Which of these utopian job futures would you prefer?

I have no clue wtf this survey is attempting.

Hah. I figured it was Kristal Rose.

You should get two points though for the time and effort to develop this abstract survey.

Social economics: a cross between Socialist (income is socialized) and Capitalist entrpreneurial independence. - Does that make sense?
Evolving (new inventions, new media, space exploration, etc.).
Management: Other. - by people who know what they're doing; however, I see the potential problem of determining and appointing who are the people who know what they're doing.
Employment training: by social caste or genetic disposition. - I like the whole concept of professions staying within family - e.g. your father is a doctor, you're going to be a doctor, too. I don't like the use of word social caste, makes me think of discrimination. Also, genetic disposition - you're smart, you're good at math, you go study math.

Utopian anything is usually bad. It implies a creepy do-gooder telling everyone what to do. Pure democracy is also a bad thing, because then you tend to run into tyranny of the majority. I believe in pragmatism and what works, without sacrificing too much on values (treating people fairly, etc). The closest that I can check are

> Social economics: Capitalist entrepreneurial independence; everyone fights to create their own economic niche.

Which we already have, sort of.

> Social economics: Capitalist corporatocracy; work and income/benefits are determined by your employer.

Which is what we have already, except that you get to negotiate your pay as well (very one sided of you Kristal*)

> Social economics: Other.

A mixed economy like we have right now is the best way to go.

> Evolution flow: Evolving (new inventions, new media, space exploration, etc.).

Duh, we all want cool new crap. Right?

> Management: by elites (They determine things like forest conservancy and energy allotments).

Makes sense.

> Employment: Maintenance of society fulfilled by pros.

You want your doctor to actually know what the fudge s/he's doing, not some quack who believes in the snake handling healing power.


* I am sure with 99% certainty that this is a Kristal Rose survey.

Utopia. An earthly paradise as envisioned by our friends the Jehovah Witnesses. The earth restored to an eden like state where all humans and other species live and love and dance and sing and I can pet a Polar Bear without being terribly mauled? Yes. I'm a believer!

> Utopian anything is usually bad. It implies a
> creepy do-gooder telling everyone what to do.

Actually no. It's just the way you're interpreting it because of all the books and movies depicting a 'utopian' society. In a true utopian society (which I believe is utterly impossible), you'd be happy.

I really don't know what would be best or what I'd prefer. Most of these seem flawed to me. Politics seem futile.

Employment training: Volunteer, opportunities refined with grading.
...that could be interesting
Employment: Maintenance of society fulfilled by pros
.....that would eliminate Unions and the crap service they offer.
Management: by democracy (People hopefully become educated on matters, and vote on how things are managed).
......although education has it's drawbacks, it's still a fair system
Evolution flow: Other
.......i dont know, but it's better than the other choices

I'm having a tough timewith the 'socialist' and 'capitalism' choices. there are so mny 's and 's with each of them

So far this one is the second highest.
Social economics: Capitalist entrepreneurial independence; everyone fights to create their own economic niche.
I don't like this one because of a work experience I had. I worked in a factory and we were paid by piece work. There were tiers and your pay was based on a consistant number of pieces you did each night. That was great, as it encouraged slef discipline and competition with yourself to do better for more pay. sounds great, right?
BUT when there were only so many pieces to be done, the competition between employees became ruthless. I worked next to a sweet girl who worked as hard as I did, but I found myself bullying in to get more so as to not lose any of my high pay. By the end of the night, she was in the office crying to the boss explaining to him why she was not able to keep up with her expectations. She didn't talk to me after that. That is no way for a civilized society to act.

This one is the highest so far...
Evolution flow: Evolving (new inventions, new media, space exploration, etc.).
I imagine that would create an incredible amount of waste and loss of work. Look what happened in Tokyo. You almost vomit walking down the street at night with everyone having the newest biggest flashiest fanciest that changes every moment of every day.

Mostly "other," since I'm not entirely sure what some options would really entail, but none sounds quite right to me. For evolution flow I chose evolving, and for employment training I chose volunteer/grading.

I believe in personal responsibility, individualism. I do believe in looking after your family, those that are disabled.

I do not believe in socialism, Marxism, communism.

