But, I think we already have done the experiment, and I don't think it's worked out the way you expect. Modern-day Westerners live like the gentry. We have luxurious fabrics, fresh vegetables all year long, we can video conference whoever we want (instead of posting letters), we've got servants to do household chores: Miss Washing Machine and Miss Dishwasher; Mr. Word Processor (secretary), Mr. Spreadsheet (finance), and Mr. Printer (typeset output). As a result we have enough leisure time to spend 3 hrs on our pocket tricorder and 4.5 hrs watching moving pictures (TV), on average, every day! [1] Instead of spending 7.5 hours producing amazing works of art and science, we entertain ourselves. (I suspect the original nobility acted a lot like this, too, given how productive the nobility in books like Jane Austen's or The Great Gatsby were--they sat around all day having a party)
On the other hand, we have created the nobility you were looking for: government grants fund much of the basic science, and a fair amount of arts (via universities)
[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by...
I couldn't disagree more. Having "Miss Washing Machine" does not make you nobility. I'm talking about the privilege of no stress, not the privilege of not having to do some menial work. It's not hard to visualize a hypothetical modern human who has all the modern luxuries but still lives a miserable existence paycheck to paycheck with massive amounts of stress.
> As a result we have enough leisure time to spend 3 hrs on our pocket tricorder and 4.5 hrs watching moving pictures (TV), on average, every day!
Sure, but if you, or someone else, had 12 months to spend any way you want, do you think people would spend 12 months watching TV? People do it to wind down, from stress, from work. We are caught in a wheelhouse that never allows us any extended period of rest or contemplation, so we grab the most "energy efficient"/instantly rewarding relaxation during the time we are allotted.
> Instead of spending 7.5 hours producing amazing works of art and science, we entertain ourselves.
Surely you agree that there's a difference between 7.5 hours of spent "free time" in the context of working 8+ hours a day, compared to the context of not working at all? Don't you think you would use your free time differently if it wasn't regulated in the shadow of your "normal" job?
Everyone has their own theory of human nature but mine is this: given enough time, and boredom, a non-trivial percentage of human beings will sooner or later do something useful. And I'm not saying all work today is useless, obviously it's not, but some of it definitely is and probably, in my opinion, hinders other, truly useful work. And yes, of course "useful" is subjective, but my personal definition of it is emotional or physical labor that furthers humanity through any kind of altruism or sustainable technological advancement (or, obviously, supports these initiatives in any necessary way).
> (I suspect the original nobility acted a lot like this, too, given how productive the nobility in books like Jane Austen's or The Great Gatsby were--they sat around all day having a party)
Sure, there are lazy people in every group of humans in the world if you look for them. I don't think there's a way to "solve" that problem, if it even is a problem in the first place. Diversity is probably more good than bad, and boredom can be a catalyst.
> On the other hand, we have created the nobility you were looking for: government grants fund much of the basic science, and a fair amount of arts (via universities)
Sure, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. Not that it doesn't exist, but that it needs to exist more, and should maybe even be our primary goal.
That's solved. 10 square meters, 18°C during winter, 2500 calories a day, and basic health insurance. It's cheap enough that we can supply that to everyone. It's just that people want 40 square meters, 22°C and food that's tasty and diverse and not just nutritious, and they want entertainment and technology etc etc. The basics can easily be taken care of (and are in most Western nations), but nobody wants to be limited to the basics.
> I hope to see societies and economies that prioritize something else than short term economical gain and meaningless widgets that get thrown in a pile after years or even months.
It's the majority of people that prioritize that which you do not like, it's not some hidden force that makes them. You might give them something else: bring back religion. Not for the elites, but for the masses. The void has to be filled. If you don't want to fill it with consumption, fill it with something else.
Sure they are. People today grow up being told and shown how to be materialistic, how to value short term economical gain, and so on, and then you get people that are like that. It's not surprising, is it?
Humans are very much affected by the culture they grow up in. Our culture rewards greed, values gadgets ... our culture is a culture of bread and circus. So that's what you get, people who want that, because that's what they're taught to like. It's not surprising, is it. To "escape the matrix", you have to seek to do so, it doesn't just happen by itself. And by forcing people to work till they are tired, and sleep till they must work, you don't give them much chance of ever discovering such things, nor any thing that furthers humanity, as hnarn talks about, except in very rare cases where the stars align, and against all odds, it happens, but only rarely, because our society doesn't foster an environment that optimises for such things.
And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired. Yet still, the utopian society where everybody is working on bettering themselves is not happening. At some point I believe we can consider that it's not the circumstances holding them back, it's just not what most people strive for.
Being from a "European culture" I can tell you that it most definitely is not. Materialism is deeply encoded in our DNA, and in my opinion hoarding modern valuables is just the equivalent of our time to hoarding berries or furs or whatever else might be useful in the future. I think our production capacity ran away from us before our ability to adapt to excess developed.
> And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired.
I really just can't understand what this is supposed to mean. Are you saying there's noone in the US that is forced to work "until tired" to survive? Surely you can't be saying this.
> Are you saying there's noone in the US that is forced to work "until tired" to survive?
I'm talking about NW Europe. We have plenty of benefit systems that you can tap into. Our homelessness is heavily associated with mental illness and substance abuse, not poverty.
Obviously, we have it better here than many other places, but this is something that is going on everywhere that capitalism is, because it's a core part of capitalism.
