping other people or breaking new ground in order to make yourself feel good are probably among the most selfless of all selfish reasons we have for doing something

Being able to contribute/sacrifice for the well being of future generations and non physical things that don't benefit you immediately is actually a very unique human characteristic. This is what separate human from other known species.

 

[daviyoung]

The answer is socialism.

 

[kirblar]

I would express a similar sentiment but clarify that racism was invented by the elites as justifications for colonialism and enslavement, however racism has long since ceased to be a tool that is simply deployed by the elites to create intra-class conflict. It is self generating now.

I would go further and say that the idea of "class" as a purely economic entity is outmoded. Classes are constrained economically, they typically do not cross the layers of power and ownership, but they are further constrained by very strong local values, including religion, race, and cultural attitude

I don't see how "Racism" was invented by anyone, when we have Jewish persecution going 2 Millenia strong at this point, non-western countries having preferences for lighter skin prior to meeting any "white" people, and the fact that even in "white" groups, people still tribally subdivide and find reasons to create an "other." (see: the European history The Witcher is based on.)

We're predatory animals w/ a lot of tribal behavior that results in horrific consequences, and unless you acknowledge that a big part of our modern problems are that people are pretty fundamentally flawed, you're not going to make much progress in changing their behavior. A big reason capitalistic systems work is that they lean into the predatory/self-interested/status-seeking behavior and leverage it effectively.

 

[cpp_is_king]

Easy.

The government will own everything. No more individual companies, resources will be allocated to whom needs it for what ever service they provide. Everyone gives up their property. And housing will be assigned to you. Your daily food will be given to you. Your electricity will be given to you. This is the governments requirement. Even if you are a deadbeat. You are entitled to be given these things along with health care.
You will be given a job to work for the state that exemplifies the qualities you have as a person. Your choice of what job you want will also have an impact. If you work your allocated 30 hours a week over 4 days. You are given a 3 day weekend. Once you complete your hours logged with the government you will be rewarded with what ever you want. All jobs will be rewarded equally. If you want to go to the beach, or abroad, or get a new tv, or get a new xbox game. These will be given to you as rewards for helping society function.

If you refuse to work, your needs are met, but you will be given no rewards. If you cannot work, your individual case will be reviewed and a service you can provide will be actioned.
When you are a child, you will live with your parents. When you reach 18 you will be assigned a flat. If you meet someone and decide to live together, you can be assigned a larger flat. When you reach 25 a house will be provided for you. If you wish to move you may trade houses with any citizen anywhere. You may do what you wish with your house. When you and your significant other either dies or are unable to live independantly, your house will be assigned to someone else. The government cannot take your house away from you, even if you commit a crime.

This is a brief introduction. I could provide more information on any scenario or specific thing. I believe this is the best form of government.

I understand this will never happen due to greed/not trusting the government. But a man can dream.

What the fuck did I just read? You dream about a world where the best a person can hope for is "well, I'm not dead..."

I don't know about you, but I prefer to live rather than just not die

 

[Lord Thrappleper The 49th]

What the fuck did I just read? You dream about a world where the best a person can hope for is "well, I'm not dead..."

I don't know about you, but I prefer to live rather than just not die

How do you define "living"?

 

[Cocaloch]

Any version of Marxism fails as a framework because while Marx did correctly identify issues w/ economics and capitalism, his framework for analyzing those ideas and proposing policy ideas was horrifically off base and isn't worth considering as anything other than a warning to future generations.

I mean how do you know this exactly? You haven't read Marx. We can't even begin to have a conversation unless you do that. Obviously a big part of the issue here is that you seem to think Marx was making an Economic theory. He was doing something much broader than that.

Are you going to tell me The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte isn't good analysis even though it's still a classic study of 1848?

I generally respect your posts, but I'll never understand discounting as not possibly having any value someone as major as Marx without actually reading him.

There is no "non-Vulgar Marxism", just like there is no "good" version of Austrian Economics.

And this makes absolutely no sense. You can totally disagree with a theory and still understand the difference between vulgar and non-vulgar understandings of it. I did so with Wallerstein earlier in the thread.

Additionally, I'd say that vulgar understandings of pretty much every major figure to be discussed, even if it's only done at the academic level, exist. This is especially true for any figure popular enough to be discussed outside of the academy.

Vulgar-readings of Smith are probably the most common and most tragic.

 

[mikespit1200]

Easy.

