literally tying a person's worth to their dollar amount is pretty terrible for the 99% of people who are not rich

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In our current system it's a poor measure, since hard work and smarts will not get you as far as connections, blackmail, and ass licking. Which is a sad thing. Still, if that were utopian then the system would have been just as good as what you dreamed up.

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why exactly? because everyone would be able to contribute equally and get all their money? economics seems to suggest that is not true, and that there would always be an imbalance favoring those who already have the proportionally larger sum of money. :X

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What I mean as perfect theoretical model for a capitalist utopia is a situation in which every person starts off at the same level and has equal opportunities. Then those who work harder or are smarter profit more, and those who aren't profit less. It's a situation in which not only can you be happy choosing to do what you want to and what you may be passionate about, but also to reap all the benefits of your work. It's a system that favours working for the same satisfaction as you mentioned it, but also cutting off and penalizing people who don't want to be a functional part of the system.

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Arguing an idea based on it's source or what your perceive it's source to be is a pretty poor rationale is what I'm saying. Part of the problem I have with your argument is that you're restricting possibility to it's barest minimum. It's not 'if that one guy doesn't produce eggs' it's if 'no one out of millions or billions of people produce eggs' that a problem can arise. So tell me what people will do if no one anywhere is doing any work? Watch a TV that no one is producing media for? The assumption that no one will do work is based on the values of a culture which sets up a stringent division between work and play.

As for workers that aren't working, I didn't say they were disabled I said they were unemployed. The benefits of unemployment are limited and the neccessary number of people in the workforce is going down. That will always result in a group who is willing to work but can't bring lumped in with what you refer to as leeches.

Money for recognition is not work for work, particularly if the little work you're recognized for contributed nothing to the society's needed functions or to the improvement of the society. You can not have an ethical work for work system if functions in it exist to arbitrarily and disproportionately reward some lucky individuals or where manipulating the system itself rather than contributing work can result in a gain. Your system is based on tenets which it does not follow, that's why it is little more than rhetoric.

Gates is an outlier because it's likely he would have done what he did even without profit incentive based on what I've seen of him.

when you say that they are cut off and penalized, Q.U., what do you mean?

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Hey, guys, I like this dicussion because it is very revealing as to your inner thoughts and mechanisms and therefore makes it easier to see where each of you stand and where your individual arguments break down, but this is Valhallen's discussion, and I think if you're going to argue this you should make a new thread.

That said, I think the poing Q.U. is trying to make is that in the Capitalist system, if someone doesn't want to work (not can't, but want), he doesn't get money, which is how a "non-producer" (so to speak) finds himself cut off from the benefits of the system itself. In a Communism as I understand it, that same non-producer assumes all benefits of the system regardless of how much he consumes, and you have not made a clear contention as to how someone in a Communist society would be penalized for being non-productive, especially if they are supposed to working towards this "common goal."

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Part of why this is a "weekly" discussion is so tangents and arguments won't ramble on indefinitely. A bit is fine, but if things continue past the 6th (as it appears they will) I can make a new thread and cross-link it with the discussion here.

Yeah sorry for taking so long to actually reply. The thing probably wouldn't have taken me more than two days if I were in Guam; but being underway/in Malaysia, my priorities and internet capabilities were different. Because of the combination of the two, it took more than twice the time it would have. But I'll try to reply to you as quickly as I can.

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You need to stop thinking in terms of micro society and start thinking in terms of macro society. even if there are plenty of people who produce eggs, if we wish to supply all humans on earth with equal amount we must have a set minimum amount of eggs to provide a decent "standard of living" to everyone. What if you're short on eggs and some bastards who should be getting them don't want to? How many people will passionately and without asking for payment incentive perform each and every job and service known to us today? Garbage man? Waiters? Dish washing? Street cleaner? There would be some, sure. But nowhere near enough to supply a given service or product to everyone equally. As of today, we have too many 3-D jobs (Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult) to be filled in for us to find enough people who would willingly fill them in. Is your dream future to become a garbage collector? Or to be a doctor, teacher, scientist, businessman, some CEO, or the like? So as I said, unless you come up with a magical box that does everything that nobody wanted to do this system concept is a stupid idea and will not work.


So as I mentioned, if the capitalist system was perfect, everybody would have had the same opportunity for being employed. It doesn't work that way, but then how is your idea of "everybody should do what they want" better? Everybody would just want the best jobs and nobody would be there to fill in the worst ones.


