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Sphaerocypraea OP t1_iqq8idh wrote

Reply to comment by apriorian in Utopia”: meaning ‘no place’; from Greek: οὐ (not’) and τόπος (‘place’) by Sphaerocypraea

I think I understand what you’re suggesting, but I think your comment about duty needs to be qualified: What I think is bad is non-voluntary duty, not duty in-itself. Duties/obligations can provide many benefits and are necessary for any system of law to function, but they must be accepted and entered into by a voluntary choice. Like the idea of a social contract. For example, the choice to have children incurs a duty to care for them until they reach adulthood; whereas, being born isn’t a voluntary choice of the child, so the child doesn’t have any duty or obligation towards their parents unless they choose to accept one.

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apriorian t1_iqq9dtb wrote

That is certainly a valid point, however I do not think designer or customized duties rise to the level of what a real duty is. I am not suggesting we do not say a man owes a duty to his family but this duty enforced by others is a far different thing than this care freely and lovingly exercised.

But the minute we start imposing duties on others, what have we but slavery. We can quibble about the degree and extent but the duty of one is always matched by the right of someone else. The stronger the duty and the broader it is the more like a slave one becomes.

My question is, why must the man have this duty, he can have a desire to care for his family by ought there to exist levers of power that forces this duty on them and why does society feel the need. I am not saying we do not have to pay our costs but I am against the language. I am against a way of thinking that ends up justifying a group of experts and elites dictating to a large group of subjects what their obligations are. I start from a position of equality and the existence of duty precludes equality.

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wrongsage t1_iqqd59l wrote

Simply because life at its very core is a conversion of energy. That energy needs to be supplied. Since we are talking about a society, one would assume people belonging to such society would help with the resource management and distribution, even to those, who can not directly partake themselves.

How do you run a society without duties and privileges? And what is the goal of such community?

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apriorian t1_iqqg32c wrote

The purpose of man is to create value. There is only one way to do this, through specialization. Equiton is a model community without duties. It is represented by an accounting system using equity in the form of preferred shares contracted to prefers, as a type of currency. Adding value to assets creates equity which represents a credit to the persons account.

Since Equiton is a creation of its citizens it is owned by its citizens who work to add value to the city though specialized activity. Because all persons benefit from the work of adding value there is no benefit to anyone being idle or prevented from working, which means there is no poverty and everyone is well able to pay for the things they need.

(And I am well aware that a two paragraph summary does not exhaust every issue and question regarding a new model of society).

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biedl t1_iqqmdur wrote

Why is the purpose of man to create value? How do you know the purpose of man? How do you know there is purpose to begin with?

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wrongsage t1_iqrq9jy wrote

You need to provide a lot more details than that to make any sense. Because what you wrote does not conclude any of your points you made at the end.

There will be people, who can't produce value, who don't want to, who want to destroy the value instead of creating it. There may be competing societies who run on different systems. Just by having stake in the society (essentially socialism) you do not solve any of those problems.

From the very basics, you need education for any long-term community, and that in and of itself does not do well without duties.

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apriorian t1_iqrvqxt wrote

Am I to understand from this you did not read the essay or you do not know how an experiment is conducted?

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Sphaerocypraea OP t1_iqqbfkg wrote

I also don’t like the word “duty”. It is associated in my mind with cold and repressive Stoic, religious, patriarchal and manipulative power dynamics. Could some kind of voluntary and chosen ‘obligations’ be admitted, rather than ‘duties’?

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apriorian t1_iqqi9a7 wrote

IMO what is often referred to as the market is the only other option. We either force people to align with our agenda, or we permit each person to work and spend. It may seem overly simplistic but there is no other option.

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