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Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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A system where people need not work menial jobs doesn't not yet exist. It may exist in the future with automation... but it currently doesn't.

However, if workers owned the means of production, rather than a select few, they would ideally make decisions that benefit the worker over the shareholder.

If a factory could double productivity, then ideally it could employ the same amount of workers but they could work half the hours. (It doesn't exactly work like that, I'm aware, but that's the general idea). Under a capitalist frame, however, half the workers lose their jobs.

Otherwise, you get worker productivity going up--i.e., one worker doing the work of more than one a few years back--yet things like the wealth divide increasing; workers working longer hours, not fewer; decreased benefits; stagnating wages; and so on...

but don't listen to me, I'm soooo lazy because I receive Social Security benefits 8-) It's not like I work and go to school either... oh wait, I do. (You know, like most people on things like food stamps -- Households that receive food stamps usually have one or more recipients of said household working, for example!)

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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For the sake of conversation, let's say that such a system did come into fruition... So the basics are taken care of, but that leaves a few questions:

1. How would such a system be funded? How would it continue to be funded for decades or centuries thereafter? And how would that funding impact global trade?

"Funded" is misguided. Money is a system that we invented. That's not the only way to get things done. Indeed, if we want to fix the system we'd probably have to eliminate money entirely because if there's a mechanism to trade wealth/power it will be abused. What we probably need is a system that distributes wealth/power evenly and cannot be tampered with (or where those that have extra power to respond to extra responsibilities are under extra scrutiny and restrictions; as opposed to the negligible scrutiny and nonexistent restrictions they currently have).

The idea is that all of your basic needs will be met by society. Food, clothing, housing, transportation, health care (medical, dental, psychiatric and psychological, chiropractic, etc.). It might not be overly luxurious, but will hopefully at least be comfortable and practical and at least you'll be surrounded by people in those same circumstances. There won't be the "haves" and "have nots". Just "have enoughs" and as much as can be reasonably and fairly shared. I believe that there's plenty of resources to go around if we distribute them evenly. Our current society does the opposite: a very tiny minority of less than 1% has most of the wealth while there is a large group of people with not enough, literally starving to death or dying of preventable or curable disease.

And if all of your needs are met what do you have to complain about going to do some job that you happen to be good at and enjoy? What the Hell else would you do with all of that time? The truth is we get bored pretty easily. And we get the most fulfillment from accomplishing tasks. From working basically. Not in the sense of the menial jobs that people are forced to work today, but in the sense of actually accomplishing something that helps yourself or helps others. And I'm sure anybody in the workforce can point to inefficiencies and mundane stupid work they've experienced in their job that shouldn't exist, but does anyway to justify "money" in or out somehow. Those that did attempt to NOT work would likely suffer from depression and other mental disorders, but with services available to assist them they could be lead into a more fulfilling lifestyle that happens to also give back to society, unlike our current system where such people cannot easily access the services they need and instead they become a self-destructive parasite on society.

2. Why would people working hard labor jobs (such as farming or construction) continue to do so if there is no monetary incentive to do so (assuming robots aren't doing all of that by the time such a system came into being)?

This is a valid question because some jobs actually do suck. Typically men are forced to work them because the risks/dangers/difficulty pays more. Ideally, we'd solve them with machines somehow, but in the shorter term perhaps we'd have to come up with other incentives. The fact is that there are people that are just good at these jobs, and even enjoy them. I don't know that we'd end up with nobody willing to do those jobs. There are people that hate other types of jobs and wouldn't want to do anything else. It's still an interesting question, but I don't think we can really know with any level of certainty how big of a problem it would be.

That said, many of those jobs today are unnecessarily dangerous/dirty/difficult depending on the state of things because it's more "economical" (i.e., cheaper). By eliminating the economics we can hopefully also eliminate some of the difficulties and risks. Some jobs will always be a little dangerous, but in the wealthiest neighbourhoods of the wealthiest nations I think you'd find that they're a lot less dangerous than in the poorest. Perhaps to the point where they're kind of kushy instead of dangerous. With resources distributed more fairly hopefully we'd get all of those "nasty" jobs as pleasant as can be. They still might not be easy or safe, but at least they won't be suicide. Again, there are natural personalities in society that thrive in those jobs anyway. By limiting the difficulties and risks I think you'd have no problem getting those jobs done in a perfectly balanced society. In particular, because many of those jobs need to get done for many of the luxuries we take for granted to even exist. If those jobs aren't getting done then we won't even have the luxuries available to us to entertain ourselves outside of work (e.g., electricity, fuel, clean water, garbage disposal, etc).

3. Is it reasonable to believe that everyone has something beneficial to offer to society? How do you define what is and is not beneficial, and wouldn't that lead to more of a utilitarian style of government?

I think there are two good responses to this.

Either, yes, everybody has something beneficial to offer society; or no, some people have nothing to offer and in that case why would you want to force them to contribute? They'll definitely be putting garbage into the system, so we'll be getting garbage out of the system. If the noes do exist you cannot just get rid of them. Hopefully I don't have to explain why. And so either you provide them with a comfortable life where they don't have to poison the system, or you punish them for something that is outside of their control, leading them to social woes that will ultimately lead them to destructive behavior that harms society. If noes exist your best bet is to make them comfortable so they will be less inclined to strike out against society.