Social economics: Socialist - labor is socialized.
Social economics: Socialist - income is socialized (elites may be on a higher income tier).
Social economics: Capitalist corporatocracy; work and income/benefits are determined by your employer.
Social economics: Capitalist entrepreneurial independence; everyone fights to create their own economic niche.

Evolution flow: Coasting (new things are rarely created).
Evolution flow: Evolving (new inventions, new media, space exploration, etc.).

Management: by democracy (People hopefully become educated on matters, and vote on how things are managed).
Management: as a result of flux from what entrepreneurs create (aka 'Anarchy').

Employment: Maintenance of society fulfilled by rotated service assignments (everyone puts in an equal effort debugging resource logistics or reprogramming robots to accommodate some unforeseen type of solar flare).
Employment: Everyone has some role; mostly creative, non-vital, and entrepreneurial.

Employment training: Volunteer, opportunities refined with grading.

I figure the best plan is entrepreneurial socialism (same wages for anyone putting in an effort) embedded in corporatocracy. That way people can join the corporatioan who's form of government serves them best. My fave would be one in which people work much less, rotate minor service duty for jobs people don't want to do (like army service, but having to drive a a garbage truck part time for a year). Other than that, school is treated like a job and people evaluate each other via cell phones, for instance their guitar tutoring or dog shampooing job. You can do a bit of anything useful you want to do, from shampooing dogs to designing rocket fuels, but everyone makes the same wages.

I was just watching a decent movie 'The Fall', and the directer/producer ran the production that way. Everyone from costumes or lights to actors or lunch wagon crew all made the same salary. I think that's about as ideal as one can get relative to what's possible in our current governmental framework.

I think few people realize the extent to which everyone has to work so much more because we are replacing all our technology and media every three years (in a constanly buggy state), without ever learning how to fully exploit all that existed before. However I think that's not so much motivated by a need for change, but by a need for creating competitive employment (since income is not socialised). The other thing people don't realize is that this is a pyramid scheme, not unlike buying everything on credit. If demand for the new and unnecessary fizzles, the whole economy takes a dump.

I'm aware of many potential inventions that probably won't be possible for centuries, like holographic million mile wide space telescope lenses, or iPhone based ultrasound-holography vehicles, so I'm all for evolution, but we could still create this stuff without everyone having to learn every thing fresh all the time. I liked the way the Citroën car company worked. They would stick with the same basic car for 20 years (way cheaper to build), but that 20 years was also spent designing the next space age generation of car for the next 20 years.

I haven't been to Tokyo, but I see reports of things like walking through malls while lasers are displaying ads on your body like tattoos. I hear they have some giant lizard which keeps the whole system in check every 40 years or so though.

Every 40? That is good, than that means every 40 years everything gets burnt to a crisp or smashed down to nothing to give more room for new stuff. Otherwise their island would sink.

Ok then, my idea of utopia is that once everything gets invented that could ever get invented, and no one has to work, we will all just be stoned 24/7.

Off course, if you don't want to get stoned, the government will force you to be stoned, and will then remove the part of your brain that makes it possible for you to be sad, or question anything.

One small flaw with your "everyone should make the same salary no matter what" theory.

You're still going to have a black market, where friends trade favors with one another. This could evolve into people inventing their own currency, and pass little pieces of paper among themselves. And since you want corporations to represent little mini-governments, those corporations will just start issuing their own money their employees will use among each other.

The major problem with everyone having the same salary, if you could achieve that at all as sy points out, is that then no one would have much incentive to work hard. If working lazy will get you the same pay as busting your butt, then slack off. As they used to say in Soviet Russia, "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".

All of that is actually nearly the intent.

The overall concept is that the majority of what needs in life can be accomplished by people networking to do small favors for each other without requiring the overhead of business establishments and such.

If people do favors for each other, they get their monthly check, and those favors can include things like designing rocket fuels for your local JPL lab.

I would indeed expect these corporations to issue their own currency. They do so already anyhow, calling it 'points', good at their affiliate airlines and department stores. When a corporation requires some bulk resource from another corporation to sustain their own working membership, they can either trade imports and exports, or use whatever global currency is in fashion.

