Hello my name is Daniel Hanrahan and I created a barter facilitator application and do you think it is the future of commerce: https://github.com/Daniel-Hanrahan-Tools-and-Games/Barter_Facilitator Sincerely, Daniel Hanrahan
Hello my name is Daniel Hanrahan and I created a barter facilitator application and do you think it is the future of commerce: https://github.com/Daniel-Hanrahan-Tools-and-Games/Barter_Facilitator Sincerely, Daniel Hanrahan
The technology already exists to create food or other things at scale though without much manual labour so I disagree with that assertion.
As for how to stop capitalist villages, well that’s primarily done through a mixture of education, cooperation and showing there’s no advantage to capitalism. Capitalism requires a state or some kind of force in order to enforce property rights, if I can go to that village and either take objects or ideas, capitalism loses since it cannot enforce its rights on me, nor its will once I go to a non capitalist village and thus it would have no power to keep its secrets, ideas or designs. It’s also done through education in that those who know more are less likely to be taken advantage of by others, especially if things like critical analysis etc are taught. Showing how well cooperation works instead of competition can be another protection against it. Also, a capitalist village will still have exploited workers. Why would they stay there when they could move somewhere where they’re not exploited?
So firstly, there isn’t necessarily a need to go to a copper mine, there’s copper in lots of things and we could set up recycling programs to extract it from things that wouldn’t be necessary under such a system, mass produced stuff, for example, things that broke and thus got thrown away etc etc. If there was a need to mine copper this could be done in part with technology, some kind of drones or other machines. Lastly, I’m sure there would be some people that wouldn’t mind doing labour if it meant less in the future, people thinking only short term and only about themselves is how this current mess of a world happened, after all.
Again, non appealing jobs can be done via technology and we can redesign systems so that labour would be at a minimum, a lot of automated/semi-automated recycling plants could be used, sewers could lead into recycling facilities and places for growing plants etc. So with those things manual labour could be massively reduced, or at least the parts people would ‘need’ incentives for (though I don’t think they necessarily would if it wasn’t constant and they thought long term and collectively).
You assume capitalism always offers more, it doesn’t necessarily and even if it does at the beginning over time it would merely exploit more and more people until they got fed up enough to leave, more people would do that currently if there was any place to go where they didn’t have to be exploited and could live a happy life with all they needed but there isn’t really anywhere like that currently.
I agree that we could very much use 3D printers etc and smaller power grids to create self-sustaining cities etc, using all kinds of renewable power since solar and wind aren’t the only types.
Hope this helps!
It exists now, but it is complicated to produce and maintain, let alone develop from scratch. I don’t think it can be done by a village of 300 people, even if they have access to all the information they could need and education and all that. Even if they had all the knowledge needed, the infrastructure required to produce it is large and expensive. Maybe a village could specialize in producing tractors, but I don’t think they could also make their own cell phones. And they only need so many tractors for themselves, so what would they do next? Either sell the additional tractors they build to another village, or change their production lines to make something else-- though they may need more tractors suddenly in the future.
A lot of what you’re saying relies on efficient recycling and automation. Once we have this, then sure maybe a sharing utopia would be possible. But I’m not convinced that we’re close to that. A lot of companies are trying to develop self driving cars, a lot of money stands to be made from that over paying truck drivers/taxis/etc. But it’s hard. Japan is investing a lot in automation because of their aging population causing future labour shortages. We’re making progress but it takes a lot of time, and it’s not clear if it will ever be completely possible. So currently it is basically “dream technology”.
Have you read about the history of the Soviet Union? The number of people fleeing from East to West was significant enough to build a wall to keep them in. Fleeing in the other direction was almost unheard of. I don’t think simply “giving up capitalism” is all that we need to create a better life, I think there still needs to be some way of deciding how to allocate resources that are used for different things. Historically it seems like the answer to that is either having a centralized government make the decisions, or having a capitalist free market do it. Both can be corrupted, make bad decisions, and result in shortages of food and other essentials. Both can cause some polarization of wealth. I don’t think there’s a third option of “everyone just be better”, since once you reach a certain point, it only takes a few people taking advantage of a system to ruin it. I would happily just “be better”, but I don’t have enough faith in others to do the same. I’d only have to observe a few people taking advantage before deciding that the system is doomed and I’d be better off in a different economic system.
I don’t see the point in discussing this any more. You seem utterly convinced that things cannot work any other way, and are comparing a statist history to a non statist future.
Hope that things get better for you. <3