You can also translate this into "please do your share in society and don't rely on other people feeding you just because it's inconvenient to get up and do your part". That's very different from mindless consumerism. Denmark with e.g. luxury taxes on cars is going a very different route from the US.
We could all share and show solidarity and meet everyones needs, and not work 40+ hours/week hours a week. We are producing many times more than enough. But the structures are so, that most people work so, so much, while not seeing comparable compensation. This is because a few people take most of all the wealth and keep it for them self. Because of this, we need to work so much, but it's only because of this deep, fundamental flaw in our structures. If the wealth was more evenly distributed, we could probably get by with working maybe 15 hours/week, and still have all our needs met, including having more time to relax, enjoy life, be with family and friends, and sit down and do nothing, which would provide a better environment for these inventions and ideas that propels humans forward, as hnarn was talking about, that in history, and very much still, are kept for the nobility because only they have the time to "sit down and do nothing".
Mind you, I'm not talking about people who are unable to contribute because of illnesses, age or handicaps. I'm talking about people who absolutely could contribute, but choose not to because their needs are met even if they don't and contributing does, for them, not hold a positive result: have to expend energy, have to do something that isn't immediately pleasurable, am not getting huge loads of money and power in return. They politely thank you for the offer but choose to live comfortably off of taxes.
The direct consequence of that behavior is that others have to work more hours per week to pick up the slack. Even if you removed the top 5% and nationalized all companies, you wouldn't change this simple fact. And it will remain exactly the same as long as they are paid to do nothing. UBI is the plan to codify paying them to do nothing.
So sure, if you had everyone contributing, everything would be rosy and lots of things would be possible. Let's start with getting everyone to contribute, and not with changing the system as if they would and then hope that they maybe will. Because they won't.
How so?
> Mind you, I'm not talking about people who are unable to contribute because of illnesses, age or handicaps. I'm talking about people who absolutely could contribute, but choose not to because their needs are met even if they don't and contributing does, for them, not hold a positive result: have to expend energy, have to do something that isn't immediately pleasurable, am not getting huge loads of money and power in return. They politely thank you for the offer but choose to live comfortably off of taxes.
> The direct consequence of that behavior is that others have to work more hours per week to pick up the slack. Even if you removed the top 5% and nationalized all companies, you wouldn't change this simple fact. And it will remain exactly the same as long as they are paid to do nothing. UBI is the plan to codify paying them to do nothing.
I think that's just you drawing conclusions out of thin air. I don't believe most people would be doing nothing. Why should they? Would you? I wouldn't. Also we could just have contracts saying that if you want receive the benefits of being part of society, you must also contribute at least, say 15 hours a week of work, or whatever we figure out is necessary.
If there then ends up being people that don't contribute what they should, people in the immediate community would then, on a case-by-case basic, try to solve the problem by talking with the person, and so on. If nothing works, take away the benefits until the person are willing to partake in the community again. Make them understand that you have to contribute to be receive the benefits.
> So sure, if you had everyone contributing, everything would be rosy and lots of things would be possible. Let's start with getting everyone to contribute, and not with changing the system as if they would and then hope that they maybe will. Because they won't.
You do know that most people in the whole wide world do actually work, don't you? They already contribute plenty. Why do you think they would contribute less if 1) it meant more of their needs were met, and 2) they had more choice about how to contribute because society wasn't driven by profits that fill of a few peoples pockets, but by meeting everyones needs.
I think most people would contribute, just like most people today actually are contributing. And I actually think even more would be contributing and do it willingly, and we could reach new heights for humanity if contributions wasn't based on forced labour but instead of people feeling as a part of a cooperative community where their needs are valued and their voices are heard.
I didn't say most, but it's a significant number. We don't have to speculate either, it's reality today.
> Would you? I wouldn't.
That's always the issue with these proposals. It's smart, motivated people that look for tasks if they're idle and are ready to help others, and then they figure "I wouldn't just not work, so that's what everybody would do". It's the same issue engineers have when they design features. "I can type very fast without looking at the keyboard, that's what everybody can", and then it collides with the real world where most people can neither type fast nor type without looking at their keyboard.
I live in an apartment complex with ~50% social housing. About 30% of residents here are lower class, about 5-10% are what I described. They are quite happy with the accommodations and their allowance, they see no reason to work.
Your plans and ideas are made for a world full of people like you. But that's not the world we live in.
> Also we could just have contracts saying that if you want receive the benefits of being part of society, you must also contribute at least, say 15 hours a week of work, or whatever we figure out is necessary.
That would be reactionary, a large step in the other direction of unconditional basic income, and you'd get kicked out of every UBI debate, probably violently so.
Indeed, but why is that so? Maybe it's because they don't have much say in any matter, and are forced be exploited, and so on. You cannot declare that because they are not willing to contribute in this current exploitative system we have, that means they also wouldn't want to contribute in any other system.
> That's always the issue with these proposals. It's smart, motivated people that look for tasks if they're idle and are ready to help others, and then they figure "I wouldn't just not work, so that's what everybody would do". It's the same issue engineers have when they design features. "I can type very fast without looking at the keyboard, that's what everybody can", and then it collides with the real world where most people can neither type fast nor type without looking at their keyboard.
No it isn't. It's basic human behaviour. The reason why people "don't do anything but watch tv" is, I'm convinced, because they are beaten down by a society that doesn't care about them. They tend to the tv's and games when they have any free time because they are worked to death the rest of the time.
