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

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#271

Post by mikem170 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #118

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…

>If that happened, who would wash the dishes? I'm genuinely shocked to see so many people disagreeing with this premise. Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty, low-status jobs unless you motivate them. Everyone wants to hand out toys to sick kids and pose for photos, nobody wants to clean up their chemo-smelling shit and puke. It's been a real issue in every single volunteer-run organisation I've been a par…

> Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty, low-status jobs unless you motivate them

Is that a bad thing?

One might wonder if our society is all about motivating people to do things they don't want. How many of our modern conveniences could theoretically be traded away in return for a 15 hour work week? Instead we have saddle young adults with student loads, the cost of housing has been inflated by greedy investors, having a car is just about mandatory, a century of very materialistic consumer culture, regulatory penalties for being poor, etc. I'm shocked that people don't question more of this stuff.

(Speaking of motivating people, governors of many states recently cut unemployment benefits to get people back to those low status jobs, instead of giving them more money. Funny how many people objected to those handouts but are fine with all the tax breaks that investors get on empty properties.)

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#272

Post by burntoutfire » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #154

AussieWog93 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If that happened, who would wash the dishes? I'm genuinely shocked to see so many people disagreeing with this premise. Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty, low-status jobs unless you motivate them. Everyone wants to hand out toys to sick kids and pose for photos, nobody wants to clean up their chemo-smelling shit and puke. It's been a real issue in every single volunteer-run organisation I've been a par…

The really crappy jobs are invisible. I don’t really know anyone who hates their line of work or lacks interest in their field (plenty in their job, but not their field). That’s probably because I only know salaried professionals/soon to be professionals (interns).I suspect many others are in the same boat.

Not really invisible, they're just not in your social circle. In other social circles, people (I've spoken to such people, it's not a made up example), claim that well-paying or non-horrible jobs don't exist, as they've never met anyone who has such job.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#273

Post by mattm » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #61

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…

Before money people traded favors. You help me butcher my cow, I help you rebuild your house (which was more work then the cow), so maybe later on your brother helps fix my plow knowing he'll eventually get something in return, and now I am trading favors with you and your brother, etc. This bonded people. It would have been insulting to say "here are two chickens for your lamb, we are now even, I owe you nothing eve…

It's been a while since I read that book but I believe the message was also that money allowed groups to grow larger than the Dunbar number. In a small community, you can keep track of the favours with everyone. It's also highly likely that you'll see someone you help out with again so there is a good chance you'll get paid back.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#274

Post by user3939382 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #262

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #74

I’m not sure living in the city off handouts, charity, and free tax payer provided facilities exactly promotes his no money philosophy. His life relies on the things he despises, if the economic collapse he predicts comes he will be among the first to starve to death. Go into the wild and grow/hunt food or trade some skill - the post money society doesn’t need philosopher poets scavenging cigarettes from trash cans

> Go into the wild and grow/hunt food It is easy to radically underestimate how much food a human needs every day and how hard it is to acquire, especially when living a non-sedentary life as a hunter/gatherer. Trying to accumulate 2000+ calories per day growing food requires a rather significant farm and skill (and weather); doing so with meat requires daily hunting, or a permanent storage facility with refrigeratio…

If you watch the reality show Alone, these wilderness survival experts try to do it to win $500k and most of them end up starving and dropping out.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#275

Post by guerrilla » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #64

guerrilla wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate arguments like this. People who want clean dishes will do dishes. And no there's no free-rider problem because they don't have to do dishes for anyone else.

> People who want clean dishes will do dishes. And people who want to eat will farm their own food? And people who want medicine will craft their own medications? Self-sufficiency and moneyless societies are pure fantasy, unless they include giving up all modern amenities. I don’t think these people really want to return to the days of hunter gatherer lifestyles or even the days of homesteading. It’s an extreme amoun…

You're moving the goalpost while also adding the artificial restriction that people can't cooperate.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#276

Post by zizee » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #261

samatman wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money in a broad sense is as old as anatomically modern humans, so, no. 80,000 year old grave goods have been discovered, consisting of shells of a consistent size, with holes drilled in them, a few hundred kilometers from the ocean. We know from ethnography of societies which existed until very recently that these collectibles served the same purpose as money. A good complement to Graeber's book is the work of Nick…

But the first source you quoted, the Atlantic article [0], quotes Graeber describing economies which don't depend on money or barter: > Communities of Iroquois Native Americans, for instance, stockpiled their goods in longhouses. Female councils then allocated the goods, explains Graeber. Other indigenous communities relied on “gift economies,” which went something like this: If you were a baker who needed meat, you…

This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy.

I bet in many cases if someone got a reputation for not reciprocating "gifts" they'd soon find themselves not receiving anything. Hardly a gift.

And why are people "hinting" at things in this economy, and why this is presented as something different from a direct request. How often have you come across people "hinting" at what they really want, when really they are demanding. Sounds like something out of a cliche mobster scene, "lovely tanks you have there Colonel, it would be a shame for anything to happen to them".

> No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred.

If the bakers wife were to "hint" to the butcher that their friend could do with some extra "iron", whilst simultaneously saying "did you enjoy those scones i gave you" (wink), then the debt is transferred. We can pretend that it wouldn't have happened, but people are people the world over. Some would be nice and help others because they like to help, others would use what leverage they have to get ahead in life.

This gift based economy just sounds like a passive aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#277

Post by mikem170 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #86

knighthack wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. While I agree with most of what's said above, the proposition about "usually women, making the sacrifice" is dubious at best, if not untrue. In any society or commune few will lead - the rest will be workers or followers. These will be both men and women, and they will both suffer from necessary sa…

I’ve never lived in or studied commune living but do you or the GP have nonfiction sources? I’m hesitant to take either of your claims as truth without them given my own lack of knowledge. Thank you!

I wondered about that, also. I'm pretty sure that some societies and communes are democratic, where the people make choices as a group, not having specific leaders that they are obligated to follow. I think that Quakers would be an example of one such society, they govern by what some call consensus based decision making.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#278

Post by AutumnCurtain » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

cbanek wrote: post #236

> Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27, 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston’s father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his side behind a bush. “I was just pukey drunk,” he says. “It was embarrassing. And then it just hit m…

And ironically he did not choose to abstain from drugs (cigarettes at a minimum) afterwards which seems like the much more direct lesson

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#279

Post by mikem170 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #125

VictorPath wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the society has no money, there's going to be a whole lot of punishment going on The mostly uncontacted hunter-gatherer bands in the Amazon jungle have no money, and not much punishment. Men all go out and hunt. If they are old or young or sick, the hunters give them food. If they are fine and refuse to go out on a hunt, they tend not to eat. There is not much coercion. The women gather berries and the men hunt.…

>There is not much coercion. The women gather berries and the men hunt. Are you sure about this, or are you treating a "noble savage" fantasy as if it were fact? I've read some early settler accounts of Australian Aboriginals, and they would beat the living shit out of the lower-status members of their society (especially women) on a regular basis. Sometimes the beatings would be followed up with rape, and the perpet…

Modern society has problems with violence and sex crimes against women, too.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#280

Post by mikem170 » Sun, Jul 25, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #194

giantg2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's no coercion other than a hungry stomach." This sounds like the classic punishment of being sent to your room without dinner, right? Removing the basic necessity of food is about as coercive as it gets. Even in civilized society we feed prisoners, give food to the hungry, etc.

A better way to phrase it would be "compelled by reality".

Reality being land owners backed by the state who don't allow people to wander off and grow their own food?