5 ms·

> Who is going to do the jobs that need doing but are not so pleasant - like washing dishes? Generally this work can either be done by machines, it can be done

> Who is going to do the jobs that need doing but are not so pleasant - like washing dishes? Generally this work can either be done by machines, it can be done by the people who are eating the food, it can be done in rotation by all people who participate in the system, or it can be done by people who feel like washing dishes is their way to contribute back to society. I am definitely a big fan of the idea that to make this work, we need to intentionally automate more stuff. Right now minimum wage is so low that capitalist organizations are happy to just throw bodies at the problem, but you could easily use durable dishes that feed in to a little mechanized washer. Such a system would also benefit from centralization, so there are lower numbers of larger facilities. Or you could have a spoke and hub model where the main processing equipment is in the center and different restaurants share that infrastructure. Finally I will say that there is already an existence proof of a culture that does this every day. The Sikhs in India operate facilities all over India that offer free food on a large scale (the largest facilities offer 50k-100k free meals a day). They have zero robots and it all works out for them. I'm sure if we work in robots and also change our attitudes, we can do it here. Take a look at this video, it is beautiful and deeply thought provoking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdoJroKUwu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdoJroKUwu0 > I also expect that making money is a prime motivator for artists, and also drives the quality of their work. I think you would find few people in the art community who agree with this. I am not an artist but that is my speculation. Also if you look at historical art, I don't think money was a prime motivator. You could also look at basketball. Probably most basketball players play because they enjoy it. I suspect very few only do it because they plan to get rich. Oh, and I did not say we should eliminate money. Artists could make money if they want to. It would just not be required for survival.

WalterBright 4y ago
> I think you would find few people in the art community who agree with this. I happen to know some successful artists (you'd recognize their names), and they are very much in it for the big bucks. You will find many who say they are in it for the purity, but their actions belie it. BTW, your ideal society has a name, it's called a "commune". Communes have been tried over and over in history. Something like 10,000 have been set up in the US. The result? 100% failure. One hundred percent. You don't have to believe me. It's perfectly legal to set up a commune in the US. Set one up with your like-minded friends. Throw your hat in the ring. Prove me wrong. AFAIK, 0% of them have produced any art anyone considered great.
- kaba0 4y ago
  A commune in isolation can not protect itself. Another more aggressive group will overtake them given time. That's why I don't believe that end-goal communism or anarchism could ever work (where the former is contrary to many people's idea, is about small communes, not some Big Government). But with a necessarily strong government it is absolutely not impossible to scale a small commune to a whole country. Pair it with the best kind of democracy (as that is an entirely different axis) we have and I also on the opinion that many of today's problems could be solved. But even in today's capitalist system UBI could be implemented relatively easily paid for by tax money.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    A commune in isolation can not protect itself. The US ones did not fail because some more aggressive group overtook them. They failed because they did not work and eventually the members tired of it and left. The state-sponsored kibbutzen in Israel also fail, because they can't exist without massive government subsidy. Communism has been tried many times on a nation scale. 100% failure. Your ideas are not new and they have been tried, again and again. They just don't work. They don't work on a small scale, they don't work on a large scale. They don't work when voluntary, they don't work by force. There is just something about communism that is fundamentally anti-ethical to human nature.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      Did you even get my point that communism is different from socialism? I very much stated exactly that communism (in my opinion can’t work either). But socialism as a spectrum of ideas has plenty of working aspects included in basically every Western democracy.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Socialism produces mediocre works, and can't compete with free market operations. This is why socialist operations tend to be heavily subsidized or they simply make free market competitors illegal. It's most obvious when agriculture is socialized, because it's impossible for people to believe the lie that they aren't starving. Yes, I know that communism is supposed to be without a government.

WalterBright 4y ago

> I think you would find few people in the art community who agree with this. I happen to know some successful artists (you'd recognize their names), and they are very much in it for the big bucks. You will find many who say they are in it for the purity, but their actions belie it. BTW, your ideal society has a name, it's called a "commune". Communes have been tried over and over in history. Something like 10,000 have been set up in the US. The result? 100% failure. One hundred percent. You don't have to believe me. It's perfectly legal to set up a commune in the US. Set one up with your like-minded friends. Throw your hat in the ring. Prove me wrong. AFAIK, 0% of them have produced any art anyone considered great.

kaba0 4y ago
A commune in isolation can not protect itself. Another more aggressive group will overtake them given time. That's why I don't believe that end-goal communism or anarchism could ever work (where the former is contrary to many people's idea, is about small communes, not some Big Government). But with a necessarily strong government it is absolutely not impossible to scale a small commune to a whole country. Pair it with the best kind of democracy (as that is an entirely different axis) we have and I also on the opinion that many of today's problems could be solved. But even in today's capitalist system UBI could be implemented relatively easily paid for by tax money.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  A commune in isolation can not protect itself. The US ones did not fail because some more aggressive group overtook them. They failed because they did not work and eventually the members tired of it and left. The state-sponsored kibbutzen in Israel also fail, because they can't exist without massive government subsidy. Communism has been tried many times on a nation scale. 100% failure. Your ideas are not new and they have been tried, again and again. They just don't work. They don't work on a small scale, they don't work on a large scale. They don't work when voluntary, they don't work by force. There is just something about communism that is fundamentally anti-ethical to human nature.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Did you even get my point that communism is different from socialism? I very much stated exactly that communism (in my opinion can’t work either). But socialism as a spectrum of ideas has plenty of working aspects included in basically every Western democracy.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Socialism produces mediocre works, and can't compete with free market operations. This is why socialist operations tend to be heavily subsidized or they simply make free market competitors illegal. It's most obvious when agriculture is socialized, because it's impossible for people to believe the lie that they aren't starving. Yes, I know that communism is supposed to be without a government.