In a society where that wasn't so, the results would be different too.
Obviously, it's not each case that's so, but probably 99,9% or more, and that's good enough. There will always be bad seeds, but most aren't bad.
> I live in an apartment complex with ~50% social housing. About 30% of residents here are lower class, about 5-10% are what I described. They are quite happy with the accommodations and their allowance, they see no reason to work.
They are a result of society. They weren't born that way, they were taught to be that way by the experiences they had living in this current society.
> Your plans and ideas are made for a world full of people like you. But that's not the world we live in.
No, it's made for humans, contrary to our current society. It's based on the fact, that if you show solidarity, compassion, and try to raise people up, instead of beat them down and exploit them, as is currently the way our society treat people, they tend to do rather well, and are happy to do their part. Obviously, there will be some that won't, but I feel confident that it will be few. It's not a showstopper, the goods in a society based on solidarity instead of greed outweigh the bad in every way.
> That would be reactionary, a large step in the other direction of unconditional basic income, and you'd get kicked out of every UBI debate, probably violently so.
That's because UBI is a retrofitting of basic solidarity in our current system. I'm not talking about retrofitting our current system, I'm talking about building a completely new system. One taking a lot of pointers from the anarcho-syndicalism playbook. Our current system is completely broken, and needs to get replaced, not reformed because reforms can't be used for such drastic changes as are needed.
> They tend to the tv's and games when they have any free time because they are worked to death the rest of the time.
But the hours worked has steadily gone down while the hours spent in front of the TV has steadily risen. Something doesn't add up in your calculations. People don't work themselves to death any more. In fact, they have so much free time on their hands, that they spend money to kill it. They literally pay other people to entertain them, to take the free time off of their hands, and they don't know what to do with it. That's a very different situation from 200, 100 or even 50 years ago.
> It's not a showstopper, the goods in a society based on solidarity instead of greed outweigh the bad in every way.
Right, right, until people starve and we go back to the evil system because, when all is said and done, it's just more efficient. I mean, it's not that this hasn't been tried before.
And yes, I'm absolutely aware that it can work in smaller groups. I'm convinced you can have wonderful small groups based on solidarity. They will run on social control and everybody will make sure that everybody contributes as much as they are able and as much as is needed. But it doesn't scale, unless you want to create a massive police state that takes over the social control thing, and I don't want that.
> Our current system is completely broken, and needs to get replaced, not reformed because reforms can't be used for such drastic changes as are needed.
Burn it down, maybe we can build something better in it's place. But what if we can't? What if we end up with something that's terrible because all those nice ideas just don't work? Then you've burnt down a few centuries of progress for a dream. You may be willing to accept that risk, but I can guarantee you that most people are not, because, after all, even for the poorest 10%, this is the best time to be alive during pretty much all of humanity's existence. Well, okay, maybe witnessing the aliens landing the pyramids was pretty great, but aside from that, this is it.
Isn't the point that the current system doesn't provide a stable, peaceful and qualitative life for most of the population? Are you saying it's good enough because you and your dearest have it good?
> But the hours worked has steadily gone down while the hours spent in front of the TV has steadily risen. Something doesn't add up in your calculations. People don't work themselves to death any more. In fact, they have so much free time on their hands, that they spend money to kill it. They literally pay other people to entertain them, to take the free time off of their hands, and they don't know what to do with it. That's a very different situation from 200, 100 or even 50 years ago.
For most of humans history, humans have worked a few hours a day, or 15 hours/week. It's only in recent times that it went up. It happened when it became possible to store goods, and then a few eyed their chance to start exploiting the rest by claiming all the means of productions and forcing the rest to work all their life while the capital owners reaped the benefits. Sure, in some places in the western world, for example in Denmark where I live, it has improved a lot since just 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean it's good enough. People should only work as much as necessary, not as much as they can be forced to to fill the bottomless pockets of a few.
> Right, right, until people starve and we go back to the evil system because, when all is said and done, it's just more efficient. I mean, it's not that this hasn't been tried before.
It hasn't been tried for some thousands of years for a prolonged period for a vast majority of the population.
There has been a few places where they tried in recent times, like anarchist Catalonia in the thirties, but every time capitalist powers see free people as a threat because it might give their own people ideas about how life could be, so every time, like in anarchist Catalonia, they arrive with weapons and kill everyone that won't capitulate to their demands of surrender.
> And yes, I'm absolutely aware that it can work in smaller groups. I'm convinced you can have wonderful small groups based on solidarity. They will run on social control and everybody will make sure that everybody contributes as much as they are able and as much as is needed. But it doesn't scale, unless you want to create a massive police state that takes over the social control thing, and I don't want that.
It doesn't have to scale. That's the problem. We shouldn't try to create such big communities like the US, or Denmark for that matter. It's too big. Science has shown that people cannot trust and function properly in groups of more than ~150 individuals, so why do we try do force them to? Just look at the US, where the difference between the people are so vast, that it's a wonder that it's only now that it's crumbling.
Obviously 150 is too small, but the solution is lots and lots of small communities, a hierarchy, not in power, but in communication structure so that communities can cooperate while keeping sovereignty over themselves instead of being at the mercy of people that live hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.
There's lots of great writing about this. A good place to start is Murray Bookchin[1].
[1]: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post...