The government will own everything. No more individual companies, resources will be allocated to whom needs it for what ever service they provide. Everyone gives up their property. And housing will be assigned to you. Your daily food will be given to you. Your electricity will be given to you. This is the governments requirement. Even if you are a deadbeat. You are entitled to be given these things along with health care.
You will be given a job to work for the state that exemplifies the qualities you have as a person. Your choice of what job you want will also have an impact. If you work your allocated 30 hours a week over 4 days. You are given a 3 day weekend. Once you complete your hours logged with the government you will be rewarded with what ever you want. All jobs will be rewarded equally. If you want to go to the beach, or abroad, or get a new tv, or get a new xbox game. These will be given to you as rewards for helping society function.

If you refuse to work, your needs are met, but you will be given no rewards. If you cannot work, your individual case will be reviewed and a service you can provide will be actioned.
When you are a child, you will live with your parents. When you reach 18 you will be assigned a flat. If you meet someone and decide to live together, you can be assigned a larger flat. When you reach 25 a house will be provided for you. If you wish to move you may trade houses with any citizen anywhere. You may do what you wish with your house. When you and your significant other either dies or are unable to live independantly, your house will be assigned to someone else. The government cannot take your house away from you, even if you commit a crime.

This is a brief introduction. I could provide more information on any scenario or specific thing. I believe this is the best form of government.

I understand this will never happen due to greed/not trusting the government. But a man can dream.

This has to be a joke or troll account.

 

[cpp_is_king]

How do you define "living"?

Enjoying things. Who makes the Xbox in your world?

 

[sphagnum]

I don't see how "Racism" was invented by anyone, when we have Jewish persecution going 2 Millenia strong at this point, non-western countries having preferences for lighter skin prior to meeting any "white" people, and the fact that even in "white" groups, people still tribally subdivide and find reasons to create an "other." (see: the European history The Witcher is based on.)

We're predatory animals w/ a lot of tribal behavior that results in horrific consequences, and unless you acknowledge that a big part of our modern problems are that people are pretty fundamentally flawed, you're not going to make much progress in changing their behavior. A big reason capitalistic systems work is that they lean into the predatory/self-interested/status-seeking behavior and leverage it effectively.

1. Anti-Semitism was originally religious in nature. Nobody cared once they converted, unless they found out your family had historically been Jewish and suspected you might still be.

2. Colorism started as a class issue separate from racism

3. Absolutely true but more based on culture, language, religion, and other identifiers in ancient times than anything else.

When people talk about racism being modern, what they're saying is they're modern concept and division of humans into specific racial categories is a modern phenomenon which came out of the conquest of the Americas (and then the world) by Europeans and the enslavement of Africans; Christendom fell away as societies embraced capitalist modernity and the thing that came to unite Europeans instead was a shared racial identity adopted in contrast to the global Others/"savages" which allowed them to justify their rule.

The Crusaders didn't slaughter Muslims because they were Brown, they killed them because they were Muslims. They didn't kill Greek Christians because they weren't Germanic but because they weren't Catholic. And so forth. It's only in the modern period, perhaps in the late Middle Ages, that "race" as a specific construct in the modern sense seems to emerge and particularly as a means of control by those who stood to profit.

 

[Cocaloch]

I guess I disagree that this was a one time increase to the ceiling of production

I don't think it was a one time increase, I think it was a qualitative change that effectively made the ceiling have a one time jump of an unparalleled level, this industry's adoption of fossil fuel. Changes have happened before and since, but they are minuscule in comparison.

I agree that there is an eventual ceiling and at that point, and hopefully sooner, we will need to enforce population controls and so on. I don't think we're very close though, and the ceiling and mean/median global wealth will continue to rise for some time.

I think that's reasonable, but I also think this mindset eventually lead people to become complacent. I think it's a big part of the problem with Global Warming actually. My research is primarily concerned with this very topic actually.

It seems like the natural consequence of your view that the cornucopia has reached capacity is that we must immediately reduce the standard of living and enforce population controls. Am I misunderstanding?

That's the panic mode button response/ that of the Club of Rome.

We needed a tempered utility based response that is willing to start making policy changes on several levels. More importantly we need to have a cultural change that leads people to understand that Technology and a Market based solution might be an answer that works, but that it also might not work. Essentially we need people to become wary and skeptical, but not dismissive, of technological optimism and the market.

