4 ms·

How is localism supposed to enable things like mobile phones, internet, video games, movies, travel, etc., function? You're suggestion is essentially to go back

by xmprt 4y ago

How is localism supposed to enable things like mobile phones, internet, video games, movies, travel, etc., function? You're suggestion is essentially to go back to the stone age. Additionally, wouldn't localism require more people to do things that they don't enjoy? For example, I'm not a fan of farming and I don't think many of my neighbors are either but fortunately, we're all able to eat pretty much any dish we like because of the food shipped from distant farms every day. > What would it look like in your town? I don't know, but I don't need to This sounds a lot like a non-answer. Perhaps I would understand what you're talking about better if you explained how you believe it would work in your town where you do have more context.

bluefirebrand 4y ago
> How is localism supposed to enable things like mobile phones, internet, video games, movies, travel, etc., function Forget all that tech. "Localism" couldn't even produce a single 2B pencil, which is such a trivial thing when we consider the scale of society as it is today. I was honestly hoping there was going to be a better answer than this handwavy nonsense.
jrm4 4y ago
See, all of you disagreeing with me are doing the thing where you're pretending to be top down benevolent dictator (or better yet, playing a game of SimCity.) I'm not. I am suggesting that if you took the world as it exists today, and strongly turned down the volume on "everybody has to work," the world would improve, and that labor at the end of a pointy stick is not necessary to keep things going, and generally makes things worse. Yes, the mix of goods and services could perhaps drastically change. E.g. if you love throwing away your 3 year old iPhone for a new one, I'm sorry, you will suffer; you'd probably have to deal with repaired phones with interchangeable parts. I think that's probably a better place.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  That may drastically slow down human progress in terms of technology. If one posits that we have a moral obligation to future humans to make sure their lives are ones with lower suffering, and if technology, especially medical technology, will take us there, then your idea essentially says that it is immoral to slow down human progress, because more people will suffer. That's how I see it anyway. I'm a techno-optimist, given the nature of technology in our species' development.
  - 8note 4y ago
    How are you measuring suffering over time? does keeping somebody alive in extreme pain raise or lower it? Its quite notable that modern medics has made its fair share of opium addicts. I don't know whether that's a feather in the modern cap or not
  - roeles 4y ago
    I would be very interested in seeing a study that concludes that technology has made us suffer less. Perhaps it makes sense to define suffering? If you would define it as "expecting from the world what it can not give you", I think we don't suffer less than previous generations. We have more, but we also expect more.
    - epups 4y ago
      If we define less suffering as living 2x longer, with 100x less child mortality and access to education, safety and entertainment that not even kings in previous generations had, then we should thank technology for that. You can of course go full relativism and say that our society cannot be judged as better or worse than any other, but I think that's disingenuous.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Very fair argument. But I strongly dispute your second assumption, that of "technology taking us there," at least today: Right now, I see absolutely no reason to believe in a strongly correlated association between tech advancement and e.g. medical improvement. E.g. I'd argue that the biggest medical improvement of my lifetime was in a sense a step backwards, in that it was our collective discovery and consequent reduction in smoking.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  You're delusional if you think we would still have phones at all in the setup you are hinting at but not really explaining . The idea that you can just not work is not realistic. The "pointy stick" you are talking about is nature, as in we will die without working to survive. You aren't entitled to the labour of others to ensure your survival. You can either work at survival, eg: growing food to eat, building shelter, making clothes, etc, or you can have others do that while you provide something else.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    "Everyone has to breathe to live." No reasonable person FACTUALLY disputes what you're saying about work; it's so something-like-tautological and obvious that you should all think about why people seem to parrot it over and over. It's not because human beings are likely to keel over and stop working in the face of nature. It's because it's a longstanding political wedge used by the powerful to get working classes to go against each other.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      I never said anything about breathing. I'm talking about access food, shelter, security. These aren't even remotely comparable to breathing, because they rely on the labour of other people to maintain consistent access to. Farms don't get planted without help from neighbors, houses don't get built, towns don't stay safe and clean and happy without a lot of work from a lot of people. Don't even get me started about indoor plumbing, or the internet. Even if you are willing to go back in time to a simple farm in a small town, you are still taking for granted that you will have people helping you survive. And you still aren't entitled to their labour. They will help you plant your field if you help them plant theirs. The scale of our society has changed, but the transactions haven't. In any case, you seem dead set on misrepresenting or misunderstanding what I'm saying. If you're not going to address my actual arguments, then kindly get lost. You're wasting my time
- cortesoft 4y ago
  What would “turning down the volume on ‘everyone has to work’” entail? Are you talking about changing laws or changing habits? Also, how can you accuse everyone else of being a benevolent dictator when your suggestion is just as impossible to implement?
  - jrm4 4y ago
    ? It's literally happening now. "Anti-work" et al. Just more of that. Stronger pro-labor laws. Fight for fridays off as well. That sort of thing.

