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V. Illych L. posted:yeah ok i can dig this to some extent, but there will still be edge cases where short shifts just aren't practical, e.g. in intensive care units or anything to do with (humanely treated, at least) farm animals and i strand by the principle of moderate income differentials being justifiable in such cases Those examples aren't really in the unmitigatable category though. A 8-hour shift for an ER doctor for example wouldn't be a problem either for the person working it or their patients. The problem is that the 8-hour shift turns into a 9-hour shift with no lunch breaks which turns into an 11-hour shift when they're the only doctor available for an emergency then they're still on call over night and still have their 8-hour shift tomorrow because there aren't enough staff to account for the overtime and make sure people aren't overworking themselves. This is a problem that could be avoided if there were more doctors due to cheaper/free education and hospitals weren't incentivised to hire the minimum number of staff possible to minimise costs. Basically a lot of the jobs we view as being incredibly taxing are only that way because of capitalism. wateroverfire posted:Isn't paying a twitch streamer with 0 viewers to stream twitch itself problematic? In that activity they are creating no use value for anyone while the rest of society pays for the value they consume. Yeah, it's a stupid strawman go figure.
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May 28, 2019 13:24
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Dire Lemming posted:Those examples aren't really in the unmitigatable category though. A 8-hour shift for an ER doctor for example wouldn't be a problem either for the person working it or their patients. The problem is that the 8-hour shift turns into a 9-hour shift with no lunch breaks which turns into an 11-hour shift when they're the only doctor available for an emergency then they're still on call over night and still have their 8-hour shift tomorrow because there aren't enough staff to account for the overtime and make sure people aren't overworking themselves. This is a problem that could be avoided if there were more doctors due to cheaper/free education and hospitals weren't incentivised to hire the minimum number of staff possible to minimise costs. Basically a lot of the jobs we view as being incredibly taxing are only that way because of capitalism. you still want to minimise the number of shift handovers for reasonable medical causes i'm not saying that restructuring the work relation won't mitigate these issues, i'm just saying that i'm not confident that they'll be eliminated altogether
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May 28, 2019 13:43
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"What about lazy so and so" is the dumbest argument and I've no idea why it's always rolled out whenever it's argued that the state should make sure everyone's basic needs are met. I've absolutely zero qualms with all five viewerless Twitch idiots getting UBI, having health care and a roof over their heads while they spend all day playing games for no audience. They and whatever other bogeyman/waster rhetoric are a ridiculous minority. Humans are social animals with an excellent track record of community. Lots of people go into poo poo paying jobs out of aspiration or a sense of "right": fire fighters, teachers and nurses to name a few off the top of my head. It shouldn't even be necessary to go full socialism to resolve the wealth gap or lift people the gently caress out of poverty, but it will be; because the one percenters have brainwashed the middle classes enough now that it's all the poors/browns' fault and if they just worked harder they too can be rich, gently caress you got mine and cold dead hands and all that. That, alone, is why the one percent should be loving guillotined, because they could be embarrassingly wealthy and still solve a lot of this, but they won't because they're sociopaths.
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May 28, 2019 14:16
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The twitch stream thing is a dumb argument but how do we decide when someone's art is so bad we aren't going to be giving them a supply of the quality paints they are seeking? Under capitalism it's easy.
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May 28, 2019 14:26
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Nevvy Z posted:The twitch stream thing is a dumb argument but how do we decide when someone's art is so bad we aren't going to be giving them a supply of the quality paints they are seeking? Under capitalism it's easy. presumably this would be organised by various painters' collectives and if people were really bad the collectives wouldn't bother allocating stuff to them. if one wants more they could spend some of their own discretionary allocation on it obviously this leads to lots of office politics and poo poo, but that's basically what drives arts etc today anyway so however we're getting pretty deep into cookbooks of communism country here; suffice to say that there's no reason to imagine that our selectively incredibly coercive system is necessary to have a functioning society
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May 28, 2019 14:34
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if the biggest social question that communism will face is handling "uh, I'm sorry Jimmy, but we're gonna have to cut off your watercolor supply unless you do some work in the vat meat growing facilities" kind of situations then that's literally the best case scenario
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May 28, 2019 14:36
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Nevvy Z posted:The twitch stream thing is a dumb argument but how do we decide when someone's art is so bad we aren't going to be giving them a supply of the quality paints they are seeking? Under capitalism it's easy. It's not "here is your paints Comrade Bad Painter" it's "here is your universal basic income, spend it on what you want to, comrade" (which in this case happens to be paint to do bad paintings with). If someone poo poo at painting enjoys painting, why not let them loving paint? They're a far better member of society than if they end up seeking various mental health treatments/anti depressants/become criminals because they're deeply unhappy and the best years of their lives are being ground to dust to earn a pittance to survive.
