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Ah hello Walter. I recognize your username as you and I have disagreed on this before. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have the right to own property. But that

Ah hello Walter. I recognize your username as you and I have disagreed on this before. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have the right to own property. But that a good way of organizing society is collective ownership of the means of production. If you are part owner in something with shares and a contract, that obviously still relies on property rights. That is how the stock market works after all. EDIT: I am basically proposing a change in norms, rather than a change in rights. Currently the norm is individual private owners or ownership by a board of directors. I am proposing ownership by communities as a collective. Same rights involved, but a different norm.

WalterBright 4y ago
The US is a free country. You can form a voluntary collective any time you like.
- incompatible 4y ago
  I doubt that you are free to share copyrighted information, even if you declare yourselves a voluntary collective.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    You can contribute to your collective all of your property and intellectual property. I suggest you contact all like-minded authors and suggest they join your book collective and donate all their intellectual property rights.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      You say this as if this forum is not an appropriate place to begin to make such contact. We must discuss with other like minded people the merits of sharing our work as open source, but when people try to do that here it feels like you are saying they should go somewhere else to do it. And we can certainly discuss the merits of our government granting ever increasing copyright terms. Copyright is not a natural concept, but an artificial one created by government agents. Surely this forum is a good place to question those choices and discuss alternatives.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        I'm sorry if you inferred I thought your posts were inappropriate here. I do not think such, and it is not my intent. Have you heard from any? > copyright terms I have a history here of advocating short copyright terms. I speak as someone who made a living selling copyrighted materials. The stuff I write today is all released under the Boost License, which is as close to public domain as it gets (because some countries have no legal concept of public domain). I also have a history here of dispensing with patent laws, even though I hold some patents.
        SequoiaHope 4y ago
        > I'm sorry if you inferred I thought your posts were inappropriate here. I do not think such, and it is not my intent. Thank you for the clarification. When I try to discuss these ideas I feel like you respond, without asking what I have been doing to pursue this, by saying "go and start one then" "it's not illegal" "go find other people to talk to about this then", which feels very much like you do not think that is exactly what I am doing when discussing it here. It feels like you think I need to be somewhere else to be doing that. And it feels rude that you tell me to go and start one without understanding that I am laying the groundwork in my own life to be able to do something unprofitable indefinitely (my collective will be a non-profit collective). I cannot just quit my job and do that tomorrow, but I have been working very hard for years to arrange my life appropriately to follow that pursuit, and I have made great progress. Already I am getting several hundred dollars in donations to my non profit. Not enough to live off of, but I continue to produce youtube videos promoting my non profit engineering. Your comment of "go and start one then" feels very dismissive. > Have you heard from any? From like minded people? Yes! My generation is extremely interested in libertarian leftist ideas. In providing for everyone regardless of the market value of their skills. I run two small youtube channels where I promote these ideas, though there are many very large channels with millions of subscribers who talk about them with more skill than I can, as most of my time is dedicated to my non profit engineering organization. I am glad we agree on copyright and patents. I too have a few patents but would prefer we dispense with patent laws. And I release everything of mine under permissive open source licenses.