I think ultimately you don't define what is and isn't beneficial. You let everybody do what they want basically. Except maybe for children and teenagers, that still must undergo mandatory education before making decisions such as that. Basically if you put garbage into system you'll get garbage out. You need to educate the entire population as much as each individual is able. If you literally said a 5 year old could refuse to go to school obviously everybody would be idiots and the system would collapse. On the other hand, if all people in all nations around the world were given a solid, gratis education, as far as they're able to go (university and apprenticeships and beyond) then there would be a lot of people with a lot of skills and abilities honed. They wouldn't be making decisions based on ignorance, but based on their own strengths and weaknesses and hopefully balanced against the needs of society.

4. What would you do with your time if you were a part of this system?

I'd probably have tried to go further in my education firstly. I went to a technical college and stopped after that because my parents were able to afford it and I didn't want to risk the bigger money of a university when I wasn't confident that I was ready/able to fulfill the requirements and I knew I couldn't afford it myself.

I'd probably still be a software developer today, but I'd hopefully be working on software that is more interesting to me and of better quality because its development would not be constrained by short-term economical forces and would be free to take risks and focus on substance rather than deadlines or contracts. And potentially because a more thorough education might have unlocked more abilities and improved my own output.

I have no complaints about the field that I'm in or the job that I do (abstractly speaking). I have plenty of complaints about my pay grade, working conditions, job instability, etc. It's kind of hard to do things like invest in a house or have children when you have no idea if you'll still have a job in 3 months, and no idea what kind of job or what kind of money you'll be able to find afterward.

A system where people need not work menial jobs doesn't not yet exist.

Double negative alert!

Otherwise, you get worker productivity going up--i.e., one worker doing the work of more than one a few years back--yet things like the wealth divide increasing; workers working longer hours, not fewer; decreased benefits; stagnating wages; and so on...

My city has long been supported by a steel mill (and a tube mill attached that produces steel pipes). The majority of well paid jobs and benefits comes from there. However, these days with the global market it's very unstable. The workers are constantly at risk of being laid off, and every few years groups of hundreds or thousands are laid off for 3 to 6 months if not a year or two. And management is always trying to coerce the unions to agree to limiting wages, benefits, and vacation time. My dad is up to something like 7 weeks vacation. They were trying to cap everybody at 5 weeks maximum (so my dad would have lost 2 weeks he'd already earned after a 30+ year career), as well as take 5 or 10% of wages away, and take away some percentage of medical/dental coverage and other benefits too, and various other things..

This is pretty much the dirty, dangerous jobs we're talking about. Under the current system they're already trying to take away their perks while still forcing them to do the difficult, dirty jobs. Hell, some of those jobs literally kill you: many of the workers die off around ~50 or 60 with various cancers, and the families are paid off by the company in settlements because years of working in the plant are a significant contributor to the disease. Apparently they've been shipping insane amounts of steel for the past several years (as reported by all of the workers), yet they haven't been paying their bills for years, have shafted many small and medium sized local businesses racking up thousands and sometimes millions in debt, and are currently under credit protection by the government. In other words, small businesses that cannot afford to not be paid are left struggling while a big corporation that aught to be making loads of money is protected.

The sad thing is the city I live in depends on that plant. If it ever shuts down completely my city will likely disappear or at least shrink almost overnight to a fraction of the size. Working there never interested me because I got to witness how unstable my dad's job has been over the years. It has ultimately been very good for his overall, but I find it hard to believe that it'll still be good 20 years from now without some major shifts in the global market system. And of course, the government just throws us under the bus instead of working to protect us. They're fattening their own pockets while selling out the rest of us.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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A system where people need not work menial jobs doesn't not yet exist. It may exist in the future with automation... but it currently doesn't.

However, if workers owned the means of production, rather than a select few, they would ideally make decisions that benefit the worker over the shareholder.

For what it's worth, I agree with the problem but I think the solution is misguided. The reason "communism" or whatever you want to call it never works is simple human biology. People take care of what is theirs. Not "their group" because you can always rationalize that "someone else will take care of it" through the well-known Bystander Effect where people will hear a crime and not call the police because they assume everyone else did. The more people, the less likely. It's a dilution of responsibility. When no "one" person owns the company (or particular department or "thing" in the company), nobody cares.

- Rental cars get treated like piss.

- Rental ANYTHING is treated like piss.

- Anything you can rationalize is owned by some abstract organization and not a person with a face, is treated like piss. (Steal some office supplies, for example.)

- In China (HUGE PROBLEM) apartment buildings are BEAUTIFUL inside with marble floor and everything, but the outside looks like post-Soviet Union collapse or some Chernobyl nightmare. Why? Because the "building" is "owned by someone else" (even though technically it's all the tenets own it together) so nobody will even PAINT the outside of concrete to keep it from cracking and falling apart.

video

Now let's get back to where I absolutely AGREE with you. We, as a society (government regulations being a reflection of that society), need to figure out a way for people with jobs other than STEM degrees, to have REAL, non-poverty-level jobs and incomes. Whether it's "universal income", welfare, or putting everyone who can't work into a gigantic meat grinder that feeds the smart people. SOMETHING has to be done because it's just going to get worse and worse.

The simple fact of the matter is... not everyone is "college material". But that doesn't mean they're sub-human. That doesn't mean they're bad people. But the repetitive jobs these people do... are going away. So what do you do when a huge proportion of your society cannot work and cannot support themselves? You're going to have a full blown revolution on your hands.

I'm a middle ground guy. I know that rational self-interest is a great, natural, biological motivator. So it makes perfect sense why "capitalism" makes tons of people money, AND, tons of people benefit from swimming inside the "wake" produced by the powerful. We have so much technology in our pockets that was originally designed for billion dollar projects, companies, and even wars. But the core problem is... income inequality.

Companies exist as a member of society. Anyone who says "their job is to make money" is a liar. If that was the case, then we'd all be okay with companies destroying the environment to save money.

