Why shouldn't food be free?

Drumminmama, if you seriously equate money with life energy... I dunno, but I find that quite perverse.

When did I accuse anyone of not reading my posts? Not to mention the fact that I said later in the very post you quoted that I did go back and read IceT's post. I have mentioned it now but nevermind.

Read my post around the middle of page 3. Unless you want me to cut and paste it for you? Keeping count is counter-productive. Do you enjoy the time you personally spend taking care of money? How much 'life energy' do you think is spent world-wide on keeping track of how much 'life energy' each person has to their name? I don't understand why you think this way would be less efficient, why we would have less time for 'quality of life'.

 

and... some people might consider their quality of life and life energy increases and improves when they learn, use and teach more skills.


That's just what I think. I'm having a job convincing large quantities of people, so don't feel like you're in a minority here or anything Drumminmama.

Peace and Love.

Andy

 

First, I think your system is too disorganized. So you post on the site that you have surplus corn but need, say, size 10 shoes. What happens when 30 people show up with shoes wanting corn? Do you take all the shoes? You live way out on a farm, who are you going to "sell" these shoes to? Or do you only trade with one person and send the rest off hungry? This is the problem with bartering. Worse, it makes no sense for a Canadian mining his iron to trade with a Cuban for his sugar...the only cost effective way to do this is to have mass shipments of sugar from place of production to a common market or distributor. You can't have individual trades in this way, it'd never happen, and that Canadian would never get sugar.

Money is not the problem, in fact it is a hugely useful tool. It is equated to life energy in that we value our time based on money (sort of...wages are what we sell our time/energy for...way under valued of course). Money allows people to trade the paper for whatever they want, and the reciever knows the money will be good everywhere, so he doesn't mind taking a piece of paper for his goods.

The real problem is not money, it is greed. It's this intangible love for money that poisons our affairs, not the paper. Solving the problem of greed will not be accomplished by ceasing the use of money; that kind of change must come from within. Same goes for revolution and protest in general. If it doesn't come from enlightened people, all that's happening is a rearrangement of your misery. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

 

No, the point of this system is that you're your own boss. You do what you think would make you feel best. But yeah, good points, I'll take them on.

First, I'll go into a little more depth on the website idea. Each member is represented as a translucent blob on the map. When you search for a skill/commodity, those who offer that skill are represented as a positive value, those who need that skill as a negative value. Frexample if the background colour of the map were grey, skills offered would push the colour towards white, skills needed would push the colour towards black. If a skill/commodity is wanted roughly as much as it is offered, it cancels out, back to grey. Do you see how that works?

If you're zoomed out quite far (the blobs are the same actual size so they appear bigger when you're zoomed out), you can get an idea of where the large surplusses and dirths are, so if you're a big producer you know where to ship stuff. Leave it in a big warehouse when you get there (where locals store all their surplus) and locals can sort out the distribution from there when they come to drop off their stuff. The further you zoom in, the more resolved the picture becomes.

You're still talking trade, which is not what I'm talking about. If 2 and a half people can provide the calorific needs of, I'd estimate, 5000 people (? help me out here IceT, do you know how many people 3600 acres of wheat feeds), only a very small proportion of those 5000 odd need turn up and collect/deposit/help out. Mass shipments would still happen. Factories, like modern farms, produce absolute shitloads of stuff. I'm not sure you're taking this into account.

Lets take the shoes example. If shoes are produced in massive quantities (as they are) for the average market (as they are), that is, roughly the right amount of shoes of each size based on demographics, and sent off to shoe warehouses in equal amounts, anyone who wants to can go and pick up a pair of shoes when they want. If a shoe factory finds out a place is hoarding (although why they'd want to I don't know), they stop sending shoes there. It's just like today's sytem but without the money. Except in today's system hoarding (of money) is respected and valued and a really good, positive thing. It is in fact the individual goal of the monetary system.

If you want hand-made shoes you will have to get in touch with a cobbler and see if you can persuade them. Remember, everyone's personal details are on this system so an e-mail is all it takes to initiate contact. But hand-made shoes are clearly not a necessity.

The problem absolutely is money. They, the super-rich, the men in black, whoever the fuck they are, toy with the rules, prices, the wages they pay and so on so that all the surplus wealth goes straight up to them. We think we need money so wasters don't get what they want but it's simply not worth it when the five hundred richest men in the world end up with more wealth than the poorest three billion. To give an idea of how many a billion is, a billion seconds is nigh on a century (just over 95 years), and there's three of them. Five huindred seconds is under ten minutes. This problem is inherent to money and unresolvable because as long as we trust and believe in money, the people who have it all will make the rules.


I do tend to get worked up about this

 

It's not about "give me this and I'll give you that" anymore. It's about getting things from where they are produced to where they are needed.