This has actually happened before. See Jevon's The Coal Question. The rise of oil actually was able to obscure the fact that he was in many ways correct about what was going on.

 

[Kthulhu]

Democratic control over industries or states that own the automated systems is a form of socialism. The ultimate goal of socialism is to liberate humans from work (that's what communism is). Obviously Marx couldn't foresee exactly how automation was going to work, so in his 19th century context he proposed overthrowing the bourgeois state with a state controlled by the workers, but the purpose was always in the end to emancipate the workers from their station.

That's where I differ. I don't want humans to control the automated systems. I want them to control themselves.

I don't believe that democratic control over automated systems is ultimately sustainable for the same reasons democracy itself is unsustainable.

 

[Valhelm]

Under socialism are there still transactions mediated by currency?

These are genuine questions, I've been reading around but a lot of what I find has been written over about a century by a billion different people and piecing together what the current consensus (or fragmentary consensuses) are has been difficult

Marx would say no, but in a colloquial context "socialism" is understood as any mode of production in which the economy is controlled by working people.

 

[Cocaloch]

1. Anti-Semitism was originally religious in nature. Nobody cared once they converted, unless theybfouns out your family had historically been Jewish and suspected you might still be.

I'd be very wary of saying that was religious at its core. It seems to be ethnocentrism. Especially in the Iberian case where this was most pronounced until relatively recently.

When people talk about racism being modern, what they're saying is they're modern concept and division of humans into specific racial categories is a modern phenomenon which came out of the conquest of the Americas (and then the world) by Europeans and the enslavement of Africans; Christendom fell away as societies embraced capitalist modernity and the thing that came to unite Europeans instead was a shared racial identity adopted in contrast to the global Others/"savages" which allowed them to justify their rule.

The Crusaders didn't slaughter Muslims because they were Brown, they killed them because they were Muslims. They didn't kill Greek Christians because they weren't Germanic but because they weren't Catholic. And so forth. It's only in the modern period, perhaps in the late Middle Ages, that "race" as a specific construct in the modern sense seems to emerge and particularly as a means of control by those who stood to profit.

I'd like to add to this that Racism, also the sort of homophobia we have today, is also based on the essentializing of the identity, something that is fairly modern. A black person is not just a person who is black, but blackness became essentialized to their personhood. That's new and based on enlightenment epistemology, while at the same time rejecting enlightenment humanistic ideas about the individual.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Those actions were still done for selfish reasons. Those people performed those actions because it satisfied a desire within themselves to do what they perceived was the right thing. All actions humans can take are selfish at a fundamental level.

That seems like a Ligotti/Dawkins-lite assessment. It begs more questions than it answers. It doesn't sufficiently explain 'Fight or Flight' reactions where one doesn't have time to rationalise the morality of what they are doing; they just do it. It doesn't sufficiently explain how an externally imposed arbitrary morality could override an innate drive to survive.

It's completely impenetrable as a stance. It doesn't matter what anyone says or the mental gymnastics required to get there, you can always accuse an act as ultimately selfish. It's like a moral version of the Discordian Law of Fives. It's bordering on nihilistic too, and doesn't seem like a very meaningful or even realistic viewpoint to hold.

 

[pigeon]

That's where I differ. I don't want humans to control the automated systems. I want them to control themselves.

I don't believe that democratic control over automated systems is ultimately unsustainable for the same reasons democracy itself is unsustainable.

This is just a watchmen problem, though. Until we get Skynet/the Culture somebody is managing the automated system.

If your statement is just that you want th Culture that's fine.

 

[Cocaloch]

This is just a watchmen problem, though. Until we get Skynet/the Culture somebody is managing the automated system.

If your statement is just that you want th Culture that's fine.

Someone also makes the automated system in the first place either way.

It's impossible to get the human out of society. Society is human.

 

[Valhelm]

I'd be very wary of saying that was religious at its core. It seems to be ethnocentrism. Especially in the Iberian case where this was most pronounced until relatively recently.

I'd like to add to this that Racism, also the sort of homophobia we have today, is also based on the essentializing of the identity, something that is fairly modern. A black person is not just a person who is black, but blackness became essentialized to their personhood. That's new and based on enlightenment epistemology, while at the same time rejecting enlightenment humanistic ideas about the individual.

Ethnicity in the middle ages didn't work the way it did today. During the First Crusade, mobs of Christians who spoke German worked with people who spoke French and Dutch and Breton to kill Jews who spoke German. Clearly, Jew hatred wasn't about ethnicity. Instead, popular anti-Semitism brought together different ethnic groups who placed highest import on religion.