by xmprt 4y ago

bluefirebrand 4y ago

> How is localism supposed to enable things like mobile phones, internet, video games, movies, travel, etc., function Forget all that tech. "Localism" couldn't even produce a single 2B pencil, which is such a trivial thing when we consider the scale of society as it is today. I was honestly hoping there was going to be a better answer than this handwavy nonsense.

jrm4 4y ago

See, all of you disagreeing with me are doing the thing where you're pretending to be top down benevolent dictator (or better yet, playing a game of SimCity.) I'm not. I am suggesting that if you took the world as it exists today, and strongly turned down the volume on "everybody has to work," the world would improve, and that labor at the end of a pointy stick is not necessary to keep things going, and generally makes things worse. Yes, the mix of goods and services could perhaps drastically change. E.g. if you love throwing away your 3 year old iPhone for a new one, I'm sorry, you will suffer; you'd probably have to deal with repaired phones with interchangeable parts. I think that's probably a better place.

cercatrova 4y ago
That may drastically slow down human progress in terms of technology. If one posits that we have a moral obligation to future humans to make sure their lives are ones with lower suffering, and if technology, especially medical technology, will take us there, then your idea essentially says that it is immoral to slow down human progress, because more people will suffer. That's how I see it anyway. I'm a techno-optimist, given the nature of technology in our species' development.
- 8note 4y ago
  How are you measuring suffering over time? does keeping somebody alive in extreme pain raise or lower it? Its quite notable that modern medics has made its fair share of opium addicts. I don't know whether that's a feather in the modern cap or not
- roeles 4y ago
  I would be very interested in seeing a study that concludes that technology has made us suffer less. Perhaps it makes sense to define suffering? If you would define it as "expecting from the world what it can not give you", I think we don't suffer less than previous generations. We have more, but we also expect more.
  - epups 4y ago
    If we define less suffering as living 2x longer, with 100x less child mortality and access to education, safety and entertainment that not even kings in previous generations had, then we should thank technology for that. You can of course go full relativism and say that our society cannot be judged as better or worse than any other, but I think that's disingenuous.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Very fair argument. But I strongly dispute your second assumption, that of "technology taking us there," at least today: Right now, I see absolutely no reason to believe in a strongly correlated association between tech advancement and e.g. medical improvement. E.g. I'd argue that the biggest medical improvement of my lifetime was in a sense a step backwards, in that it was our collective discovery and consequent reduction in smoking.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bluefirebrand 4y ago
You're delusional if you think we would still have phones at all in the setup you are hinting at but not really explaining . The idea that you can just not work is not realistic. The "pointy stick" you are talking about is nature, as in we will die without working to survive. You aren't entitled to the labour of others to ensure your survival. You can either work at survival, eg: growing food to eat, building shelter, making clothes, etc, or you can have others do that while you provide something else.
- jrm4 4y ago
  "Everyone has to breathe to live." No reasonable person FACTUALLY disputes what you're saying about work; it's so something-like-tautological and obvious that you should all think about why people seem to parrot it over and over. It's not because human beings are likely to keel over and stop working in the face of nature. It's because it's a longstanding political wedge used by the powerful to get working classes to go against each other.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    I never said anything about breathing. I'm talking about access food, shelter, security. These aren't even remotely comparable to breathing, because they rely on the labour of other people to maintain consistent access to. Farms don't get planted without help from neighbors, houses don't get built, towns don't stay safe and clean and happy without a lot of work from a lot of people. Don't even get me started about indoor plumbing, or the internet. Even if you are willing to go back in time to a simple farm in a small town, you are still taking for granted that you will have people helping you survive. And you still aren't entitled to their labour. They will help you plant your field if you help them plant theirs. The scale of our society has changed, but the transactions haven't. In any case, you seem dead set on misrepresenting or misunderstanding what I'm saying. If you're not going to address my actual arguments, then kindly get lost. You're wasting my time
cortesoft 4y ago
What would “turning down the volume on ‘everyone has to work’” entail? Are you talking about changing laws or changing habits? Also, how can you accuse everyone else of being a benevolent dictator when your suggestion is just as impossible to implement?
- jrm4 4y ago
  ? It's literally happening now. "Anti-work" et al. Just more of that. Stronger pro-labor laws. Fight for fridays off as well. That sort of thing.