Submitted by sigul77 t3_10gxx47 in Futurology
Tomycj t1_j55wxan wrote
Reply to comment by andrevvm in How close are we to singularity? Data from MT says very close! by sigul77
Capitalism is being more and more "checked" (restricted) over time, in most places. Countries are becoming less capitalist.
The concept of ownership is a behaviour that evolved in society as a way to handle the scarcity of resources. "Nobody owns anything" means in reality "everybody owns everything", which results in chaos and wasteful use of resources. Destroying this mechanism would result in an even bigger harm to the planet, and to our quality of life.
h3lblad3 t1_j58cosn wrote
There's an argument to be had about ensuring that wealth producers (ie working people) be compensated equivalent to their participation, but more than that, a business has its own internal politics, and if we accept that any government should be democratic then it leaves open the question of "does a business ever govern its own affairs and actions" and therefore "should the business, as a minor sort of government, itself be democratized".
Tomycj t1_j58p0ws wrote
Democracy doesn't mean "everyone shall vote on everything". Voting is restricted to a specific series of things or a certain nature. How to run a private business is not one of them.
There are fundamental differences between a company and a government, one can't just say "a company is sort of like a small government".
Nevertheless, in capitalism people are free to create businesses run by "democratic" vote of its members. Usually that doesn't happen simply because for most scenarios such a system turns out to be less efficient, meaning other companies are better at satisfying the consumer.
h3lblad3 t1_j592qde wrote
> Nevertheless, in capitalism people are free to create businesses run by "democratic" vote of its members.
Much the same way that you're free to go start your own "democratic" country.
Tomycj t1_j59gxl8 wrote
No, not really. Starting a company is easier than starting a country.
andrevvm t1_j56dcgg wrote
For sure! I’m not in the “no ownership” camp, as going backwards like that is nearly impossible. Rather an evolution of the concept, a general shift in mentality from “mine” to “ours” would be a good start.
Optix334 t1_j572ezi wrote
Its never going to happen, and yes it has been tried before. People want things that are their own. Their own space, their own items and commodities, their own foods, etc. Hell we even see it with "My Truth" and stupid other things that shouldn't be.
No-ownership societies have been tried before. Outside of brainwashed cults and communities with less than 30 people, it never works for any significant length of time.
You can have ownership AND a good, fair society. As much as people whine about it on Reddit, the world today is actually closer to that than ever before. Get off the website and go talk to people IRL instead to see it.
andrevvm t1_j57wmlh wrote
A lot of those natural behaviors have been exploited and intensified, because yeah it makes a ton of money. But yeah as animals we do need our personal territories and smaller immediate units. That won’t go away any time soon.
We can’t even guess what dynamics a future society will have, esp as the social landscape shifts rapidly with technology advancement. The conformist society of the 50s would have their minds blown by our hyper individualist society, a short 7 decades later. That shift was driven entirely by capitalism, as manufacturers gained the production capabilities to enable it. So what motivating factor will drive society next? Anyone’s guess really
Optix334 t1_j596a4t wrote
You're talking about a system that bucks the trend of 10,000 years of recorded human behavior, and likely the same behavior for all the remaining 200,000 years of unrecorded human existence. People have always owned things and have been reluctant to share. We're defined by this trait for all of our recorded history.
Your example of the 50's is just not applicable here. It's not even close. Being conformist doesn't have anything to do with ownership. Do you even understand what being conformist in the 50s means? Using that as an example is like saying "hey cars went from blocky to sleek in 10 years. Who knows maybe they'll be flying in space soon!" - it's completely ignorant of any other factors that drove certain improvements and puts it squarely on capitalism. You sure it's entirely capitalism and not anything like the availability and increase in desire for education at the same time? It couldn't possibly be a side effect of the civil rights movement snuffing out conformity?
I could keep going. It's amazing how reductive (and frankly just dumb) Redditors are as they try so hard to blame capitalism for literally every problem.
The trend in technology is that it allows us to maintain our lifestyle preferences. It doesn't completely uproot them. Could some unfathomable change happen to flip this trend in the other direction? Sure, but it's unlikely and there are nothing but indicators of the opposite. It's about as likely as me flying to space in an SUV in the next 10 years.
andrevvm t1_j5b8moy wrote
You keep arguing against a no-ownership position when I clearly said that’s not what I’m talking about.