> Burn it down, maybe we can build something better in it's place. But what if we can't? What if we end up with something that's terrible because all those nice ideas just don't work? Then you've burnt down a few centuries of progress for a dream. You may be willing to accept that risk, but I can guarantee you that most people are not, because, after all, even for the poorest 10%, this is the best time to be alive during pretty much all of humanity's existence. Well, okay, maybe witnessing the aliens landing the pyramids was pretty great, but aside from that, this is it.
Actually more people in absolute numbers are not able to meet their basic nutritional needs every single they than ever before[2] so while I have it pretty great, it's pretty damn bad a huge amount of people.
[2]: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-...
Also I'm not sure why you think we couldn't at least build something like this again, if all else failed. It was build ones, we could probably do it better with a clean slate. Still, I think we can even strive for more, and we would succeed. People want to survive, and if there is not something stopping them, they will. I have full faith in that, because humans have survived for so long, even when all the previous societies and civilisations has failed, even when Rome fell, and we will survive when this one fails. The question is how we will structure what comes next. Will we finally base it on solidarity, or will it ones again be based on greed, favouring the few over the many.
In North-Western Europe? It's good enough for everyone, more than good enough, it's too much, we're suffering the illnesses of abundance, not of scarcity, we're obese, not starving, we're bored, not busy.
The lowest 10% has never lived a better life, objectively. I assume your issue isn't objective measurements but relative qualities? I.e. how good is the poorest person's life compared to the richest? It's still pretty damn great. We do have a class-gap in life expectancy, but it's small, much, much smaller than it was a hundred years ago and let's not talk about any time before that.
> For most of humans history, humans have worked a few hours a day, or 15 hours/week.
First of all that's inaccurate because you're counting "work" as in "work for money". A subsistence farmer has never worked 15 hours/week, and even someone who has worked in some form of employment has had a lot more home-work than they do now. Specialization means everyone works more in one thing but doesn't have to work a little bit in everything.
Second: they've lived very simple and quite short lives. We can have that as well, but we don't. We want to live healthy and long and have retirements where we don't work at all that span 10-20% of our adult life span. That's unprecedented on a large scale.
> People should only work as much as necessary
What's necessary? Should they have a purse for a rainy day? Then they'll have to work more than what's strictly necessary for today's survival. Should they have retirement? Well, add another 20% and so on.
> We shouldn't try to create such big communities like the US, or Denmark for that matter.
I absolutely agree, but that's not going to happen.
UBI may well be the fuel you need for the acceleration of society's splintering. Maybe you can try the small commune afterwards, if anyone is still alive.
> Actually more people in absolute numbers are not able to meet their basic nutritional needs every single they than ever before[2] so while I have it pretty great, it's pretty damn bad a huge amount of people.
Right, but we're talking about modern societies, not the situation in the third world, aren't we? How many people in Denmark aren't able to meet their basic nutritional needs?
> Also I'm not sure why you think we couldn't at least build something like this again, if all else failed.
Oh, I'm sure we could. It's just that we'll have to wade through rivers of blood and endure unimaginable amounts of human suffering. We do not just stand on the shoulders of giants, we stand on the bones of the many that lived and died before us to bring about the world we have today. If we get thrown back a few hundred years, we'll probably get back here again, but it'll take a while, and it will take a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
It's easy to speak from the privileged position of wealthy peacefulness about how easy it was achieved and to wager it on a coin flip. It's a different story for those that achieved it, much like the politicians that send soldiers to war and the soldiers that do the dying and the killing.
That's an extreme exaggeration. Sure, I, and possibly you, are experiencing this. But still here, there are people who are not.
Doesn't matter though. Even if everyone here had it good, we do so because of the exploitation of others in different parts of the world. It's all connected, and we have to fix it all, to fix anything.
> The lowest 10% has never lived a better life, objectively. I assume your issue isn't objective measurements but relative qualities? I.e. how good is the poorest person's life compared to the richest? It's still pretty damn great. We do have a class-gap in life expectancy, but it's small, much, much smaller than it was a hundred years ago and let's not talk about any time before that.
Objectively? If you mean having more materialistic stuff than ever before? Sure. But what about life quality? Being able to relax, not having so many concerns, and so on. Sure, we have Netflix now, but we have also have for one a huge amount of mental illness. There are so much more about well-being than just having Netflix and a warm bed.
> First of all that's inaccurate because you're counting "work" as in "work for money". A subsistence farmer has never worked 15 hours/week, and even someone who has worked in some form of employment has had a lot more home-work than they do now. Specialization means everyone works more in one thing but doesn't have to work a little bit in everything.
I'm talking before there were farmers. Before it was possible to exploit others, because humans could only survive by caring for each other, because the tripe lived and died according to their team work. Surplus of food was not a possibility, so there was no way for anyone to hoard stuff, so compassion and sharing were the overall way of life for the most part because that gave the best chances of surviving. Back then, people surely hunted and gathered food, but it was in total hours not more than about 15 hours a week, sometimes less. That's the current consensus on the matter.
Then agriculture happened and few other technologies were developed, and suddenly surplus was a possibility, and then some wanted to keep the surplus for themselves, and work hours increased for everyone else.
> Second: they've lived very simple and quite short lives. We can have that as well, but we don't. We want to live healthy and long and have retirements where we don't work at all that span 10-20% of our adult life span. That's unprecedented on a large scale.
We still produce many times more than we need. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't work a lot less and still produce all that's needed for all that. The only problem is that a few people keep such a big part of the wealth for themselves.