I'm not seeing the problem. Perhaps you are thinking of tax evasion to support this system, but the idea is to evolve into a non-economic sustainable society anyhow. Granted, money is an awfully convenient method of barter already, but it doesn't encourage more utilization of local resources.

From my recent banking experience, and the related research I did, I gather that banks, big business, and the government would actually like to go in the opposite direction and dispense with cash altogether so they can track your every transaction. Of course my system had monitoring too, but only to see that you met threshold as a society contributor.

"Ok then, my idea of utopia is that once everything gets invented that could ever get invented, and no one has to work, we will all just be stoned 24/7."

That's one of the issues I hoped to address with this survey, however most everyone voted for evolving instead of the coasting you favored. The book 'Brave New World' was a coasting society where everyone pretty much just got stoned and went to raves 24/7.

If we nationally set our minds to it, we could probably create a self-sustaining mechanized society in about 20 years, which like BNW, would require a few alphas to contend with matters like declining solar energy, and reduce population growth accordingly. Of course this ain't going to happen because we are addicted to new human creations. Few people want to hang out stoned all their life watching classic movies and playing the same old video games.

I have an idea for a gym chain in which people create power in their hydraulic suits while living in an emulation of worlds like Lord of the Rings or Pirates, burning calories by raising barns or hoisting sails. That led to a real cynical video game concept in which people have a VR experience of doing things like walking to their corner market to buy a soda, raking the yard, or making guacomole for chips by hand. We could go a step further and use this as a remote control system for our robots which actually do do these things, while our suits emulate the exercise of it all. Yep, pure Matrix. I wonder if such a thing is in our cards or not. Now there's a grim thought, the rich actually do physical things like visit tahiti, and the poor just do it it VR between their data shuffling employment. Actually I think even that's becoming close to the truth already.

"The major problem with everyone having the same salary, if you could achieve that at all as sy points out, is that then no one would have much incentive to work hard. If working lazy will get you the same pay as busting your butt, then slack off. As they used to say in Soviet Russia, "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work"."

- That's true. My premise is that we are reaching a point where not much needs done anyhow, that the majority of work, at least here in LA, CA, is simply to create entertainment. Why should society bust it's ass to create stuff we don't need, when we can just play guitars and go to the beach instead, or enjoy actually living by doing small favors for our neighbors like washing their dog or whatever trivial details we enjoy doing most.

The model worked for a quality movie production. I don't anticipate it working on a nation wide scale and don't suggest attempting as much.

Well, you'll be happy, won't you?

I guess I can't argue with that. Although it would still be creepy.

Suddenly I am reminded of that movie "Brain Candy". If you've seen it you know what I am talking about. And if you haven't

"Why should society bust it's ass to create stuff we don't need, when we can just play guitars and go to the beach instead, or enjoy actually living by doing small favors for our neighbors like washing their dog or whatever trivial details we enjoy doing most."

When that day comes, the cost of goods and services would be so low (if not free) that you would only need to work 1 hour a week to afford it. If that.

People would just stop trading money for goods on their own, so paying everyone the same would be moot point.

Although people would still strive, so that they could get the best quality people to marry.

> All of that is actually nearly the intent.
>
> The overall concept is that the majority of what needs in life can
> be accomplished by people networking to do small favors for each other
> without requiring the overhead of business establishments and such.
>

Well, we kinda do that already. But taking that to an extreme, the popular people will get to free ride and the less popular people will work twice as hard just to be people pleasers. And if your group kicks you out, you lose any favors that you have gained. Now, apply that to corporations. If the company fires you, and they pay you with their own paper money, you pretty much lose all incentive to care about them.


> If people do favors for each other, they get their monthly check,
> and those favors can include things like designing rocket fuels for
> your local JPL lab.
>

You've missed my point entirely. Your corporations would EACH print THEIR OWN money and actually pay for the services with that money. They don't have to pay equal rate to everybody, since each corporation does it different. Some will pay everyone equally, some won't. Or large groups of friends or clans would invent their own currency, that would circulate among the clan. It doesn't matter how hard you try to make sure that everybody gets paid equally, because there will always be a black market among friends and companies.

Also, what if you're so smart and talented, that you negotiate equal pay to the janitor, but only work 1 hour a day designing rocket fuels. Then you go to another company and do something similar and work 2 hours. In the end, you would be getting your pay check from multiple sources.


