5 ms·

We need human cooperatives stat. Militarised police and wretched prisons are not good churning mechanisms for a utopia-to-be.

by sova 9y ago

djsumdog 9y ago
Don't know why you're getting down voted. I like the idea of coops from Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Where ever you work, you should gain shares of ownership based on the number of years you put in, and get dividends for as long as you own those shares. The current system of work is pretty insane. It basically turns us into slaves that produce for peanuts what nets the people in charge a massive cut. They essentially get large payouts for being willing to take massive risks. Why is the FedEx guy who gambled the company to success considered an amazing story? That's as fucked up as Abraham being asked to murder Issac. He didn't give a damn about his employees. He was just willing to take insane risks to keep his shipping company going or let it all burn.
- sova 9y ago
  Yeah I don't understand the down-vote but people are afraid of the unknown, which is sad because there is a lot of good unknown out there. The best formula I've figured out so far is actually something I'm bending my life toward(!) and that is creating alternative environments to prisons. As someone wisely pointed out, the first question is "Are prisons for punishment, or for healing?" If they are for punishment, our society will suffer that price when people mingle minds with prisoners who are under punishment, and then try and re-integrate. This is why recidivism (rate of falling back into the prison machine) is really high in the US comparatively. Consider if the prison system were meant to heal and help people re-integrate! You know, I was reading about French philosophy and very early on, like in the 1600s the French realized that if you have a death penalty, the incentive for an inmate to reform is gone. Meaning: death penalty equates to "do not change because there is no point" but a prison sentence that is not terminal / whole-life actually does give incentive to reform. Yes, the economic system is unjust, but even worse we have people who are starving and dying in the cold because they have no money, and if they have no money we assume that they are not worth-y in the US. Very tragic. Anyway, I don't want to harp on too much about things I would change, I am actively in the process of creating a foundation for such things, and I'd rather do than say, and be than dream. I like your idea about getting shares -- it would be great if that is how we operated. Then you'd actually experience some of the wealth of the company over time. You help build this grape vine? Here, have some grapes in 6 months when it starts fruiting. Sure, more people join and maybe you only get 10 grapes next year since you left, or just one grape ten seasons from now, but it all adds up. Money is good for many things, but the fact that it is a requirement to have basic survival taken care of is just deplorable. "Who will pay for basic survival then?" Well, nobody! This place is so abundant with resource, we throw away enough food to feed the homeless. We already have empty houses where people could live, it's just our human concepts and discriminations that block us on the daily. If people did not have to fight for basic survival, could you imagine the number of Tupacs coming out of the ghetto? Could you imagine the number of Neil deGrasse Tysons coming to fruition? Most of the amazing minds we have are squandered to total frivolity, but will we ever show that on television? Will we ever have our propaganda machine look at its own shortcomings so we can make the nation we know possible?

We need human cooperatives stat. Militarised police and wretched prisons are not good churning mechanisms for a utopia-to-be.

by sova 9y ago

We need human cooperatives stat. Militarised police and wretched prisons are not good churning mechanisms for a utopia-to-be.

djsumdog 9y ago

Don't know why you're getting down voted. I like the idea of coops from Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Where ever you work, you should gain shares of ownership based on the number of years you put in, and get dividends for as long as you own those shares. The current system of work is pretty insane. It basically turns us into slaves that produce for peanuts what nets the people in charge a massive cut. They essentially get large payouts for being willing to take massive risks. Why is the FedEx guy who gambled the company to success considered an amazing story? That's as fucked up as Abraham being asked to murder Issac. He didn't give a damn about his employees. He was just willing to take insane risks to keep his shipping company going or let it all burn.

sova 9y ago
Yeah I don't understand the down-vote but people are afraid of the unknown, which is sad because there is a lot of good unknown out there. The best formula I've figured out so far is actually something I'm bending my life toward(!) and that is creating alternative environments to prisons. As someone wisely pointed out, the first question is "Are prisons for punishment, or for healing?" If they are for punishment, our society will suffer that price when people mingle minds with prisoners who are under punishment, and then try and re-integrate. This is why recidivism (rate of falling back into the prison machine) is really high in the US comparatively. Consider if the prison system were meant to heal and help people re-integrate! You know, I was reading about French philosophy and very early on, like in the 1600s the French realized that if you have a death penalty, the incentive for an inmate to reform is gone. Meaning: death penalty equates to "do not change because there is no point" but a prison sentence that is not terminal / whole-life actually does give incentive to reform. Yes, the economic system is unjust, but even worse we have people who are starving and dying in the cold because they have no money, and if they have no money we assume that they are not worth-y in the US. Very tragic. Anyway, I don't want to harp on too much about things I would change, I am actively in the process of creating a foundation for such things, and I'd rather do than say, and be than dream. I like your idea about getting shares -- it would be great if that is how we operated. Then you'd actually experience some of the wealth of the company over time. You help build this grape vine? Here, have some grapes in 6 months when it starts fruiting. Sure, more people join and maybe you only get 10 grapes next year since you left, or just one grape ten seasons from now, but it all adds up. Money is good for many things, but the fact that it is a requirement to have basic survival taken care of is just deplorable. "Who will pay for basic survival then?" Well, nobody! This place is so abundant with resource, we throw away enough food to feed the homeless. We already have empty houses where people could live, it's just our human concepts and discriminations that block us on the daily. If people did not have to fight for basic survival, could you imagine the number of Tupacs coming out of the ghetto? Could you imagine the number of Neil deGrasse Tysons coming to fruition? Most of the amazing minds we have are squandered to total frivolity, but will we ever show that on television? Will we ever have our propaganda machine look at its own shortcomings so we can make the nation we know possible?