thurd wrote:

To sum up. Have you ever lived in a communist country yourself? Have you ever waited for a package from your relatives in some "capitalistic" country, just so you can taste oranges or cocoa? Have you ever been in a society where things are distributed centrally and "equally" amongst them? Have you ever seen what it does to a human mind if you live in such country for a long period of time? Have you ever felt sociological effects of getting out of communism into a normal and stable economy?
I'm sure you haven't, because you wouldn't be spewing your nonsense so carelessly.

No I haven't, but I'm not proposing communism. While communism does share the same basic idea of equal resource distribution, it's completely different in the sense that it promotes monetary systems and centralised governments, hence they generally spiral into capitalist totalitarianism. Furthermore, communist systems have never had a plan on how to specifically construct institutions and culture once the government has succeeded, therefore education and the culture in general is haphazardly rearranged.

thecite wrote:

This is where technology comes in, you personally wouldn't go to all of the effort, technology could be used to do most of the mining; of course human work would be needed somewhere or other but this would decrease over time as technology improves, just as we're seeing in today's society.

This is always the catch with Utopias. They're predicated on technology being advanced to the point where it doesn't matter what the people do. Yeah, ok, in a society where robots are capable of doing every job needed, no one ever needs to clean a toilet and resources no longer have any real scarcity to them... then perhaps greed and capitalism may become outmoded concepts. Only problem is this technology doesn't exist. Is this where you tell the guys like me to get cracking and create the magical technology that will eliminate all the world's problems? Passing the buck is nice, isn't it.

Greed is not an inevitable part of human nature

That is quite inaccurate, thankfully.

Noam Chomsky is 81 and still going strong in his criticism of capitalism

I think you should actually read Professor Chomsky's works on this subject.  You will find that what he opposes is governments, not economic systems.  Do you think it was capitalism that has embargoed Cuba for the last 50 years?

Here's a glimpse of the plot of my next sci-fi book. I think you'll like it, thecite:

Scientists and engineers create cheap robots that are able to perform most of current jobs. Robots enter the marketplace. Workers are forced to lower their wages to remain competitive. Some wages drop below the minimum wage; many workers lose their jobs. Unable to find new jobs, many workers spend their remaining capital on food, and become homeless [you'll see what happens to them later]. Producers are forced to lower their prices, as the consumers are earning less, and buying less. Quality of life improves. The huge deflation and sudden availability of cheap workforce allows for much larger scale projects. Infrastructure gets much better. Resources which could not be collected become available. Resources become cheaper. With cheaper resources and better technology, robots become even cheaper and able to perform even more jobs; wages drop even more; products become even cheaper; more and more people become homeless.

Government/charity groups can't let so many people starve to death. Homeless shelters are built. Luckily, these are very cheap to build and to run, as cheap robots do most of the job. As more and more people become homeless, the shelters expand. As prices drop, the quality of life in these shelters increase. You soon have whole cities of jobless people living good lives.

The Venus Project is a success.

[ten years later, the robots revolt and kill us all]

Last edited by iSoron (2010 August 06, 7:33 am)

shadysaint wrote:

I'm not trying to shoot down your story.  It seems very interesting.

I'm just kidding; I'm not a writer.
Feel free to shoot it down.

shadysaint wrote:

Just pointing out a couple subtleties.   Consider this:  Not everyone can have everything they want, even with free and unlimited labor.  For example, it's not hard to imagine the number of people that want personal jets far exceeds the capacity of airports and maybe even the resources needed to build them.

A central theme of technocracy is the rejection of private ownership as we know it. Instead of every single person owning unnecessary items, the system proposes a rental system kind of similar to today's public library system. You go and rent some sports equipment for a period of time, and then return it when you're done. There would be no incentive for people to steal the items, as you would be unable to sell them due to the easy availability of them and lack of any monetary system. Instead of a person 'owning' their own car, and then not using it for 90% of the day, the car can be shared by a number of people and used throughout the whole day. Obviously a system like this would need quite a lot of tweaking, but really it's the only way to ensure sustainability and prosperity.

IceCream wrote:

thecite wrote:

Funny that you mention police and money in the same sentence, as money is one of the main causes of the need for police. When people rob, they're often doing it because they need the money to live. When people sell drugs, they do it because they can earn money. When people murder, greed and money are often a deciding factor. When a corporation decides to dump waste into the environment, they do it to save money - greed is necessarily a consequence of capitalism. Instead of punishing people for committing these acts, wouldn't it make far more sense to eliminate the underlying problems?

this is such a naive, simplistic view, on so many levels. i'm not going to go into all the reasons, but one thing you really need to think about is the problem of boredom. Many crimes are committed simply because people are bored. No overarching monetary reason at all. Boredom and culture... and here, i don't mean anything at all to do with "greed" culture.

But, in this ideal society of yours, so many people become worthless. People who have non academic jobs now become unemployable. What happens to them? People naturally have different talents and skills, and even if being academic was socially or self rewarded to the highest degree, the fact is that not everyone will have the natural ability, or the natural interest that they'd need.

Moreover, in this society, we clearly haven't reached our potential for altruism fully yet. The use of technology, and the removal of the directness of our impact on others also removes the empathy response for most people. Its partly this that allows many people to eat meat, no matter what conditions the animals are kept in.

There are still difficult decisions to be made, even if things were to be technically a lot better, there are choices to be made, and benefits to be handed out. Why should someone good at programming suddenly be automatically qualified to handle these decisions? For instance, there will be decisions in which a lot of people now could have more comfortable lifestyles at the expense of the resources of the planet. Or, they could deny those lifestyles in the interests of future generations. Who wins?

