

The Free World Charter: Let's make everything free - nairboon
http://www.freeworldcharter.org/

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jdludlow
What a crock of garbage. 6.5 minutes of hand having and pie-in-the-sky
dreaming, without a scrap of evidence that anything being said has any basis
in reality. This is clearly divorced from basic economic principles.

To pick one of many lines that show this guy is utterly clueless, "Technology
has completely freed us from hard labour."

Oh, really? The guys building the house across the street from me right now
look like they're working pretty hard. Coal doesn't mine itself. I guess
pixies and fairies will wish our roads, bridges, and buildings into existence.

And who exactly is going to build these magic machines that poop out the
things we all need to survive? Who exactly is going to ration the output to
make things "fair."

Money exists for a reason, that reason is human nature, and no amount of
commie propaganda is going to change that.

~~~
tomlin

       Money exists for a reason, that reason is 
       human nature, and no amount of commie propaganda 
       is going to change that.
    

I agree that this idea has some holes, but to throw it out as "commie
propaganda" is a little much. It seems anything that _isn't_ capitalism is
immediately communism. I believe resource-based economics are completely
different, perhaps completely opposite from communism.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I agree with you only because Communism is a well thought out theory. A theory
that most (at least in the United States) feel has failed but a well thought
out theory none the less. For example, every manifestation of Communism has
established a monetary system. That system just happens to be centrally
planed.

This proposal doesn't provide any real structure as to how society would work.
It proposes abolishing almost everything we've established the world's
societies on but provides no adequate replacement for that infrastructure.

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arvinjoar
Someone clearly skipped their economics 101 lesson. Money is a means of
exchange, with supply and demand, it regulates our resource use. Why is it
needed? Because without prices, sane economic decisions are impossible. With
so many choices on what to produce and what to produce it with, and with
scarcity in mind, we have to have a way to put resources to efficient use,
instead of just guessing. Having prices that come from supply and demand has
been historically proven to be the best way of putting resources to efficient
use.

Not only does the video fail to acknowledge the importance of a price system,
but it comes bundled with a couple of flawed premises, one of them being the
Marxist theory of technological improvement leading to unemployment in a
capitalist society.

To anyone who thinks that 'Yes! I hate bills! I feel so unfree!', I can
sympathize. However, don't assume that the alternative that is proposed is any
better.

Check this out: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem>

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jackvalentine
"only limited by the raw materials needed, not cost"

Why on earth would someone work in a mine to get the raw materials needed if
there were no compensation? This whole bizarre thing discounts that human
output is a resource, one which you can't use for free.

~~~
leon_
With enough automation where every physical work is done by robots it might
work.

~~~
hgdfhgfd
...and who maintains the robots?

~~~
nairboon
There are enough enthusiasts out there who would love to play all day and
nights with all sorts of robots.

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TGJ
Free only works if everyone participates equally. If just one person is lazy,
the system crumbles from resentment.

Money does not create inequality, it simply is the scorecard to show the
inequality of those people involved in the system. In a system not corrupted
by greed and theft, those with money are simply people that work harder,
and/or smarter than those who have less money.

~~~
revolvingcur
Your final statement only holds if (a) all environments in which people live
are equally rich in opportunity/resources or (b) there are sufficient
environments with adequate opportunity/resources to which people can move
cheaply. That is not the world we currently occupy.

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dr_win
This is very dangerous video and execution of those ideas could lead to
suffering.

This is not about the money but about communist-style of equality. If the
ultimate goal of removing money should lead to removing inequality, you may
take it to the extreem and every man should get: the same free basked of food
(as pictured), the same free cloths, the same free computer, the same free
education, the same free land, the same free house, the same free woman, the
same amount of free love, he must also get the same free DNA, be born at the
same place exactly at the same point in time... to be really equal.

If you are not able to satisfy those conditions, there will be always
inequality between people, with or without money, no mater how you will
denominate the perceived values.

I personally believe in competition and diversification which is how nature
always worked in the history and that is why we have better life today.
Existence of money has a little to do with it.

~~~
sophacles
This is kind of a strawman. Perhaps the equality talked about is not the
boring clone of existence kind, but the kind where people get equal choice to
do with themselves as they wish?

There is no denying that currently there are a large number of people in the
world with extremely limited choice in what they do, and that choice is in
many cases not actually a choice (work hard doing X or work hard doing Y but
never get to do anything but hard work with little reward).

Secondly, I would like to point out that your personal belief statement is
also based on a fallacy. The just because something always worked in the past
and it got us here does not mean 1) it will get us to the future, 2) it was
just or moral, 3) here is better for everyone.

~~~
dr_win
> "the kind where people get equal choice to do with themselves as they wish?"

But where you draw the line of "equal choices"? And WHO will be drawing that
line?

I'm perfectly aware that there are people living in miserable situation on
this planet. But you cannot artificially fix it by making all people instantly
"equal". Until we all live "boring cloned existences" each one of us has
slightly different priorities and values different things differently. You can
maybe improve material life of hard-working child in coal mines but how would
you fix a life of a blind person? Those are extremes again, but there is
continuum of subtle cases in-between. You simply have to draw the line
somewhere and some people will think it is unequal, because according to their
values you helped more others which will lead to inequality in their eyes. Is
is better to give everybody house or cure for cancer?

~~~
sophacles
So are you suggesting that because we can't draw a perfect line on your
continuum that we should not try to find a better line to draw? Or perhaps
that because it can't be perfect, we should abolish it completely? Perhaps we
can't fix every single thing, but perhaps we should try. The blind man you
mention may or may not be fixable, but we should give him the options we can
within the constraints of what is possible. (again back to your continuum --
we can't fix some forms of blindness, so we shouldn't fix the sweatshops
either). You are arguing a strawman still.

As for different priorities and values, why do you think I talk of the option
to make a choice for yourself? That allows each person to actually follow
their priorities and values.

As for choosing house over cancer cure, this is again a fallacy, this time the
false dilemma. Not everyone needs a cure for cancer -- those who don't have
cancer. Not everyone needs a house: those who have houses. Some need both,
some need neither.

Please note: I'm not actually for abdicating money per se, just for some sort
of change to the system -- where perhaps random chance plays less of a factor
(don't idiot up this statement with your absolutism... less not none) in a
person's well being. Where perhaps the energy channeled into greed could in
fact be channeled into something far more productive to everyone's existence.

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tehansen
from the video: "The only thing money creates is inequality. A scoring system
for humanity that decides who gets what."

And without money, who decides who get what instead? Wesley Mouch?

I may be biased by just recently having read Atlas Shrugged, and not quite
having digested it completely yet, but I do feel that money is the best tool
we have to solve the huge problem of optimally distributing resources. The
only true resources are every persons time, ability and effort; everything
else is given to us for free by the universe and governed by the laws of
physics/nature. Freedom means we each get to decide what it means to apply our
own resources optimally.

Now if we can use technology to create a better communication/collaboration
tool than money to pool and distribute our resources I'm all for it.

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jakubmal
LOL, who could think of something so stupid...

I live in a tiny country, Poland (that's eastern Europe). We've seen these
ideas before, right before 89', Berlin Wall, right before getting out
independence back from Soviet Union.

But it seems I can go West and hear it again, cool.

~~~
nairboon
How is this vision the same with what you encountered 89'?

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negatendo
But you guys, UNDERWATER CITIES!

