Hacker News Reader

Comment by southerntofu | Hacker News Reader

Maybe if we would question why we (don't) need money in the first place, and why people turn to terrorism, we wouldn't have problems in the first place.

Let everyone have a home, eat and drink as much as they need, receive proper education and healthcare, and thrive working for something they see interest in not a paycheck/boss and you'll see terrorism will be entirely rid of.

In the meantime, i agree it's a reasonable expectation that people can exchange money freely with the caveat that there should be taxes. As much as i hate taxes because they will fund police terrorizing my neighborhood, big corporations for their next nature-destroying megaproject, and cameras everywhere in the big cities, they are important as long as we live in a capitalist system to ensure we have basic public services.

A system like GNU/Taler is really interesting because it promises buyer's secrecy while retaining public accounting for receivers so that they can be subject to taxes. Cash is better of course as anonymity is guaranteed on both sides, and that's precisely why the chief scammers are pushing for the abolition of cash... so much of informal economy/solidarity would disappear overnight i'm having nightmares over it.

View on HN

> Let everyone have a home, eat and drink as much as they need, receive proper education and healthcare, and thrive working for something they see interest in not a paycheck/boss and you'll see terrorism will be entirely rid of.

Are there sufficient people interested in cleaning toilets, dealing with the mentally ill/infirm, working in crawl spaces and attics, working on a farm an hour plus from everything?

For a good (for some definitions of good) extra paycheck, I guess many would do more work.

Want to buy a cool car? Do some cleaning on the side.

The person I responded to was asking why compensation was needed at all for any task.

> Are there sufficient people interested in ... ?

There's people interested in caring for others and/or growing food on the countryside. Cleaning toilets is a task nobody does by pleasure but i don't see a reason there should be a specific class in society handling undesired tasks for the others.

Why can't we take turns doing what HAS TO be done? I've lived in communities for about two decades now and it's never ever crossed our mind we should designate someone to clean the toilets for others. I'm happy to do it every now and then if you're happy to do the same.

> Why can't we take turns doing what HAS TO be done?

What happens when someone does not take their turn?

Depends on the reason. You may be temporarily/long-term disabled. Or maybe you were having a really bad week and you'll be happy to take your turn next week (maybe you even said so in advanced and arranged to swap your shift with somebody else?).

Or maybe you just don't care to exploit other people you live with, in which case you're free to go and do that elsewhere because that's the norm in all of capitalist societies.

Why would someone that wants to exploit other people leave a place that lets them exploit others?

I’ll cut to the chase. My point is your concept of society does not work at scale. You will have people that want to use the system, you will need to use force and adjudicate in the system, and you will need something more than good vibes to serve as incentives.

> Why would someone that wants to exploit other people leave a place that lets them exploit others?

Because we'll kick them out. I'm always up for doing things i don't particularly enjoy because there's value in them, but I certainly don't want to live with someone who treats me like a slave.

> you will need something more than good vibes to serve as incentives

Sure. But you'll probably concede that we live in a world run by psychopaths where children in schools are taught how to become psychopaths themselves. The first thing we teach children is "copying is cheating" and we're wondering why we're fucked? I'm not saying there's a time and place where everything will be perfect and we can all live happily ever after (i'm not a hippy), but there's very rational reasons for the ways everything around us is bad, and very rational courses of actions to fix those.

Abolishing property as State-mandated religion doesn't mean that some people won't have more than others (this would be ridiculous). But at least it would mean that nobody would sleep on the streets while there are empty homes, and nobody would starve while there is wasted food. Both ridiculous situations are the consequence of private property and require considerable amounts of force and resources to apply. It obviously is not working at scale, as we can see from environmental damage and previously-unimaginable levels of inequality.

> Because we'll kick them out. I'm always up for doing things i don't particularly enjoy because there's value in them, but I certainly don't want to live with someone who treats me like a slave.

It’s hard enough to get many married couples to live like this, and even harder for small extended families. I would assign something very close to 0% as the probability for viability of this on a country or global level.

> The first thing we teach children is "copying is cheating"

Sharing and cooperative play come long before anything resembling an individual assignment.

They are ostracized or otherwise lose social status within the community. Functional human societies have existed and do exist in the absence of capitalism.

I do not know what definition of capitalism you are using, but I was strictly addressing the ability of society to function without compensation.

I am not aware of any functional society exists today without the use of compensation on a notable scale, certainly not notable enough to be able to defend itself.

To me that's moving the goal posts. There are plenty of nomadic and tribal societies out there that function the same way they have for thousands of years.