> I would indeed expect these corporations to issue their own currency.
> They do so already anyhow, calling it 'points', good at their affiliate
> airlines and department stores. When a corporation requires some bulk
> resource from another corporation to sustain their own working membership,
> they can either trade imports and exports, or use whatever global
> currency is in fashion.
>

Yes, but there are severe limitations to these point systems. We all agree that real money is more useful.

And all this would be unregulated I suppose. A good scam artist can convince people to join their company, and then let the printer running, while buying up other people's currencies in exchange for the bullcrap currency. And don't get me started on money laundering. I hope you have a good safeguard against money laundering activities, with all the currencies floating around.

Most people already agree that less currencies is generally better (up to some tipping point). Banks in the 1800's would issue their own paper money in liue of gold. State governments would also each have their own currency. We all know how well that went. Nearly everyone nowadays agrees that the Federal Reserve is a better system. I doubt going back is a very good idea. If anything, we're still consolidating. We have yet to accept the Amero.


> I'm not seeing the problem. Perhaps you are thinking of tax evasion
> to support this system, but the idea is to evolve into a non-economic
> sustainable society anyhow. Granted, money is an awfully convenient
> method of barter already, but it doesn't encourage more utilization
> of local resources.
>

If money didn't exist, you would still have your haves and have nots. People didn't have currencies during the caveman days, but you still had hierarchies. I suppose if society became so rich that all goods would be nearly free to produce because of technology and lack of need for labor, you would no longer have the haves and have nots.

Then you wouldn't need money, or the barter system. It would all be a moot point. But until we reach that point, getting rid of money won't make us all equals. Just remember, people used mostly the barter system during the Middle Ages instead of money. And look how egalitarian they were.


> From my recent banking experience, and the related research I did,
> I gather that banks, big business, and the government would actually
> like to go in the opposite direction and dispense with cash altogether
> so they can track your every transaction.

I am sure they would...


Of course my system had
> monitoring too, but only to see that you met threshold as a society
> contributor.

And why would I trust creepy do-gooders like you anymore than I would trust banks and big business.

Actually, even in Soviet Russia, there was a thriving black market. People would still work and strive to get ahead, just not in the "official" way.

That was my point to Kristal. She wants a system where each corporation is like a mini-government (which apparently gets to print their own money too). I don't get where this fits in with a universal monitoring service that makes sure you do your share of contributing to society.

"When that day comes, the cost of goods and services would be so low (if not free) that you would only need to work 1 hour a week to afford it. If that.
People would just stop trading money for goods on their own, so paying everyone the same would be moot point. "

- So one would think, but I'm not convinced that the real evidence points to such a trend. Rather it seems to me that providers of cable service, computers, or whatever, will do whatever it takes to justify (or not) maintaining the same high prices as always, and thus force everyone else to continue to go around inventing new ways of making money themselves. The underlying issue which prevents that age of leisure from ever occurring is the constant goal of increased profit. (not to mention our own ever-increasing consumer demands).

My point over all is that it's a vicious cycle with no end ever in sight. We will be busy working to pay off the bill on our new personal Saturn mining robot before we ever have a life of leisure, and somehow everyone who's anyone not in a gutter will need such a robot for God knows what reason, just as surely as they need a car, microwave, cell-phone, and decent computer today.

Another point of mine is that we could probably all have 15 work weeks now, if we wanted to, if not for the economic aspect of this vicious cycle for which people work as parking attendants, telemarketers, video game designers, and lawyers today. Food, clothing, and shelter have pretty much been automated. The only reason we still pay much for them is resouce limitation and all the make-work people add to the process. A person possibly indirectly supports mortgage lenders more in their life these days than the labor which actually goes into building the places they live in.

> people networking to do small favors for each other
Well, we kinda do that already.
- Increasingly less so. Fewer people know their neighbors than 40 years ago.

But taking that to an extreme, the popular people will get to free ride and the less popular people will work twice as hard just to be people pleasers.
- That is an issue, even if each favor transaction is immediately rated by cell phone.