So people who work in advertisement sector do not "work" in your opinion? So the poor guy walking around the city with a sign that says "eat at Joe's" isn't working, he's just taking a stroll? So you mean to tell me that advertising their products and services does not help companies grow and does not increase the total amount of money spent by consumers and pumped into the system to work for everyone? Oh man. I did not know that. Thanks for telling me.


Depends on the level of surplus and the willingness of the rich ones, I guess. The lazy ones would probably be still given social care of some sort, but the amount would be dependent on how much others, hard-working ones are willing to "give away" for them. Think of it as aid to African countries. Some have programmes that last a couple of years, meaning that they get food and aid for a long time keeping them alive. Should the rich stop donating they would be starving. Simple. It's your idea of selflessness re-implemented into a system in which you can actually choose how much you wish to give away. And here I believe that many rich and happy people would still end up giving a lot of money away. Ideally enough to keep the lazy ones alive and healthy but poorer than anybody who does work, encouraging them to get their asses up off the floor.


They did kinda account for it, Ruff. They said that people will work just for poops and giggles of it (or rather satisfaction and passion rather than money). Which I find, generally somewhat plausible yet still not applicable to anywhere near 100% of society.

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Yes, and I question that way of thinking. They are composing a theory that connects a society that is ideal and a people that are imperfect and chaotic. If people are going to work, they should be and feel rewarded appropriately.

That's what capitalism does: Rewards people for their work. Communism sounds great, but what is the real reward for someone whose job is to shovel shit?

A pat on the back when you're done shoveling? A free medical checkup? Maybe they'll give him some bar soap on his way to the public bath.

Well of course you could just invent robots to shovel the shit for you. But is that cost-effective? Maybe it'd be easier... to kill the horses before they can shit. Then you won't need to have shit-shovelers.

But then what do you do with those people who don't have jobs now that you've gotten rid of the goddamn horses? How about we put them in another dead-end job that smells just as bad and has all the same "rewards."

Talk about a stupid fucking idea.

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Gotta think meta, son.

Also, why not robots that shovel shit? Some parts of our manufacturing and industry are mechanized, and a machine that shovels shit doesn't sound too hard to make.

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-stufflikehearts-

The irony is that you think I was the one talking about micro society when you are the one who wants to focus on 'what if this individual throws a wrench in everything'. The disgruntling part is that you don't know that egg farms are run like factory lines and one person not doing their job won't bring the process to a screeching halt. If there are not enough eggs being produced then more eggs need to be produced using the available workers willing to fill that position. If no one anywhere will fill that position then either someone will have to come up with a way to get eggs using no workers, change the working conditions so that people will be willing to do that job, or eggs are going off the market. Though this scenario is theoretically possible even in a capitalistic society, just look at labor strikes so the conclusion to this exercise does you no good.

Further a great number of jobs can be eliminated by simple realization of a value errors. The purpose of a waiter is simply to take and order and deliver food, but people lump in a whole load of other expectations to fulfill their ego and thus do not realize how cut and dry that job actually is. The other oversight you've made is your ignorance of automation, let's look at the garbage man example real quick. It's already known that Google has an automated car driving around doing their maps, so it's a short hop to say that garbage trucks will be driving themselves in the near future. Many garbage trucks in my area already have claws on them for picking up trash can which the companies enforce that you must use. It is a very short hop to putting markers on the cans and having a garbage truck drive around picking up trash cans, flipping the garbage up inside the truck and putting the can back down.

That's a very simple task, but wait even tasks people thought impossible are getting automated.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zei ... 86,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,537692,00.html#
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x99q6i ... -syst_auto

Your example of advertising as work is retarded and hasn't been used by any big business in decades if ever. I doubt even small business do it, it's more cost effective to rent advertising space on a bus. The amount of actual work done to get the recognition (which in food service 1 advertisement can be all it takes to get hundreds of repeat visits) is minuscule compared to the work of actually producing what's being sold, the paychecks certainly don't reflect the discrepancy though.



People being 'imperfect and chaotic' isn't really a problem since the understanding of motivation in the video I linked were reached by studying real people. If you want worker ants, give them an incentive; if you want architects you won't get shit done threatening them to 'design better or else'. I won't deny that capitalism worked well, but that is past tense; we're quickly advancing away from a civilization that needs worker ants.