Certainly our technologically advanced civilizations as they exist today are founded on capitalism, but I am not sure that is required, it has just become such an ingrained concept that "no one would ever do these unsavory tasks if we didn't threaten them with starvation and death" that we have difficulty imagining any other possibility.

Considering that functional societies exist, regardless of their size and technological state, without monetary compensation as a primary motivation, I am forced to wonder how much our narrative that we cannot have technological civilization without forcing a class of people into handling unsavory tasks via threat of starvation and death is just part of the self-perpetuating mechanism of our particular societal organization structure.

Which societies today function like this, that could be scaled up to country level tasks and responsibilities? Regardless of size would make it a meaningless claim, as the parameters are greatly different between a tribe of 100 vs 10,000 vs 1,000,000,000.

> Which societies today function like this, that could be scaled up to country level tasks and responsibilities?

None that I'm aware of, though I am not entirely convinced it is impossible for the reasons I stated. I am forced to wonder: what is the virtue of scale like that if it is largely built on the back of human suffering?

So another tribe does not roll over you.

I would rather pay someone to take my turn for me.

There’s a whole theory of competitive advantage [0] where I’m better doing some things than others. I’d rather do the thing I’m good at and use the money to pay others to do stuff I’m marginally worse off doing.

I’ve lived in communities for a few decades and every day it crosses my mind that I want to establish a price for someone to come clean my toilet.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/comparativeadvantage.as...

> I would rather pay someone to take my turn for me.

You're not wrong, but it's not (all) about efficiency but rather about solidarity and social cohesion. As an example, in Japan, children clean the school:

* https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2001/11/30/lifestyle/kids-...

* https://www.thejapanguy.com/japanese-kids-clean-their-classr...

* https://www.quora.com/How-do-Japanese-students-feel-about-th...

> I would rather pay someone to take my turn for me.

Yeah, that's precisely what's wrong in our society that it appears normal to pay for inconveniences to disappear. Except of course for most of us who don't have money so we get paid shitty wages for making other people's inconveniences disappear. If such jobs were the highest paid, that would be less of a problem of course. But the highest paid jobs under capitalism are the least useful to society at large because they don't produce anything (CEOs, managers, financial/legal advisors, marketers, etc).

> I’m better doing some things than others.

That makes sense. However some tasks such as cleaning are not skilled labor. Yes it requires (some) learning, but by the second time you've cleaned a toilet you pretty much know how to do it for the rest of your life. Cleaning a single toilet takes about 5 minutes and is not much effort (contrary to doing that for a living)That makes sense. However some tasks such as cleaning are not skilled labor. Yes it requires (some) learning, but by the second time you've cleaned a toilet you pretty much know how to do it for the rest of your life. Cleaning a single toilet takes about 5 minutes and is not much effort (contrary to doing that for a living). Have you considered why you're so reluctant to do it?

> I’ve lived in communities (...) my toilet

We're probably not living in the same kinds of communities then if you've got a personal toilet. In the communities i've resided in everybody's got their personal room but everything else is communal.

> Except of course for most of us who don't have money so we get paid shitty wages for making other people's inconveniences disappear. If such jobs were the highest paid, that would be less of a problem of course. But the highest paid jobs under capitalism are the least useful to society at large because they don't produce anything (CEOs, managers, financial/legal advisors, marketers, etc).

This might be able to be rectified under the current system by giving money to the lowest paid, so that they can go to school and learn a trade which they find has a more acceptable price:undesirability ratio. Ideally, everyone will have the option to not have to do tasks like cleaning toilets, and hence everyone will have to do it themselves or pay a lot to get someone else to do it.

>Have you considered why you're so reluctant to do it?

It's funny, I had a conversation with a roommate that went something like I said I hated dishes, and that I'd rather be outside in the cold, under the car lifted on jackstands, draining the oil and replacing it and servicing the oil filter, coming back in and cleaning up. For both our cars. And my roommate seemed shocked. It seemed like such a bigger task to them than just quickly cleaning the dishes and throwing them in a rack to dry. But I just hate doing the dishes. And I don't mind changing the oil in the car.

> that's precisely what's wrong in our society that it appears normal to pay for inconveniences to disappear.

I disagree, it’s what is awesome about our society. It’s a feature, not a bug.

I’ve gotten all the character I’ll get from cleaning toilets and I’m happy that someone else is willing to do it for me.

There’s no way toilet cleaner will be a high paying job because the skill set is so low. As with most manual labor. Low skill set means lots of people will do it means low wages.

I understand how to clean a toilet and the time involved. I choose not to do it. I won’t make me a better person to do it. I have considered why I’m reluctant and understand pretty completely. I grok why I don’t want to clean toilets. I’m comfortable with my understanding in this area.

