6 ms·

Are you familiar with potlatch society in the old Pacific Northwest? With wealth readily available, the "big men" of a tribe (roughly chiefs, but not hereditary

Are you familiar with potlatch society in the old Pacific Northwest? With wealth readily available, the "big men" of a tribe (roughly chiefs, but not hereditary) competed to see how much they could give away to their neighbors and rivals; all you had to do to eat well, or make it through a bad winter, was to admit that your neighbors were led by a great and glorious chief. This system didn't work very well at the time (it bred slavery and warlordism, and produced a lot of waste, especially towards the end, when trade goods were abundant and population was running out); but it'll become increasingly more doable as capital becomes more productive. Magnanimity is a human instinct, and people already compete on status and prestige; just persuade holders of capital that supporting the unemployed/unemployable is a good thing, make sure they get personal feel-good-ness out of it, and persuade the unemployed/unemployable not to run up the red flag, and you've probably got a stable system. Probably. I don't think we need to worry about slavery much, but warlordism could become a serious issue. Where potlatch-like culture exists, aggressive bids for the throne (or equivalent) tend to follow; the Earl of Warwick in the War of the Roses comes to mind. Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die) -- the Wars of the Roses had roughly zero impact on the common people of England. (See A Farewell to Alms for a detailed discussion of how England's wars, starting from a pretty early date, avoided messing up England's people.) This is all hypothetical, though; I'm not saying that a potlatch orientation is the only possible solution, nor even that it's necessarily a working solution at all...