Racial ideas as we know them developed during colonialism, as a way to justify the hierarchy established by Spaniards and Portuguese over their subjects in the Americas. After Amerindian peoples and African slaves became Christian, new methods of analysis were needed to give the ruling class their moral superiority.

 

[Tawpgun]

I think human nature won't take communism easily. You need incentives and rewards of some kind. It can't be too restrictive.

I think there will be more or less socialism with capitalist features, where everyone has their basic needs covered. Especially when universal basic income will be needed. If you want to better yourself you can choose to get better education, get to higher positions, get more money etc. But everyone pools in (via taxes) to help ensure everyone can have their basic needs met.

 

[Cocaloch]

I would express a similar sentiment but clarify that racism was invented by the elites as justifications for colonialism and enslavement, however racism has long since ceased to be a tool that is simply deployed by the elites to create intra-class conflict. It is self generating now.

Speaking of vulgar readings, this is the classic vulgar reading of Morgan. Racism wasn't invented by individuals for reasons. It came about because it seemed to be plausible in the intellectual context of the time, and it was popularized because of the fact that it had a social utility. There is no evidence of intentionallity here.

Morgan makes some good point, but his understanding is also undeniably Anglo-centric. That was one piece of the puzzle at most, and at the bare minimum we also need to look at the Spanish context.

 

[Terrell]

Capitalism and science have historically worked incredibly well together. There's also a capitalistic answer, as long as you're not a full blown free market looney, to the issue of carbon, an emissions tax to adjust for externalities.

Allowing people to pay to continue using fossil fuels doesn't address the problems impeding scientists from improving the situation, it just moves money around the general population.
You can incentivize not emitting carbon all you want through taxation, but so long as the scientific alternatives are more cost-prohibitive than paying the tax, no one will care and nothing happens.
And most carbon tax revenue isn't funnelled into making these technologies more affordable but given back to people under a certain income bracket, as a carbon tax is regressive and harms the economically-disadvantaged the most. So it does not improve technological affordability through further improvements via investment in science.

You also have a weird idea of scientific progress here that doesn't seem to be about the creation of more knowledge.

How do you figure that I have a weird idea of scientific progress?

 

[Cocaloch]

Ethnicity in the middle ages didn't work the way it did today.

I'm aware. I was getting at the Conversos.

Clearly, Jew hatred wasn't about ethnicity. Instead, popular anti-Semitism brought together different ethnic groups who placed highest import on religion.

What about the conversos? Religion and ethnicity are connected and difficult to disentangle. But if we're going to force a modern understanding of either religion or ethnicity onto the situation then ethnicity, or as the Spanish would have put it Blood, was central.

Racial ideas as we know them developed during colonialism, as a way to justify the hierarchy established by Spaniards and Portuguese over their subjects in the Americas. After Amerindian peoples and African slaves became Christian, new methods of analysis were needed to give the ruling class their moral superiority.

You won't find too many Latin Americanists who argue this. The Spanish American understanding of race played a role in the later construction of racism, but the Castas system A. didn't really work on the ground level and B. was not immutable, see Twinamm's Purchasing Whiteness.

The Spanish empire is too early, and the systemisation of race too late within it for this explanation to work by itself.

 

[Kthulhu]

This is just a watchmen problem, though. Until we get Skynet/the Culture somebody is managing the automated system.

If your statement is just that you want th Culture that's fine.

I'm more thinking along the lines of humanity being ruled by an AI dictator. Think Shodan or AM without the god complex of the former and the hatred of humanity of the latter.

Yes I realize that humanity will need to run these systems in some capacity until that point, but the goal should be humanity handing it's future to an AI caretaker.

 

[JordanN]

Start redistributing the wealth.

Someone who has $60 billion, and gives up $1 billion to help the poor, doesn't suddenly starve to death. Now do that with every billionaire.

I also like FDR's idea of the Second Bill of Rights. Too bad it never got passed.

 

[The Technomancer]

Speaking of vulgar readings, this is the classic vulgar reading of Morgan. Racism wasn't invented by individuals for reasons. It came about because it seemed to be plausible in the intellectual context of the time, and it was popularized because of the fact that it had a social utility. There is no evidence of intentionallity here.