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  To be perfectly honest this feels like a knee jerk response that fails to engage with what I am saying. Nowhere did I say I am being prevented from forming a voluntary collective. But obviously if I believe we should form an economy comprised of many collectives then I need to discuss this idea with other people! I literally cannot form a collective by myself. For my part I am working on a career trajectory that will allow me to co-found a collective that owns machines which produce free hot meals for people. But that is a few years away. Still I find it interesting that you want to argue without really thinking about what I am saying. Obviously forming collectives necessarily involves discussing these ideas openly with others.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    There certainly is no shortage of people who believe as you do in collectives. Go ahead and form one with them. > you want to argue without really thinking about what I am saying I've thought about it for many decades. I'm not trying to suppress your discussion, ideas, or any efforts you may make towards creating a (voluntary) collective. Feel free. BTW, I read somewhere that over 10,000 collectives had been created in the United States. Where are they now? Oh, they all failed. A famous one was the Summer of Love in San Francisco in the 1960s. It only lasted for a summer. Seattle's Summer of Love a couple years ago lasted a few days before imploding. (Google CHAZ - Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone)
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      > There certainly is no shortage of people who believe as you do in collectives. Go ahead and form one with them. It really feels like you are not reading my comments. I just said in the comment you are responding to that I am working on this, but it is a few years away. That is not to say I am not doing anything now, but I have to lay the ground work. For me to say I am actively working on this and to read your response as "go ahead and do it then" really feels like you do not want to engage with what I am saying. > BTW, I read somewhere that over 10,000 collectives had been created in the United States. Where are they now? Oh, they all failed. They all failed? Walter, I can easily find a long list of active co-ops just in the Bay Area alone. It seems to me you are speaking with authority on a topic you don't know very much about. https://www.cooperationrichmond.org/coop-movement/worker-cooperatives-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area/ https://www.cooperationrichmond.org/coop-movement/worker-coo... That said, failures do happen. Lots of privately owned businesses fail too. Would you suggest then that privately owned business as a concept is not viable? I think what you are missing is that people in today's economy are suffering, and people are desperate for something to change. I suspect you are doing okay, and not desperate for change. Good for you. But the number of people in your position is literally dwindling from a statistical perspective in the USA. For everyone else, they cannot just sit comfortably and dismiss suggestions on how to change things. They need change, as for many it is literally a life and death situation.
notpushkin 4y ago
Changing norms is a nice idea, but you'll have to lead by example I believe. That said, I think privately- and collectively-owned enterprises can coexist (and compete!) just fine, and in a truly free market we'd see a healthy amount of both.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  I am working on leading by example, though putting the pieces together for my career will take some time. I have so far already been working on this for a few years. I am spinning up a non profit open source project to design solar powered farming robots and I run two YouTube channels to promote my economic ideas and the farming robot project. Still, I do like to discuss the merits of the base philosophy here.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > in a truly free market we'd see a healthy amount of both In the US, at least 10,000 collectives have been formed. You can form one any time you like. They're not illegal.