The income inequality of top business income VS bottom or even middle workers, is INSANE and rising rapidly. But those business men can't exist without the low and middle workers. In fact, they're the ones doing the majority of the work.

Moreover, workers are more "efficient" in terms of "units of production per hour per person" than ever before. Yet the WORKER doesn't get any more money for being more productive.

Unlike a bank, if my credit union makes money, I get a check at the end of the year. The credit union appreciates that my money was loaned out to investments that helped make a profit and we ALL benefited. It's still "capitalism" and yet, we're ALL benefiting.

And, we have laws regulating damn near everything in our lives. Why the hell shouldn't we have laws that regulate the maximum a company can "not" spread the fruits of its hard-working employees labor? The government gets a percentage check from the companies profits. Why shouldn't the employees? Sure, there are problems with that. But any practical idea has implementation issues and debates on "Where" the line is. But my point is simply the line DOES exist and we're been pretending that the line should be at 0.000% of corporate profits. Yet somehow, it's okay for the government to take that money, pay a bunch of administrators who each strip a little off the pie, and then eventually give a tiny bit back to people in the form of "welfare" and call everyone who takes that money a free-loading bum.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Not "their group" because you can always rationalize that "someone else will take care of it" through the well-known Bystander Effect where people will hear a crime and not call the police because they assume everyone else did. The more people, the less likely. It's a dilution of responsibility. When no "one" person owns the company (or particular department or "thing" in the company), nobody cares.

This must be an American trait. On Wednesday I went for a short motorcycle ride after work to test out a new throttle lock. When I got back to town there was a pile of smoke billowing up from the bushes next to the highway. It's not uncommon to see smoke in my area because of bonfires, but its close proximity to the highway seemed alarming. I turned around and pulled into an adjacent driveway on the other side of the highway to observe it. I saw a pickup truck pull over to observe it too, and a pedestrian walking her dog down the street stopped to observe as well. Somebody from the apartment building I had stopped at came running up and yelled that he had called the fire department. I decided to ride down the road at this point and circle to a parallel street on the other side of the smoke so I'd be able to get a better angle from there and see where the fire was really coming from. And that way too I was still available to help or call for help if the initial report of help was bogus. It was harder to see from this side so definitely the fire was in no-man's land between streets. When I finally found the smoke I pulled over and walked over to find that another bystander man was on-site smothering the fire with dirt/sand. It was out by the time I got there. I asked him if it was under control as another man came running in from the other side. And then they said a fire truck was coming towards the street I came from so two of us wandered up there to wave them down. I left after the fire department arrived to smother the remaining ashes with water. The fire started right next to a walking trail so I'm guessing somebody tossed a cigarette butt, and with the extreme heat we've experienced for the last 2 or 3 weeks it's not surprising that it managed to catch. The guy that called the fire department said the flames were at least 5 feet high, and it was in the middle of a bush that easily could have spread if it wasn't caught soon enough. It occurred to me that somebody else would probably report it eventually, but I stopped anyway. And not only did I stop, but about 4 or 5 other people also stopped to help, and probably 5 or 10 others were observing from a distance ready to act if they felt they needed to.

Quote:

- Rental cars get treated like piss.

- Rental ANYTHING is treated like piss.

- Anything you can rationalize is owned by some abstract organization and not a person with a face, is treated like piss. (Steal some office supplies, for example.)

Are you saying you personally do this? I don't know anybody that does. The people that appear to do this usually have their own social issues, and are generally struggling. They don't care about the destruction they cause because "life's not fair". In other words, it's not particularly because they're not responsible and don't care, but because they feel like they're getting shafted already so they don't care about shafting everybody else.

Certainly I've heard of "write-offs" in bigger companies that won't feel the hit of supplies going missing, but again that comes down to people either feeling like they're getting shafted or being greedy or whatever; and literally companies having more wealth/power than they can even use. If there was no such economy and everybody could just have a healthy supply of all of that stuff why would you ever steal any? Is any friend going to show up at your place and congratulate you on accumulating more than you need in a society where everybody is entitled to as much as they need (or at least, as much as there is to go around)? I would fucking hope your friends would chastise you for it. The things would literally be worthless because anybody else that needed it could acquire it through normal channels.

In theory, competition is supposed to produce the best results, but if you notice in our current economic system competition is often not allowed. Monopolies take hold and buy up any competition so as to control the system. What does the government do to stop them? Nothing. Google was recently fined something like $5 million or something like that for antitrust breaches in Europe over Android. That's literally a fraction of the wealth they currently have, let alone what they're going to continue to accumulate. They're even fighting the decision! It's pennies to them. It's not going to stop them.

If capitalism was so wonderful then you'd think government and industry would be enabling capitalism to work instead of crippling it every chance they get, and giving their friends and business partners control of it all. Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. I'm not sure what it is, but probably a dictatorship isn't far off. Capitalism is only good in theory assuming everybody will cooperate to compete. Which is contradictory. Where there's competition of course there will be corruption.

Whether we base our system on "capitalism" or "socialism" or some other system it will always fail as long as corruption is permitted within the system. To solve the problem in a way that benefits us all we need to control for that. Yes, people can be selfish and greedy. We need to devise a system where corruption isn't even possible. And a system where there's no incentive to be greedy is good too. If everybody is healthy and sustained, and in particular if society collectively shames gluttony and corruption I think it'll just cease to exist. Our current system rewards gluttony and corruption. I don't know why the fuck we'd ever consider those as valuable traits deserving of worship.