Capitalism certainly isn't a good solution to these kind of problems, but your utopia also sounds quite hellish to me. It's likely to be filled with crime, depression, and yes, greed. While i don't share the stark view of human nature some of the other people do, yknow, money isn't the single cause of greed, it's far more complex and full of subtle relations than that.

By the way, culture isn't the type of thing you can structure, restructure, or any of these things that you seem to think are possible. Its a natural thing that is beyond any one person's control. It's causes, if you can call them that, are never simple cause / effect type relationships, even in the simplest society possible.

thecite wrote:

Perhaps I will, but I strongly encourage you to go and read some information on technocracy or one of Fresco's books to form an opinion on your own, don't take me as an authority on this idea.

please, stop holding up someone elses ideas as a mascot, and honestly think through things on your own. Uncritical acceptance of other people's ideas isn't a good starting point for any discussion. It certainly wouldn't make Chomsky proud.

I never claimed that money is the only reason for crime, obviously that's incorrect, merely that it's the main cause of crime. Take money away, and there would still be some crime left due to human emotions such as jealously etc, but we could only hope that people are able to deal with their emotions better over time. Employment wouldn't mirror the system we have today. There's no money, it's not as if society is losing anything by allowing every single person to do whatever they want, every person is encouraged to contribute in whatever way they wish.

Firstly, there would be almost no incentive for people to try and rig the system. They have nothing to gain, if they damage the operability of society, they damage their own quality of life. Secondly, this would be a worldwide system balanced between every region in the world, the idea that every individual would magically be overcome with an uncontrollable desire to disadvantage their own society seems very implausible, kind of like everyone in our society suddenly having a desire to go out and destroy their own society.

When I first started exploring these ideas I was just as cynical as anyone (although I admittedly was already disillusioned with today's society) if there was something I saw as illogical, I would have no reservation in voicing it. For example, I hate the fact that Fresco excludes the idea of animal rights from being a basic moral value of the society, but at the same time I can see that animal rights would be an idea far easier to introduce in a society without strong economic, political and cultural bias. I'm not going to criticise logical ideas for the hell of it.

...anarcho-syndicalist...

aaahhhh...monty python!  Brilliant!  I was already envisioning scenes from the magnificent "Brazil".   It's like some kind of cosmic karmic full circle. :p

btw, "utopia" is a perfectly apt word here. One can't just change the English language in an attempt to force some kind of distinction which doesn't exist (despite what Mr Venus might have to say on the matter). Seems a bit like a silly transparent attempt to disassociate the Movement from terms like "idealistic" and "unrealistic".  And come think of it .... another common euphemism for that is ..."ambitious".   More full circle! Ah...the universe is in harmony today.  sigh

The only criticism that [Chomsky] has of The Venus Project is that he sees it as too ambitious in comparison with the state of the world, and that it encourages its followers to be passive rather than taking immediate action. I agree with him partly on this, but I think it's better to ambitious than to support a flawed system.

[added quote]

Last edited by Thora (2010 August 06, 5:34 am)

Thora wrote:

...anarcho-syndicalist...

aaahhhh...monty python!  Brilliant!  I was already envisioning scenes from the magnificent "Brazil".   It's like some kind of cosmic karmic full circle.

btw, "utopia" is a perfectly apt word here. One can't just change the English language in an attempt to force some kind of distinction which doesn't exist (despite what Mr Venus might have to say on the matter). Smells a wee bit like a silly transparent attempt to disassociate The Movement from terms like "idealistic" and "unrealistic".  And come think of it .... another common euphemism for "idealistic" and "unrealistic" is ..."ambitious".   More full circle! Ah...the universe is in harmony today.  sigh

Idealistic, unrealistic, whatever you wish to call it; I'd rather focus on achieving a functional society rather than supporting a flawed one. Every person that proposes something new and bold is generally labelled as 'unrealistic'.

The level of prosperity that some of us in first world countries experience today could easily have been described as 'utopia' by people five hundred years ago, yet certainly no one claims that we're living in utopia. Utopia implies perfection, which is impossible. This system would be far better, not perfect.

thecite wrote:

Yeah, ignoring the fact that it excludes the two pivotal features of communism, monetary systems and governments.

Yeah I forgot that communism is slightly less retarded than the Venus Project.

every person is encouraged to contribute in whatever way they wish

I seriously doubt anyone would contribute anything at all.

They have nothing to gain

That is the reason.



btw, the only 'rights' animals have are to work for us and provide a protein rich meal.

thecite wrote:

lagwagon555 wrote:

This is really starting to look like communism with a bit of 'I hope technology solves everything' added in.

Yeah, ignoring the fact that it excludes the two pivotal features of communism, monetary systems and governments.

Only if you define government and monetary systems a certain narrow way. A government is a system for governing. Your society still has this. Decisions are still made. Vague statements about it being distributed mean nothing. How do you distribute a decision? A vote? The difference seems to be that i, as a private citizen, would have no ability to disagree with the almighty logic of the autocratic technology. Sounds fairly totalitarian to me. I'm curious if you've ever read 1984?

A monetary system is a bookkeeping system to determine who gets what resource, nothing more. Your society still has this. The difference is everyone's "budget" is forced on them from on high. People would have no ability to earn a better life for themselves by working hard. Is capitalism rock solid? No. There are panics and depressions. But over the scale of hundreds of years, it has proven to be enormously successful. Arguing counter to capitalism is perfectly acceptable, but understand that we are not capitalist on a whim. There are *reasons* why this is the basis of our society. You are claiming you have something better. Well, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Thora wrote:

...anarcho-syndicalist...

aaahhhh...monty python!  Brilliant!  I was already envisioning scenes from the magnificent "Brazil".   It's like some kind of cosmic karmic full circle.

Just because I love you for bringing up the best scene in Holy Grail, and I have no clue what this thread is about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI

"I am your king"
"King eh, well I didn't vote for ya.."

lmao