Optix334 t1_j572ezi wrote on January 20, 2023 at 9:16 PM

Reply to comment by andrevvm in How close are we to singularity? Data from MT says very close! by sigul77

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 on January 21, 2023 at 12:45 AM

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 on January 21, 2023 at 7:51 AM

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 on January 21, 2023 at 7:08 PM

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 on January 22, 2023 at 12:53 AM

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.