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> system where people don't have to be coerced to do things Was there ever a working system without some form of coercion? The common forms of coercion are eit

> system where people don't have to be coerced to do things Was there ever a working system without some form of coercion? The common forms of coercion are either withholding resources (usually money), or restricting freedom (prison / labor camp).

revolvingocelot 5y ago
The vast majority of conflicts were won with pre-modern weapons, but despite that overwhelming statistic, if I had to fight I'd prefer a rifle and modern armour. Maybe historical data alone without other context isn't the best way to predict the future -- unless you're trying to make it look like the past. IMO much of the open-source world appears to function entirely without "some form of coercion"...
- tjansen 5y ago
  > Maybe historical data alone without other context isn't the best way to predict the future So how can you get people do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them? > much of the open-source world appears to function entirely without "some form of coercion"... Does it? My impression is that the tedious and unpleasant work in large projects like Linux is often done by those who are paid for it.
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    >So how can you get people do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them? I don't think we're going to be able to discuss this. Our priors are too different. This question sneaks the premise that people won't and don't "do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them", despite counterexamples littering the (impressively capitalist) world. Engaging with the question on its face is accepting the premise. It'd be like if I asked the parent "by ensuring that nearly everyone has to do often-meaningless and sometimes actively harmful things in order to avoid succumbing to exposure, what are the powerful people (who can, and do, choose not to debase themselves thusly) trying to prevent?" For that matter, I might recommend David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, in answer to implication that all work is necessary. >My impression is that the tedious and unpleasant work in large projects like Linux is often done by those who are paid for it Linux itself didn't spring from a salaried worker, and large open-source projects having paid maintainers wasn't a requirement for their inception. AFAICT, paid maintainers exist precisely because their open-source projects have grown too large, unwieldy, and important to be allowed to be someone's pet project that's only worked on in spare moments. And it's not that nobody's interested in large open-source projects, it's that the current system doesn't allow one to focus oneself entirely on something that doesn't make money, because without money, one dies of exposure. I can say this with confidence, because all those open-source projects that now support paid workers evolved from smaller ones whose contributors worked for free-as-in-starving-artist.

revolvingocelot 5y ago

The vast majority of conflicts were won with pre-modern weapons, but despite that overwhelming statistic, if I had to fight I'd prefer a rifle and modern armour. Maybe historical data alone without other context isn't the best way to predict the future -- unless you're trying to make it look like the past. IMO much of the open-source world appears to function entirely without "some form of coercion"...

tjansen 5y ago
> Maybe historical data alone without other context isn't the best way to predict the future So how can you get people do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them? > much of the open-source world appears to function entirely without "some form of coercion"... Does it? My impression is that the tedious and unpleasant work in large projects like Linux is often done by those who are paid for it.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  >So how can you get people do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them? I don't think we're going to be able to discuss this. Our priors are too different. This question sneaks the premise that people won't and don't "do unpleasant but necessary work without direct benefit for them", despite counterexamples littering the (impressively capitalist) world. Engaging with the question on its face is accepting the premise. It'd be like if I asked the parent "by ensuring that nearly everyone has to do often-meaningless and sometimes actively harmful things in order to avoid succumbing to exposure, what are the powerful people (who can, and do, choose not to debase themselves thusly) trying to prevent?" For that matter, I might recommend David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, in answer to implication that all work is necessary. >My impression is that the tedious and unpleasant work in large projects like Linux is often done by those who are paid for it Linux itself didn't spring from a salaried worker, and large open-source projects having paid maintainers wasn't a requirement for their inception. AFAICT, paid maintainers exist precisely because their open-source projects have grown too large, unwieldy, and important to be allowed to be someone's pet project that's only worked on in spare moments. And it's not that nobody's interested in large open-source projects, it's that the current system doesn't allow one to focus oneself entirely on something that doesn't make money, because without money, one dies of exposure. I can say this with confidence, because all those open-source projects that now support paid workers evolved from smaller ones whose contributors worked for free-as-in-starving-artist.