And if your group kicks you out, you lose any favors that you have gained. Now, apply that to corporations. If the company fires you, and they pay you with their own paper money, you pretty much lose all incentive to care about them.
- Not following that last part. Being fired would be like forcibly being expatriated, putting you in the position of having to find another collective. Smart people would only join collective corporations which had reputable expatriation severance plans.

> If people do favors for each other, they get their monthly check,
> and those favors can include things like designing rocket fuels for
> your local JPL lab.
>

You've missed my point entirely. Your corporations would EACH print THEIR OWN money and actually pay for the services with that money. They don't have to pay equal rate to everybody, since each corporation does it different. Some will pay everyone equally, some won't. Or large groups of friends or clans would invent their own currency, that would circulate among the clan. It doesn't matter how hard you try to make sure that everybody gets paid equally, because there will always be a black market among friends and companies.

- True, each corporation would run differently. That's half the idea, freedom to choose the political and economic system you live under. Some would be communist, some would be capitalist. It would be like living in company towns, but the towns aren't geographic.

- I saw another comment you made about the communist black market. The idea with the USSR was to provide for the common welfare. It's natural for people to devise their own means for this. If one incorporates that flux into the system and strives to simply keep the costs of living down for everyone, it shouldn't be that great an issue. The immense difference between what I am suggesting and what the USSR did is that the USSR worked centrally and top-down. This system mostly works bottom-up. A pair of people can decide that dying a cat purple is a worthy service to provide and consume without some bureacracy in Washington putting that on the list first. There would be spot checks to determine that people were playing by the rules, actually providing services and not just clicking their cell-phones, but aside from that the system is based on living in a world where not much really needs done anyhow. If you are clueless about what services to provide, you could probably knock off four years of trivial service obligation by doing a year of some government/corporate service like installing power lines.

Also, what if you're so smart and talented, that you negotiate equal pay to the janitor, but only work 1 hour a day designing rocket fuels. Then you go to another company and do something similar and work 2 hours. In the end, you would be getting your pay check from multiple sources.

- I hadn't thought of that anymore than working and paying taxes in multiple countries, but it's certainly more plausable. As long as both those corporations allow personal property, and pay more than food and internet, why not? The idea isn't to restrict freedom, just to lower the cost of living and amount of work required. Each corporation has it's own culture, politics, and economics. Your person sounds like they would prefer to work for GlobalAerospace, a corportion which pays it's members hourly by different pay scales, and pays them in international capitalist trade credits which they could use to buy a car on the internet from some other corporation.

> I would indeed expect these corporations to issue their own currency.
> They do so already anyhow, calling it 'points', good at their affiliate
> airlines and department stores. When a corporation requires some bulk
> resource from another corporation to sustain their own working membership,
> they can either trade imports and exports, or use whatever global
> currency is in fashion.
>

Yes, but there are severe limitations to these point systems. We all agree that real money is more useful.

- There are so far, but if the trend continues, I am only describing things to come anyhow, in which your job determines your bank, and your bank determines which stores you have discounts at. Trade affiliate currencies appear to be what many big businesses are aiming for. That way, amongst several other reasons, they can trade forecast allotted exchange of consumer commodity details in bulk like any other stock or company buy-outs.

And all this would be unregulated I suppose. A good scam artist can convince people to join their company, and then let the printer running, while buying up other people's currencies in exchange for the bullcrap currency. And don't get me started on money laundering. I hope you have a good safeguard against money laundering activities, with all the currencies floating around.

- I did mention there would likely be (a few) global currencies, mostly for corporations themselves to exchange with, but also for members of capitalist corporations to use for trading with other corporations or individuals belonging to other corporations. How much if any of this ends up in the hands of members is up to the corporation they are a member of. Depending on the corporation, they might mostly pay in local currency, but also give out a montly dividend in Euros or global-socialist credits or something. This would depend in large part on if the corporation just kept to itself like a commune, or exported wholesale to other corporations, or possibly even sold retail on the global market. If all your own corp deals with is local labor and local resources for it's own members, then that's all you'll be paid in too.

Most people already agree that less currencies is generally better (up to some tipping point). Banks in the 1800's would issue their own paper money in liue of gold. State governments would also each have their own currency. We all know how well that went. Nearly everyone nowadays agrees that the Federal Reserve is a better system. I doubt going back is a very good idea. If anything, we're still consolidating. We have yet to accept the Amero.