Morgan makes some good point, but his understanding is also undeniably Anglo-centric. That was one piece of the puzzle at most, and at the bare minimum we also need to look at the Spanish context.

You're right that invented implies too much intentionality but I think the causality you mention is too simplified. The social structure required something like it be...formalized, if you prefer

Regardless my point is that it has long ceased to be something that is imposed

 

[Cocaloch]

Allowing people to pay to continue using fossil fuels doesn't address the problems impeding scientists from improving the situation, it just moves money around the general population.

How would scientists fix global warming? Scientists can provide data and models that are useful for constructing policy. But policy will be how the issue is solved.

How does moving money around in the general population not address the issue at all? Increasing the price would mean people are less likely to burn fossile fuels and incentivise alternatives. It may not be a good solution, you can argue that all you want, but acting like it does nothing is silly.

You can incentivize not emitting carbon all you want through taxation, but so long as the scientific alternatives are more cost-prohibitive than paying the tax, no one will care and nothing happens.

Not everything would have to happen all at once for a change, and there isn't evidence that fossil fuel usage is totally inelastic. This isn't a good argument.

I think this method should be considered a useful tool in the toolbox. Dismissing it out of hand isn't going to help anything.

And most carbon tax revenue isn't funnelled into making these technologies more affordable but given back to people under a certain income bracket, as a carbon tax is regressive and harms the economically-disadvantaged the most.

This is such a silly argument. It's a problem with the broader American tax-structure, and yes this take in overly focused on America, and not with this solution in particular. Ironically you're pointing out an issue with tools to deal with to global warming that scientists can do nothing to fix. This requires policy, social, and cultural changes.

So it does not improve technological affordability through further improvements via investment in science.

That doesn't follow.

How do you figure that I have a weird idea of scientific progress?

Scientific progress is generally understood to be within science. I think, and you were being very vague, you're talking about the impliminations of policy that were influenced by scientific understandings and data.

Personally I don't like the word anyway because it usually is attached to Whiggery, but that first understanding of it is better I think.

 

[Tiops]

Easy.

The government will own everything. No more individual companies, resources will be allocated to whom needs it for what ever service they provide. Everyone gives up their property. And housing will be assigned to you. Your daily food will be given to you. Your electricity will be given to you. This is the governments requirement. Even if you are a deadbeat. You are entitled to be given these things along with health care.
You will be given a job to work for the state that exemplifies the qualities you have as a person. Your choice of what job you want will also have an impact. If you work your allocated 30 hours a week over 4 days. You are given a 3 day weekend. Once you complete your hours logged with the government you will be rewarded with what ever you want. All jobs will be rewarded equally. If you want to go to the beach, or abroad, or get a new tv, or get a new xbox game. These will be given to you as rewards for helping society function.

If you refuse to work, your needs are met, but you will be given no rewards. If you cannot work, your individual case will be reviewed and a service you can provide will be actioned.
When you are a child, you will live with your parents. When you reach 18 you will be assigned a flat. If you meet someone and decide to live together, you can be assigned a larger flat. When you reach 25 a house will be provided for you. If you wish to move you may trade houses with any citizen anywhere. You may do what you wish with your house. When you and your significant other either dies or are unable to live independantly, your house will be assigned to someone else. The government cannot take your house away from you, even if you commit a crime.

This is a brief introduction. I could provide more information on any scenario or specific thing. I believe this is the best form of government.

I understand this will never happen due to greed/not trusting the government. But a man can dream.

Yeah, I dream of living in North Korea too. Sounds really cool.

 

[Cocaloch]

You're right that invented implies too much intentionality but I think the causality you mention is too simplified. The social structure required something like it be...formalized, if you prefer

Regardless my point is that it has long ceased to be something that is imposed

I don't think I've ever been told in my life I've proposed a causality that is too simplified haha.

On you're second point, it didn't require that this be formalized. It was one solution to the problem of picking up a culture, removing it from its context, and dropping it elsewhere, but there were others. See New England, the Middle Colonies, the Regulators of the Piedmont, and the Baptist challenge within Virginia itself. Morgan is very careful to avoid ecological determinism. Things could have worked out another way. The great tragedy is that they did not.

Of course your last point is a very true and an important one to make.

 

[Laiza]

What do you mean by "a basic level of autonomy in energy and food production"?

I worded that poorly.