So basically teach society to be healthy and cooperative and you should see a lot of the social woes disappear. I don't think it's an accident that "socialism" is seen as an enemy in the West. And it's not based on merit either. It's propaganda. The elite have designed the system to benefit them, and them alone, and they really like it when their puppets are ignorant of the fact that they're getting screwed. They get excited by any idea that can be twisted into making the poorly educated puppets believe that what's bad for them is good, and what's good for them is bad. They especially don't want to educate most people above a level that makes them useful slaves because if the slaves get too smart then they might revolt.

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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bamccaig said:

Double negative alert!

That was a typo, it should be: "A system where people need not work menial jobs doesn't yet exist."

...

I hear that bit about human nature and why communism never works a lot but I've never seen of any proof of an inherent human nature nor that said nature is greedy.

I agree a lot with bamccaig's second half of his post. For the record, the natural evolution of capitalism is fascism. (Dictatorship is close enough).

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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bamccaig said:

Indeed, if we want to fix the system we'd probably have to eliminate money entirely because if there's a mechanism to trade wealth/power it will be abused.

I thought your initial idea was that people would have the basics covered, but that money would continue to exist. But if money is not a part of the equation, then that would make more sense. I think it would be very difficult to do away with money or bartering though. It's in our nature (at least in this society) to use money as a means of transacting "equivalent exchange". I'm not sure if it's actually possible to do away with that idea of exchange though (be it money, bartering, or something else).

Quote:

This is a valid question because some jobs actually do suck. ... The fact is that there are people that are just good at these jobs, and even enjoy them.

That's true. I suppose there exists a right person for any job. Don't you think if people aren't forced to do their job, and they do things only out of passion, they might not stick with things when they get tough or boring? For example, I enjoy writing software in my own time, but I find writing software for a company to be boring (especially when I'm not interested in the type of software I'm being made to create). So if there's no tangible incentive to stick with a job during the rough or boring parts, don't you think people will give up? Run into a bug while writing a program? Maybe you lose interest and never finish it. But if it were for a job (in today's context), you'd have to work around or fix the bug, or else you may lose your job. I also think a lot crunch in computing jobs in general would no longer exist for the same reason (AAA video games would take longer to produce, for example).

Quote:

They'll definitely be putting garbage into the system, so we'll be getting garbage out of the system.

Then we'd see the Pareto principle in action. ~20% of people would do things for the benefit of society, while ~80% just consume and don't contribute. That'd be a major weight to shoulder for society. That's why I think most people would sit around pursuing short-term pleasures rather than do anything of value.

Neil Roy said:

There's one thing Jesus or His apostles never said to a beggar; "GET A JOB!!!"

I should have worded what I said better. I meant it in the context of people who defraud the welfare system, not necessarily people who genuinely need it.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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The thing is, you just do not know who needs it, and who does not because everyone's story is different.

What you're essentially saying is you would rather they all be on the street with absolutely nothing so you can have a few more dollars in your wallet.

I find it disturbing that working people will pick the poorest in our respective nations to attack first when far more money is wasted on military, space (NASA), foreign aid etc... I would think people would want to help their own poor in their own country first and foremost and attack wasted spending or corporate tax breaks etc.

I've been on welfare, where you barely get enough to pay the rent. Been on the street where the poorest members of society were the first ones to offer help to me. So I take great offence to seeing them attacked in any way shape or form.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Neil Roy said:

The thing is, you just do not know who needs it, and who does not because everyone's story is different.

That's true, but there's also a difference between a legitimate and illegitimate recipient of welfare. It's kind of like how there's a difference between a person who uses a site like GoFundMe to raise funds for a legitimate cause, versus one who fabricates a sob story to make a quick buck.

Quote:

What you're essentially saying is you would rather they all be on the street with absolutely nothing so you can have a few more dollars in your wallet.

No, I'm not saying that. Don't put words in my mouth. I have no problem with a person who legitimately needs help, but I have zero respect for a person who blatantly exploits the system (especially when the system is designed to help those who are least financially fortunate).

Maybe things are different in Canada, but I've known a handful of people who have lied and faked health problems to get welfare that they shouldn't have received. Those kinds of people place a greater burden on the system that should really be going to people who need it most (like the disabled).

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Don't you think if people aren't forced to do their job, and they do things only out of passion, they might not stick with things when they get tough or boring? For example, I enjoy writing software in my own time, but I find writing software for a company to be boring (especially when I'm not interested in the type of software I'm being made to create). So if there's no tangible incentive to stick with a job during the rough or boring parts, don't you think people will give up? Run into a bug while writing a program? Maybe you lose interest and never finish it. But if it were for a job (in today's context), you'd have to work around or fix the bug, or else you may lose your job. I also think a lot crunch in computing jobs in general would no longer exist for the same reason (AAA video games would take longer to produce, for example).

A lot of the software we develop today is redundant because every company has to reinvent the square wheel because they're all competing with each other and don't want to give each other any advantages. But in a society where there is no competition that disappears. There would be no reason to keep software private or proprietary. You could open it all up open source. That alone would mean many programming jobs wouldn't even need to exist as they are today. Which is to say, you wouldn't have to write and maintain boring and mundane software because it would already exist. And in fact, it would be constantly improved from all over the world so it would be better than it ever was.

Your programming tasks could be much more interesting because you'd have more interesting problems to try to solve. And no deadlines or high pressure because you wouldn't be the only person that could solve the problems, and you'd be able to coordinate with thousands of others to work towards the best solutions. The Linux kernel is already sort of done this way. There are upwards of 8000 developers all over the world that are constantly communicating via plain text email, exchanging patches, and critiquing them and cooperatively improving them to the point where they're good enough for production.

