

Let’s Start a Revolution - decklin
http://writing.jan.io/2013/08/16/lets-start-a-revolution.html

======
lukeqsee
I wish life were this simple.

Essentially, it seems Jan wants to replace capitalism with hedonism.
Inevitably, we will find the problems with hedonism and need a (second)
revolution. I'm not arguing that we live in the "perfect capitalistic
society"—far from it. However, we can't fight fire with fire here, i.e., we
cannot replace one broken system with another inherently broken system.
Instead, we need to change people's ideas about life, money, and happiness.
It's only when we change _focus_ that balance will be achievable. Money,
happiness, work are all amoral. Undue focus on money or happiness or work
tends to bring about moral failure. So, we now know what it's like to live in
a society that focuses on money (capitalistic). If we follow Jan we will know
what it's like to live in a (more so) hedonistic society.

Instead of jumping from one school of thought to another, I think we really
just want to find balance and purpose. That isn't found through revolutions;
that's found through individuals changing and growing.

Edit: clarifications.

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the_cat_kittles
I think lots of people have this kind of revelation as they get a bit older.
Glad you've found a new outlook that you like. I don't think you need to frame
it as a revolution though.

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sologoub
Well, wrote an epic rant/rebuttal to the "hard work is just a story" and by
the time I finished the link to post expired... So I'll be brief.

The argument that hard work is just a story is deeply offensive to me. Social
mobility in the US is one of the highest it has ever been in history. AND this
social mobility is non-violent! This has NEVER happened before in human
history. Just think about that for a minute before you get on that soap box
again.

Look at the crop of "new money" rich that technology has produced. Why? Hard
work and value creation. Instagram may not be value in the sense of gold
bricks, but the connections it created surpass most communication mediums in
history. Still think it's just a photo app?

Sure, things aren't great right now. American exceptionalism and infectious
optimism aren't what they used to be. Many of us are downright embarrassed by
the current political situation. Forget that, I'm mortified by the disregard
for the rule of law. But that doesn't mean we should take our proverbial ball
and go home.

Hard work has made an incredible difference for me and my family in several
generations, spanning Soviet Union and now US. No rhetoric can take that away
from us.

What concerns me most, is that you seem to lack respect for your own work. I
sincerely hope you find that respect. If you do not value your own work, how
can others? How can you respect your trade? Your peers accomplishments?

~~~
mecameron
> Social mobility in the US is one of the highest it has ever been in history

No, social mobility in the US has actually decreased fairly significantly in
the last 50 years, and is much lower than other countries. That the US is
somehow highly socially mobile is an enduring myth engrained in our collective
psyche that is utterly wrong at this point.

It took me less than a minute to google "social mobility in the US today"
(non-leading query) to find the following examples with data (and there are
many more from other respectful sources):

1\.
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/in...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/intergenerational-
wealth-1)

2\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/social-mobility-is-a-myth-
in-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/social-mobility-is-a-myth-in-the-
us-2013-3)

~~~
jnbiche
On a related note, take a look at the US's gini coefficient, which measures
income inequality (and strong predictor of social unrest):

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-
us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient)

~~~
mtowle
We should try to lower this number as much as possible!

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metricman
This reminds me of Juliet Schor's work (an economist). She talks about
retreating away from urban areas some, like, in some revolution type way, but
I think that is going a bit far.

Here's a video about her ideas and book:

[http://vimeo.com/12034640](http://vimeo.com/12034640)
[http://www.amazon.com/Plenitude-New-Economics-True-
Wealth/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Plenitude-New-Economics-True-
Wealth/dp/1594202540/)

One idea is: technology has resulted in efficiency increases. These increases
have resulted into more compensation for those with capital to deploy
technology, but the floor worker (though more efficient) has similar
compensation.

So, the efficiency gains of technology, today, are routed toward (going back
to the original link) maintaining the status quo. Instead we can 'redefine
work' and spend less time working for the owners, and instead contributing to
our local communities, etc.

I think the ideas are nice, but trust me: no office full of full-time people
wants to hire you for 2 days a week. Part-time is generally unacceptable. I
speak from experience - try replying to a recruiter as much.

Techy people can a lot of money, let's say 130k for mid-career at BigCorp in
BigCity. Try to scale that down; can you work half-time and pull in 65k? Nope.

These are similar to the ideas of Buckminster Fuller too, about technology and
society. I think it's very interesting but very difficult.

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jacques_chester
The base rate of positive outcomes from genuine revolutions is poor. Very
poor. The American Revolution is an unusual exception which more closely
resembled a standard war than the total dissolution of social order.

Think about what total dissolution of social order means.

It means that sociopaths and psychopaths are no longer making your life hell
at work.

They are killing and torturing people. And the worst of the worst quickly rise
to the top, because the sorting pool switches from "localised power structure"
to "everywhere in this society".

The linked article isn't really about revolutions as such. The author has
discovered that markets don't optimise for virtue, they optimise for value.
Hayek has pointed out that this is _why_ they work at all; if you try to
impose outside virtues on markets they either distort or become actively
dysfunctional. There are limits to what can be done to align the world we want
to live in with the world we actually live in.

Beware the is/ought fallacy.