Also a free medical check up at today's cost of medical care would be more of a reward than what a lot of people even in America are even making in a week. A shit shoveling machine would be simple as hell, you just drop build drains which can handle solid waste into the floor and wash it in with water jets. As for what you do with the people after that, you let them live their lives? Your patronizing needs work.

Again, I don't mean things literally. It's not a "what if a guy doesn't work". It's a "there WILL be a percentage of people who won't want to work" and a "will that percentage be small enough to be overlooked".


My god, you actually ARE talking about eggs... it was an arbitrary example man, an "egg and bread" type. One does eggs the other bread, you know. I mean EACH and EVERY product and service we have, not some damn eggs.


There we go, finally an argument that is an answer to my previous question. So, should there be jobs that not enough people want to do the service or product goes off the market, even if the demand is high? That's not how capitalism works at all. Demand makes things come to be.
Now think of this, (since you're so tightly gripping actual literal examples) wicker baskets, handmade, for decoration purpose. Let's say there are only about 10 grandmas in all of USA who are willing and passionate to keep making those. Then what? There's nowhere near enough to supply every citizen with them equally. So you're gonna make the product unavailable? So you will tell those grandmas that "you can't make those cause you won't produce enough, find a different thing to do"? Because that seems to go against what you and BR said before, that everybody has a choice what he wants to do as work.


Butler? Maid? People LIKE being served by a guy in a tight suit? I don't even know WHY we have waiters. All I know is that there are plenty and that they earn money for doing what they do, so obviously clients like the idea of having a waiter. Sure you can introduce an alternative and put a machine to do it for them. Then all those waiters need to find other jobs though.


You really do omit my posts, cause if you were to actually read them...
So you will make robots to do all the hard and unwanted jobs. How many problems do I see with this? Well, to begin with, we're currently unable to do it. And I know, I know, the tech will go up and eventually we might be able to make robots who can do nearly everything for us but the most creative and human tasks. Now your only problem is, to supply work placements for 7 BILLION people to work in those CREATIVE jobs, while the robots take away about 6.8 billion boring and "unwanted" jobs from them. So realistically speaking:



Wait so now those greedy CEOs of huge companies are giving money away for nothing? Cause that tiny space on that famous basketball player's back is obviously not worth all the money they pay for it. Man, you would have thought that people who spent their entire lives running a company would know what a waste of money advertising is. And to actually HIRE people whose only job is to COME UP with new commercials and new ways of commerce? Makes no sense, how can they be that dumb, right? Cause it's not like you could be a fool who knows next to nothing about it... obviously.

They DO IT because IT DOES WORK. Companies keep trying to cut costs and increase efficiency, so you can bet your ass on it that if they pay $2.000.000 just to make the cursed Tom Cruise wear a shirt with their company logo on it then it must be at least worth the money in terms of sales and profit. If I didn't see some emails student jobshop sent me about "walking around city centre with a sign for X hours. NMW/hour" I might have agreed, but obviously, it seems there are people willing to pay you to walk around with a sign.

Anything you can get people to pay you for can be a job.

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to people who question the nature of joining a work force through satisfaction: using this satisfaction in combination with the automation of a lot of jobs as senel presents (but not anywhere near automating all those jobs) people's pursuits become the things that are worth any sort of pursuit, and thus the quality of those interactions is the thing pursued in the day to day rigors of a communist society.

When you say that you can pay anyone to do anything, the same thing becomes true without money when you are strictly focused on the quality of that interaction, and every person would have the capacity to feel fully satisfied with the work they do as a part of a greater whole in as a smaller part when given an extremely specific but daunting task. By making the over-all value of the any individual project fufill the wants of a lot of people all at once, you achieve a completed whole.

The only difference between this and a real world project that I am aiming for here is the movement of money, which is unnecessary when you have people doing stuff because they want to do it. An example is a play or movie. You would still have a director in charge of that individual project, but a lot of the things they would have direct control over would be delegated to those who had the most direct influence over each department.

There's still orderly hierarchy in communism, but only with regard to the individual works within the community, and not the community as a whole. There's no reward for these people except the thrill of organization, which though it sounds like a joke, is actually done by some people now--and would be in these examples--who just like to do it.

As the specificity of a task increases, so too does the satisfaction of an individual who participates in that task, because their unique contributions to the task become more and more apparent.

