4 ms·

> This has worked in other human societies before so this should be possible Which ones?

by Chris2048 5y ago

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Many indigenous cultures. The Iroquois native Americans might be one example. There was no notion that a minority got rich off the labor of others.
- dnissley 5y ago
  Any that definitely supported some form of individual rights? As a total weirdo it frightens me to think that I might have been born into a society where my differences may have caused me great suffering at the hands of tradition.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I’m not sure I follow? In today’s society a lot of people suffer because they are different. Disabled people for example, who would have been cared for in indigenous cultures. Yes the Iroquois supported individual rights. They just had a culture where whatever you did, you kept the needs of others in mind and did what you could to help. You were still an individual.
    - quin3 5y ago
      While true, without advancements in modern healthcare, many of the disabilities people go through life with today would result in a much earlier death. Cystic fibrosis for example is to this day incredulously expensive to treat but with a much greater life expectancy than during the heyday of the Iroquois.
      - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        I believe we can to some extent have both: a culture that supports all people and also produces high end medical equipment. The point of mentioning other cultures is to point out that human nature allows it.
        throwaway438290 5y ago
        I'm willing to believe that we could continue to produce the equipment we do today. But what's the motivation to advance? Take programming: we could all easily cut down our work hours by just maintaining current systems, which do a huge amount already. There are artificial forces that make us continue to trade one-time innovations for the same living standards as yesterday. Why not automate food production etc, and share the minimal maintenance required? I think the reason societies that stand still in this way haven't stuck around is ultimately that nations compete with each other, and will come and take everything once they advance further.
        TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        There are a lot of motivations to advance. Why do we research cancer cures? We use profit motives to encourage the formation of specific organizations but the reason we really care about curing cancer is that we lose loved ones that mean the world to us. Similarly, the developers of Blender are able to get paid for their work, but it seems that they choose this particular task because it interests them. If they had all of their material needs met, they might take a break and work fewer hours but I’d bet they might still work on blender for fun. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just obsessed with designing new robots because it’s fun. In the last three months I’ve created a four axis robot arm from scratch (each gearbox is custom designed and integrated with the 3D printed frame)[1]. Nobody is paying me. The only reason I do paid work is that I need money for survival. But I would still be working on robots if all my material needs were met by machines. And I’d also teach classes on how they work and how to design them, and I’d be in the shop making new designs because that’s already what I spend all my time on. And we can automate food production! See my profile for the open source farming robot I am designing. And the robot arm I am working on as a personal project is something I hope I can use in a free food production system. You can make a super healthy vegetable and lentil curry for $2 per dish in raw cost. The machine that makes it can be the size of a van and it doesn’t need human workers. If a community owned such a machine they could all eat a really healthy diet for a few dollars a day. [1] https://twitter.com/tlalexander/status/1453238105230675976?s=21 https://twitter.com/tlalexander/status/1453238105230675976?s...
  - 77pt77 5y ago
    Same as today. Very little.
- shreyshnaccount 5y ago
  a tangent: I remember reading that historically, Chinese doctors were paid by the healthy people in order to keep the community healthy, and a sick person would not pay until they recovered. I would compare it to insurance, but that's not really the same, it would be of doctors were the insurance providers, but the current model just makes a third party really rich and incentivises the doctors to wish general cough and cold on the community (I'm not saying that doctors are evil, just that the current system doesn't make sense to me) I'd love to hear an opposing view, and why you think that way. cheers, have a great day yall
- Chris2048 5y ago
  Servicing village sized tribes in relatively plentiful biomes, vs nation-level populations (serviced by machines) seem to be very different things.
- malthuswaswrong 5y ago
  And how did those indigenous cultures fair when they came in contact with Western systems of resource collection and distribution? How can a system be both agrarian and strong enough to survive contact with non-agrarian systems? How do you stop 10 people from secretly working hard and producing an extra ration of gruel right under your commie nose?
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    Well, we just watched the greatest military in the world™ scuttle out of Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society as long as its prepared. Pre-Colonial American societies were decimated by the biological warfare of the Europeans first. Now America turns its taste for biological warfare on itself. But, anyway, I digress.
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      > so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society America did not invade, or go to war with Afghanistan - it was attempting to liberate it, not annihilate it.
      - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        America absolutely invaded Afghanistan. I don't see the point of this line of questions but if you want a better example see Vietnam.
        Chris2048 5y ago
        I think you're ignoring the context of my comment. The USA entered alright, but the common meaning of invade is > (of an armed force) enter (a country or region) so as to subjugate or occupy it. and subjugate in turn: > bring under domination or control, especially by conquest. American did not intend to annihilate Afghans, nor the Vietnamese. > I don't see the point of this line of questions That the resistance you describe depends on the behaviour of the aggressor. Could the Japanese resist the atomic bomb? Could German Jews peacefully/non-violently resist the Nazi regime?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > There was no notion that a minority got rich off the labor of others. Northern Iroquois Slavery https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I do not argue that the Iroquois were perfect, but we are not comparing them to a perfect society.

