i think society would be better if they just handed out money to people no questions asked, but i suppose it's true some people might use it to be happy
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@datenwolf@chaos.social @dalias@hachyderm.io @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place This is a big reason I left academia after my phd. Waiting weeks to months for approval to spend few hundred euros for the stuff needed for an experiment was mentally exhausting.
@bovaz @aeva @dalias @datenwolf Industry can be better, but I once had to get three competitive quotes from approved vendors (and no, purchasing wouldn’t tell me who the approved vendors were, since that’s the kind of question an unapproved vendor would ask!) and follow up repeatedly for about six months before I could get approval to buy a $20 thumb drive to reimage a failed server.
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@aeva Some people will use it to get way TOO happy
@CubeRootOfTrue @aeva I am that some people
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@aeva That's the opposite direction in respect to the invention of money itself.
Existence of money is the key to divide people between richness and poverty. If you let anyone live a decent life, regardless of money, then money looses its meaning. -
"but how will we force people to work without the threat of poverty" buddy it's not like I'm gonna stop making video games
@aeva yea actually if i could move out without the looming threat of homelessness id probably make more art and if i could afford to enjoy other ppl's works id be even happier and they'd be happier too because someone enjoyed their art!! its crazy how having money no questions asked makes the world a way better place its almost like we almost definitely have the resources and capabilities to create a utopia but just dont because "no free lunches" or whatever -
@foolishowl @dalias @datenwolf @aeva A long time ago, I was out with my pet lizard - he likes to wander around in the local park in the summer. We often get approached by kids (for obvious reasons; he *is* a rather unusual pet), and this time a small boy and an even smaller girl come over to check him out.
So after all the usual questions (what does he eat? does he bite? how old is he?), the boy asks what I have him for. I'm completely baffled by the question ... but I don't really have time to answer before his little sister points out that *obviously* his job is just to be cute.
And, yeah, I think that's the job most domestic cats do too.
@foolishowl @dalias @datenwolf @aeva
Footnote I: A question that I very often get asked by people who haven't met said lizard, but *never* by people who meet us in person, is how I restrain a lizard. The answer is I don't; he stays near me on his own, and also I can walk faster than he can run.
See the picture.Footnote II: Sometimes, kids will start asking their parents if they can have a blue-tongue skink too, because he's so good at that one job he has! If the usual questions haven't been asked at this point, the parents will do that ... and, without fail, refuse when they get the answer to "how old is he?". (He's 18.)
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@CubeRootOfTrue @aeva I am that some people
@edendestroyer @CubeRootOfTrue and honestly i love that for you and everyone else
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@Robotistry @raven @mym I'm not too worried about it. There will be a steady supply of pickup artists so long as there's sweet toy grabage trucks, just like in real life. Likewise, the people who work for the water reclamation department in Chicago already have batmanesque origin stories motivating them so I doubt that would stop. I'm sure the medical records thing certainly couldn't get any worse at least.
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@Robotistry @raven @mym I'm not too worried about it. There will be a steady supply of pickup artists so long as there's sweet toy grabage trucks, just like in real life. Likewise, the people who work for the water reclamation department in Chicago already have batmanesque origin stories motivating them so I doubt that would stop. I'm sure the medical records thing certainly couldn't get any worse at least.
@Robotistry @raven @mym also most big projects in this country that actually benefit the people seem to happen outside the framework of crapitalism anyway
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@aeva i place her as one of the main reasons why we have this stupid "government debt = household debt" nonsense, especially on this wet rock of dissapointment and depression...
@technicalotter yeah i don't see how you are drawing the connection here from my 4 am posts proposing that we effectively end the concept of money for the benefit of the people
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they literally can't run out of money they're the government they can just make more of it "but what about inflation" buddy we literally cannot run out of numbers
Yes, the federal government creates money in the act of spending it. The only thing that’s needed to manage the size of the money supply is tax. Or you could just have money expire after three months or just like loyalty points. There would be a total amount you could have laying around.