~~~
hluska
This answer is too good to merely upvote - it is not only informative and
factual, but also very well written. Thank you for taking the time to add it!!

~~~
jacques_chester
Funnily enough, it's sufficiently tangential to the linked post that I have
considered deleting it.

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JacksonGariety
This will take far too long.

Let's riot in the streets with weapons and convince the police to help us.

~~~
maxk42
History proves this is the most effective way to promote rapid change.

~~~
eksith
Change, yes. Though not always in the direction you expect. Or desire.

~~~
zhemao
As Egypt has shown, this is the quickest way to replace one power-hungry
sociopath with another.

------
eksith
"On top of performing alchemy on a daily basis, the people in my profession
get treated like unicorns"

I usually get treated like a mule... minus the beatings.

This brought back so much deja vu. I didn't have the privilege that he's had,
but I can see how having things easier can diminish the appreciation for the
difficulty others endure. I also don't think this needs to be framed as a
"revolution", although that may be the operative word necessary to build the
drive you need to push through it.

The best way would be to become successful and have your life serve as an
example for others.

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nairboon
Well if you really want to start an revolution you might want to check out
completely alternative structure of society. Such as Panocracy [1] or
Constructive Utopism [2]

1: [http://en.panokratie.net/2013/06/10/panocracy-
intro/](http://en.panokratie.net/2013/06/10/panocracy-intro/) 2:
[http://falkj.info/FJO_s_cu.htm](http://falkj.info/FJO_s_cu.htm)

~~~
jjsz
I like how your second link- links to a book with a good explanation but you
first link doesn't link to a book or explains itself well. I prefer a Night-
watchman State [0]. Panocracy is a system that can work as a separate entity
to a Minarchist [1] society which happens to implement a Delegative Democracy
[2] with Open-source governance [3] (something a minority of people dream of
but the majority know it isn't feasible- take a look at Voting and
Combinatrics [4] and Combinatorial Voting [5]-- it's all theoretical anyways
since a Minarchist, Panocrist, or Combinatorial society has never exsited). I
don't understand why don't you link to a Delegative Democracy and Open-source
governance's definition, if that is what Panocracy is implying.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-
watchman_state](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism))

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
source_governance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_governance)

[4]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFjApWH8R9c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFjApWH8R9c)

[5]
[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Femlab.berkel...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Femlab.berkeley.edu%2F~dahn%2FAHN_OLIVEROS_combinatorial_voting.pdf)

------
chipsy
Note that Jan's call to action is not a 20th century one. This "revolution"
has nothing to do with bloodshed in the streets and ideological hardlining(the
twin failures of most revolutionary movements), and a lot to do with gradual
engineering of social structures to create the "checks and balances" we so
often ask for.

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chasing
So, wait, you're saying there's _more_ to life than money?

------
javert
This article is completely filled with assumptions that are utterly faulty,
but mostly for subtle reasons.

Some of them are widely held misconceptions; some of them are fairly juvenile.
(For example, [1].)

And that's why we cannot fix the situation. If your analysis of what's
currently wrong is bad, you certainly aren't going to come up with something
better.

There is hope, but only in the very long term. We need better people in
academic philosophy departments. Their ideas are the top of the intellectual
food pyramid and eventually trickle down to everyone.

[1] A common mistake is to make the following equivocation which I will quote:
"Business at large, 'capitalism',...". No, business != capitalism. Or if you
really want to define capitalism that way, your model is insufficient detailed
to capture important distinctions. For instance, think about big business
under fascist ideology (such as Nazism), which is fully integrated and
controlled by the government, though nominally held privately. Then think
about the opposite: When all people are treated _completely_ equally by the
government, which means that no business can get any sort of special advantage
_at all_. In one of these situations, the economy will steadily decline into
nothing. In the other, you have the best possible condition for economic
growth. Our current system is highly mixed; literally, a mix of poison and
medicine. How would the OP analyze this situation, and in which direction
would he advocate going? He certainly wouldn't take a principled approach,
because his model is insufficiently detailed to capture this issue.