It’s also ok that we value these experiences differently. I don’t have to convince you to pay someone to clean your toilet. I just have to convince you to continue letting me, and others, pay for toilet cleaning.

> Low skill set means lots of people will do it means low wages.

High supply relative to demand or low demand relative to supply means low wages.

It is possible (and very real in many areas) that there are low numbers of people willing to clean toilets in a given area compared to the demand. It could be due to government assistance providing them enough such that they do not need to clean toilets to meet their needs.

It could be better job opportunities opening up nearby such as higher paying factory work. It could be that they move away from the area due to higher real estate prices. There are myriad causes for a low skill task to have few willing suppliers for the labor to perform that task.

When my parents were alive, in their retirement, they'd hire 'Merry Maids' to come and clean for them. As near as I could tell, they were very nice about it, and I remember being over there and the amusing interplay as the maids tried very hard to not impose on the family visiting going on, while the kids tried just as hard to arrange where they were at to not get in the way of the maids :) it was a very Alphonse and Gaston, 'oh no, after you!' sort of thing.

I feel like the real litmus test here is: given that the maid is cleaning your toilet, would you freak out if the maid took a dump in your toilet AND then cleaned it? That cuts to the heart of whether they're a fellow human doing exchange-value with you as a true equal, or whether they're a class that should not be using the employer's private toilet.

I would bet you maid services like that are very strict about not blurring that line, knowing that some people are paying to set up a class dynamic they expect to be honored.

> would you freak out if the maid took a dump in your toilet AND then cleaned it? That cuts to the heart of whether they're a fellow human doing exchange-value with you as a true equal, or whether they're a class that should not be using the employer's private toilet.

Ha, no of course not. I also think it’s not a very good test because almost no one would care. Me not being able to afford to buy things or not being skilled enough to command a high wage doesn’t mean I’m not equal as a human being, it just means I can’t afford things.

I would expect that maid services are very strict because some people are super picky about their toilets. I know people who won’t let family members use their toilet, much less some stranger. It’s not worth the risk for a maid service to lose the work. Not really a good indicator of valuing humans.

Maybe a better test would be whether I allow a maid to drink from my water or something like that.

Imo flip these "punishment" jobs into "reward" jobs. As it is, we give the jobs no one wants to people who don't have any other options - or are struggling to exercise their options. We use them as boogeyman for kids when we remind them how important school is.

If everyone is taken care of, these jobs should come with some extra benefits - both socially and financially. Remember all those bs commercials thanking essential workers toward the beginning of Covid? What if society really appreciated its essential workers and compensated them like it did?

Cleaning toilets is somewhat unpleasant, but there's immediate feedback on your performance (the before and after is clear), and people should appreciate the people that keep them clean. There should be an understood, and spoken, sense of "Thank you" for the people keeping them clean.

Perspective -> feeling - > actions. I don't think this is a particularly difficult issue to navigate, but it would require a shift in perspective.

> What if society really appreciated its essential workers and compensated them like it did?

The person I was responding to was arguing against compensation as a concept in general.

Very fair. I don't think you can remove compensation. But, I think the post still had some good thoughts and good aims. They need some tweaking. Your post highlighted an area that needs tweaking, and mine tried to build on both posts.

That tweak is a universal basic income (or other broad based benefits that establish a floor for quality of life) which would attempt to reduce the impact of one's lineage on one's options.

What if monetary or material compensation was replaced with simple respect and appreciation though? As it is, the people who do the dirty jobs of society are often treated like they themselves are filth.

Then we would not be living in the same world with the same parameters as we are now.

And yet there are functional societies out there today, much as there were in the past, that are not capitalistic societies. Treating people like shit and forcing them to do dirty jobs you don't want to do under threat of starvation is not an inherent property of the human condition.

Which societies operated like that? I am not aware of any, that could operate as a country of decent size today. Note that this supposed country would also need to be able to defend itself, if it has possession of anything valuable (such as water, arable land, weather, etc). And also be able to deal with immigration and outsiders coming in, and kicking out people who would mess up the system.

What kind of idealistic misunderstanding of history do you have that non-capitalist societies were some kumbaya utopia? Korea historically had slavery and extreme class differences. Europe had nobility and serfs who were not far off from slaves (and could be tortured or executed). Ancient Sparta and Persia had slaves and going way back into biblical times (though this still happens today in some places), people could be stoned just for not believing the right things. People today make the mistake of assuming things were altogether better in the past just because one particular aspect they dislike today was better before. Hierarchy and treating each other terribly are an inherent part of being human, and it's taken centuries of work to get to a point that we can even pretend otherwise.

He said some non-capitalist societies, not all non-capitalist societies that have ever existed.