What I mean is that everyone should be guaranteed a certain amount of their basic needs met, and that the mechanisms by which those basic needs are met need to be effectively free, which consequently frees the citizens up from mindless drudgery. That is true freedom - not the freedom to choose which of a limited selection of mechanisms by which you prevent your potential homelessness and disenfrachisement, but rather the freedom to truly choose whatever path in life you wish to tread, whether that be a productive path or otherwise.

Equality is going to be extremely important moving forward. The current, inherently unequal system we have going now cannot sustain itself much further. Giving everyone a certain baseline is essential to solving that problem.

No one works for selfless reasons.

Blatantly false.

This is very much the kind of lie folks who want to maintain the status quo like to repeat to themselves to justify the current system, but it is NOT a fact. Money only works to get people to do things they otherwise wouldn't ever even consider - things like arduous hard labour and repetitive factory jobs. However, after a certain level of monetary success, most people don't care about any increases in income and instead prefer to find new ways to spend their time productively.

Intrinsic motivation is extremely important and is quite prevalent across both the arts and sciences. Many of the people working in those fields are doing so because they simply love the work they're doing. The problem we have with folks who have no motivation is a difficult societal problem that involves upbringing and psychology, but it is a problem that can be solved - and one that must be solved because the age of post-work through automation is inevitable.

Let me repeat myself: this is inevitable.

We need to cope with with that reality before shit really hits the fan. That is the simple truth of it. Failure to act will have disastrous consequences for us all.

 

[The Technomancer]

I don't think I've ever been told in my life I've proposed a causality that is too simplified haha.

On you're second point, it didn't require that this be formalized. It was one solution to the problem of picking up a culture, removing it from its context, and dropping it elsewhere, but there were others. See New England, the Middle Colonies, the Regulators of the Piedmont, and the Baptist challenge within Virginia itself. Morgan is very careful to avoid ecological determinism. Things could have worked out another way. The great tragedy is that they did not.

Of course your last point is a very true and an important one to make.

Oh sure it wasn't the only solution, that's not what I meant to imply. Just that something with similar utility was required. I think I got hung up on the phrase "it came about" more than I should have

With that said my readings on this topic are pretty cursory, any recommendations?

 

[Laevateinn]

My question always is where does the incentive to do great things come from without reward.

Great things come from lack of stress and the freedom to do what one wishes. Do you think Newton or Euler revolutionized mathematics because of the profit motive?

 

[cpp_is_king]

Great things come from lack of stress and the freedom to do what one wishes. Do you think Newton or Euler revolutionized mathematics because of the profit motive?

No, but the same cannot be said for literally every single thing you use in your daily life

 

[Vincent Grayson]

My question always is where does the incentive to do great things come from without reward.

I dare say most great things done in human history were not done for the paycheck. Besides, one thing we will always be doing is creating.

Imagine a post-scarcity society driven by creative pursuits and exploration and mastery of the universe and shit. It'll be awesome.

Fuck squabbling over small pieces of one rock.

 

[cromofo]

Capitalism may not be perfect, but it's the best we've got.

And it works, unlike Communism. Some people really don't learn from history.

 

[Cocaloch]

And it works, unlike Communism. Some people really don't learn from history.

I'm sure you're a highly qualified historian, whose enganged with a lot of the extremely well researched literature on this subject from a lot of different angles. Until I get around to reading your work though, I'm going to keep on with my current historical understanding that suggests that the case studies of the USSR and China aren't particularly indicative of how communism preforms in all circumstances. Just like I'm pretty sure that Capitalism doesn't always lead to something like the Irish Potato Famine.

Oh sure it wasn't the only solution, that's not what I meant to imply. Just that something with similar utility was required. I think I got hung up on the phrase "it came about" more than I should have

With that said my readings on this topic are pretty cursory, any recommendations?

Hmm, this is a tough one. I'd generally recommend a very broad reading on a topic like this. Mostly because I think the actual creation of racism is ambiguous and consists of the mashing together of several different traditions with some early scientism. If you haven't read it, then you absolutly have to read Morgan's American Freedom, American Slavery. To look at the most origins of the most extreme case of colonial slavery in the mainland British colonies you should look at Black Majority. If you're interested in the Spanish case, the other most important tradition here, you need a lot more context. I'd recommend Twinam's Purchasing Whiteness, not because she's right per se, but because she provides a good overview of the historiography and also a pretty important critique of it.

 

[HoodWinked]

star trek society has two major hurdles. we'd need to be in a post scare society so we'd need replicating technology, and unlimited energy. which aint happening anytime soon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets#Economics

 

[sphagnum]

Capitalism may not be perfect, but it's the best we've got.