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May 28, 2019 14:40
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Bundy posted:It's not "here is your paints Comrade Bad Painter" it's "here is your universal basic income, spend it on what you want to, comrade" (which in this case happens to be paint to do bad paintings with). It depends on how close we can get to a post-scarcity economy. If we're at like... "we have matter replicators" levels of scarcity then no problem, why are we even talking about work. If we're at like... less scarce than now but still scarce...then it might matter if we're paying lots of people to do things they personally enjoy but that don't pay back in terms of generating value for other people. Or it might not. It depends on how generous the benefits are and how many people are unwilling to do things they don't really want to do. Same deal for smaller changes to essentially the way things work now. If we´ve reorganized the economy but the tradeoff is more scarcity (IMO the most likely scenario ,but I'm an rear end in a top hat) then it matters a whole lot that everyone be doing something that contributes, whether it's what they personally enjoy or not.
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May 28, 2019 15:28
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we are pretty much at post-scarcity for most stuff, we've just decided that arbitrary increases in consumption are good for some rather perverse reasons and it's seriously brushing up against what the planet can take
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May 28, 2019 15:32
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V. Illych L. posted:we are pretty much at post-scarcity for most stuff, we've just decided that arbitrary increases in consumption are good for some rather perverse reasons and it's seriously brushing up against what the planet can take Are we, though? We have to ask sort of under what parameters that might be true. Like is it post-scarcity assuming perfect logistics (stuff can always be delivered from where it's produced to where it's needed) and no consumer choice (so we can perfectly estimate what needs to be produced and production is perfectly efficient)? Or are the conditions less restrictive? I think those are important open questions.
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May 28, 2019 15:36
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global communism now would see everyone with roughly the consumption of your average 1960 continental european iirc which is obviously a big step down for most of us itt but nothing to really whine about
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May 28, 2019 15:37
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obviously there is no reason to assume that growth would halt entirely under communism, but we really are in the middle of a consumption-driven total ecological catastrophe so my guess is it's all coming down relatively soon one way or the other
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May 28, 2019 15:39
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V. Illych L. posted:global communism now would see everyone with roughly the consumption of your average 1960 continental european iirc which is obviously a big step down for most of us itt but nothing to really whine about Granted, for a lot of the world that is a step up. But for a lot of the working class (basically, everyone in the developed world) it is a big step down as you point out, and something they probably would have some kind of negative opinion on if they were asked. How does that factor in?
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May 28, 2019 15:40
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This thread has served a genuine good purpose for me as its helped me understand where the general edge of understanding is in the forum in regards to UBI, the value or labor and how much capitalism still dictates the language of people ready to stand in solidarity. Three points, UBI is the next step away from needless suffering, part of the point is its a step up we can manage now until we get our bearings and conceive of the next one. Two, most of the waste in government isnt because programs are bad, its because theyve been corrupted by means testing which creates more administrative overhead and issues of waste than if you just give people money. Three, it is my sincere hope that once government service isn't culturally anathema to so many people because of point two, more people would be like me and do the work that needs to be done because its gratifying and it just happens to also help me exist.