Which makes it a moot point. The common thread across capitalist, socialist, monarchist, whatever-ist societies with suffering is that humans are involved. Neither capitalism nor socialism is inherently bad; some humans are, especially in aggregate, hence we always need ways to enforce order. The fatal flaw to any utopian society is that the more it depends on trust, the more some people will abuse it and coordinate with others to abuse it. The less trust you have, the more force you need to enforce your worldview on others (which radical liberals and conservatives essentially push for). There is no magical world where we all live in harmony

I don't understand your point. The corollary to "there is no perfect society, suffering always exist" is not "therefore all societies are equally bad". No, liberalism is an improvement on feudalism. Capitalist “liberal democracies” are an improvement on capitalist absolute monarchies.

All I'm saying is we can do much better than this.

You can't go back and forth between theoretical and real-life. I don't accept the claim that democracies are always better than monarchies. Monarchies and authoritarian states are great in theory, if they enforce the worldview you want. Look at how America's republicanism has allowed its own self-degradation through lobbying and regulatory capture. My first point is that everything in the real world is case by case and it's intellectually dishonest to go for such grade-school arguments as saying that democracy = good, monarch = bad. Capitalism can be good or bad. Monarchies can be good or bad, etc. My second point is that the only common theme is that some humans are bad actors, therefore it doesn't matter how your society functions, there will always be people who exploit the system. The only reason you think monarchies is bad is because historical monarchs have been abusive. But there have also been abusive democratic leaders. Humans are the problem, not the systems we create.

Disagree entirely. Ironically it's your "systems don't matter, it just depends on whether the people in charge are good or not" that is grade-school level. x)

First, I didn't say democracy good, monarchy bad... My point is precisely that western bourgeois democracy is pretty flawed. It is however better than the absolutist monarchies of the 1700s and 1800s.

>some humans are bad actors, therefore it doesn't matter how your society functions, there will always be people who exploit the system. The only reason you think monarchies is bad is because historical monarchs have been abusive. But there have also been abusive democratic leaders. Humans are the problem, not the systems we create.

That's just silly. A well designed system has institutions, checks and balances that prevent bad actors from wrecking the system. An absolutist monarchy has none. Can't you see how that matters? Taking your argument to its conclusion, then absolute monarchies, bourgeois democracies, direct democracies, soviet-style totalitarianism... it's all the same! All it matters is if you're lucky that the people in charge are good.

Have you read Another Tomorrow by Yanis Varafoufakis?

No.

The title is Another Now, thanks for the rec!

As long as there is money and private property, i agree with your point. Jobs that nobody wants to do by pleasure should be the highest paid and most respected. However that's not how capitalism works (quite the opposite). Like another commentator pointed out, i'm opposed to financial compensation (and all forms of money) as an organizing principle of society. However as long as money hasn't been abolished your point makes perfect sense.

Specifically about COVID though, I don't know about where you are, but here in France "thank you" for health workers was perceived to be very insulting. Because when the government continues to dismantle all forms of public services and keeps on overworking hospital workers (most of whom have months or even years of paid vacations they could never take because of understaffing) and destroying all their social benefits, it's hard not to take this as "fuck you".

> i'm opposed to financial compensation (and all forms of money) as an organizing principle of society.

What does this mean? It is the nature of animals to evaluate and rank each other, least of all for mating purposes. Not using money will not change that, and another proxy will be used.

> Specifically about COVID though, I don't know about where you are, but here in France "thank you" for health workers was perceived to be very insulting.

It was the same in the US. The thank you and hero nonsense was seen through by all, but I guess plausible deniability is worth it amongst the managing class.

> It is the nature of animals to evaluate and rank each other

Not at all. Competition is not the norm in the natural world. There's the entire field of ethology to study if you'd like to know more.

If you need a quick intro, "Mutual Aid" by Peter Kropotkin is really dated science-wise (it's almost 120 years old) but is still a pretty good read. If you're into TV stuff, i'd recommend Adam Curtis' series "The trap" and "The century of the self" which explore the topics of how competition and self-interest have increasingly been guiding principles of (at the time) western societies and how we've tried to apply such principles (eg. game theory) to other fields where they in fact do not apply.

Primates and other mammals do it. Birds do it. Unless all those David Attenborough narrated shows I’ve watched are wrong or misinterpreted by me, there seems to be extensive use of competition in many species.

Or one can look at data from myriad of dating apps and websites. I would not believe anyone if they told me they did not rank possible partners in life on a variety of metrics such as health, wealth, tribal affiliations (family/other network), intelligence, humor, etc.