- Yeah, standard currencies are a good thing. I can buy a synthesizer from some German guy on eBay. Somehow though Asians are still working for peanuts so far. It's getting there though. Our buying power has decreasod for decades now while their continues to climb. Oddly though, the money continues to get more fictitious, subject to international banking speculators and such these days. It could collapse in a heartbeat now, which wasn't true of the gold coin days, where a loaf of bread was always a loaf of bread.

- You might recall I had a tiered money system that went hand in hand in with this service system of socialised paychecks. The idea would be that there would be a kind of monopoly money used by democracy and project managers, and fictionally paid to independent contractors, upon which the money is deleted. It's purpose is to prioritize budgets. People vote on what projects to spend money on, and the project managers spend within their budget to get the appropriate level contracting done. If your budget is 10,000 play-money credits to get a video game made, you don't hire rocket engineer who's rare services demand 1000 play-money bucks per hour. I might have in mind equalizing what every one gets for an honest months effort, but I'm not so crazy as to imagine that everyone's effort is really worth the same. - It is and it isn't. In that movie production the guy cooking hamburgers or sweeping footprints was paid the same as the guy doing photo-lab work. However the hamburger guy wouldn't be on the crew if he werent needed. That's the issue the play-money takes care of. Keep in mind, I only suggest this as a way 'a' corporation could work.

- The way I see it, governments are dissolving to corporate control anyhow, and this is what we are up against anyhow. I'm merely suggesting that we spot the trend and have some creative say in what the corporations we end up joining look like to begin with. If we don't suggest that they include some form of democracy before we join, it's unlikely to occur later. You haven't voted any on what companies your bank card gives you discounts for, have you? ..or the proportion of commercials on your cable channels? In my neighborhood at least, it's not like one can even vote by choosing who to buy from. It's all monopolies. Your only vote is cable or no cable. Cable internet or dial-up DSL. If your cable provider decides they will sell all your browsing activity records to other companies, and you need fast internet, there's not much you can do about it.

> I'm not seeing the problem. Perhaps you are thinking of tax evasion
> to support this system, but the idea is to evolve into a non-economic
> sustainable society anyhow. Granted, money is an awfully convenient
> method of barter already, but it doesn't encourage more utilization
> of local resources.
>

If money didn't exist, you would still have your haves and have nots. People didn't have currencies during the caveman days, but you still had hierarchies. I suppose if society became so rich that all goods would be nearly free to produce because of technology and lack of need for labor, you would no longer have the haves and have nots.

- It's absurd that we even have haves and have nots today, though we do. A welfare check will pay for ones basic living needs, and we can afford to put half the nation on welfare, while the other half are the have mores, owning cars and such. Bosically they profit from owning or building the machine, and the machine feeds the poor. Still though, we have ghettos where neither jobs nor welfare checks penetrate.

- As I said earlier though, it's not that we can't let everyone coast on automation, but that we choose not to create such a system and opt instead for an ever evolving system of tiered goods creation. I'm not saying that's a bad plan, if it were to pick up the bottom end a bit more rather than letting outright outsiders exist within our own national boundaries, I'm just saying that since a coasting plan is possible, it should be an option for those who want it.

Then you wouldn't need money, or the barter system. It would all be a moot point. But until we reach that point, getting rid of money won't make us all equals. Just remember, people used mostly the barter system during the Middle Ages instead of money. And look how egalitarian they were.

"And look how egalitarian they were."? There were the aristocracy of church and state, barons and their courts, but for the most part everyone else since the 400's was a socialized serf, tending the kings land. I'm sure, mostly through barter, that there were definitely wealthier entrepreneurs working their way up to become barons themself, but for the most part everyone had a plot of land and a cow until the age of mercantilism.

> From my recent banking experience, and the related research I did,
> I gather that banks, big business, and the government would actually
> like to go in the opposite direction and dispense with cash altogether
> so they can track your every transaction.

I am sure they would...


Of course my system had
> monitoring too, but only to see that you met threshold as a society
> contributor.

And why would I trust creepy do-gooders like you anymore than I would trust banks and big business.