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May 28, 2019 15:43
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well one would hope that massively increased leisure and greater autonomy over one's life and work would make up for it. the issue of enormous global injustices remains a big practical problem, though, yeah though really our current consumption-above-all system absolutely has to go or we'll be pining for that level soon enough
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May 28, 2019 15:44
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V. Illych L. posted:there is an argument to be made that agriculture on the scale necessary to sustain human population on our level today necessitates some degree of professionalism and thus unfun parts of e.g. food production If it comes to that sure but I think that's probably not going to be as big of a problem as some people make out if you're going to get rid of most of the stupid work in the world and give everyone security in their existence.
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May 28, 2019 15:45
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wateroverfire posted:But for a lot of the working class (basically, everyone in the developed world) it is a big step down as you point out, and something they probably would have some kind of negative opinion on if they were asked. How does that factor in? This depends which country's "working class" you're referring to. Today's "working class" American would rip your arm off for some 1960s average European lifestyle and a good few million in the UK living in abject poverty would too.
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May 28, 2019 15:54
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Yeah what's average 1960's european cos if it's more than living in one room and one square meal a day I stand to profit from it 
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May 28, 2019 15:55
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Where in Europe during the 1960's is probably a very important point to nail down for this comparison, too. edit: As a point of comparison, this site estimates GDP per capita (in constant 2010 dollars, look at the second graph) for the EU in 1960 at $10,056 dollars. So adjusting for inflation since 2019 that's like...$12,000 GDP per capita and somewhat less in terms of average consumption because GDP doesn't map perfectly to that. So the equivalent lifestyle would be roughly what living on $10,000 can buy in the US today, by this quick and dirty estimate. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 16:44 on May 28, 2019 |
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May 28, 2019 15:57
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i looked at the numbers and it turns out that i was vastly overestimating the cut lol france's gdp per capita in 1960 was roughly $1300, a tenth or so of current gdp per capita globally so, uh, yeah e. this going by the googlable world bank data; obviously not bulletproof for various reasons (gdp is a bad measure of... things) but it gets the point across imo
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May 28, 2019 16:11
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V. Illych L. posted:i looked at the numbers and it turns out that i was vastly overestimating the cut lol Does that number really matter with billionares existing? Remember what the Tax rate was for such individuals during that time period.
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May 28, 2019 16:14
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RuanGacho posted:Does that number really matter with billionares existing? Remember what the Tax rate was for such individuals during that time period. it's not a precise measure, no, but as i say it gets the picture across. with that level of gdp disparity, one assumes that 1960's france is achievable globally under communism (i.e. handwaving all political or environmental issues because this is a dead gay comedy forum and i'm strictly speaking at work) the point being, the world is not poor, it's unjust
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May 28, 2019 16:18
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You could always give people non-monetary rewards for taking up unpleasent but necessary work. In this utopia everyone will hopefully be guranteed a ok place to live. But if you are willing to get off your gaming chair for 6 hours a day 4 days a week to come work as a sanitation worker at a local hospital you will get to live in a swanky new apartment for as long you remain employed there. If you lose your job you will get demoted to someplace less fancy ( but still fit for human habitation). Perhaps we could give people who choose to work some kind badge or ribbon they can wear in public so that can be admired by the rest of us. It is good to reward extra effort especially if it helps society. I refuse to accept that we can`t find a eco-friendly non-punitive way to do this.
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May 28, 2019 16:31
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Baudolino posted:You could always give people non-monetary rewards for taking up unpleasent but necessary work. In this utopia everyone will hopefully be guranteed a ok place to live. But if you are willing to get off your gaming chair for 6 hours a day 4 days a week to come work as a sanitation worker at a local hospital you will get to live in a swanky new apartment for as long you remain employed there. If you lose your job you will get demoted to someplace less fancy ( but still fit for human habitation). Perhaps we could give people who choose to work some kind badge or ribbon they can wear in public so that can be admired by the rest of us. It is good to reward extra effort especially if it helps society. I refuse to accept that we can`t find a eco-friendly non-punitive way to do this. here you'd pretty much have to either completely automate the allocation system or abolish money or you're setting yourself up for some serious corruption socialism can be done wrong, but it is unfortunately our only way to avoid barbarism
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May 28, 2019 16:36
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V. Illych L. posted:it's not a precise measure, no, but as i say it gets the picture across. with that level of gdp disparity, one assumes that 1960's france is achievable globally under communism (i.e. handwaving all political or environmental issues because this is a dead gay comedy forum and i'm strictly speaking at work) It would almost certainly be better because a lot of our modern entertainment (is smartphones, the internet, vidya, streaming media) aren't very resource intensive.
