One thousand years from now

Endemic corruption, 40% unemployment. 50% of people below poverty line. Not very impressive.

That's because socialism is contrary to human nature. The Socialists consistently deny the freeloader effect, which is really fundamentally simple - people like to get paid. People don't like to work for no pay, especially when the freeloaders get paid and those who work don't. So, the "logical" thing to do is to become one of the freeloaders, and soon there's nothing for anybody to eat. (except seeds and twigs and carrion, of course).

Thanks, Rich

Cheers! Rich

I'd like to mildly disagree with your word choice. It matters to the person in question what she/he needs, but it's his/her own responsibility to get it.

What's wrong is when one dictator tells everyone what he thinks they "need", which is where the system breaks down.

Thanks, Rich

Now you're just being poopy.

Thanks, Rich

Nope. I like what I do.

No, in this context it doesn't matter at all. Just because something isn't *needed* doesn't mean it's not desired or even justified. If I want 100 houses it doesn't matter a whit whether I need them or not.

Yes, and that's the road Larkin was taking.

I think enough people will want to work that there won't be a problem coming up with the 1%.

I wonder what the population will be 1000 years from now. 100 million would fit the Earth nicely.

John

OK, you try eating 300 times a day. Or organizing 100 houses.

Dictator? Breaks down? I'm extrapolating about the effects of automation on productivity. Very few people - probably volunteers - and lots of machines can eventually make everything the population needs, or even reasonably wants. The only legal limits on consumption might be limits on damage to public places... not everyone could fly their private jets simultaneously, or have swimming pools that cover square miles, or dissipate too many megawatts of energy.

When society makes things so efficiently that almost everything is almost free, some limits on consumption become reasonable. As it is, we have limits on resource consumption - fish, game, water, air pollution, all sorts of things.

I should hope we're beyond an "acquire more stuff" society by then. We'd run out of space to store all the toys. I know people who are doing that already.

Most economic thinking is still about scarcity.

John

When the communism will be finally established, who will take the job of cleaning the shit? (c) V. Suvorov

This is exactly what they told us about the communist society that we are going to build! Literally, in the same words!

In the communist society, everyone will work to his abilities, and consume to his needs, bla-bla-bla, future generations, agressive imperialists, progressive teachings of Lenin, so on, so forth.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

I don't want to support the lazy bums. The 20% we have now is too much.

You'll need that many grave diggers to get there.

Who says I have to eat 300 meals or live in 100 houses? I haven't spent all my money either, but keep trying to make more.

WHen you brought the "needs" argument is, yes, that's the issue.

Not everyone can, perhaps, but "need" has nothing to do with "wants".

Ok.

Then it's time for them to move. ;-)

...and it always will be.

We already have a society, at least in most of the West, where people work 40 hours or less a week, have lots of vacations and holidays off, go to school from birth until 24 or so, retire at 60, and live to be

1. That's an overall work duty cycle of around 16 per cent maybe. Include motherhood and whatever and you get countries that are running below 10% and doing fine. The numbers will only come down.

Neither Karl Marx nor Joseph Smith, in their wildest dreams, ever imagined the productivity we have. Now multiply by a mere 10 and only

1% of the population has to work.

Disagree? Do you think productivity will continue to increase? And what will be the consequences of that?

John

Reference to literature - some of the later stories in the "Venus Equilateral" series, by George O. Smith... specifically, "Pandora's Millions", published in June 1945.

The intrepid inventors at the Venus Equilateral space/communications station develop a matter transmitter... which turns out to act as a matter duplicator, and allows the cheap, near-unlimited duplication of almost any non-living material or object. The process is different than what you're thinking of, but the effect is quite similar.

In Smith's plot, the economic system collapses... completely, promptly, and enthusiastically... since everybody is busy duplicating everything they want, money becomes worthless (both unnecessary, and completely untrustworthy - it can be duplicated/counterfeited just as easily as gravel), and nobody's buying anything.

Some people do go whole-hog into excessive duplication/consumption, but the allure wears off pretty quickly. Why try to out-do the Joneses, when they can clone up identical copies of everything you've acquired/duplicated as soon as they want?

Getting the economy back together (in Smith's story) required a complete re-focusing of supply-and-demand, based on personal services that could not be automated (e.g. gardening, medical care), and on "uniques" - one-of-a-kind objects (e.g. artwork and crafts) which had been certified *never* to have been duplicated. The latter (and the re-establishment of something akin to a money system) required the development of a new material which was guaranteed to explode violently if you tried to scan it for duplication.

The V.E. stories are a fun read... the technology is quite dated, of course, but some of the engineer-vs.-PHB hijinx are still dead on target!

--
Dave Platt                                    AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page:  http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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If you acted any more retarded, I'd swear that you were Proteus in a new suit.

Can you be any more stupid? Do you really think your kill file matters?

Even more pertinent, are you aware that kill filter file edit session announcements are one of the most retarded types of post made in all of Usenet?

You're an idiot, boy.

Nothing has changed since the Amoeba, idiot.

No... You do not.

have?

like

and

potatoes

movie

and

or

Bzzzt. Invalid answer, try again please.

Yes, but would you actually want to live there?

You call that work :))) When I moved to US, I felt like I am on vacation. Back in Russia, I used to work 3 times more and earn ~20 times less. Yet the cost of living was comparable. How?

Not so many vacations and holidays in US. Europe and East are better in this regard.

1. Exploitation of the cheap oil.
2. Exploitation of the other countries.
3. The economic gain and the engineering advantage because of the tremendous efforts during WW-II and post war.

What productivity? Computer games, cellphone ringtones, holywood junk movies? What exactly is been produced? Even the engineering is no longer the priority.

The parasitic way of life can't be sustained forever, especially as

1,2,3 are going to be depleted. The consequences could be the new world war, and/or the civil war, or, may be, the bubble will be deflated smoothly. So everyone will have to earn his living in the hard way, again.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant