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A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

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Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#41

Post by ben_w »

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

How much money should the modern inventor of the electric dishwasher receive, given the labour saved by the invention?

And as much as I utterly fail to get spectator sports in general, footballers get their money specifically because people pay to watch their teams and the teams are more popular when they win and therefore the teams directly bid against each other for the best players. Similar logic for movies and their stars, and in both cases there are a lot of people at the bottom who do similar things for approximately nothing as it’s fun — but they’re not the best in the world at what they do, and only the best can compete with the best.

The connection in sports and media is a lot more direct than asking if (and how much) a corporation’s overall performance can be attributed to the skills of given fat cat acting as a multiplier on the work done by those under them.

And then you have the last question: what is the stuff which must be done? Most individuals could live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, yet no city (UK definition rather than USA) can survive everyone trying that at the same time, let alone the whole world. Is shipping in the “must have” list? If just shipping stopped, much of the UK would starve even if everyone turned their gardens into personal farms like in WW2. Who makes the ships? Who digs up the raw materials for the ship?

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#42

Post by knocte »

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…

> why are the most boring jobs not paid the best?

Because most boring jobs require skills that everyone has. Specialization makes the other jobs have higher salaries, not because they are less boring, but because they can only be done by a smaller amount of people.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#43

Post by kangnkodos »

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…

I agree that in small situations you can bring social pressure to solve this problem. Sometimes. Some families break up over issues like this.

As you scale up, it gets harder and harder. You get a few people who are intentional free riders. The hard workers see the free riders sitting right next to them stop. Then more and more hard workers defect.

That system of emergency operations is a great counter example. You correctly point out that it's good to have a system with more than just monetary incentives. You have to have a mix of monetary incentives, punishments and other incentives such as just the feeling that you're helping out, or perhaps prestige.

I'm not arguing to get rid of all incentives except money. Those other levers are vital. I'm arguing against a system with no money.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#44

Post by cameronh90 »

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.

Who's going to do it until it's automated?

Who's going to pay to automate it?

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#45

Post by knocte »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #11

I admire his resolve, though it's not something I'd like to take to the extreme. Spending more time with people who have less money (e.g. CouchSurfing -> BeWelcome, hitchhiking, dumpster diving) has been an immensely rewarding experience. Last week, I heard a message about investment, which said that the 3 ways to store wealth are stocks in companies, bonds in governments, and property (owned by banks or rich people)…

> A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help people get visas

link?

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#46

Post by theonlybutlet »

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…

Agreed don't think this guy really deserves much praise, if he were adding value to society and bartering for his needs that would be different.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#47

Post by yboris »

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…

I wonder if you've heard of Effective Altruism - it's, broadly speaking, about using evidence and our resources to help others the most.

It's a great community where I think you'd fit in: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#49

Post by ben_w »

lotu wrote: post #36
sumnole wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Plausible it could be automated. No idea how much it would cost, and while electric dishwashers have been a thing for longer than I’ve been alive, there’s not enough room in my current place to install one, and a humanoid cleaning robot would also have nowhere to stow itself.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#50

Post by kangnkodos »

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…

I agree. His heart is in the right place. And he's fighting the good fight. There is something wrong with a system which won't allow a spot somewhere in the city to put up tents. He's right about that.

But I don't think everyone has to go as far as you, and give more than they take. I think we can find win-win situations where we both benefit. I cut your your hair and you paint me a picture. We both win. But it's hard to find good one to one barter like this. Money is the way to find more win-win situations. In a system with no money, you're back to only one to one, so there are less win-win exchanges, and everyone is poorer.

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