A Victoria man has gone two decades without money • Hacker News Board

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#31

Post by iamacyborg » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #27

iamacyborg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From cooking and cleaning, to fetching water and firewood or taking care of children and the elderly, women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/redistribute-...

If one is in a commune, all work is unpaid, so how is this relatable? If referencing modern society in the west, who is fetching wood and water?! Is this stat from 1870?

> If referencing modern society in the west, who is fetching wood and water?!

There's more to unpaid labour than fetching wood and water. Women still do significantly more housework than men, even if both hold full time employment.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#32

Post by Proven » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

brnt wrote: post #23

kypro wrote: post #16

I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little in return is moral. If everyone did this we'd all live in a far worse world. This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give more than I receive. I relate to him in that I value money very little as a medium to facilitate my own happiness, but I still want to make a lot of it so I can give more. He seems sweet though. I think I would get on wit…

You assume all objects, experiences and behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume.

> behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume.

He didn't guess how you value or should value that kind of a lifestyle, he merely commented on the morality of it.

If you value parasitism, that fine, you're free to do that. But it's still immoral.

> Go back further in time and he'd have been ostracized from his hunter-gatherer community for not contributing, and would've lived a short life as a hermit.

Because productivity was low, its wasn't much of a choice - there was little to give. Today he can make it because the moral desire to create more than one takes - contrary to what he promotes - has prevailed.

You wouldn't need to go back in time a single second to see how long would his life be in a society that consisted of only useless eaters such as himself. He wouldn't last past next winter.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#33

Post by b112 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

ronyfadel wrote: post #21

> While meditating down at the ocean—and tripping on acid courtesy of the motorbike’s new owner—he experienced what would become for him unshakable insights having to do with patience, fate, and love. I was waiting for that part since I started reading the article. Isn’t this what the hippies in the 60’s figured out as well?

It's what everyone figured out, always. Christ was a hippie. People has preached love, casting off money and such since the dawn of time.

Usually youth, who then in their 30s decide they'd rather like money.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#34

Post by okr » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #20

kangnkodos wrote: post #17

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…

Maybe if it was only the people who did the jobs that no one wants to do who get paid then people wouldn’t be trying to get rid of the money system. How many thousands of years would a dishwasher need to work in order to earn what someone does in one year from making 100 million in a year as a corporate fat cat, a sports player, movie star or a business owner

If you can wash dishes for a billion people in the world, freeing everyone from the burden of taking, sorting, drying, washing dishes, putting all dish washers out of work, i guess, you can become pretty rich too. People will have time to do something else.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#35

Post by kangnkodos » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

tunap wrote: post #25

kangnkodos wrote: post #17

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…

>They go on for several years with several people... making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. That sounds like modern retail workers who have spouses to supplement earnings to house & feed themselves.

Yeah. With money, there are lots of problems such as this too. I agree that money is evil. But I think a system with money is slightly less evil than a system with no money.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#36

Post by lotu » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

sumnole wrote: post #18

kangnkodos wrote: post #17

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…

Devil's advocate here. Failing sufficient encouragement to do tasks (psychological/sociological rewards as got through volunteering), most of those tasks can be automated or replaced by an alternative.

Not in a reasonable time frame. Do you really believe we could fully automate all dishwashing over the next decade?

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#37

Post by b112 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

iamacyborg wrote: post #31

b112 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one is in a commune, all work is unpaid, so how is this relatable? If referencing modern society in the west, who is fetching wood and water?! Is this stat from 1870?

> If referencing modern society in the west, who is fetching wood and water?! There's more to unpaid labour than fetching wood and water. Women still do significantly more housework than men, even if both hold full time employment.

That may be true, or untrue.

However, citing a stat from before anyone was born, isn't helpful in a modern context.

Replying to this with "it is still true, because", now that your citation fell flat on its face, may not be the best strategy.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#38

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

igorkraw wrote: post #26

kangnkodos wrote: post #17

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…

I feel you are presenting a false dichotomy. If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the best? It seems that capitalist money is just hidden punishment: do something you don't want to do for a pittance, because you have no leverage. In a family, in a community there are also ways to incentivise prosocial behaviour just by culture, which is why e.g. most of German emergency operations are volunteer bas…

[deleted]

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#39

Post by unpolloloco » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

iamacyborg wrote: post #22

pmichaud wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "usually women" who do the unglamorous jobs that no one else wants to do? This doesn't really seem true, but maybe you have a source that shows it?

> From cooking and cleaning, to fetching water and firewood or taking care of children and the elderly, women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/redistribute-...

Unpaid doesn't always mean that it's the least glamorous (in the absence of compensation for anyone). Take anything on Dirty Jobs, for example. If you're talking the difference between washing laundry and cleaning out septic tanks most people would prefer one over the other in the absence of other pay.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#40

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

igorkraw wrote: post #26

kangnkodos wrote: post #17

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…

I feel you are presenting a false dichotomy. If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the best? It seems that capitalist money is just hidden punishment: do something you don't want to do for a pittance, because you have no leverage. In a family, in a community there are also ways to incentivise prosocial behaviour just by culture, which is why e.g. most of German emergency operations are volunteer bas…

> If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the best?

Likely because many of those boring jobs have many more people qualified/capable to do them than there are spots to be filled. Even though we seem to need a lot of people to take goods out of totes and put them into cardboard boxes, there are a lot more people who are able to do that work than spots needed.