Our concept of ownership is verrry different from the native Americans’ just a few hundred years ago. The concept will shift and evolve as society shifts and evolves, and it would be nice to see it go in a more collective direction rather than the atomized path we’ve gone down. That’s ALL I’m saying. Take a deep breath and enjoy your Saturday!
Optix334 t1_j5cmow1 wrote
Because you're actually arguing for no ownership. You think you're not, but you're basically saying that communities "own" things, which is crap. Your Native American example is just as bunk as anything else. Not only were the tribes diverse in their customs, the vast majority believed in personal property. Some to the point that people of higher importance got better things. One example, Google "Horse Culture" among Native Americans. The same existed for almost everything and they definitely bartered along themselves with personal possessions. It's been a big topic of research and discussion for economists recently since libertarians use examples of Native American systems all the time. Maybe you're referencing how they didn't own land, but that again is a half truth. Pretty sure there are some famous stories about how the land was bought. Just generalizing the tribes like you did shows the ignorance on display.
Tomycj t1_j57ij18 wrote
"a shift from 'mine' to 'ours'" is too vague, it could very well mean the "everybody owns everything" thing that I mentioned, with its bad results.
andrevvm t1_j57mg20 wrote
A specific example could be cars. Nobody really needs to own one, they sit unused the majority of the time. The individualist/identity market has further commodified them unnecessarily.
Communal access to them has been tricky logistically, and currently somebody does need to own them to prevent chaos. However, AI and trustless networks could solve a lot of those menial and inefficient tasks. A public transportation network, that has trustless incentives to maintain and operate would be really cool to see I think. Feasibility, yeah, not so sure… requires a large behavioral shift as well.
Ownership and money are closely tied. Reducing ownership could lessen the power of money (but not obsolete), easing divisive political discourse, resulting in a less divided population, who are more inclined to work together as a whole to keep the wheels turning. Daydreaming here, but we don’t know what future societies look like.
Tomycj t1_j585851 wrote
>Nobody really needs to own one, they sit unused the majority of the time
Most of our stuff sits unused most of the time. Part of their value and usefulness, is the fact they are there, safe and ready to be used when needed.
>The individualist/identity market has further commodified them unnecessarily.
The market is simply the network of people trading stuff. Cars, as lots of things that satisfy our needs, are commodities. By individualist you mean "people do not want to share"?
Look, I'm not saying the current situation is the ideal, but so far, it's around the best most people can do. The market must be free precisely to improve on that situation, once the conditions allow it. There's people constantly trying to come up with a better solution, and those ideas are constantly being "tested" in the market.
AI and other new tech does have the potential to change the paradigm, to enable more efficient use of things that remain unused, without losing the benefit of safety and availability I mentioned before. But that solution doesn't necessarily have to be some sort of communal property. You seem to like to imagine that would be better, but as others said, there are problems with it, that aren't necessarily solved with more tech.
>Ownership and money are closely tied
Because money is a tool to trade more efficiently. Without it, we would have to resort to bartering. Money is not inherently bad, wanting to get rid of it should not be a motivation to eliminate the concept of property. The idea that without money society would be kinder and more organized for the greater good is just a fantasy, that would absolutely not happen. In reality, money is an important component in a system that allows for people to work together: it allows you to work for things that others want (say, making toys), in exchange for things that you want (money from the salary to buy the things you want). The system of prices (which relies on money) is an extremely powerful, decentralized way to transmit information and organize our work at large scale.
andrevvm t1_j587wsy wrote
I’m not here to be right friend, I’m just having fun pontificating. But thank you for reiterating that money won’t be obsolete and the detailed description of how it works!
Tomycj t1_j58p701 wrote
I know, I just like to discuss these things, and this sub is in part for these sorts of things: how could society work in the future.
h3lblad3 t1_j58dcag wrote
>ommunal access to them has been tricky logistically, and currently somebody does need to own them to prevent chaos. However, AI and trustless networks could solve a lot of those menial and inefficient tasks. A public transportation network, that has trustless incentives to maintain and operate would be really cool to see I think.
Nothing stops a perfectly viable public transportation system that is all-encompassing from existing now except the utter lack of profit in running it.
>Ownership and money are closely tied.
Ownership of capital is the sign of success in our society. Money is the entity that acts as a go-between allowing for ease of pricing and exchange of different forms of capital. They are not "closely tied"; they are inseparable.
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