Do some reading on the question and make an opinion for yourself. There is some competition throughout nature but it's really far from an organizing principle as it has become with the capitalist system.

> I would not believe anyone if they told me they did not rank possible partners in life on a variety of metrics

That sounds really close to the definition of a psychopath, and is definitely not how most people live their lives/relationships. Adam Curtis in "The trap" touches on this topic and how only psychopaths and economists used to behave like according to "measurable rational self-interest". With the commodification of everything (including oneself through social media) it's fair to bet more people behave like that nowadays than previously, but it's still really far from everyone.

Why would you not believe me if i told you i have feelings and affinities that cannot be measured or ranked and do not reflect a material interest? Why is it so hard to accept that not everybody lives through live the same way that soulless suit-heads do?

You sound like you're arguing from a point of insecurity or emotion rather than making a rational argument.

> Why would you not believe me if i told you i have feelings and affinities that cannot be measured or ranked and do not reflect a material interest? Why is it so hard to accept that not everybody lives through live the same way that soulless suit-heads do?

Why would you not believe that I have a long, committed, happy relationship today that I arrived at through consciously ranking and evaluating qualities of my current partner and other people that I met? Why is it so hard for you to accept that humans are inherently judging and comparing creatures? Why do you think that to just think about important life choices like a partner doesn't make you a "soulless suit-head"? If you want to live your life that way, go ahead.

The fact that you and even most people seem to let your subconscious steer you with important life decisions doesn't affect me. But I don't see why you have to indirectly call the other user names (psychopath, soulless suit-head) just because they do things differently than you. Are Indian and Chinese parents who perform arranged marriages also psychopaths or soulless suit-heads just because they choose matches for their children based on a variety of metrics? Does it make Chinese or Indian culture soulless or psychopathic since they've been doing this way before the "commodification of everything"?

> There is some competition throughout nature

Competition for mates literally forms and morphs most animal species.

I think this thread is a perfect demonstration of idealism vs realism. Some people are idealistic and believe what they wish were true, even with little to no supporting evidence and mountains of evidence to the contrary. Other people look at reality first and base their beliefs on that.

> I would not believe anyone if they told me they did not rank possible partners in life on a variety of metrics such as health, wealth, tribal affiliations (family/other network), intelligence, humor, etc.

I certainly do, and this is commonplace to the point of cliche. Think of Indian or Chinese arranged marriages where the parents openly and blatantly choose and approve of partners based on what you said: health, wealth, family, etc. It's a documented fact and I've seen it personally that some Chinese parents even disqualify women over 30 or so as partners for their children (to the point there's a word for it: "leftover women"). In the West some people are squeamish about consciously evaluating and ranking people, but everyone still does it, even if it's subconscious, unless you literally throw a dart at at list and pair with whoever you hit. We just talk about it indirectly: having a "type", being "compatible", having similar interests, getting along, having things in common, avoiding "red flags".

I at least certainly have based my relationship evaluations based on conscious ranking and metrics, and it's led to the incredibly happy, successful relationship I'm in now.

What ethology tells us is that, yes, but a little more.

Competition IS relevant, but it's in the context of other drives like group-oriented behavior, and it is cooperation that some people seem to have a hard time understanding. Cooperation and group behavior is every bit as powerful and rewarding as competition is, and every bit as natural.

I feel like we get into trouble when we try to isolate one side of things and dismiss the other. You're correct that western societies (probably not exclusively western societies) have erred, in leaning way over to the 'competition' side.

You could say law of the jungle except for jungles don't operate in this simplistic way. More like law of the capitalism, which tries to deify one behavior and demonize the other.

I'm not convinced Kropotkin is the final answer here, but he sure serves as a good window into the 'cooperate' side which is unreasonably suppressed in western society.

An interesting question is how the salaries would shift. If everyone can fulfil basic needs without much, will the jobs that no ones interested in doing be the ones on a high pay grade?

edit: just saw that you replied to "maybe money isn't needed at all" so my reply is not really relevant

I thought it was common knowledge that the quality of life for people in the upper quintiles is based on the people in the lower quintiles not having options.

Hence the hotels and fast food and other low paying fields complaint about not finding workers since the government gave them an option.

If everyone was fluent in English and could type well, then the price of rote white collar office work would go down and the price of hard labor and public facing and more undesirable work would go up. Which is what has been happening in the last decade.

It's a nice thought, but I don't think this is actually true. Osama bin Laden and a number of the 9/11 hijackers were actually well-educated, well-off engineers of various sorts, for example.

Love to see you being downvoted into invisibility for suggesting that Another World Is Possible. Our techbro overlords are aiming for Rentism, but they'll accept Exterminism if they can't get it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com