You might even be able to become a game developer instead. Money wouldn't exist. You could take as much time as you need to learn and develop the skills. There would basically be no limits on what you developed. You wouldn't have to do what some boss told you to. Just do what interests you and see what comes out of it. Often times nothing would come to fruition, but that's OK because we don't need millions and millions of solutions to problems. There just aren't that many problems we're ready to solve. Society over all would benefit because the few that were successful would produce enough for us all to enjoy.

AAA games are actually an example of this already. As a rule, game developers get treated like shit. They get significantly less money than their peers in business, are expected to work 16 hour days and only get paid for 8 of them, have to meet insane deadlines, and basically their lives are just hell for the entire year or three or five that it takes to develop the game. Most people burn out of the gaming industry within about 5 years. And yet through all of that hell and poor treatment they still do it as long as they can because they love it.

Then we'd see the Pareto principle in action. ~20% of people would do things for the benefit of society, while ~80% just consume and don't contribute. That'd be a major weight to shoulder for society. That's why I think most people would sit around pursuing short-term pleasures rather than do anything of value.

My point is that 90% of the "work" that we do today doesn't need to get done. It's all just smoke and mirrors to justify passing money around. Instead of just giving people what they need to survive we require them to do some mundane work that doesn't even actually do anything productive just to justify giving them their money to get the things they need to survive. Let's try to brainstorm some jobs that are meaningless:

  • Bankers. Without money, there's no need.

  • Cashiers, same thing. No money, no need for a cashier. Hell, we've already eliminated some of them with self-checkout. In a system with no money there would be no check out. Just go to a distribution center and take what you want and leave. Perhaps we'd need or want some kind of tracking system to ensure that you only took your fair share of things, but again in a system where everything is free and everybody is entitled to things why would anybody hoard more than they need? I don't even think we'd need to worry about it.

  • Waitresses. Their job is to take your order and bring you food and drinks. But what if you could just walk up to a cook and tell him what to make you? And you could just walk over to a refrigerator and grab your own beer? The waitress isn't actually needed. Neither is the cook, but then again there are people that enjoy cooking and can cook better than others so why not let them do that for us?

  • Gas station attendants. For the most part, they've already been eliminated by self service gas stations and pay at the pump.

  • Security guards. There may be some rare cases where they'd still be needed, but for the most part they exist to protect resources/property. In a system where everything is free to everybody they probably wouldn't even need to exist.

  • Secretaries and office jobs. Probably most of these are not actually necessary. They exist to keep track of money, and meetings, and business arrangements to manage relationships between competition. Mostly because individuals are too busy to manage their own schedules because they're doing too many things. They are too powerful. If you distribute their work around more you wouldn't need extra people to help them manage it all. You wouldn't need to manage any money. You might not even need most office jobs anymore. It's all just BS to manage resources in a system that doesn't just freely share them. If you freely share them then you probably don't need to manage them anymore.

  • Child care workers. If moms and dads didn't have to go to work to provide housing and food and clothes they could just stay home and raise their own children.

  • Dog walkers or pet care: same story. If you didn't have to go to some job you'd have the time and energy to do it yourself.

  • Divorce court justices and lawyers and all others involved in the process. I'd wager that divorce would disappear in a system without money. Divorce is basically just about money anyway.

  • In an ideal world the majority of police, if not all police, would also become obsolete. Most crime is inspired in some way by money. If you eliminate those pressures in society then the crime will disappear too. This also means you'd eliminate most lawyers and judges, prison guards, etc.

This is just brainstorming. I imagine if we think hard about it we can imagine many more mundane jobs that just don't need to exist. Certainly a lot of the worst jobs. The minimum wage jobs. They aren't needed. They only exist to justify giving this person money. If you just them the money, or better yet, eliminate the money and give them the things they would have needed the money for, there's no reason to do that job anymore.

Neil Roy said:

I find it disturbing that working people will pick the poorest in our respective nations to attack first when far more money is wasted on military, space (NASA), foreign aid etc... I would think people would want to help their own poor in their own country first and foremost and attack wasted spending or corporate tax breaks etc.

I think that this is again propaganda delivered by the elite. They don't want us to realize that they're shafting us so they point at some other enemy that everybody can hate. Whether it be terrorism (probably wouldn't exist without money), welfare system (wouldn't exist without money because everybody would have enough), minority groups (crime wouldn't exist within them because they'd all be living comfortable lives), etc. Basically money causes all of these problems. Get rid of it and just share with everybody and all of the so called "problems" we think we have disappear.

If we share on a global level we'll have more than enough to take care of everybody, and there will be no incentive for wars or terrorism or crime. These are all inspired by competition and suffering.

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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bamccaig said:

Gas station attendants. For the most part, they've already been eliminated by self service gas stations and pay at the pump.

Do gas station attendants still exist today? I've never seen one in real life, only on old TV shows.

You make some good points. Money certainly seems to be the root of many issues. Even the Bible talks about that, saying that the love (perhaps better worded as "lust") of money is the root of all evil. There is a definite truth in that.

In general, I think money in and of itself is simply a tool, being neither good nor bad, but it is what men are driven or willing to do that dictates its supposed righteousness or wickedness. A few of the world's wealthiest men donate great sums of money to charities and organizations that they believe in, ones that are often a benefit to society (Warren Buffet comes to mind). But of course, many do not use their money to help others, and instead hoard it (Steve Jobs comes to mind, or at least if he did make charitable contributions, they happened quietly, as I'm not aware of any).

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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Do gas station attendants still exist today? I've never seen one in real life, only on old TV shows.

Two words: New Jersey.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
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bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Do gas station attendants still exist today? I've never seen one in real life, only on old TV shows.

They do, but they're rare. I grew up in a small town so both gas stations had attendants. One of them shut down now, but the other biases for hiring teenaged, hawt girls to pump gas. For some reason that one is still doing amazing. :o They actually often offer to check oil too. The answer depends on whether or not I can get out to watch that part.

Most if not all gas stations in town are self-serve. Actually there's still one in the West end that is manned, but the kids that pump gas are always high as a kite. :-/

Actually when my fiancée and I went on a road trip to Michigan recently we discovered a couple of gas stations with "full" service (where full is pumping gas only, not checking tires or oil). They were both in smaller towns off the freeway. So that's probably key. They do exist though. Definitely.

Quote:

In general, I think money in and of itself is simply a tool, being neither good nor bad, but it is what men are driven or willing to do that dictates its supposed righteousness or wickedness. A few of the world's wealthiest men donate great sums of money to charities and organizations that they believe in, ones that are often a benefit to society (Warren Buffet comes to mind). But of course, many do not use their money to help others, and instead hoard it (Steve Jobs comes to mind, or at least if he did make charitable contributions, they happened quietly, as I'm not aware of any).

It's a tool that encourages inequality and from that inequality stems a lot of society's problems. The idea seems good on paper, but in practice there is always corruption, and the system falls apart.

Think about how Bill Gates got so rich. He might be philanthropic now, but he got so rich by basically forcing everybody that bought a goddamn computer in the 90s or early 2000s to give him a slice (for all intents and purposes Microsoft still tries to do this, but there is at least a bit of competition now). For generally shitty software that didn't even work as well as software that existed in the 70s or 80s. My mother saved up for months working at near minimum wage in the 90s and in around 94 or 95 bought a new computer running Windows 95 for something like $4400. It was neat to have one at home, but imagine the cool things it might have done if it ran a good operating system. >:( I don't know if we can point to a super rich person and say that they got that way by earning it. I doubt it. It's always exploiting people. Nobody is so beneficial to society that they're worth a million times more than an average, hard working individual. Certainly not the people that actually end up rich. The truly beneficial people are taken for granted. The only reason these fuckheads got rich is because they cheated the system.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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bamccaig said:

If we share on a global level we'll have more than enough to take care of everybody

That's called socialism, it has been tried already and failed miserably. In fact, people risked their lives in the past to escape it.

As for Bill Gates, he got wealthy by programming operating systems for different computers, not just DOS or Windows. The Commodore PET and C64's operating systems were made by Microsoft. DOS was a huge success, I liked it as was Windows. Say what you want about it, I still prefer Windows over any other. Your opinion may differ, but obviously a lot of people liked it.

Nobody "FORCED" anyone to buy it. If it was really horrible, nobody would have bothered with the computers again. Personally, I build my own computer from scratch and installed my own operating system, as did many people I know and I CHOSE Microsoft's DOS. I was slow to adopt Windows but eventually, when the internet arrived, it was really handy for that.

I don't know what you're so angry about. Nobody forced people to buy anything. Bill Gates got wealthy by making things people liked, and then making deals with companies to use his software, that's called being SMART.

As for 70s software being better, I grew up in the '70s, there were no home computers you could buy then until near the end of them, and they had TRS-80 and Commodore PET. The Commodore PET used Microsoft software, the TRS-80 used their own software, but the LDOS on it was similar to DOS. The operating systems in the 80s were similar, only a few computers had their own custom operating systems, but Microsoft made a lot of them, like Commodore 64s was made by Microsoft, one of the best selling computers of the '80s. THAT'S why they were a success. That's why Gates is rich. It's only been since he stepped down as CEO of the company that Windows seems to have gotten worse. I loved Windows 95, XP and 7, still using 7, can't stand 8 and 10. And every version I installed, I installed by my own choosing, they were not forced upon me. I MUCH prefer it over any version of Linux, though Linux has come a long way, I can't see me using it any time soon, unless Windows drops support for 7, then... maybe I will use it.

Not everyone who is wealthy got there by cheating and stealing. I despise blanket statements like that. Usually such statements come from people who are jealous and want people who were smart and worked hard to hand their money over to those who have not; in a communist style system.

When you take money away from those who work hard for it, and give it to those who have not, you take away incentive to get ahead. That's not to say that the poor should be rewarded, I am talking about avoiding a communist, socialist style system as they never work. The Soviet Union collapsed for this reason. A capitalist system has enough wealth to afford a decent welfare system, when managed properly is a good thing. Just because a FEW cheat the system, doesn't mean everyone is. There are other areas of wasted spending that should be focused on, not the poor. And not all wealthy people got their by cheating, they should not be punished for being smart and working hard either.

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Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Neil Roy said:

When you take money away from those who work hard for it, and give it to those who have not, you take away incentive to get ahead. That's not to say that the poor should be rewarded, I am talking about avoiding a communist, socialist style system as they never work. The Soviet Union collapsed for this reason. A capitalist system has enough wealth to afford a decent welfare system, when managed properly is a good thing. Just because a FEW cheat the system, doesn't mean everyone is. There are other areas of wasted spending that should be focused on, not the poor. And not all wealthy people got their by cheating, they should not be punished for being smart and working hard either.

I just want so say I completely agree with this.

I've tried to formulate a response to the terrifying socialist brain washing going on here, but allegro.cc won't let me post much more than what I have here. This thread is just too big for its own britches.

