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Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

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Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#31

Post by kazinator »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #29
Jesus_Jones wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of poor places with people starving, even though we have enough food to give it to people. But even in the usa, there are people who don't get enough to eat. in Seattle I often see news stories about the food bank.

Exactly. We could feed, house, and care for everyone, if we wanted to. The main problem is that we're still stuck on the agricultural notion that the moral right to live must be purchased through labor or capital.

Does this "we" include yourself, personally?

How many have you fed, housed and cared for this past month, and is it completely with no strings attached (no capital or labor of any kind expected from them --- only from yourself?)

Or if not, what is the blocker?

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#32

Post by ekianjo »

Jesus_Jones wrote: post #27
lotyrin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globally, we are pretty much post-scarce on anything anyone "requires to live". The struggle will be to find out how all the rest gets divided when controlling distribution of the right to live is no longer a bargaining position and discovering if we can still provide for everyone without servitude.

There are plenty of poor places with people starving, even though we have enough food to give it to people. But even in the usa, there are people who don't get enough to eat. in Seattle I often see news stories about the food bank.

> There are plenty of poor places with people starving

No, actually there's not. Starvation is mostly linked to conflict zones nowadays. In normal conditions starvation is pretty much a problem from the past. Look at the WHO report on poverty and how things have clearly improved since, let's say the 70s or 80s.

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#34

Post by PhasmaFelis »

kazinator wrote: post #31
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We could feed, house, and care for everyone, if we wanted to. The main problem is that we're still stuck on the agricultural notion that the moral right to live must be purchased through labor or capital.

Does this "we" include yourself, personally? How many have you fed, housed and cared for this past month, and is it completely with no strings attached (no capital or labor of any kind expected from them --- only from yourself?) Or if not, what is the blocker?

I'd be happy to pay more taxes to get, at the very least, better social services for those who can't support themselves. I want to live in a world that cares for those people. If you prefer a selfish motivation, I also want those services to be available for me and my loved ones, should they be needed in the future.

The blocker is that I don't have the time, expertise, bargaining power, or economies of scale to efficiently turn my money into social services. Governments are much better suited to that task, and some do so reasonably effectively. (e.g. universal health care, in countries that provide it.)

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#35

Post by maskedSlacker »

Jesus_Jones wrote: post #27
lotyrin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globally, we are pretty much post-scarce on anything anyone "requires to live". The struggle will be to find out how all the rest gets divided when controlling distribution of the right to live is no longer a bargaining position and discovering if we can still provide for everyone without servitude.

There are plenty of poor places with people starving, even though we have enough food to give it to people. But even in the usa, there are people who don't get enough to eat. in Seattle I often see news stories about the food bank.

But that's not caused by SCARCITY. Scarcity means there isn't enough food. That's not the problem we have. There is enough food to feed everyone. It's just owned by the wrong people.

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#36

Post by Retra »

lotyrin wrote: post #21
jdmichal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really hope I get to live long enough to see society have to tackle the "oh fuck, currency as a concept is useless" problem, aka the steps leading up to post-scarcity. I would only want to see that if we were already post-scarcity. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of bloodshed as people figure it out and realize they don't have any way to continue buying the things they require to live. Post-scarcity is great…

Globally, we are pretty much post-scarce on anything anyone "requires to live". The struggle will be to find out how all the rest gets divided when controlling distribution of the right to live is no longer a bargaining position and discovering if we can still provide for everyone without servitude.

Maybe except for land. Land will always be scarce. Especially land that is economically valuable and/or developed.

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#37

Post by hinkley »

dhimes wrote: post #25
c3534l wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All copyright prohibitions are "fake." In our current society, all supply shortages of media are artificial.

The interesting question here is, are the shortages necessary to have high quality media? I would love to have an HN-filtered list of reading on the arguments- both sides. I personally only have an ill-informed, therefore worthless, opinion.

Patents and copyrights are, as discussed in much earlier incarnations, a form of barter (bribery?) by the state to ensure a steady supply of novel ideas. I give you something, you give me something.

We (or at least, policy makers) agreed that this was the cost of high quality media/inventions. And it was sure as hell a lot better than the old guild systems where everyone in a given trade colluded to maintain trade secrets, under threat of ostracism or worse.

A lot of the weirdness people attach to either concept looks ridiculous if you can get past all of the emotionally loaded crap and keep telling yourself they are a quid pro quo arrangement, and not to be conflated with property rights.

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#38

Post by hinkley »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #33
sitkack wrote: post #12

> Sonny Bono Memorial Collection Heh.

Although the article's claim that he represented part of Los Angeles in Congress is kind of a stretch (unless they're being snidely metaphorical and it went over my head)

Sonny Bono was the Representative for District 44. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_44th_congressio...

He was referred to in some circles as "The Representative from Disney".

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#39

Post by stcredzero »

komali2 wrote: post #9

I'm ambivalent about all the weirdness about digital books. On the one hand, I kinda get why San Francisco Public Library has to "pretend" it can only loan out 20 "digital copies" of "The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck" at a time, because I guess if you could just instantly use the Libby app to throw it on your kindle and renew endlessly, why would anybody ever buy a book? Still, it is "fake" prohibitions. There's l…

I really hope I get to live long enough to see society have to tackle the "oh fuck, currency as a concept is useless" problem, aka the steps leading up to post-scarcity...Highly highly unlikely...

Is there ever going to be a post-scarcity era, or is scarcity contextual? Perhaps it is just going to be a moving target, like AI seems to be? Once a chess playing program that could beat the world champion was a pipe dream. The same goes for Go playing programs. Once a pen was a specialized instrument that had to be handcrafted for certain professionals. Now, they are practically free. Once, getting water involved significant personal effort for almost everyone. Now almost everyone one in the industrialized world thinks of it as something practically free.

One of the things which might throw a monkey wrench into the futurist/sci-fi idea of a post scarcity society is the Pareto Principle combined with the perception of relative poverty. Across all of history, productivity has been unevenly distributed. Even people who are wealthy on global/historical scales will feel poor if confronted with wealthier neighbors. Psychologists have concluded that the feelings of relative poverty are very real, and it's this relative poverty which is most strongly correlated with criminality, not absolute poverty.

Re: Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated

#40

Post by stcredzero »

c3534l wrote: post #16
komali2 wrote: post #9

I'm ambivalent about all the weirdness about digital books. On the one hand, I kinda get why San Francisco Public Library has to "pretend" it can only loan out 20 "digital copies" of "The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck" at a time, because I guess if you could just instantly use the Libby app to throw it on your kindle and renew endlessly, why would anybody ever buy a book? Still, it is "fake" prohibitions. There's l…

All copyright prohibitions are "fake." In our current society, all supply shortages of media are artificial.

In our current society, all supply shortages of media are artificial

If you take supply shortages of media as being caused by a long term lack of profitable remuneration/funding for media, then there is nothing artificial about it. It's the funding model which is broken.

I wish there was something like Patreon, but which would take some monthly subscription amount and automatically distribute it to the creators I like, in proportion to the enjoyment they've provided.

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