Before you immediately dismiss this, Q.U., I wonder what you think about Xbox Live Achievements, and the ability to form groups on Facebook, and the very obviously specific individual tasks that are there inside those systems. The very ability to do these things and make people you know aware of your ideas are the only motivators for participating in getting Achievements or doing anything on Facebook. They are models of the future, in that regard, because they provide a very capitalist sense of individual purpose in the guise of completely arbitrary and communist social value.

Imagine then that in the future, this sort of thing continues to increase its presence in our lives? That by participating completely of your only will in different activities, you generate points for that activity rather than applicable-everywhere money, and those points mean nothing but show how much you are invested in a project. You instantly have a resume made out of your every accomplishment.

I mean, I understand that the models of theoretical communism fail right now because they're too idealistic, but what happens when you design the model to encourage that idealism through completely capitalist-style advancement, detached from generating inequality through money?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this idea, Q.U. :)

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Puff Most Epic.

I ignore each and every invitation/poke/game starter pack/or another random crappy app to see what you are most like.
I don't do it because I don't seek to impress anyone, and because I like achieving for the sake of achieving, not for the sake of showing it off to others.


People who are "invested" in most facebook games/apps/groups/projects have my pity. But let's stop being literal with your metaphor and see your argument.


I see your argument. And first of all, let me note that I did see the TED vid posted earlier and I do agree that satisfaction and challenges are most of the times enough to make people divulge and invest themselves into something creative/productive. And as I mentioned before, I doubt if that would stay true for the entire population if given the choice. Thus you get the "black sheep". But I'm not disputing that.

The problem is that we are speculating not only about the "capability" of reaching the idealistic goal technology and development-wise. I just think that assuming you could change the mentality of the whole human population to abide to this kind of a system and not abuse it is hard if not next to impossible. Lest we install chips in people's heads and set up mind control devices round town.

Yes, being involved in many interesting projects can work to boost your self-esteem and general way of being perceived by others as a hard-working and intelligent person. I wouldn't really be aiming for that, though, and that alone would already lead me to doubt the effectiveness of this idea. But that's besides the point. Problem is to succeed at that you would have had to made people not care about materialistic property. Because just being better/more involved/working harder can make you more liked and respected in the society (just as it is with having loads of money in today's world). But you will still "have" or "own" as much as the next guy. And don't get me wrong, that kind of a society would do fine in terms of social interactions and work satisfaction. Mentally and socially an utopia indeed.

Problem is when you re-apply the reality check. I cannot tell you that I know for a fact how much, but I believe I can safely assume there would be some people not only not interested in being involved, but also not interested in anything that requires their work. Many might just work once in a longer while, or be barely involved at all. Heck, I know many people my age and younger who would rather be playing games all day or remain otherwise unproductive. And this is all I'm pointing at. A society to survive has to be productive. It has to make as much or more than it uses up. If the amount of people who aren't that involved or who are involved but too rarely work is too high, your society and system will not be sustainable. If our society was more mature and we had a long lasting culture with traditions to worship those who can dish out the most work and effort, then yes, it would be fine (makes me think Japanese people might have a chance to succeed at that). Or alternatively, if you were high-tech enough that all humanity could just go on vacation and robots would provide them with everything they might need. But neither of those seems that realistic to me. At least not in our current times.

And lastly, being involved and passionate about something and pursuing your passion is not always profitable to the individual, let alone society. If your passion is playing mafia wars on facebook all day, then it might be hard to make anybody profit or benefit from your "work".

The bottom line is:
1) We would need technology faaaaaar beyond what we have now, and we have yet to get there (and alive).
2) People are fucked, by principle. They are on instinct selfish, greedy, insecure, and abusive of others. Those are the genetic traits that helped us survive as primitives back in the day of cavemen. And it won't be easy to root those out.

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I love how you override people's point with only vaguely related, and often literal examples QU. What the fuck man. It's like, you're just shoving crap out to make their point seem bad, even if that's not the point they were making. What are you, a Tea Party member?
Hahaha.

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>_> the cynicism is the thing I'm worried about, because your argument basically boils down to: "What I understand about humanity is that they are awful".

What happens if we just suppose that people aren't awful? That our predispositions are not towards awful things but good things? Suddenly everything is easier. :X

the same site, TED.com, offers that talk as well, saying we are more predisposed towards cooperation and optimism but that problems with the world/culture that people have lived in have stopped them from actualizing that.