> What's necessary? Should they have a purse for a rainy day? Then they'll have to work more than what's strictly necessary for today's survival. Should they have retirement? Well, add another 20% and so on.
They should have all that, and they could and still only work say 15 hours a week. We still produce way too much of which too much of the wealth go to a few hands instead of being more evenly distributed.
> I absolutely agree, but that's not going to happen.
Sure it can, I don't see why not, and at least I'm gonna do whatever I can to fight the fight.
> UBI may well be the fuel you need for the acceleration of society's splintering. Maybe you can try the small commune afterwards, if anyone is still alive.
I think climate change, corvid-19 and all the next pandemics that are coming, are the fuel.
> Right, but we're talking about modern societies, not the situation in the third world, aren't we? How many people in Denmark aren't able to meet their basic nutritional needs?
I'm talking about all people in the whole wide world. I don't see why I shouldn't care for other people just because they are not part of my world directly, and I don't believe you can fix something, like climate change, or inequality, or a pandemic, without fixing it everywhere. Gresham's law; if bad things exist, they spread until there is nothing good left.
> Oh, I'm sure we could. It's just that we'll have to wade through rivers of blood and endure unimaginable amounts of human suffering. We do not just stand on the shoulders of giants, we stand on the bones of the many that lived and died before us to bring about the world we have today. If we get thrown back a few hundred years, we'll probably get back here again, but it'll take a while, and it will take a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
> It's easy to speak from the privileged position of wealthy peacefulness about how easy it was achieved and to wager it on a coin flip. It's a different story for those that achieved it, much like the politicians that send soldiers to war and the soldiers that do the dying and the killing.
I'm convinced that if we don't do these things, it will be much worse. Climate change and future pandemics is not something our capitalist, oligarchical civilization are gonna fix, so if we don't fix it ourself, we will be much worse off.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you that we should fix it. But I also believe that you're fundamentally wrong about why we have it good over here. It's institutions and culture that brings about this quality of life, not exploitation. The exploitation helps, don't get me wrong, but it's the cherry on the top. If everything but the First World was swallowed by the oceans, our life style would change and the quality of life would drop somewhat, but not by that much. We don't depend on cheap labor in China to produce goods, but we'll gladly use it to produce even more goods so everyone can have five pairs of shoes and a big screen TV. Those aren't quality of life issues though, they are a luxury. A luxury that many would miss, but a luxury nonetheless. It's like if you have a billion dollars and the next day you lose 99% of your wealth. That's quite the catastrophic loss - but you still have ten million dollars, which is more than enough to live a luxurious life. Maybe not quite the 300ft yacht, but the 30ft yacht is included.
If you want to fix "it", fix institutions and culture and traditions. And, of course, increase efficiency. The scientist that develops a new way to plant and harvest rice that produces a higher yield will have much more impact than all the political activists.
> But what about life quality? Being able to relax, not having so many concerns, and so on.
Even then, yes. The worries in NW Europe today may seem terrible to you, but they'd be a joy for a 15th century peasant during a famine or a war, or on any given day that his local lord is in a bad mood. That's not to say that they're not real, but to worry about whether you can keep that nice apartment now that you're unemployed is not the same as worrying about whether you'll manage to find some food so your children won't starve.
> Back then, people surely hunted and gathered food, but it was in total hours not more than about 15 hours a week, sometimes less.
They lived to be 25, maybe 30, and often fell to a violent death because it wasn't all solidarity and peaceful happiness. Half of them didn't make it through puberty. And if you consider 15 hours per week of "work" to feed yourself little, then I've got some news for you: depending on your job, you can do it in far less. 7kg of rice will provide the calories you need and set you back about 7 Euros. Figure out how much you have to work to make 7 Euros and you have your answer. Remember, Hunter-Gatherer tribes didn't have houses, cars, health insurance or phones. If you want to go really basic, we've got you covered.
> Then agriculture happened and few other technologies were developed, and suddenly surplus was a possibility, and then some wanted to keep the surplus for themselves, and work hours increased for everyone else.
And, more importantly, population growth happened, and life expectancy grew, and life became more predictable and societies were created.
> We still produce many times more than we need. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't work a lot less and still produce all that's needed for all that.
Absolutely, I 100% agree. Here's the issue: we don't know what we want. Again, if you're solely going by basic needs, we have you covered. We can trivially supply enough calories and plain water to our citizens, even without imports. But we don't want that, we don't want to limit ourselves to the basic necessities. And as soon as we go beyond that, individuals want different things. If we had a perfect system that accurately predicted and aggregated what everyone wanted, we could provide it without excess, without waste and highly efficient. But we don't. And the chaotic and terribly wasteful mechanisms of the free market are the best system we have.
> I'm talking about all people in the whole wide world.
Give them Danish culture and their suffering will decrease until it is no more. If that doesn't sit well with you because "all cultures are equal" and what not, don't fight the fight. Become an engineer or a scientist in applied sciences, you'll move the needle for worldwide well-being much more.
I don't share your bleak outlook at all. Human ingenuity is a super power, technology and science are how we overcome obstacles, not by falling back into a status quo ante. We want to hasten our way to the 22nd century, not go back to the 14th.
I'm not only talking about us using cheap good. We, and the rest of the west, has since the colonisation, stolen riches and cheap labour from what is considered third-world countries. That has allowed us to develop the institutions we have now. Obviously, we wouldn't forget all that if we stopped using Chinese cheap labour. But we wouldn't forget that either if we abolished the states and built a better civilisation.