WalterBright 4y ago

The US is a free country. You can form a voluntary collective any time you like.

incompatible 4y ago
I doubt that you are free to share copyrighted information, even if you declare yourselves a voluntary collective.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  You can contribute to your collective all of your property and intellectual property. I suggest you contact all like-minded authors and suggest they join your book collective and donate all their intellectual property rights.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    You say this as if this forum is not an appropriate place to begin to make such contact. We must discuss with other like minded people the merits of sharing our work as open source, but when people try to do that here it feels like you are saying they should go somewhere else to do it. And we can certainly discuss the merits of our government granting ever increasing copyright terms. Copyright is not a natural concept, but an artificial one created by government agents. Surely this forum is a good place to question those choices and discuss alternatives.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I'm sorry if you inferred I thought your posts were inappropriate here. I do not think such, and it is not my intent. Have you heard from any? > copyright terms I have a history here of advocating short copyright terms. I speak as someone who made a living selling copyrighted materials. The stuff I write today is all released under the Boost License, which is as close to public domain as it gets (because some countries have no legal concept of public domain). I also have a history here of dispensing with patent laws, even though I hold some patents.
      - SequoiaHope 4y ago
        > I'm sorry if you inferred I thought your posts were inappropriate here. I do not think such, and it is not my intent. Thank you for the clarification. When I try to discuss these ideas I feel like you respond, without asking what I have been doing to pursue this, by saying "go and start one then" "it's not illegal" "go find other people to talk to about this then", which feels very much like you do not think that is exactly what I am doing when discussing it here. It feels like you think I need to be somewhere else to be doing that. And it feels rude that you tell me to go and start one without understanding that I am laying the groundwork in my own life to be able to do something unprofitable indefinitely (my collective will be a non-profit collective). I cannot just quit my job and do that tomorrow, but I have been working very hard for years to arrange my life appropriately to follow that pursuit, and I have made great progress. Already I am getting several hundred dollars in donations to my non profit. Not enough to live off of, but I continue to produce youtube videos promoting my non profit engineering. Your comment of "go and start one then" feels very dismissive. > Have you heard from any? From like minded people? Yes! My generation is extremely interested in libertarian leftist ideas. In providing for everyone regardless of the market value of their skills. I run two small youtube channels where I promote these ideas, though there are many very large channels with millions of subscribers who talk about them with more skill than I can, as most of my time is dedicated to my non profit engineering organization. I am glad we agree on copyright and patents. I too have a few patents but would prefer we dispense with patent laws. And I release everything of mine under permissive open source licenses.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
To be perfectly honest this feels like a knee jerk response that fails to engage with what I am saying. Nowhere did I say I am being prevented from forming a voluntary collective. But obviously if I believe we should form an economy comprised of many collectives then I need to discuss this idea with other people! I literally cannot form a collective by myself. For my part I am working on a career trajectory that will allow me to co-found a collective that owns machines which produce free hot meals for people. But that is a few years away. Still I find it interesting that you want to argue without really thinking about what I am saying. Obviously forming collectives necessarily involves discussing these ideas openly with others.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  There certainly is no shortage of people who believe as you do in collectives. Go ahead and form one with them. > you want to argue without really thinking about what I am saying I've thought about it for many decades. I'm not trying to suppress your discussion, ideas, or any efforts you may make towards creating a (voluntary) collective. Feel free. BTW, I read somewhere that over 10,000 collectives had been created in the United States. Where are they now? Oh, they all failed. A famous one was the Summer of Love in San Francisco in the 1960s. It only lasted for a summer. Seattle's Summer of Love a couple years ago lasted a few days before imploding. (Google CHAZ - Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone)
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    > There certainly is no shortage of people who believe as you do in collectives. Go ahead and form one with them. It really feels like you are not reading my comments. I just said in the comment you are responding to that I am working on this, but it is a few years away. That is not to say I am not doing anything now, but I have to lay the ground work. For me to say I am actively working on this and to read your response as "go ahead and do it then" really feels like you do not want to engage with what I am saying. > BTW, I read somewhere that over 10,000 collectives had been created in the United States. Where are they now? Oh, they all failed. They all failed? Walter, I can easily find a long list of active co-ops just in the Bay Area alone. It seems to me you are speaking with authority on a topic you don't know very much about. https://www.cooperationrichmond.org/coop-movement/worker-cooperatives-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area/ https://www.cooperationrichmond.org/coop-movement/worker-coo... That said, failures do happen. Lots of privately owned businesses fail too. Would you suggest then that privately owned business as a concept is not viable? I think what you are missing is that people in today's economy are suffering, and people are desperate for something to change. I suspect you are doing okay, and not desperate for change. Good for you. But the number of people in your position is literally dwindling from a statistical perspective in the USA. For everyone else, they cannot just sit comfortably and dismiss suggestions on how to change things. They need change, as for many it is literally a life and death situation.

notpushkin 4y ago

Changing norms is a nice idea, but you'll have to lead by example I believe. That said, I think privately- and collectively-owned enterprises can coexist (and compete!) just fine, and in a truly free market we'd see a healthy amount of both.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I am working on leading by example, though putting the pieces together for my career will take some time. I have so far already been working on this for a few years. I am spinning up a non profit open source project to design solar powered farming robots and I run two YouTube channels to promote my economic ideas and the farming robot project. Still, I do like to discuss the merits of the base philosophy here.
WalterBright 4y ago
> in a truly free market we'd see a healthy amount of both In the US, at least 10,000 collectives have been formed. You can form one any time you like. They're not illegal.