Well you couldn't. You'd have to do your homework before joining a co-op/corp just as one has to do their homework to buy into an organic membership grocery chain. We have one such chain here (WholeFoods) being boycotted now because the CEO proclaimed that national healthcare would be unnecessary if people just bought from stores like his. If you were smart, you'd join one that had a really good democracy which wasn't thwarted by internal media control.

It is creepy form our perspective.

Hey, enough with the stereotypes! No, I haven't seen it. I've only seen a handful of Canadian movies, unfortunately.

The movie was made by the same guys from Kids in the Hall. I don't know if that tells you anything.

I heard of that show, but I haven't seen it. A bit before my time.

How did you get into all that? I thought it was pretty obscure for non-Canadians?

> Not following that last part. Being fired would be like forcibly being expatriated, putting you in the position of having to find another collective. Smart people would only |> join collective corporations which had reputable expatriation severance plans.

With the difference that you pretty much lose everything, since you got paid with worthless paper money that no one else honors. Under your plan, losing your job would be the equivalent of getting deported, being forced to start your life all over again. For such a socialist, I would figure you would at least have some safety net in mind.


> True, each corporation would run differently. That's half the idea, freedom to choose the political and economic system you live under. Some would be communist, |> some would be capitalist. It would be like living in company towns, but the towns aren't geographic.


>- I did mention there would likely be (a few) global currencies, mostly for corporations themselves to exchange with, but also for members of capitalist corporations |>to use for trading with other corporations or individuals belonging to other corporations. How much if any of this ends up in the hands of members is up to the |>corporation they are a member of. Depending on the corporation, they might mostly pay in local currency, but also give out a montly dividend in Euros or global-|>socialist credits or something. This would depend in large part on if the corporation just kept to itself like a commune, or exported wholesale to other |>corporations, or possibly even sold retail on the global market. If all your own corp deals with is local labor and local resources for it's own members, then that's all |>you'll be paid in too.

We already have something like that. Co-workers and managers trade off-days with one another (a form of currency), and other similar favors. Vacation time, good parking spots, cheap/free coffee, discounts for sports games, etc are already part of compensation. I think taking the extra step of allowing companies to print their own currency, and building their own little village is going too far. Theres a (pretty good) reason why our Constitution gave Congress the sole right to coin currency.
Then why can't companies just voluntarily decide to pay everyone the same. I mean theres no law on the books in the US saying that you have to pay engineers more than janitors.

Anyway, like I said before, your idea won't work. People are not going to want to work for a company that pays them in local currency, because they have a reasonable expectation that they may move one day. Even people from New Jersey won't go for your idea.


>- There are so far, but if the trend continues, I am only describing things to come anyhow, in which your job determines your bank, and your bank determines which |>stores you have discounts at. Trade affiliate currencies appear to be what many big businesses are aiming for. That way, amongst several other reasons, they can |>trade forecast allotted exchange of consumer commodity details in bulk like any other stock or company buy-outs.

I thought the whole point of having the FTC was to try to keep that kind of thing from happening in the first place. People pretty much knew tie-in agreements were a bad idea since the 1800's and agree on that universally (liberals and conservatives). Unless off course you live in Kristal World.



"Well you couldn't. You'd have to do your homework before joining a co-op/corp just as one has to do their homework to buy into an organic membership grocery chain."

Ok, fair enough, except that if you screw up that decision, you pretty much screw up your life. If you screw up your house purchase, or your job choice, it would only cost you a few thousand.


> The way I see it, governments are dissolving to corporate control anyhow, and this is what we are up against anyhow.

Thats mostly because companies buy off corrupt Congressmen. We actually have laws against such things, but they're just not enforced. The only "innovation" your idea brings to the table is to dissolve a strong federal government, which means no point in bribing Congressman because they won't have much power anyway.

So in a nutshell, you want to replace our federal republic with anarchy so that instead of having one large corrupt government, we'll just have thousands of small corrupt governments instead. Yeah, great going genius.

Kids in the Hall reruns used to come on Comedy Central. I used to watch it a lot around 1999-2000. Although the show is a lot older than that I am sure.

> Not following that last part. Being fired would be like forcibly being expatriated, putting you in the position of having to find another collective. Smart people would only > join collective corporations which had reputable expatriation severance plans.