> This has worked in other human societies before so this should be possible Which ones?

Many indigenous cultures. The Iroquois native Americans might be one example. There was no notion that a minority got rich off the labor of others.

dnissley 5y ago
Any that definitely supported some form of individual rights? As a total weirdo it frightens me to think that I might have been born into a society where my differences may have caused me great suffering at the hands of tradition.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I’m not sure I follow? In today’s society a lot of people suffer because they are different. Disabled people for example, who would have been cared for in indigenous cultures. Yes the Iroquois supported individual rights. They just had a culture where whatever you did, you kept the needs of others in mind and did what you could to help. You were still an individual.
  - quin3 5y ago
    While true, without advancements in modern healthcare, many of the disabilities people go through life with today would result in a much earlier death. Cystic fibrosis for example is to this day incredulously expensive to treat but with a much greater life expectancy than during the heyday of the Iroquois.
    - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      I believe we can to some extent have both: a culture that supports all people and also produces high end medical equipment. The point of mentioning other cultures is to point out that human nature allows it.
      - throwaway438290 5y ago
        I'm willing to believe that we could continue to produce the equipment we do today. But what's the motivation to advance? Take programming: we could all easily cut down our work hours by just maintaining current systems, which do a huge amount already. There are artificial forces that make us continue to trade one-time innovations for the same living standards as yesterday. Why not automate food production etc, and share the minimal maintenance required? I think the reason societies that stand still in this way haven't stuck around is ultimately that nations compete with each other, and will come and take everything once they advance further.
        TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        There are a lot of motivations to advance. Why do we research cancer cures? We use profit motives to encourage the formation of specific organizations but the reason we really care about curing cancer is that we lose loved ones that mean the world to us. Similarly, the developers of Blender are able to get paid for their work, but it seems that they choose this particular task because it interests them. If they had all of their material needs met, they might take a break and work fewer hours but I’d bet they might still work on blender for fun. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just obsessed with designing new robots because it’s fun. In the last three months I’ve created a four axis robot arm from scratch (each gearbox is custom designed and integrated with the 3D printed frame)[1]. Nobody is paying me. The only reason I do paid work is that I need money for survival. But I would still be working on robots if all my material needs were met by machines. And I’d also teach classes on how they work and how to design them, and I’d be in the shop making new designs because that’s already what I spend all my time on. And we can automate food production! See my profile for the open source farming robot I am designing. And the robot arm I am working on as a personal project is something I hope I can use in a free food production system. You can make a super healthy vegetable and lentil curry for $2 per dish in raw cost. The machine that makes it can be the size of a van and it doesn’t need human workers. If a community owned such a machine they could all eat a really healthy diet for a few dollars a day. [1] https://twitter.com/tlalexander/status/1453238105230675976?s=21 https://twitter.com/tlalexander/status/1453238105230675976?s...
- 77pt77 5y ago
  Same as today. Very little.
shreyshnaccount 5y ago
a tangent: I remember reading that historically, Chinese doctors were paid by the healthy people in order to keep the community healthy, and a sick person would not pay until they recovered. I would compare it to insurance, but that's not really the same, it would be of doctors were the insurance providers, but the current model just makes a third party really rich and incentivises the doctors to wish general cough and cold on the community (I'm not saying that doctors are evil, just that the current system doesn't make sense to me) I'd love to hear an opposing view, and why you think that way. cheers, have a great day yall
Chris2048 5y ago
Servicing village sized tribes in relatively plentiful biomes, vs nation-level populations (serviced by machines) seem to be very different things.
malthuswaswrong 5y ago
And how did those indigenous cultures fair when they came in contact with Western systems of resource collection and distribution? How can a system be both agrarian and strong enough to survive contact with non-agrarian systems? How do you stop 10 people from secretly working hard and producing an extra ration of gruel right under your commie nose?
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  Well, we just watched the greatest military in the world™ scuttle out of Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society as long as its prepared. Pre-Colonial American societies were decimated by the biological warfare of the Europeans first. Now America turns its taste for biological warfare on itself. But, anyway, I digress.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    > so we know that a primarily agrarian society CAN resist a militaristic society America did not invade, or go to war with Afghanistan - it was attempting to liberate it, not annihilate it.
    - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      America absolutely invaded Afghanistan. I don't see the point of this line of questions but if you want a better example see Vietnam.
      - Chris2048 5y ago
        I think you're ignoring the context of my comment. The USA entered alright, but the common meaning of invade is > (of an armed force) enter (a country or region) so as to subjugate or occupy it. and subjugate in turn: > bring under domination or control, especially by conquest. American did not intend to annihilate Afghans, nor the Vietnamese. > I don't see the point of this line of questions That the resistance you describe depends on the behaviour of the aggressor. Could the Japanese resist the atomic bomb? Could German Jews peacefully/non-violently resist the Nazi regime?
WalterBright 5y ago
> There was no notion that a minority got rich off the labor of others. Northern Iroquois Slavery https://www.jstor.org/stable/482790
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I do not argue that the Iroquois were perfect, but we are not comparing them to a perfect society.