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May 28, 2019 16:36
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V. Illych L. posted:i looked at the numbers and it turns out that i was vastly overestimating the cut lol Beaten, drat. edit: I think that might be understating the lifestyle hit, too. Underlying that number are production costs that are currently possible because salaries and living standards in much of the world are...really low. Under global communism that obviously is not going to be the case, or at least that's what I understand the idea to be, so the cost to supply that same basket of goods has to go up and peoples' real consumption therefore has to go down. There's also possibly MORE ecological strain because a lot more peoples' consumption will rise than fall (because the global economy is very unequal right now) and that likely means more goods produced and not less. Though that's just some spitballing. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 17:04 on May 28, 2019 |
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May 28, 2019 16:47
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Dire Lemming posted:Yeah, it's a stupid strawman go figure. It's just an example of a job that contributes nothing to sustaining the basic necessities of life such as shelter, food, healthcare. You could replace this with any creative job that isn't critical to meeting basic needs or people are presumably weeded out based on skill/merit as there isn't demand to justify each additional creative. Replace this with food photographer, music critic, sports blogger, stand up comic or whatever. Basically any leisure activity that most people today would prefer being their full-time job vs. what they're currently doing to make ends meet. I don't know if a badge or ribbon would be sufficient motivation for me to be a garbage man instead.
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May 28, 2019 17:04
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ChipNDip posted:It would almost certainly be better because a lot of our modern entertainment (is smartphones, the internet, vidya, streaming media) aren't very resource intensive. What are you defining as "resource" here because someone somewhere still has to dig the precious metals out of the ground for batteries and the materials to make RAM, processors, circuit boards etc. e: KingNastidon posted:It's just an example of a job that contributes nothing to sustaining the basic necessities of life such as shelter, food, healthcare. You could replace this with any creative job that isn't critical to meeting basic needs or people are presumably weeded out based on skill/merit as there isn't demand to justify each additional creative. Replace this with food photographer, music critic, sports blogger, stand up comic or whatever. Basically any leisure activity that most people today would prefer being their full-time job vs. what they're currently doing to make ends meet. I don't know if a badge or ribbon would be sufficient motivation for me to be a garbage man instead. "Happiness" is also a basic need, ffs. e2: vvv yeah, this. NinpoEspiritoSanto fucked around with this message at 17:09 on May 28, 2019 |
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May 28, 2019 17:05
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Perhaps if people had a better work/life balance and didn't need to monetize their time to live, they would not feel so compelled to turn things they do for leisure into full time paying jobs.
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May 28, 2019 17:05
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wateroverfire posted:Beaten, drat. obviously it's going to be much more complicated than just a straight redistribution of gdp per capita, i'm just saying that our current level of consumption is pretty much completely superfluous (i sincerely doubt that our lives are thirty times as good as they were in the sixties) and, unhappily, unsustainable - i would, for my own part, happily reduce my consumption to sixties levels in exchange for more leisure and power over my life and fate basically, i would say that we reached a point of severely diminishing returns as far as consumption goes a very long time ago, and i'm convinced that it would be an extreme improvement if we started exchanging that for freedom
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May 28, 2019 17:15
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V. Illych L. posted:obviously it's going to be much more complicated than just a straight redistribution of gdp per capita, i'm just saying that our current level of consumption is pretty much completely superfluous (i sincerely doubt that our lives are thirty times as good as they were in the sixties) and, unhappily, unsustainable - i would, for my own part, happily reduce my consumption to sixties levels in exchange for more leisure and power over my life and fate How did you come to your estimate that 1960's France was the living standard global communism now would give? I was thinking of some other points but maybe they're covered by your methodology.