inimino 10y ago
What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?
- ianai 10y ago
  Cutting a check sounds a lot less problematic than warlordism/etc
- wojcech 10y ago
  People think taxes are evil but for dome reason will accept warlords?
  - krakensden 10y ago
    The thing about warlords is you get to skip the 'acceptance' bit.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    A gun in your face shortcuts a lot of inconvenient thinking.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    See Bush, George II and Nixon, Richard.
- wyager 10y ago
  Why are gifts preferable to taxes? This seems fairly self-evident to me; gifts aren't given at (metaphorical) gunpoint.
  - Filligree 10y ago
    How do you think the warlords—warlords—get those 'gifts' in the first place? Taxes are at least predictable.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  "What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?": If you like getting giftcards at Xmas, nothing. But gifts from Santa or a potlatch are more fun, and more intimate. Choosing gifts forces us to think about each others' needs and desires, which is extremely pro-social.
visarga 10y ago
Everyone could have his own small farm, fab and robots. No need to rely on "big men" competing for karma points from the peasants.
- jononor 10y ago
  But the land is all owned already, and not by the people who's jobs are being replaced? And so far automation in farming is focused on large-scale operation, with much less good solutions for family -scale.
  - visarga 10y ago
    Economies of scale have been the bread and butter of progress in the last 100 years, but we're entering the age of customization now. Adaptive technologies can work on small scale as well as on large scale. And large scale can still be achieved by coops that provide services for many people at once. People do have capital and resources, it's just spread and divided. What we need is to organize. I give self-replicating factories a higher probability than AGI. We'll probably have a 100% automated stack that can replicate and repair itself, as well as produce everything we need, all based on locally sourced and plentiful materials, before we have human level AI. It will be a manufacturing singularity. We should bootstrap automation in itself, like we bootstrap compilers. Object production would become similar to compilation, from source code to material object. We'd have optimized material compilers. When we have a replicator, anyone can have one. Industry would become like agriculture, if you have the initial seeds, you can plant and then you bootstrap your crop. If you think about self replication, on the whole, industry is a self replicator right now. But we need to make it fully automated, reduce its minimal footprint and make it less reliant on rare materials. There is a need for sustainable, smart materials and open source automation and AI in order to save the population from disenfranchisement. Capital and the means of production should belong to all of us, not just the 1%.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      Even if everyone has their own replicator, the competition shifts to who controls raw materials, and who controls energy. Fresh water, for example, is a scarce (and becoming scarcer) resource, and it's impossible to farm or live without it.
ab5tract 10y ago
Interesting that your example of warlordism in a "potlach-like" culture is from a feudal society. The rest you've said is a gross misrepresentation of the giveaway culture shared amongst many more tribes than just the Northwest ones. And of course, white academia will just refuse and say "our written documentation written by genocidal outsiders is way more accurate than what the cultures themselves say about themselves through their own oral traditions". This must be an interesting book that somehow argues that wars that killed huge numbers of civilians somehow had zero impact. Looking at the criticism of the book it seems to also argue that there were no negative effects of colonialism. Funny, I wonder if the millions of people killed in North America between 1500 and 1900 would agree with that.
- coldtea 10y ago
  It obviously means no negative effects for the colonizers. Which, come to think of it, it's true. Except some guilt maybe.
  - ab5tract 10y ago
    What an excellent disregard of externalities.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Why stop keeping track at 1900?
  - ab5tract 10y ago
    Because since 1900 the genocide shifted from bodies to minds. IE, the millions of deaths occurred prior.
Nomentatus 10y ago
I like the comment, and you could add in the Roman "client" system which had real similarities. Rich citizens also acquired more status by donating public buildings or sponsoring games and festivals. More than one society has gone this route, with success. But just a couple corrections re potlatch society: slavery happened in the Pacific Northwest with and without potlatch; potlatch didn't cause slavery. The fishing grounds in this region were the richest in the world at the time (they collapsed almost a century ago under white rule), if you conquered a neighbor (and that was frequent) you could afford to keep 'em and feed 'em, at least for a long time until your population expanded. So slavery was practical in a way it isn't for nomads, say. Excess production was the norm. Unemployment was dealt with largely by exalting art, and devoting an immense amount of the GNP to that, with spectacular results over time. So most excess labor and production was actually devoted to art, not giveaways. I suspect that's the real lesson, although I'm a No Man's Sky devotee - it's a damn wonderful art generator, if you like landscapes, as I do. Maybe humans can't compete there, anymore, either! Warlordism in an age of drones will do little for unemployment; but it's also easier, particularly for democracies, if only your machines get bent up in a successful war of aggression. So it may happen more, but will not be a safety valve for unemployment.
- GauntletWizard 10y ago
  I've been promoting this as the real solution to unemployment - An explosion of incredibly custom and niche art of various forms. We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities. Not simply personalities like PewDiePie and Markiplier, who are big enough that they're more and more traditional media, even if they came from simpler roots - But the shows that have a few thousand or even hundred viewers. It's not profitable yet, but it's getting there. Patreon is a very key component of this - A few bucks here and there, and the creative class can earn a living - Or simply supplement a part-time job.
  - braveo 10y ago
    > We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities. That's a non-sequitur, you may as well say we're seeing this with the explosiong of freelancers and personal businesses. Because that's really what those youtube personalities are, but that doesn't really address the issue of the older folks who have lost their jobs.
Can_Not 10y ago
> Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die) Warlordism sounds much worse than communism and fascism. Any culture that is sufficiently advanced to not be chaos and wars for the lords under walordism, would be much better without the warlords. Advanced societies with abundant resources and abundant capital do not need gatekeeping hoarders playing charity Olympics.

inimino 10y ago

What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?

ianai 10y ago
Cutting a check sounds a lot less problematic than warlordism/etc
wojcech 10y ago
People think taxes are evil but for dome reason will accept warlords?
- krakensden 10y ago
  The thing about warlords is you get to skip the 'acceptance' bit.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  A gun in your face shortcuts a lot of inconvenient thinking.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  See Bush, George II and Nixon, Richard.
wyager 10y ago
Why are gifts preferable to taxes? This seems fairly self-evident to me; gifts aren't given at (metaphorical) gunpoint.
- Filligree 10y ago
  How do you think the warlords—warlords—get those 'gifts' in the first place? Taxes are at least predictable.
Nomentatus 10y ago
"What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?": If you like getting giftcards at Xmas, nothing. But gifts from Santa or a potlatch are more fun, and more intimate. Choosing gifts forces us to think about each others' needs and desires, which is extremely pro-social.

visarga 10y ago

Everyone could have his own small farm, fab and robots. No need to rely on "big men" competing for karma points from the peasants.

