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Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

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Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#351

Post by TaylorAlexander »

Chris2048 wrote: post #335
SequoiaHope wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean yes I do call it libertarian communism, tho I often leave that part out since people will be totally onboard until you mention the name. But also it’s a specific scheme that has the goal of lowering the marginal cost of living. And it’s totally voluntary which is not true for all schemes for communism.

> And it’s totally voluntary Sure, while you are in charge. But when a more ambitious leader bashes your head in and takes over, maybe not so. How much of Lenin remained when Stalin took over?

There is no one in charge. I am not in charge. This is not a system based on any manner of authoritarian control.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#352

Post by TaylorAlexander »

Chris2048 wrote: post #337
lindseymysse wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we just watched the greatest military in the world™ scuttle out of Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society as long as its prepared. Pre-Colonial American societies were decimated by the biological warfare of the Europeans first. Now America turns its taste for biological warfare on itself. But, anyway, I digress.

> so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society America did not invade, or go to war with Afghanistan - it was attempting to liberate it, not annihilate it.

America absolutely invaded Afghanistan. I don't see the point of this line of questions but if you want a better example see Vietnam.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#353

Post by malthuswaswrong »

clairity wrote: post #290
malthuswaswrong wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way "esteem" is distributed today is if you produce something I want I "esteem" you by buying it. If you don't produce anything I want I "disrespect" you by doing absolutely nothing to you. I don't give you anything, I don't take anything away from you. I simply smile, nod, and move on with my life. Seems like you want to take freedom of association away from the rest of humanity and put it into your own hands. I…

that's an odd and quite uncharitable interpretation. there's not even a remote connection to (restricting) freedom of association, much less with my own hands (how would that even work?). the underlying point is that money isn't the be-all-and-end-all of what we value and what we exchange in our socioeconomic lives. money collapses a multidimensional social calculus into a single-dimensional metric, with all the unde…

Would you change your opinion if you were presented with hard data proving that 80% of wealthy people earned that wealth by delivering goods and services to people who voluntarily paid for it, and only 20% of the wealthy inherited it and that inherited wealth does not last more than 3 generations?

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#354

Post by malthuswaswrong »

lindseymysse wrote: post #283
malthuswaswrong wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did those indigenous cultures fair when they came in contact with Western systems of resource collection and distribution? How can a system be both agrarian and strong enough to survive contact with non-agrarian systems? How do you stop 10 people from secretly working hard and producing an extra ration of gruel right under your commie nose?

Well, we just watched the greatest military in the world™ scuttle out of Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society as long as its prepared. Pre-Colonial American societies were decimated by the biological warfare of the Europeans first. Now America turns its taste for biological warfare on itself. But, anyway, I digress.

False. We learned that an agrarian society can resist democracy and nation building. They were incapable of withstanding military destruction. They didn't even last 90 days.

In fact they've already destroyed the military infrastructure we left them. "Soldiers" are literally parting out $20 million helicopters for $10,000 in scrap metal.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#355

Post by SequoiaHope »

thegrimmest wrote: post #345
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that you are asking these questions. Indeed I think any writing meant to describe an entire economy in a few paragraphs will necessarily be a bit hand wavey. I did try to answer one of your questions: the machines are serviced by the members of the collective. In any plan for a society education must be considered. But much the same way that any halfway technical person can learn how to fix a 3D printer, these…

How would you prevent one of these collectives from, say, inventing an iPhone and monetizing it? And if you don't, aren't you back to square one again?

> How would you prevent one of these collectives from, say, inventing an iPhone and monetizing it?

You don't.

> aren't you back to square one again?

No, why would that be? We live in a world with a million top down owned capitalist corporations. If by some mass movement we get a few thousand collectives to band together, there will always be churn. Groups that dissolve, or change their aims, or seek profit over the cohesiveness of the group. You would do the same thing with them as would have been done at the beginning. Do you best not to trade with them. If you actually need what they have on offer, clone it. But the whole point of this system is to create some semblance of independence. Either people value that enough to stick with it, or they don't. IMO it's worth trying even if it might fail.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#356

Post by refurb »

didibus wrote: post #156

Tangentially, the physical labor jobs I had when younger never really tired me out the way that the mental/bureaucratic/political job I have now does. Physical work actually energized me, I mean this is all confirmed today as well, we know all the benefits exercise brings on well being. There's something about desk jobs that is frankly soul sucking and literally mentally draining in a way where when the day ends, it'…

The best I had was in a chemical plant. The work was highly intellectual but it also required implementation which you couldn’t do in an office chair.

Probably walked 2 miles a day and stood for about 4-5 hours in periods varying from 30 min to 3 hours. Nothing overtly physical. I have done hard manual labor jobs and they kicked my ass when I was in my 20’s. Couldn’t do it now. Not without some damage.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#357

Post by thegrimmest »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #355
thegrimmest wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you prevent one of these collectives from, say, inventing an iPhone and monetizing it? And if you don't, aren't you back to square one again?

> How would you prevent one of these collectives from, say, inventing an iPhone and monetizing it? You don't. > aren't you back to square one again? No, why would that be? We live in a world with a million top down owned capitalist corporations. If by some mass movement we get a few thousand collectives to band together, there will always be churn. Groups that dissolve, or change their aims, or seek profit over the c…

But isn't it the profit-seeking capitalists who actually bring innovations to market, to the benefit of everyone? Why would you deprive yourself of the benefit of trading with these groups? "Independence" isn't really a thing in a world with a global supply chain. It's simply not realistic to produce everything that we consume locally for anything approaching a reasonable cost. Economies of scale are extremely powerful.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#358

Post by TaylorAlexander »

BingoAhoy wrote: post #295
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I should say that critically, this scheme is not dependent on advancement in technology. It does take advantage of the fact that computers can perform labor for free, but there are examples of the elimination of hunger and equitable distribution of food without using any advanced technology. Specifically the Sikhs in India [1] serve over 1 million free meals a day in facilities all over India, and in Vienn…

Point accepted. Yeah technology isn't necessary, but if tech can do the same amount for the same cost removing much of the labor requirement then that's a tremendous win. Additionally the lower the cost the easier it is to append a welfare or socialist cost on the the tax payer's bill. Providing decent food, housing, and some minimal healthcare at 5% of GDP vs 40% of a nations GDP makes a world of difference. At thre…

Yes!! That is a big motivation. If supporting others is very cheap people are more likely to support it.

And I love that you're on to the food machines. I have obsessed over the idea of automated production based on the Sikh systems. I hope I can build it some day. Or even if I don't, that someone does.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#360

Post by gxs »

redisman wrote: post #334
jorblumesea wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, huge cost to your body. Every relative I know who is was the trades, now has issues all the time directly attributable to their work. Their body has aged x2 compared to mine.

Most manual labor has you doing a handful of quite repetitive moves over and over and over until something breaks and you retire on disability. Some people seem to think it’s like going to the gym or something smh

There is a whole lot of kids here with romanticized ideas of what physical labor is.

My dad is a contractor and every summer through college I’d go work for him as a low-skilled laborer.

I hated it at the time - all these years later I’m grateful because a) it taught me a lot of useful handyman stuff and b) I have no illusions of how great it is to “work with your hands” or outside everyday.

No one I worked with ever wished their job for their kids and everyone said how lucky I was to get to go to college.

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