 

Thanx for debating this with me btw BTM. It helps me sort out my ideas and I enjoy a good debate

 

So basically, everything is free, and we just assume people contribute enough in society to make it worth everyone's while? Nice idea...but forgive me for not being too optomistic on it. Like communism (which this seems very similar to), it's a great idea but will probably not work.

and why do they want the wealth to go to them? Greed. And what is greed? Greed is an example of extreme desire, which is a form of fear. Fear of not having enough, needing more and more security (which we can never really have anyways). Money itself is just a tool, but because it is the medium through with we get all our material needs (and generally, the greedy only care about material security), it becomes the most important thing. If money weren't around, people would hoard food (as they used to) or something else. Wealth and value are not exclusive to money. In Africa, it's cattle, in other places, it's a shell necklace.

But I do agree with one thing: hoarding is wrong. In fact, I only just realized it when reading your post. It's a sign of our fear, and our selfishness.

by the way, this website is still hypothetical, correct?

 

Andy: How many people can 3500 acres feed? I don't know... my best estimate is "a whole hell of a lot"... lol. Canada is one of those rare countries that actually produces more food-stuffs anually that it's population could consume. Not just grains, but Canada produces all sorts of food and food products... from cows (beef) to maple syrup.

Honestly, Saskatchewan could close it's borders and be completley self-reliant and actually flurish. The people might bitch in the begining, as we wouldn't have sugar, but people would adapt to using honey or maple syrup. Sheep and Llamas for wool, cows, bison, pigs in abundance for meat... not to mention hunting. I don't think there is anything that a person "needs" that can't be found in SK.

On a side note, in referance to BTM's cattle/money point... Once while on vacation, my father was offered 7 goats and 4 chickens for my hand in marriage by nice African man he met in a bar. My father turned him down, because "I think she would kill me if I traded her off for some goats". It was a very nice offer though, as he only had 12 goats to begin with.

 

Teehee, that's a funny story

Very good point about adapting to local produce though. That's obviously a good thing simply cos it's efficient in terms of effort and minimising pollution.


Yeah, it is a communist type thing (I said where I stand with respect to communism earlier in the thread), which you agree is a good ideal. I think only evil people would think that there's anything wrong with the concept of "To each according to their need, from each according to their ability". It's just hard to achieve that in practice.

You have to really get into this imaginary world where I live and picture everyday life. Just because things don't cost money doesn't mean everything is effortless or that it will just come to you. Spend too long dossing in one place and not helping out and people will form opinions of you. They won't help you out and existence in this world is all about co-dependance. But it wouldn't be hard to help out.

For example, if you go down to the local warehouse for a random thing, let's say a stereo system, and they don't have any, you can either give up and go home (which people wouldn't like, and you'd end up with no stereo) or you can look on the website and find out where the nearest place that has a spare stereo is. Then you can do a quick check for other things that are there which are needed where you are (and vice versa) and print out a list of things to pick up. Hop in the biggest available vehicle that you are licensed to drive, fill it up with surplus stuff that's needed at your destination, go there, drop off your cargo, pick up your stuff and head back having helped out your community, their community and yourself at the same time.

If you have to go all the way to the stereo factory they may want you to work for a bit. Production lines have made extremely complicated processes into a series of virtually unskilled yet hugely efficient jobs (not to mention mechanised production), so you could do it for a while and bring back a few spare stereos which would be a good thing bcos no one who lived next door to a stereo factory would be in need of a stereo.

People wouldn't hoard because advertising surplus for distribution is what would bring people, with exotic produce, to them. And also, with the security that this system offers, I think fear would be a much much less significant part of life than it is today.

I could go on but just get into the world and picture yourself there and you'll be able to answer most of your own questions.


The website is hypothetical for the moment. I'm in discussions with a coder about programming it and he can do it fairly cheap. However geocoding data (the info that puts a blob on the right place on the map when they put in their postcode and street number) comes at quite a steep price. I'm looking into technology seed capital or just general venture capital investments but I'm not a business man. I'll get there though.

The thing is, it's a good idea even as oil in the capitalist wheels. There's nothing stopping people from buying and selling the stuff they pick up and drop off, at least at first, or selling the services they advertise.


Of course wealth and value are not exclusive to money. When I say this planet is rich I don't mean there's lots of money here. The value of money is largely imaginary and as I said it's actually pointless and counter-productive. Its only purpose, imo, is to make a heirarchy. "I'm better than you because I have contributed more to society as evidenced by my huge hoard of money." This is a widely accepted misconception, even though it's a pretty well-known fact that all you need to make money is to have money already (that's not the only way to make money, but it's a pretty common way).


And just as a general note. Being constructive makes you feel better. Being lazy makes you feel worse. I don't see the need of coercion to bolster these already strong natural instincts.

 

Okay Drumminmama, let me ask you this. Do you trust yourself to make up your own mind how much life energy a person has, rather than trusting this imaginary 'objective' mesaurement that money supposes to offer?

 

No, it's known as eBay