And bambams, when you have a mighty wall of text and I'm trying to read your response on my phone, I might as well tl;dr; and give up. It was pages and pages tall. that's silly.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Neil Roy said:

That's called socialism, it has been tried already and failed miserably. In fact, people risked their lives in the past to escape it.

My understanding is that socialism has never been attempted "properly". The lie was socialism, just like our lie is capitalism, even though neither is actually implemented correctly. You can argue that socialism doesn't work because it never has, but the same argument can be made about capitalism. This isn't working for most of the population. It works for a few people, but less and less as the years go on. And the reason is corruption in all systems. We need to figure out how to prevent the corruption before any system will work well for most of us.

Neil Roy said:

Nobody "FORCED" anyone to buy it.

In the 90s PC computers used to come with Windows installed. To my knowledge you weren't even given the option to buy just the hardware without Windows. They still do mostly come with Windows installed, and to this day the majority of the population doesn't understand that there's a choice. That predominantly why Windows is popular and dominant. Not because people have been preferring it, but because they didn't even know it was a choice. To them, a computer is Windows.

My college instructors basically taught this to us. That Microsoft forced Windows down everybody's throats by making deals with IBM to distribute it with the hardware. I wasn't old enough to understand in the 80s or 90s so I can't speak from experience like you can, but the tale you tell of choosing to buy DOS does not match the history that I've been taught.

Neil Roy said:

As for 70s software being better, I grew up in the '70s, there were no home computers you could buy then until near the end of them, and they had TRS-80 and Commodore PET. The Commodore PET used Microsoft software, the TRS-80 used their own software, but the LDOS on it was similar to DOS. The operating systems in the 80s were similar, only a few computers had their own custom operating systems, but Microsoft made a lot of them, like Commodore 64s was made by Microsoft, one of the best selling computers of the '80s. THAT'S why they were a success. That's why Gates is rich. It's only been since he stepped down as CEO of the company that Windows seems to have gotten worse. I loved Windows 95, XP and 7, still using 7, can't stand 8 and 10. And every version I installed, I installed by my own choosing, they were not forced upon me. I MUCH prefer it over any version of Linux, though Linux has come a long way, I can't see me using it any time soon, unless Windows drops support for 7, then... maybe I will use it.

I'm not referring specifically to "PC" operating systems here. I'm referring to UNIX and its descendants. I'm not sure what the state of available UNIX-like operating systems was for PC computers in the 80s, but there probably wasn't much. I know MINIX existed sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, but I'm not sure what it could do for lusers. That said, UNIX in the 70s already did some things better than Windows does even today. It seems Microsoft never really learned. Windows 10 is a relatively stable operating system (still far from perfect though; still susceptible to getting bogged down or malfunctioning without reboots). But Windows hasn't always been so stable. 95 was notoriously unstable. 98 was an improvement, but still had its issues. ME was a complete joke. XP wasn't quite perfect at launch, but eventually became very stable. Vista was a joke at launch. Seven was pretty stable. 8 was unanimously hated and I believe pretty unstable at launch. 10 is good, aside from forced adoption and questionable backdoor/spying/calling home behaviors. But for all intents and purposes, 10 is just 8 again with some tweaked defaults and further refined systems and some new flashy services that nobody cares about.

Neil Roy said:

When you take money away from those who work hard for it, and give it to those who have not, you take away incentive to get ahead. That's not to say that the poor should be rewarded, I am talking about avoiding a communist, socialist style system as they never work. The Soviet Union collapsed for this reason. A capitalist system has enough wealth to afford a decent welfare system, when managed properly is a good thing. Just because a FEW cheat the system, doesn't mean everyone is. There are other areas of wasted spending that should be focused on, not the poor. And not all wealthy people got their by cheating, they should not be punished for being smart and working hard either.

You seem to think that the only reason people do anything is because they'll be handsomely rewarded for it. The best contributions to society have been accidents in some guy's spare time just working on something because it interested him. It's very rare for "jobs" to produce great things. Usually, they increment on somebody else's great thing that some individual stumbled upon.

I've already said it: most people will not just sit idly by. It's too boring. And it's not healthy. Our mental health suffers when we don't get out and do things. My father is basically incapable of sitting still. On his days off at home he'll either find something that needs fixing, or he'll make something need fixing.

Part of the problem is that we've been lead to believe that the only things that contribute to society are showing up at a "job" and completing assigned tasks. The more menial the better. It doesn't consider raising children as a contribution to society. It doesn't consider intellectual thought as a contribution to society. It doesn't consider exploring new ideas and trying to create something at home as a contribution to society unless it happens to be the next great thing that some company will pay money for. This is all bullshit. All of these things are contributing to society in their own ways.

The entire "money" system is a lie. The elite that control this system are not working 40 hour weeks. Their money earns more in an hour than you or I do in an entire year on interest and investments. They are literally doing nothing for society. Society keeps working hard to produce for them, but what are they giving back? Like I said, nobody has been millions of times more beneficial for society than you or I. They aren't rich because they've "earned" it. They're rich because the system is corrupt and they've cheated. Don't defend them. They have entire teams of lawyers to that already.

And bambams, when you have a mighty wall of text and I'm trying to read your response on my phone, I might as well tl;dr; and give up. It was pages and pages tall. that's silly.

Mobile phones are not designed to consume the Web. They're designed to be portable firstly, allowing you to play silly games and make phone calls and text. If you choose to do your Web browsing on it like some soccer mom your experience will be poor. That's not on me, that's on you.

