Indigenous  says:
8 months ago

Thank You Lovezan. I hope more people will see it this way.

Aya Katz  says:
7 months ago

This is an interesting video, but I don't find it convincing.

Planned obsolescence and scarcity by design bother me, too, but not all scarcity is artificially created.

There is one scarce resource that is scarce by definition: real estate. If others have access to my home, then I have no privacy. If I own one thousand acres, then I can keep people further away from me than if I own one acre. If I own no land, and everyone has access to everywhere I may choose to be, then I have no privacy, and I cannot control my life. 

Man has always fought over land, since before humans separated from other apes. Even in a jungle with no scarcity of food or other resources, it is natural to want to keep strangers out of your own territory, because intimacy is important, and we can't be intimate with everyone.

Chimpanzees keep other chimpanzees away from their land not just because they're afraid they'll run out of food. In fact, food is not the primary reason. Mates are. If you believe in the scientific method, you will understand how natural selection works, and you will know this true.

It is NOT true that the only problems are the problems that are common to all! It is not true for chimpanzees, who clearly recognize conflicts of interest among individual members of the same group -- and it is not true for man. Absolutely not.

What about love? By definition, love is not common to all. Love is preference. Are you suggesting that in the future, there will be no preferences? Some of us prefer a desk built quickly over a desk that will outlive us. Not everyone wants the best possible house, car or refrigerator. Some of us prefer novelty for the sake of novelty. What is to prevent these people from ordering too many products (and discarding the old) if price is not an issue? Will Big Brother Computer simply tell them to stop ordering too much stuff?

Every person is unique. A computer cannot determine what each one "needs". Needs are relative to what is available, as you noted. The more is available, the more people think they need.

Do any of us really need anything more than a jungle of our own to live in? If so, who decides?

Without property rights, the family would fall apart, because complete strangers could walk into people's homes and disrupt the order and tranquility that each family establishes for itself. This could happen without anyone doing anything violent or "criminal." I assume that trespass has no meaning as crime, once property rights disappear.

Those of us who are different from others do not want to be treated as a "sick patients." We want space that is our own, where we can make our own rules. Self interest is not a synonym for money, and it is not a bad thing.

The Shortest Hub  says:
7 months ago

Joy At Home  says:
6 months ago

It started out looking good. In fact, I caught myself thinking, "I've developed most of those thoughts over the years, myself." But by the end of the video, I realized, "It's bound to fail, as surely as every other man-made Utopia...as surely as Babyl did."

I've no doubt that we'll see much of this ideal come to pass...but I don't think most of us will like it nearly as well as this video tells us we should.

Something in Man wants PROPERTY - a person wants his own car, his own home, his own whatever...and he should - we're individuals for a reason.

Man also wants to know - he did it himself! Did what? Whatever. The most satisfied people I know are those who work with their hands, and work as much for themselves as society allows.

Even between my husband and I, we appreciate having our own tools, and our own places to keep them. I don't want to spend more time than the project I'm working on is worth, wandering around looking for his screwdriver, which he rarely puts in the same place twice.

According to the stated worldview, we probably won't need screwdrivers. :-) But yes, we will - otherwise people atrophy (physically, mentally, emotionally), society atrophies, and we're right back where we started, playing dumb, dumber, and dumbest, waiting for someone to save us from our own stupidity. People need WORK to do - that's the way we're designed.

Joy At Home  says:
6 months ago

With all due respect, I believe you missed the point of my comment. All I meant was that if most work is to be done by machines (which definitely have their place, and shouldn't be ignored), that doesn't leave humans much to do besides amuse ourselves, and twiddle our thumbs, as if we lived in an upper class Victorian society.

Anyone for a quadrille? ;-)

Otherwise, I find the ideas in the video have some merit. We should be looking to only manufacture those items which are really needed, and only the best concepts and models. This is all that's ever made sense to me. There is no other path to true excellence, and no smarter way to use natural resources. (Too bad people haven't paid more attention to some of Tefla's ideas, among others.) There is all kinds of screwiness in our monetary system - anyone with half an eye can see that, though perhaps it was the best system for our circumstances once upon a time.

Just for the record, I regularly work with many people, at a variety of things, doing that which is necessary for the good of all, and taking home "real" pay - the barter system is alive and well in my area. The Government wouldn't be interested in most of what I've got. In my set, paper has about as much value as it should - we wipe our noses and [ahem] with it, and trade a different variety when we must, to people still caught up in the system (doesn't happen often, really).

I'll never forget a story told about Indians who raided a U.S. Government shipment, and all they found was boxes of green bits of paper. They sure had fun watching it blow in the breeze.

In spite of all this, if this Utopia succeeds, it will be the first.

Indigenous  says:
2 months ago

What was boring K@ri?

Indigenous  says:
2 months ago

Yes it is from:

Jacques Fresco on Larry King Live 1974