> If you want to fix "it", fix institutions and culture and traditions. And, of course, increase efficiency. The scientist that develops a new way to plant and harvest rice that produces a higher yield will have much more impact than all the political activists.
We already have more yield than is necessary. Do we need to produce 1000x, 10000x, 100000x before we start sharing it? What is enough? I'm convinced it's not about producing more than enough, it's about as long as we reward greed, power and wealth will concentrate. We're already seeing it here too. We need to fundamentally change so we punish greed and reward solidarity.
> Even then, yes. The worries in NW Europe today may seem terrible to you, but they'd be a joy for a 15th century peasant during a famine or a war, or on any given day that his local lord is in a bad mood. That's not to say that they're not real, but to worry about whether you can keep that nice apartment now that you're unemployed is not the same as worrying about whether you'll manage to find some food so your children won't starve.
I'm not talking about 15th century, I'm talking much longer back, and obviously also about those few tribes still living. They don't have Netflix, but they also don't have this constant stress and so on. Obviously I'm not saying to copy them, I'm saying we should take what we have learnt from this and that, and built something new, something better where greed is punished and solidarity is rewarded.
> They lived to be 25, maybe 30, and often fell to a violent death because it wasn't all solidarity and peaceful happiness. Half of them didn't make it through puberty. And if you consider 15 hours per week of "work" to feed yourself little, then I've got some news for you: depending on your job, you can do it in far less. 7kg of rice will provide the calories you need and set you back about 7 Euros. Figure out how much you have to work to make 7 Euros and you have your answer. Remember, Hunter-Gatherer tribes didn't have houses, cars, health insurance or phones. If you want to go really basic, we've got you covered.
I don't consider it little, I'm saying it's as far as I've seen, it seems we could all keep our houses, our Netflix, cars, cinemas and so on, and only work 15 hours/week. We just need to change our society so all the resources are better distributed, because we have already enough, they are just in the hands of the few.
> Absolutely, I 100% agree. Here's the issue: we don't know what we want. Again, if you're solely going by basic needs, we have you covered. We can trivially supply enough calories and plain water to our citizens, even without imports. But we don't want that, we don't want to limit ourselves to the basic necessities. And as soon as we go beyond that, individuals want different things. If we had a perfect system that accurately predicted and aggregated what everyone wanted, we could provide it without excess, without waste and highly efficient. But we don't. And the chaotic and terribly wasteful mechanisms of the free market are the best system we have.
The problem is that right now we reward greed. So we reward people who take to themselves and on the flip side hurt other people. No one says to limit ourself to 1 back of rice, but if society was based on meeting every single persons basic needs as a minimum - a home, work, food, and so on - and if you needed to say, get a yacht, you surely could, but you could not do it if it was at the cost of others, however that could work, there's lot of interesting ideas about how such an economy could work, but most importantly is that negative and ignored externalities, both human and ecological, would be punished.
> Give them Danish culture and their suffering will decrease until it is no more. If that doesn't sit well with you because "all cultures are equal" and what not, don't fight the fight. Become an engineer or a scientist in applied sciences, you'll move the needle for worldwide well-being much more.
Danish culture is rotten, and it is only going towards a nationalistic, hate-filled pit. Inequality is quickly increasing, and welfare is raising to the bottom, and so on. Gresham's law is very true. The problem is that fundamental to our society, is inequality. The hierarchies of politicians, judges, forceful obedience by police and so on. It can and has only ever gone one way, and that's toward failure, and that's what we are saying now too, even here, but also everywhere else in the world - the US, Sweden, Canada, the UK, France, spain, Italy, everywhere. We wealth and power concentrates, and the more that is so, those with it will fight to keep it and get even more, at the cost of the livelihood of everyone else. A society built on those foundations will only survive for a period of time, and we are right now saying it crumble everywhere.
> I don't share your bleak outlook at all. Human ingenuity is a super power, technology and science are how we overcome obstacles, not by falling back into a status quo ante. We want to hasten our way to the 22nd century, not go back to the 14th.
I'm not suggesting to go back to the 14th century, I'm saying our current civilisation is long overdue for a change. It will not work in the 22th century. We need something else, something new, and if we are wise, it will not be founded on inequality, greed, and hierarchies of power, it will be founded on solidarity and compassion, and it will punish greed, and it will allow everyone to have their voices heard and mean something, not only the few. And thanks to technology, we now have the means. We couldn't feasibly have direct democracy just a 100 years ago, but we can now, thanks to technology. Check out this 5 minute video about liquid democracy, it's very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8
> Do we need to produce 1000x, 10000x, 100000x before we start sharing it?
We buy rice, but that aside: we want diversity in foods and everything else, that's why we usually have too much of what we don't want and too little of what we do want. And be careful what you wish for: sharing is noble, but it will also create dependence.
> They don't have Netflix, but they also don't have this constant stress and so on.
I don't have Netflix either, and I also have less stress. Cut out Netflix, cut out the daily news, do more drugs, and you'll have a lot less stress also. Yes, living in a highly advanced civilization produces it's own challenges, and they are psychological more than physiological. But we also have a lot of ways to deal with them, and they look severe only because we are fortunate enough to lack a backdrop of the level of human suffering that was common throughout history. If you've only ever dealt with numbers below 10, your first encounter with 100 will stun you with awe. If you regularly deal with 10000, 100 barely registers.