An additional counterpoint to this notion that people are determined to be useless fucks is the entire foundation of nations LIKE JAPAN operate with technical freedom, but feel the overwhelming social pressure to achieve that persists throughout the entire culture. :x

The fact that JAPAN doesn't seem realistic to you doesn't surprise me, but you should try to be less cynical.

Also: Making the control mechanisms of any hobby inter-relate to something more productive to the society as a whole is not difficult to design in any capacity given a large enough and complicit enough system of resources with which to work towards the stated goal, making mafia wars a potential model for some kind of analog that someone can be informed of how to make decisions that result in the same sort of activity.

The bottom line for me is reversed in priority:

1) People should not be assumed to be worthless fucks that you need to beat into line to get anything done, rather they should be seen as both wonderful human beings you can get to know personally and enjoy, and as resources (strictly speaking in that order).
2) Technology that we have nowadays can accomplish the beginnings of FRAMING future goals, which is what we should be preparing for, rather than saying "NOPE CAN'T DO IT NOW OR SHIT FOR A BILLION FUCKIN YEARS".

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Well, that and whether or not your idea of a society is sustainable.

And I am a cynic. Not proud of it but everything that I see of people they seem to be proving it all the time. The only ones that are actually beyond that are the few who engage in actual self-improvement.


So you're an optimist and have faith in humanity. I don't. I'd say you're a dreamer, but that's just my standpoint. But since you boiled the argument down to whether or not people are inherently good or bad, I don't think there is any field for discussion, because we won't arrive at any good conclusions.


Fixed.

You know. I believe whatever will be a good way of running the world in the future will come by naturally. That's the only common thing with humans, they come from nature and nature seeks balance and order.
And investing our lives to build a future for our kind in which we assume we are right that people are good, selfless, and hard-working, seems to be a weird idea when you can start building a future that is just as productive/free/effective/enjoyable but doesn't rely on such an assumption. That's why only reason why I kept arguing for a more capitalistic approach.

I have no faith. Because I hear about creepy and terrible bullshit. Every. Single. Goddamn. Day.

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See, I stopped paying attention when QU started posting because half of the things he says are strawmen arguments, overt cynicism, appeals to cynicism, and bullshit, and the other half is articles.

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right see, anecdotal evidence means nothing.

in another thread, i'll see if i can find my trust argument, wherein i use trust as the standard by which we moderate good and bad in practical terms.

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"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

Realist here, despite the whole "people are selfish bastards when given power", not all actions that benefit the self are detrimental to the whole. Even the act of helping others is a type of selfishness, as per either the chance that the guy you help may also help you later on, or as per the arousal cost-reward model which basically boils down to "People don't like seeing others suffer very often because it may also make them feel bad, and will help to stop this negative feeling".

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-stufflikehearts-

that's totally right, even saintly martyrs are ultimate acting in rational self-interest, with the given that they believe that their emotional (spiritual?) needs will be satisfied by making the choice to die for others.

however if you are able to actually recognize the value of helping others in yourself, i would call that in addition to making the decision to go through with those sorts of decisions a form of rational maturity, wherein you understand that you are doing the most good the fastest way possible if your wants correspond to others' wants. O_O

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"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

This is what I meant to say, but I'm terrible at communicating things, and I prefer to boil things down to
"You're a jackass."

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You assume that a small percentage of non-workers means that society can't function, which is simply not true. For one thing most of the job positions are non-critical, we could easily go without granny's hand-weaved baskets. Just to give you the benefit of doubt I'm already assuming that non-workers do not work for their whole life when the reality is such a group would more likely be transient, with people taking breaks from working and getting bored with all the free time then going back to some form of work.

As for things going off the market, if no one is willing to make a product then there simply isn't a product to be had. If people truly want something so bad then I'm certain they'll find a way to make it for themselves. Also there would be no regulation saying you can't make hand-weaved baskets but it would simply be a limited commodity which the producer could give to those they wanted, on a first come first serve basis, or if supply just can't keep up you could always learn to do it yourself. Also you assume that a machine can't produce a wicker basket that looks just like homemade which isn't true either.

As far as people losing their jobs due to automation, that's just not even relevant to this type of argument, it only causes problems in systems where a person must work or go broke. So even if 99% (which also means you only need 1% of the population at any one time willing to volunteer some work) of the population isn't needed to work there is no problem except in a capitalistic society.

Also what gets results in a capitalistic society is irrelevant to this discussion. Putting a decal on a car and driving around as you normally would is advertisement but it is not work and yet it can result in monetary gain.