Before people see this and immediately dive into the comments about the WEF, make sure to read the actual essay by Ida Auken. It was never meant to be some dystopian plan but a thought experiment on a gig economy that grew more famous than it should have.

Edit: One thing I've noticed on HN is the dislike of 'Own nothing and be happy' while celebrating gig-economy companies that are essentially empowering this. Startups renting clothing or furniture in SF, at scale, combined with UBI (or benefits common in the part of Europe she's from) is what this article was thinking about.

No planner ever means for their plan to be dystopian. On the contrary, the planner likely has nothing but the best intentions. But intentions don't make their plan non-dystopian.

Now if I could only remember what road it was that my mama said was paved with good intentions...

This is something I always highlight. Grab your standard dystopian sci-fi, check the back history and realize that someone thought that something very much like it was a Grand Idea. Implementation details got in the way, sure, but damn, this system is so fine that hardly anyone could object, and you know what to do with people who object to Utopia.

While I agree with the spirit of your comment, in practice it wouldn't really be fair to blame Marx for Stalin and Mao.

The communist manifesto is a very reductionist view of economics that lends itself to false oppressor class/oppressed class narratives. Large scale death (not just Stalin and Mao but Pol Pot and many others) follows fairly easily from that narrative as the oppressed class can do no wrong.

Dystopias for some are often utopias for others. I mean Mad Max Fury road looks bad for most, but for Immortan Joe that system was sweet as pie.

That is what she claimed after the fact yes. Too bad the social media department of the WEF didn’t realize that and claimed it was a prediction for the year 2030:

https://m.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/8-predictio...

It seems quite possible that she meant it as a thought experiment, but that other people, when they heard it, thought yeah that's how it will go down, turning it into a prediction, not her prediction exactly, but a prediction.

Or her essay was actually about what it's title and content literally said and the "thought experiment" line was a pitiful backpedal.

I mean, everything you write is a "thought experiment", that doesn't mean you are immune to the responses to the content.

For example, if you wrote something really racist and then got backlash, could you just claim it was a thought experiment to invoke discussions about race? Not successfully.

Does the semantics of "thought experiment" vs "prediction" really matter though? The point is it's a dystopian view being discussed at THE platform of world leaders... It doesn't look good at all.

The thing is this isn’t some sort of group proposal/idea, but essentially a blog post by a not-very-famous MP. And it’s not crazy for a socialist MP from that part of Europe to think about a system like this - a system of decreased cost and increased access.

IF that's the case, they shouldn't have put it in their 2030 predictions video and hosted it on their platform.

Handwaving it away as some low level actor's wacky vision isn't really a good or original excuse.

> One thing I've noticed on HN is the dislike of 'Own nothing and be happy' while celebrating gig-economy companies that are essentially empowering this.

I suspect that is two different groups expressing their opinions, although there probably is some overlap in the Venn diagram.

I'm not sure that there exist any dystopias (outside of YA novels) that were planned as such. They all seem to be about naivete and creating perverse incentives.

This. Very nearly zero people want to bring about a dystopia. They think they're doing the opposite, even when everyone else is telling them they're making a mistake.

It's part and parcel of how very nearly everybody thinks they're one of "the good guys".

Ah yes, with the title "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better." If anything the "You'll own nothing and be happy" is LESS distopian than the essay. I mean, unless you don't read it as a peon completely beaten down into Stockholm syndrome. Plus it's all predicated on "free energy" and other such fantasies, while STILL looking like a nightmare to anyone who reads it.

> Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.

She coulda beat people over the head with stuff like this more, but it's pretty clearly not a strictly utopian view there...

Even this, right:

> Environmental problems seem far away, since we only use clean energy and clean production methods.

and the later complaints about how there "used to be"

> lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment

Like, we're clearly not actually solving all those problems, we're just ignoring them.

You're not supposed to take everything you read as a policy prescription, especially in works of imaginative speculation.

But if that's exactly what the WEF did...

Direct link: https://web.archive.org/web/20161125135500/https://www.wefor...

> Auken had previously written in 2014 about a hackathon at the WEF that proposed "FridgeFlix", a startup that would allow users to lease all of their household appliances from a provider that would also service and upgrade these appliances.

This _kind_ of used to be how appliances worked in some countries; many people rented a TV and VCR and so on. At a certain point, the cost structures changed, it was cheaper to buy, and the appliance rental places largely went out of business.

Arguably, this is a bit surprising, because equipment leasing for _companies_ is still big business. I assume someone will try the consumer version again sooner or later.

Washing machines/dryers are commonly rented in the US, especially in places where there isn't a long expected tenancy like apartments near campuses or other young-adult-heavy places. Fridges sometimes, but much less frequently. Save both the cost of the appliance plus the hassle of dealing with taking it cross country if you move far and were otherwise able to fit all your shit in a car.

> "a provider that would also service and upgrade"

The "and upgrade" part is a pure fantasy, though. Never seen one of those give you the good stuff!