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May 28, 2019 17:25
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Bundy posted:"Happiness" is also a basic need, ffs. Which is why I emphasized the 0 viewers aspect of the twitch streamer example. They aren't providing entertainment for anyone but themselves. This would apply to someone that aspires to be an author/musician but gets little to no audience because they are superior offerings and finite time/interest for consumption. OwlFancier posted:Perhaps if people had a better work/life balance and didn't need to monetize their time to live, they would not feel so compelled to turn things they do for leisure into full time paying jobs. Regardless, given the option of hauling trash 40 hours per week, 20 hours per week, or 0 hours per week I'm going to choose 0 hours per week assuming all jobs are considered viable and and equal hours = equal pay.
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May 28, 2019 17:30
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Hell, https://twitter.com/manitoheathen/status/1133176307561451520
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May 28, 2019 17:30
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KingNastidon posted:Regardless, given the option of hauling trash 40 hours per week, 20 hours per week, or 0 hours per week I'm going to choose 0 hours per week assuming all jobs are considered viable and and equal hours = equal pay. currently, how does trash get from your kitchen to the nearest curb or dumpster
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May 28, 2019 17:33
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wateroverfire posted:How did you come to your estimate that 1960's France was the living standard global communism now would give? I was thinking of some other points but maybe they're covered by your methodology. very roughly basically divided gdp per capita, granted a bit of leeway for knockon effects re the loss of imperialist exploitation (less than perhaps one would think to; distribution today is really hosed, even in rich countries, and so the portion of GDP/PC that is actual consumption is lower now), times two for women in the workforce, compared to a place and a time where the youth were saying 'we do not want to avoid death by starvation to face death by boredom', indicating a perception that basic living standards were acceptable e. again, this is not a serious academic estimate but it seems roughly sane as a basic yardstick and to keep in mind how entirely the bourgeoisie are skimming us V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 17:38 on May 28, 2019 |
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May 28, 2019 17:36
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V. Illych L. posted:obviously it's going to be much more complicated than just a straight redistribution of gdp per capita, i'm just saying that our current level of consumption is pretty much completely superfluous (i sincerely doubt that our lives are thirty times as good as they were in the sixties) and, unhappily, unsustainable - i would, for my own part, happily reduce my consumption to sixties levels in exchange for more leisure and power over my life and fate This is my feeling over things too. I was lucky enough to turn a hobby (interest in computer things) into a career that sustains me and my family, however doing so for over twenty years a: makes me loving hate it now and b: well aware that a ton of the poo poo we've got in the house is there to serve as distraction from Yet Another Day. I'd love an opportunity to retrain, or have the time to go and volunteer, however ever increasing rent and piss poor mental health care for my partner means this is What I Do Until I Die.
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May 28, 2019 17:38
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KingNastidon posted:Regardless, given the option of hauling trash 40 hours per week, 20 hours per week, or 0 hours per week I'm going to choose 0 hours per week assuming all jobs are considered viable and and equal hours = equal pay. That says more about you than anything else, i think.
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May 28, 2019 17:48
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Calibanibal posted:currently, how does trash get from your kitchen to the nearest curb or dumpster Well, typically I pick up the bag and carry it there. I consider this one minute task of removing garbage from my personal residence different than putting on my work outfit, commuting to the dump, and then hauling other people's trash back to the dump for N hours. I don't know what would compel me to want to spend my time doing this versus any other activity we could consider a job, especially if the job has no requirements in terms of contributing to meeting society's basic needs.
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May 28, 2019 17:48
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It's me, the person who can conceive of no value whatsoever in helping people out, here to tell you that communism can't work.
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May 28, 2019 17:50
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OwlFancier posted:It's me, the person who can conceive of no value whatsoever in helping people out, here to tell you that communism can't work. Maybe it'd just prefer to help people via tutoring, gaming tutorials, providing strong opinions on sports, or hell just being a life coach. My labor is available and appointments can be made online. What will compel people to haul trash in 90 degree heat vs. less strenuous alternatives assuming no difference in pay?
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May 28, 2019 18:13
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