> Danish culture is rotten
You may feel that way, and yet it is what has created Denmark of 2020. It's not that there was a paradise with an utopian society and then the Danish invaded it and their culture brought the slow but steady downfall. You may feel that much more is possible, but don't reject what gave you this with a shrug: it's also possible to have much less as is evident throughout the world, and I'm not talking about material wealth, I'm talking about peace, stability, solidarity and progress. Is anyone person or any culture perfect? Of course not. Can everything be improved? Of course. Is everything therefore rotten? Of course not. Good may not be perfect, but it's better than bad.
Inequality is a built-in issue of advancement, I believe. If you give people more tools, more leverage, that leverage will more strongly pronounce their differences and result in a more pronounced inequality. I do believe however that we've done a pretty good job at keeping it in check. Yes, I'm very aware that e.g. 40% of Germans have less than $10000 in personal wealth, but I'm also very aware that does not recognize pensions, health care and a social safety net into account. If you go to a bank and ask them how much you'd have to pay in a lump sum for them to provide you with a flat, health insurance and enough money to cloth and feed you for the rest of your life if you stop working, they will, after some calculations, come up with a number. That number is what everybody here has in wealth, it just doesn't sit on your bank account, and you can't pass it down.
I'm all with you if you want the poor to have more actual, material wealth. Having money grants independence, and I'd like to see them more independent. However, I do very much not believe that burning down our institutions would help with that, quite the opposite. Our institutions protect the poor and the simple from the harsh reality of limitless competition.
> We need something else, something new, and if we are wise, it will not be founded on inequality, greed, and hierarchies of power
But that's literally human nature. We are not equal. I may be able to produce the finest of farts, but the fart market is terrible and nobody wants my farts. You, being a fine apple farmer, are in much higher demand. It's a natural process that you'll gain power by being in demand.
> and it will allow everyone to have their voices heard and mean something
But do you want anti-vaxxers to have their voices heard?
I know about liquid democracy. I've watched the pirate party with some anticipation before they spiralled out of control into yet another utopian far-left "reality is not relevant" hobby club. First of all, for it to be meaningful, it requires an informed public. We don't have that, and we won't get that. Ah, but they don't need to be informed, they can delegate their votes! Please take a look at Youtube or Twitch and who the most successful content creators are. That's who will command the votes in your liquid democracy. You're annoyed by Trump? Add more liquid democracy and Trump will seem like an elder statesman.
I do not believe that democracy should be the dictatorship of the majority that it is today. When you want to decide everything by majority rule, you're turning everything into a political battlefield. I do understand the allure and the hope for efficiency if we decide something once and then it's settled and everybody has to surrender to that decision. I also do understand that it's a road to hell, that it will lead to conflict and war.
1) Acknowledge that people are different, have different preferences and aversions. 2) Acknowledge that your preferences and aversions are not the result of a quest for truth but simply that result of your genes and the experiences you made, so it's not that they are right, it's just that they are yours, which makes it feel like they are what everybody should have. 3) do not attempt to force yours on everyone, not by violence, not by vote. 4) Where the preferences conflict so that a (largely) unanimous direction can not be found, do not force a decision, but offer a split: if you and I cannot decide on a car and color, that's okay. We don't have to, we can get two bikes instead.
That's not thought out to any degree, but I believe that's a much better plan to get to a more peaceful society. It will remove a lot of the outrage though, and many people love the outrage, and hate compassion, because compassion doesn't give them adrenaline and excitement.
> But that's literally human nature. We are not equal. I may be able to produce the finest of farts, but the fart market is terrible and nobody wants my farts. You, being a fine apple farmer, are in much higher demand. It's a natural process that you'll gain power by being in demand.
It's not human nature, it's a structural property. There has been societies all through the history of the world, and some are still in existence, as described by the book Anarchy Works that I linked earlier, that has also had fine fart makers and fine apple farmers, but the difference was that the foundation was, that even though what I do is more in demand than what you do, we share what we have, so no one falls behind, and then maybe discuss if I really should spend so much time perfecting my farts. There is no reason why society should "allow" someone to hoard stuff when it's not beneficial to society. Instead, society should try to deter hoarding and greed, and in the event that it's not possible, they should exile the person until they change their behaviours to match the wishes of society.
If you structure your society so that greed is rewarded, you get greedy inhabitants. If you structure society so that solidarity and compassion is rewarded, you get inhabitants accordingly.
> But do you want anti-vaxxers to have their voices heard?
They should be able to say what they wish. Anybody should. The reason why such things seem to have a hold is because information is not free, you have to fight to be educated, and your education is dictated by lobbyists, and you have news and politicians and social medias who manipulate information for profit. That's why stuff like flat earth and anti-vax seem to be growing. It's because of misinformation and a lack of education in the populace, at least that's what it seems like to me. The more knowledge and information is available to all in a population, the less we see of such things like flat-earth, anti-vax, extreme religious beliefs, nationalism, racism, speciesism and so on.
It's because people can make bucks from stuff like that - see for example Facebook - that such things are spreading. In a society where compassion and solidarity were rewarded, stuff like that would be much less.