> The "and upgrade" part is a pure fantasy, though

Dystopian fantasy, in my view. The trends of the software industry over the last several years have brought me to a place where "upgrading" is now a concept that fills me with dread.

I think Kevin Kelley explored this in one of his books. What if you rented everything?

I think owning things is basically the only way to fight rent seeking.

It can't stop at simply just owning things, need to own good quality things, because a lot of things are built with planned obsolescence, which is still a form of rent-seeking. Explicitly renting things is almost preferable because it's more honest, rather than obfuscate the rent-collection behind planned obsolescence.

But superior to both is owning quality things.

Good repairability would be another way to combat it! "Buying stuff that lasts forever" and "buying stuff you can fix when it breaks" are both good ways to avoid the cycle of temporary crap

Your point is well taken, but even in a world of planned obsolescence there's a significant different between owning and not owning. If I own the thing, I can do anything I want with it. If I don't, I can't.

Optimists always over play their hand.

Convincing people in cities to not own cars would be the biggest win any of these global orgs can achieve. It is still likely impossible. But, it is an easier sell.

Convincing people to use shared spaces instead of having their own lawns or shared parking instead of a garage is similarly a valuable goal. Both would be big steps in the 'own nothing' direction. It can easily be sold on its own. NYCers would choose an massive central park over a sq-ft each of private garden space any day.

But these people have to try selling the most dystopian framing of such policy decisions, and the baby gets thrown out with the bath water.

> Monck said that the WEF removed all media related to Auken's essay from its web site "because of the online abuse and threats she had faced."[10]

This brought to mind those who hold the opinion that "ideas are worthless".

Mainly because Auken's idea seems quite potent all by itself, without anyone ever really seeing the implementation.

As someone who considers himself an old school hacker, I'm anti-power and anti-establishment by my very nature.

The WEF, G7, G20, etc, are powers' playground. And "mainstream altruism" is almost always terrifying to me as an individual.

I don't consider myself a libertarian by any means, but I think modern society does need to give more credence to the individual.

i feel like ones saying this are the same ones telling us to eat bugs and live in pods

Then you've completely missed the point.

> Auken later added an author's note to the story responding to critics, stating that it is not her "utopia or dream of the future", and that she intended for the essay to start discussions about technological development.

Confirmation bias + thanks for demonstrating exactly why this shouldn't have been posted on HN

So, nobody of consequence then? Because I haven't heard anyone demanding that I eat bugs and live in pods.

> I haven't heard anyone demanding that I eat bugs and live in pods.

they aren't demanding it, and it will always be framed as a choice. like how usa health insurance is a choice

I remember a Phillip K Dick story set in the future in which the characters in the story kept having to insert coins into their various household appliances to make them work. Not quite the same, but similar.

The name of the story is Ubik, in case anyone is looking for it.

Wait -- why is this story "[flagged]"?

I've noticed a few articles I would assume are okay have been flagged recently. I wish there was a view where you could see what had been flagged to check for bias.

I'm wondering the same thing. I read the article. Nothing suspect there that I can see. Was thought-provoking.

Users flagged it. We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case I don't think it's hard to guess, since the topic is not only flamebait, it's a flamebait cliché.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is it possible to build a system where nobody owns private property but is happy? Very unlikely but theoretically possible.

Main problem is that current ruling class is mostly comprised of psychopaths and what they actually mean is that “We will own everything, you will own nothing, and you will be happy or else!”

I think “You will own nothing, and be happy” can be utopic but we will first need to eliminate genes that cause psychopathy first.

Cooperatives. The coop owns the building/land, and as a member you have the right to live there.

> Research found that housing cooperatives had residents rate themselves as having the highest quality of life and housing satisfaction of any housing organization in the city. ... Other research has found that housing cooperatives tended to have higher rates of building quality, building safety, feelings of security among residents, lower crime rates, stable access to housing and significantly lower costs compared to conventional housing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative#Research_o...

>Is it possible to build a system where nobody owns private property but is happy? Very unlikely but theoretically possible.

They exist all over Canada. They all start out lovey dovey, permaculture, etc and end up poverty stricken.

Canada's recent success in reducing poverty has been 100% shutting these down.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle and ignoring our request to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of your ideology.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Every passionate ideologue says that when we ban them, and of course the feeling is understandable—in fact it seems to be irresistible (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). But the truth is we've banned plenty of users with the opposing ideology to yours, and they complain about it bitterly also.

Here's are some related comments with plenty of examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668572

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870

Why is this even notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article? Seems like bait for insane conspiracy theorists.

The wiki article seems useful for understanding the origin of the conspiracy theories, so in that sense it's a good reference?

One thing's for sure. If wikipedia were to delete his article, it could only lessen the intensity of the conspiracy theories surrounding the incident. Every Qanon moonbat would take the article deletion as the consensus decision that it wasn't notable, and then focus on more important things.

Hah, that is a very good point! I stand corrected!

What we need is to name the movements, name their proponents and debate them in public. Discussion, debate, referendum etc.

Instead we have a lot of ethereal players pushing policy that's affecting billions without any democratic process