Append:

On that subject, I'm watching a documentary on Somalia pirates. This followed after watching YouTube videos about Somalia pirate attacks, and military forces attacking them with huge guns and things. And of course the Somalia pirates are made out to be terrible people to us in the media. Apparently the truth (at least according to this documentary so far) is that foreign fishermen (let alone the shipping activity) have effectively caused all of the fish in the region to disappear. So they cannot just go out and catch a meal anymore. And naturally there are limited opportunities where they are. They are basically living shitty lives most of us cannot fathom and out of desperation are resorting to piracy to basically make ends meat because despite the harm caused to their ecosystem apparently nobody is helping them. When you look at it from that perspective it's really sad, and turning motherfucking warships on them is kind of insane. On the other hand, more than likely all of the shipping activity that goes through the region is more than capable of taking care of the people there, and could probably be dropping off "relief packages" when they come full of food and other essential resources and they'd probably loot the packages and leave the ships alone. It's not like some kind of greedy endeavor to take what isn't theirs. They're just trying to fucking get by. Another option would be explicitly recruiting sailors from the region to work on the ships that transport through the region. Because why the Hell not?

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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I've tried to formulate a response to the terrifying socialist brain washing going on here, but allegro.cc won't let me post much more than what I have here. This thread is just too big for its own britches.

I'm a socialist because I've done a lot of research and socialism is the only morally just system. Though it's likely I'm the only one here who has read the Marx's Das Kapital and Einstein's Why Socialism? and other such things. (I'd really advise you to read Einstein's Why Socialism?. It's not very long and describes the flaws of capitalism so well. Das Kapital is terse and boring.)

In honesty I'd be happy with strong unions, worker protection laws, much higher taxes on the wealthy, giant reduction in military spending, and more spending on things like universal healthcare and all even as a socialist.

Of course, under a capitalist system, that would not last long.

You could argue I was brainwashed when I was younger and was religious and patriotic and a firm believer in capitalism, but I was too young to understand any of it. Now I'm not.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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I'm a socialists because I've done a lot of research and socialism is the only morally just system.

Morally just? How? You take the most away from the people who do the best! In a capitalist society, the market determines the value according to supply and demand. In a socialist society, there is no incentive to do well at ANYTHING, because Mother Russia will take care of you, or in your case if you're 'profitable' then all your profits get taken away.

I suppose your guys idea of socialism is some kind of hippie commune where everybody grows their own w**d cough I mean vegetables.

No. Socialism is evil. It's killed millions and millions of people throughout Europe and Asia.

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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All of the so-called socialist governments of the past few hundred years have been ripe with corruption. Corruption exists everywhere. Moving away from a capitalist government won't fix that.

People are driven by reward. In socialism, there is no reward, and no competition, so what incentive is there to do anything? On the other hand, capitalism actively rewards creativity and competition. It's the best system in my eyes.

This has been a neat little back-and-forth on the subject, and good things have been said on all sides, but socialism has never worked, and I do not believe it ever will work. A neat fantasy though.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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The incentive to create is to create. Or often times because the need arises. For example, I highly doubt Edgar has made any money on Eagle, and he may never make any significant money on it. He's creating it because he needs it or wants to do it. Linus Torvalds didn't create Linux to get rich (though eventually it happened anyway). He created Linux because he wanted to learn about kernel development. Richard Stallman and the FSF didn't create GNU for money. They created it because they wanted the world to have a free software operating system.

Money does not motivate people to create. Money motivates people to lie, cheat, and steal. Microsoft doesn't create to make money. They strip away features so you have to buy them again. Or they change the name of something to something else and change the style of it so it looks like a new product so you'll buy it again. Occasionally they might add a minimum new feature just to say it's new so you'll buy it again. Same with Apple. They don't create phones with proprietary adapters and plugs and technologies because they're better or cheaper. It's so that you have to give them extra money for the same damn thing.

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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1) You don't know what socialism is.
2) You won't learn what socialism is. (Einstein's essay is shorter than many of bambam's posts [I mean that in a good way :)]).
3) There has never been a state-level socialist government. USSR was state capitalism at best with a strong welfare program; Venezuela is a state capitalist with plenty of still private companies; and so on...

I won't continue this discussion.

No. Socialism is evil. It's killed millions and millions of people throughout Europe and Asia.

Capitalism has resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths that could have been prevented but there is no profit motive. For everyone has died from starvation (there is enough food to feed everyone in the world), for everyone who has died to lack of shelter (there are enough homes to house everyone in the US), for everyone who has died due to lack of healthcare. And all the wars fought over resources, all the countries cast into chaos by Western intervention because of scary communism...

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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Let's agree to disagree.

Time for a new topic. What's up with polo shirts and not buttoning the top button? Why have a top button at all if it's not going to be used? Is leaving it unbuttoned appropriate for job interviews and the like? I'm overwhelmingly a t-shirt kind of guy, so some fashion ideas perplex me. It'd be like wearing pants but deliberately undoing the zipper...

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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You want us stop discussing an interesting topic with far reaching consequences so that we can discuss buttons on shirts?

{"name":"1413250388329_wps_28_Beverly_Hills_CA_Sofia_Ve.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/1\/01488b4eada5446c75400dc78402165a.jpg","w":634,"h":951,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/1\/01488b4eada5446c75400dc78402165a"}1413250388329_wps_28_Beverly_Hills_CA_Sofia_Ve.jpg

'Nuff said.

Eric Johnson
Member #14,841
January 2013
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The ending of the socialism topic was in response to Aaron saying "I won't continue this discussion."

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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Saying you won't continue doesn't mean you won't continue. It means you expect other people to accept your points and you're throwing a tantrum that other people aren't changing their views easily. :P

Also, this appears to be Einstein's essay entitled "Why Socialism?", which I must agree is a good read.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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