> I know about liquid democracy. I've watched the pirate party with some anticipation before they spiralled out of control into yet another utopian far-left "reality is not relevant" hobby club. First of all, for it to be meaningful, it requires an informed public. We don't have that, and we won't get that. Ah, but they don't need to be informed, they can delegate their votes! Please take a look at Youtube or Twitch and who the most successful content creators are. That's who will command the votes in your liquid democracy. You're annoyed by Trump? Add more liquid democracy and Trump will seem like an elder statesman.
And that's why we cannot reform society to such things. We cannot try to have a bit of direct democracy here, and some cooperatives there, because it will always be in opposition to the rest of society, and in the end, as greshams law dictates, bad will win. We need to "tear it down" and built it up anew, on a better foundation.
> I do not believe that democracy should be the dictatorship of the majority that it is today. When you want to decide everything by majority rule, you're turning everything into a political battlefield. I do understand the allure and the hope for efficiency if we decide something once and then it's settled and everybody has to surrender to that decision. I also do understand that it's a road to hell, that it will lead to conflict and war.
I don't believe in the dictatorship of the many, and direct democracy doesn't. It's not inherent it in. There is lots of ways to structure direct democracy is not a dictatorship of the 51%. Right now though, we have a dictatorship of the 1%. That's far worse than a dictatorship of the 51%.
> 1) Acknowledge that people are different, have different preferences and aversions. 2) Acknowledge that your preferences and aversions are not the result of a quest for truth but simply that result of your genes and the experiences you made, so it's not that they are right, it's just that they are yours, which makes it feel like they are what everybody should have. 3) do not attempt to force yours on everyone, not by violence, not by vote. 4) Where the preferences conflict so that a (largely) unanimous direction can not be found, do not force a decision, but offer a split: if you and I cannot decide on a car and color, that's okay. We don't have to, we can get two bikes instead.
What you are describing is directly fitting with the anarchist playbook, and it's directly contradictory to our current society in the modern world. Yet, you are saying our current society is quite good.
I don't wish to continue this discussion, it's just too draining. I think you should try and read these following books, and if you do, I think you'll find that you actually agree with anarchism very much. I'm not sure where on the anarchist spectrum you lie, but at least it does sound like you align very much with anarchism in general, if you'd just give it a chance.
Here are three books:
* Anarchy Works: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-ana...
* Post-Scarcity Anarchism: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post...
* The Democracy Project: https://b-ok.cc/md5/1BD930F7B17488F2F5BD28BE2AE4584C
And I do agree with some part of some anarchist concepts. The reason why I'm not eager to see them replace what's there today isn't because I'm a huge fan of today's society. It's because there are endless examples of it being much worse and arguably none of it being better, so the chance that a major change improves it are slim, the chances that it makes it (much) worse are plenty.
And much like a boulder that you're pushing over a cliff, once it's done there's no reset button, so you better make damn sure that that boulder will land where you want it to land.
There are surely far more efficient ways of nurturing the next Newton or Kierkegaard than by spraying economy-breaking quantities of money around blindly. That's simply being wasteful.
I'm also not sure that it's true that this would require "spraying money around", I think a lot of man-hours are already spent on useless work and/or basically doing nothing, but doing nothing during salaried time is not equivalent to doing nothing during your own time in terms of potential.
Sure, it's a utopia and a dream but I think it's naive to say that our current economy is already ideal when it comes to distribution of necessary goods and realizing the potential of the individual.
Throughout most of civilization, most types of progress has been the result of the intellectual work of an elite. Most progress in science, art, and pretty much anything comes from a "noble" or some kind of free man either doing it themselves, or directly financing someone who did.
Most people today probably wouldn't buy into the reasons for this class society that were given at the time, and I think most people would probably (hopefully) agree that the progress made by these people can't simply have been due to genetic superiority or divine privilege. I would say it's more likely a combination of cultural capital (smart parents and friends) combined with just regular capital that gave you the benefit of not having to worry about surviving from one year to the next.
So if we accept that most of the work that has pushed humanity forward was made by the "nobility" of the age, whether that's lords from medieval times or obscenely rich venture capitalists of today, then what is the most logical way to structure a society if you want further humanity?
Here, the notion of "human nature" comes in. Some state with certainty that this innate nature will stop certain people from achieving success, because they're simply lazy, or dumb, or whatever else. Some people just want to sit around and drink beer and will never do anything else. Sure, that might be true to a larger or smaller extent, those people will always exist, but if we're talking about broad strokes, general humanity, what is the most beneficial policy?
For me, it has always seemed pretty obvious that you don't want the largest amount of people to work for the largest amount of time possible. Quite the opposite, you want to make sure that all goods and services are being provided, but only enough so that the primary goal can be achieved: to give people as much stress-free spare time as possible without breaking the economy.
If the "nobility" is what furthers human progress, why aren't we trying to create more nobility? And I'm not talking about material wealth and castles, I'm talking about the privilege of being able to just sit around for weeks, months on end and just think about what interests you. Why is it that water spins in a certain way, how do you make an automated temperature/watering system, what's the deal with combustion engines?
I can already hear some people screaming about human nature again, and yes, you are correct: some people will never be interested in this stuff. They'll use their free time for something that benefits no-one in any way. But as sure as you can be those people will exist, there will also be people who could have been the next Newton, the next Kierkegaard, slaving away in a warehouse somewhere, dead in the gate before the race even started.
I really, really hope for a future for humanity where free time isn't seen as a luxury for the few, but a requirement to grow as a human being. I hope to see societies and economies that prioritize something else than short term economical gain and meaningless widgets that get thrown in a pile after years or even months.