And it works, unlike Communism. Some people really don't learn from history.

Oh that argument again.

 

[mikespit1200]

I'm sure you're a highly qualified historian, whose enganged with a lot of the extremely well researched literature on this subject from a lot of different angles. Until I get around to reading your work though, I'm going to keep on with my current historical understanding that suggests that the case studies of the USSR and China aren't particularly indicative of how communism preforms in all circumstances. Just like I'm pretty sure that Capitalism doesn't always lead to something like the Irish Potato Famine.

Communism can work on a small scale, a couple of hundred people at the top end, say. But on a large scale not so much. You'll also have to forgive the rest of the world for not wanting to kill a few million more people trying to find the goldielocks flavor of communism. As examples we have soviet russia, maoist china, north korea, and more recently venezuela. If you have an example of a successful communist nation I'm all ears. Until then I'll go with capitalism that's given us the USA, Japan, South Korea, and arguably, most of the EU.

 

[WolfeTone]

Easy.

The government will own everything. No more individual companies, resources will be allocated to whom needs it for what ever service they provide. Everyone gives up their property. And housing will be assigned to you. Your daily food will be given to you. Your electricity will be given to you. This is the governments requirement. Even if you are a deadbeat. You are entitled to be given these things along with health care.
You will be given a job to work for the state that exemplifies the qualities you have as a person. Your choice of what job you want will also have an impact. If you work your allocated 30 hours a week over 4 days. You are given a 3 day weekend. Once you complete your hours logged with the government you will be rewarded with what ever you want. All jobs will be rewarded equally. If you want to go to the beach, or abroad, or get a new tv, or get a new xbox game. These will be given to you as rewards for helping society function.

If you refuse to work, your needs are met, but you will be given no rewards. If you cannot work, your individual case will be reviewed and a service you can provide will be actioned.
When you are a child, you will live with your parents. When you reach 18 you will be assigned a flat. If you meet someone and decide to live together, you can be assigned a larger flat. When you reach 25 a house will be provided for you. If you wish to move you may trade houses with any citizen anywhere. You may do what you wish with your house. When you and your significant other either dies or are unable to live independantly, your house will be assigned to someone else. The government cannot take your house away from you, even if you commit a crime.

This is a brief introduction. I could provide more information on any scenario or specific thing. I believe this is the best form of government.

I understand this will never happen due to greed/not trusting the government. But a man can dream.

Please tell me this is a joke. This reads like dystopian fiction.

How does the government decide who gets the nice waterfront houses?

 

[shoelacer]

How do you define "living"?

Not having my actions dictated by some weird super authority, I guess? I gotta say, rarely have I ever seen someone swing in the 'totalitarianism is good' direction this hard in reaction to capitalism

 

[Cocaloch]

But on a large scale not so much. You'll also have to forgive the rest of the world for not wanting to kill a few million more people trying to find the goldielocks flavor of communism.

Literally nothing about communism requires people dying. It's about as innate to communism as it is to capitalism. This argument is total nonsense, and has no place in any serious discussion.

As examples we have soviet russia, maoist china, north korea, and more recently venezuela.

Example of what? Things you don't like? You don't think people didn't like Imperialist Britain or America today? How do you think the Irish felt about Liberalism in the 1840s? This isn't a good argument, and it's completly ahistorical anyway.

If you have an example of a successful communist nation I'm all ears.

I don't have an example of any communist countries whatsoever.

Until then I'll go with capitalism that's given us the USA, Japan, South Korea, and arguably, most of the EU.

I never said Capitalism does nothing, obviously there has been economic growth under Capitalism. Some of which it caused, some of which it provided the context for. I don't think I've ever met anyone who denies this. So this is just you throwing pointless arguments at walls and seeing what sticks.

Make theoretical arguments all you want. Don't act like you're making a historical argument. Pointing at a state and then pointing to one trait of that state is not an argument, it's nothing. It might even be worse than nothing in this regard, because it deliberately ignores the historical context from before the period you're talking about as well

 

[Izayoi]

Extrinsic rewards are actually an incredibly poor way to motivate people, relative to intrinsic motivation.

'The surprising truth about what motivates us'
(I highly recommend the book, Drive)

Off topic, but Dan Pink is a genius.

Been listening to Hidden Brain recently and I love the bits with him.