jononor 10y ago
But the land is all owned already, and not by the people who's jobs are being replaced? And so far automation in farming is focused on large-scale operation, with much less good solutions for family -scale.
- visarga 10y ago
  Economies of scale have been the bread and butter of progress in the last 100 years, but we're entering the age of customization now. Adaptive technologies can work on small scale as well as on large scale. And large scale can still be achieved by coops that provide services for many people at once. People do have capital and resources, it's just spread and divided. What we need is to organize. I give self-replicating factories a higher probability than AGI. We'll probably have a 100% automated stack that can replicate and repair itself, as well as produce everything we need, all based on locally sourced and plentiful materials, before we have human level AI. It will be a manufacturing singularity. We should bootstrap automation in itself, like we bootstrap compilers. Object production would become similar to compilation, from source code to material object. We'd have optimized material compilers. When we have a replicator, anyone can have one. Industry would become like agriculture, if you have the initial seeds, you can plant and then you bootstrap your crop. If you think about self replication, on the whole, industry is a self replicator right now. But we need to make it fully automated, reduce its minimal footprint and make it less reliant on rare materials. There is a need for sustainable, smart materials and open source automation and AI in order to save the population from disenfranchisement. Capital and the means of production should belong to all of us, not just the 1%.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Even if everyone has their own replicator, the competition shifts to who controls raw materials, and who controls energy. Fresh water, for example, is a scarce (and becoming scarcer) resource, and it's impossible to farm or live without it.

ab5tract 10y ago

Interesting that your example of warlordism in a "potlach-like" culture is from a feudal society. The rest you've said is a gross misrepresentation of the giveaway culture shared amongst many more tribes than just the Northwest ones. And of course, white academia will just refuse and say "our written documentation written by genocidal outsiders is way more accurate than what the cultures themselves say about themselves through their own oral traditions". This must be an interesting book that somehow argues that wars that killed huge numbers of civilians somehow had zero impact. Looking at the criticism of the book it seems to also argue that there were no negative effects of colonialism. Funny, I wonder if the millions of people killed in North America between 1500 and 1900 would agree with that.

coldtea 10y ago
It obviously means no negative effects for the colonizers. Which, come to think of it, it's true. Except some guilt maybe.
- ab5tract 10y ago
  What an excellent disregard of externalities.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Why stop keeping track at 1900?
- ab5tract 10y ago
  Because since 1900 the genocide shifted from bodies to minds. IE, the millions of deaths occurred prior.

Nomentatus 10y ago

I like the comment, and you could add in the Roman "client" system which had real similarities. Rich citizens also acquired more status by donating public buildings or sponsoring games and festivals. More than one society has gone this route, with success. But just a couple corrections re potlatch society: slavery happened in the Pacific Northwest with and without potlatch; potlatch didn't cause slavery. The fishing grounds in this region were the richest in the world at the time (they collapsed almost a century ago under white rule), if you conquered a neighbor (and that was frequent) you could afford to keep 'em and feed 'em, at least for a long time until your population expanded. So slavery was practical in a way it isn't for nomads, say. Excess production was the norm. Unemployment was dealt with largely by exalting art, and devoting an immense amount of the GNP to that, with spectacular results over time. So most excess labor and production was actually devoted to art, not giveaways. I suspect that's the real lesson, although I'm a No Man's Sky devotee - it's a damn wonderful art generator, if you like landscapes, as I do. Maybe humans can't compete there, anymore, either! Warlordism in an age of drones will do little for unemployment; but it's also easier, particularly for democracies, if only your machines get bent up in a successful war of aggression. So it may happen more, but will not be a safety valve for unemployment.

GauntletWizard 10y ago
I've been promoting this as the real solution to unemployment - An explosion of incredibly custom and niche art of various forms. We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities. Not simply personalities like PewDiePie and Markiplier, who are big enough that they're more and more traditional media, even if they came from simpler roots - But the shows that have a few thousand or even hundred viewers. It's not profitable yet, but it's getting there. Patreon is a very key component of this - A few bucks here and there, and the creative class can earn a living - Or simply supplement a part-time job.
- braveo 10y ago
  > We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities. That's a non-sequitur, you may as well say we're seeing this with the explosiong of freelancers and personal businesses. Because that's really what those youtube personalities are, but that doesn't really address the issue of the older folks who have lost their jobs.

Can_Not 10y ago

> Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die) Warlordism sounds much worse than communism and fascism. Any culture that is sufficiently advanced to not be chaos and wars for the lords under walordism, would be much better without the warlords. Advanced societies with abundant resources and abundant capital do not need gatekeeping hoarders playing charity Olympics.