There are lots of people with way too much government money. Elon Musk is one of the best examples of this.
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"but how will we force people to work without the threat of poverty" buddy it's not like I'm gonna stop making video games
I always considered that argument to be a bunch of bullshit. People won’t do bullshit jobs but most people do hobbies like you know gardening and making furniture and shit like that. If you have the time and resources to figure out something that you think is important or useful, you can find a group of people with like mine and with community consensus, just go ahead and do it.
I don’t buy the people will just do nothing, especially when they gain a measure of esteem for doing it
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@aeva Are there any political ideologies that are pro inflation? It seems like all it does (assuming labour costs keep up) is devalue cash assets, which is another way of saying someone else's debt. And that seems good actually?
@Farbs if people's wages were also always adjusted for inflation the effect is you save less money (at least, if you don't invest it in something or convert it into an asset), but your debts vanish faster. however right now almost nobody gets a guaranteed cost of living adjustment like that so inflation just ends up slowly starving everybody
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I always considered that argument to be a bunch of bullshit. People won’t do bullshit jobs but most people do hobbies like you know gardening and making furniture and shit like that. If you have the time and resources to figure out something that you think is important or useful, you can find a group of people with like mine and with community consensus, just go ahead and do it.
I don’t buy the people will just do nothing, especially when they gain a measure of esteem for doing it
none of these arguments were ever serious. They are literally fake news and gas lighting to justify the billionaire class printing money for themselves.
i know you have hope big politics will defund billionaires and create UBI, but i think we have to act and use money they cant print, nothing else will work - its just wasting time and letting them continue, ..but i guess you have your hope and i agree with the goals
Have you ever considered that politics wont help?
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@technicalotter yeah i don't see how you are drawing the connection here from my 4 am posts proposing that we effectively end the concept of money for the benefit of the people
@aeva well not that's the point - maggie thought we would run out of numbers and tricked an entire country into believing i!
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@aeva well not that's the point - maggie thought we would run out of numbers and tricked an entire country into believing i!
@aeva also this is the neurospicy speaking so who knows
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@Farbs if people's wages were also always adjusted for inflation the effect is you save less money (at least, if you don't invest it in something or convert it into an asset), but your debts vanish faster. however right now almost nobody gets a guaranteed cost of living adjustment like that so inflation just ends up slowly starving everybody
@aeva True, and that sucks.
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@aeva Inflation isn't a bad thing! It's stagnation of wages relative to inflation that causes problems, but if someone is handing out money so that people can live and be happy without needing to have their souls crushed in the gears of capitalism, then they can just hand out more of it!
Problem solved!
@xgranade @aeva it's basically just a way of using some intermediary to figure out whose efforts someone decided were worth rewarding with access to more supplies to keep doing their thing
i guess some approaches are to get rid of the number and some involve giving everyone number
but yes, people generally should be able to live
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they literally can't run out of money they're the government they can just make more of it "but what about inflation" buddy we literally cannot run out of numbers
@aeva yeah let's take it from that one rich guys bank account that holds like 50B
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@aeva True, and that sucks.
@Farbs I'm fortunate enough to work for a studio that gives everyone yearly cost of living adjustments that account for inflation and other things. If everyone had that we'd be living in a much happier world.
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none of these arguments were ever serious. They are literally fake news and gas lighting to justify the billionaire class printing money for themselves.
i know you have hope big politics will defund billionaires and create UBI, but i think we have to act and use money they cant print, nothing else will work - its just wasting time and letting them continue, ..but i guess you have your hope and i agree with the goals
Have you ever considered that politics wont help?
When have I ever suggested that big politics was a solution? You and I agree on similar goals, but I look at money is completely different animal from the way you think about it.
For me, the fundamentals were coming the way you're thinking is that controlling the amount of money is the same as limiting oligarchy. Oligarchy is about politics, not commodities. Commodities are the medium.
