TheOneWithAReallyLongName on Nostr: Okay, yeah, you've got the gist. Props for actually taking the time to read the ...
Okay, yeah, you've got the gist. Props for actually taking the time to read the basics and form your own opinion on it. Precious few people understand it beyond politicians smearing anything that might help the poor or cost the rich money. And yeah, it sounds nice, but I don't think we're ready for it. We can't control our greediest actors with power centralized like that. I think decentralized techs will help with that and it's part of why I'm curious to see how DAOs evolve.
My understanding differs a little on personal property, though. My understanding is that there's a distinction between personal and private property, which, to be fair, is some confusing terminology. If I have it right, personal property is fine and includes things like your home and most stuff your keep in and around it. Private property is ownership of things like but probably not entirely limited to the means of production, the land, tools, and materials needed to produce the goods and services that society depends on. So you could theoretically own your home, clothes, entertainment and hobby supplies, probably even the tools required to work your own individual trade, but you couldn't own, say, a factory that takes a couple dozen people to run or the power lines the city depends on for electricity.
I also disagree that fairness and freedom are fundamentally incompatible. In many cases, lack of fairness restricts our freedom. Employers leverage imbalanced power dynamics that force you to accept unfair wages to scrape by, restricting your freedom to act outside of work. Politicians define and enforce an unfair system designed to keep you in check, their friends in power and wealth, and any freedoms that might challenge that restricted. Shitty individuals will use their unchecked freedom to negatively impact your life and diminish your freedom to act as you choose. In a society that aims for and truly achieves both fairness and freedom, everyone would be given a fair shot at life, and the only freedoms you'd lose would be the ones that negatively impact others or ecosystems. I forget who said it or the exact wording, but there's a quote to the effect of your right to swing your first ends at the tip of someone else's nose. I think most of the freedoms we fear losing in a society like that are the ones we have been conditioned to accept as morally acceptable or even right despite the fact that they harm others unnecessarily.
I also don't think it's fundamentally incompatible with individual sovereignty so long as it's in line with the above on fairness and freedom. I want people to have as much freedom as reasonably possible, but I don't think it's reasonable for us to have the freedom to harm each other without consequence.
From my understanding, most of the harms and failures from communism aren't really aspects communism, just facets of implementations that sucked. For example, nothing about communism itself is against religion so far as I understand, but the USSR and CCCP both enforced mandatory atheism because they viewed it as incompatible. I don't think that's the case, nor do I think most of those other failures were required. They're failures in our ability to adequately govern each other, and many of those failures may be addressed by decentralized tech that increases transparency and allows us to better supervise our leaders and government workers. So for now, I agree it's a bad idea, but I think that may begin to change in the coming decades. I doubt any of us will live to see it happen. I don't think we'll be ready for it until we can achieve it peacefully.
My understanding differs a little on personal property, though. My understanding is that there's a distinction between personal and private property, which, to be fair, is some confusing terminology. If I have it right, personal property is fine and includes things like your home and most stuff your keep in and around it. Private property is ownership of things like but probably not entirely limited to the means of production, the land, tools, and materials needed to produce the goods and services that society depends on. So you could theoretically own your home, clothes, entertainment and hobby supplies, probably even the tools required to work your own individual trade, but you couldn't own, say, a factory that takes a couple dozen people to run or the power lines the city depends on for electricity.
I also disagree that fairness and freedom are fundamentally incompatible. In many cases, lack of fairness restricts our freedom. Employers leverage imbalanced power dynamics that force you to accept unfair wages to scrape by, restricting your freedom to act outside of work. Politicians define and enforce an unfair system designed to keep you in check, their friends in power and wealth, and any freedoms that might challenge that restricted. Shitty individuals will use their unchecked freedom to negatively impact your life and diminish your freedom to act as you choose. In a society that aims for and truly achieves both fairness and freedom, everyone would be given a fair shot at life, and the only freedoms you'd lose would be the ones that negatively impact others or ecosystems. I forget who said it or the exact wording, but there's a quote to the effect of your right to swing your first ends at the tip of someone else's nose. I think most of the freedoms we fear losing in a society like that are the ones we have been conditioned to accept as morally acceptable or even right despite the fact that they harm others unnecessarily.
I also don't think it's fundamentally incompatible with individual sovereignty so long as it's in line with the above on fairness and freedom. I want people to have as much freedom as reasonably possible, but I don't think it's reasonable for us to have the freedom to harm each other without consequence.
From my understanding, most of the harms and failures from communism aren't really aspects communism, just facets of implementations that sucked. For example, nothing about communism itself is against religion so far as I understand, but the USSR and CCCP both enforced mandatory atheism because they viewed it as incompatible. I don't think that's the case, nor do I think most of those other failures were required. They're failures in our ability to adequately govern each other, and many of those failures may be addressed by decentralized tech that increases transparency and allows us to better supervise our leaders and government workers. So for now, I agree it's a bad idea, but I think that may begin to change in the coming decades. I doubt any of us will live to see it happen. I don't think we'll be ready for it until we can achieve it peacefully.