With the difference that you pretty much lose everything, since you got paid with worthless paper money that no one else honors. Under your plan, losing your job would be the equivalent of getting deported, being forced to start your life all over again. For such a socialist, I would figure you would at least have some safety net in mind.

- Alas, not really. Freedom of choice comes first. My primary concern is universal undiscriminatory mobility and escape (in case it turns out you don't like wearing a veil 24/7 or being a communist.). Maybe if you join a communist co-op they can bank away your over-the-top assets in case you leave. Criminal cases concern me more as well. I figure if you're charged for public nudity, you either do the time in a non-nude colony or are forever restricted to those colonies who don't care about your history or have those particular laws.

"Theres a (pretty good) reason why our Constitution gave Congress the sole right to coin currency." - Uh yeah, increasing trade. They never really anticipated corporations who could trade wholesale, nor this many people. LA alone has ten times the population of the entire 13 colonies at that time.

"Then why can't companies just voluntarily decide to pay everyone the same. I mean theres no law on the books in the US saying that you have to pay engineers more than janitors. " - That's how I figure the system would start anyhow. People would join collective that have non-profit cell-phone service and such. That movie production was exactly the sort of start I had in mind. Companies doing this, not governments. Ifigure companies are the only political entities the government really recognizes these days anyhow.

"Anyway, like I said before, your idea won't work. People are not going to want to work for a company that pays them in local currency, because they have a reasonable expectation that they may move one day. Even people from New Jersey won't go for your idea. " - I'm sure the system would evolve. Corps would invent something like retirement credits which could be traded either between moving residents or wholesale between corps as a fair trade balance between those coming and going.

By your logic people wouldn't stick with a Discover card because they might switch to Visa later, yet these cards buy each other out through balance transfers.

"Ok, fair enough, except that if you screw up that decision, you pretty much screw up your life. If you screw up your house purchase, or your job choice, it would only cost you a few thousand." - Yeah well, moving to Turkey or Switzerland would have quite an impact too. The advantage to this is that similar options are miles away, not around the world.

"Thats mostly because companies buy off corrupt Congressmen. We actually have laws against such things, but they're just not enforced. The only "innovation" your idea brings to the table is to dissolve a strong federal government, which means no point in bribing Congressman because they won't have much power anyway.

So in a nutshell, you want to replace our federal republic with anarchy so that instead of having one large corrupt government, we'll just have thousands of small corrupt governments instead. Yeah, great going genius." - Even if I didn't have this exact plan, I'd still like to see a return the Xth ammendment days, bottom up, where city rights surpass state rights, and states surpass the feds. If a city wants to grow pot, or a state allow abortion, that should be their choice, so long as people are free to move to the place which suits them. I support peoples right to live under laws enforcing redneck fundamentalism just as much as my own liberalism. All these are lifestyle opinions, not written in stone, one set of laws meant to be ideal for everyone. Common-denominator tyranny-of-the-majority doesn't deliver.

Anarchy is less corruptable, though defenseless against some corrupt aggregate force.

Overall what I am suggesting is to offer people the choice of nations as they can choose employers or grocery stores now. In a competitive world the features offered by such corporate nations would tend to standardize into a few primary culture types. In a sense it might become like Republicans ruled by Republicans and Democrats ruled by Democrats.

You may recall I also a voting system toward that end as well, where people each choose their own representatives anywhere up the hierachical tree leading to ultimate votes in the house; a sort of hybrid between representation and popular vote. I defer my recent environmental topic votes to GreenPeace, and they have a rep in the house.

Employment: Other. I do not want some twit deciding what I am going to do, when I want to do it, or how I want to do it. Unfortunately with King Obama and his drooling LWL lackeys in power, we are heading for socialistic government where someone who has no clue, decides what you should do with your life, what you can say (political Correctness), and everything else including when you can take a crap.

Wow... this must of taken a long time to compose. Where's the dancers and the singers and the artists and the ... oh, maybe these are their day jobs.

Could be their day jobs, but I'm also figuring everyone would have 15 hour work weeks.
I've spent years thinking and debating on this topic, so listing concerns came by easily.

15 hour work weeks would rock. I could deal with that.

Huh?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/

What, are you that "I'll let others decide for me" vote?