P2P Networks
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading ...Here’s a pretty deep question for you. Why can’t everything be free? I’m not just talking entertainment, but also food, clothes, and shelter. If the internet is any indication, people want things to be free.
If we can eliminate money completely, your possessions would only cost the labor it takes to obtain them. Your personal networks would become your true wealth. Perhaps you could even do something worthwhile with the time you spend on earth.
Of course I don’t really see it happening because the vast majority of companies are only out to make a profit and once money loses it’s meaning, so do these companies.
I’d still be writing and drawing cartoons everyday as I have been for years, but being surrounded by people doing what they love would be nice as well.
Perhaps the real question is: What do you contribute?
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:57 am
wait for the singularity, i would recommend reading ken macleod, charles stross, and iain m banks
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:24 am
That is an illusion.
Yes, it is true that money equals the labor one committed. But without money how do you intend to give a value to that labor? How does one value the difference in labor on manufacturing a broom stick or building a house? Without money you will be bartering with your neighbour whether he will sell his 2nd hand car for 5 eggs or 5 tables. In the end we need money to give a value to the things we trade.
And why can’t everything be for free? Because someone put labor into a product to manufacture it. What you should have said is why are some things excessively priced?
Why do we like to have things for free? Because we like to have more things and more things. Getting things for free allows us to spend our money on other things we can’t get for free.
True there are some properties to money which one could call “bad” but without it trade would be so much harder. And not only trade on international level but also at your local grocer. But if you prefer to live without paper money or coins we could always take a step back and start paying again with salt?
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:46 am
@Ian: I’ve been trying to read The Algebraist for a while, and I’m finding it hard to get into. Are there any more accessible Iain M Banks books? I’ll have to check out the others too, I haven’t heard of them. Thanks!
@Korna: This is a good argument. On a personal level I could see it being hard to place a value on my cartoons. I couldn’t see anyone trading cartoons for eggs, but maybe there’s a way to get rid of the companies that don’t provide any kind of value whatsoever.
Actually, in the end I believe those companies will fail but it sure does take them forever sometimes, and what to do about the path of destruction they leave?
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:05 am
It’s much easier to transport $1000 than goods of equal value.
Oh and Jeremy, don’t forget about the thing called “added value”.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:13 am
Ah damned english language, what I meant to say is that if companies produce nothing valuable, then how come people give them money?
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:30 am
That’s a good question. Why do people give them money? A few reasons off the top of my head would be laziness, and entitlement.
People buy toasters because they’re too lazy to whip out a frying pan and toast their bread on the oven. People buy shitty wal-mart dvd players because they think they’re entitled to have a DVD player in their home even though they can’t afford one that isn’t going to break.
This brings me to another point. The market is set up not to reward the people who make good useful products, but to reward people who make the cheapest product the fastest.
I love these discussions, they’re great fodder for cartoons.
Sorry this is in English, if it makes you feel better, you probably understand it better than I.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:40 am
Ah but that’s the beauty of capitalistic system, people don’t have to be lazy, it’s their customer decision to be like that.
Good and useful are relative terms anyway. Some people find some things more useful than other things. Some people think Correl or Photoshop is useless trash, some people think toasters are useless. People reward the people they want to reward.
It’s democracy of wallets. It’s the worst system except for all the others that have been tried.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:52 am
Funny how the idea of “Scratch that trading-bullshit” provokes a “But whaaaaat would you want to traaaade with? Stones? Haha!” response.
If the total production exceeds the need for the products it really all boils down to the problem of distribution. Modern communication technology should be able to fix that. You need some fruits for next week? Send Fruittown an e-mail. Fruittown needs wood for building something? They send Woodtown an e-mail.
Another problem with money/the idea of labour? Technology makes people suffer if they need to work their asses of to survive. If one machine can do what you do(or 100 of you) and cheaper, too, guess who will be used. Less work to is actually BAD. This is crazy!
Less work to do means more free time means more time to do what you want instead of what needs to be done. But what the hell, you cannot, even though the free time would be there!
Labour is something which should, on the whole, be reduced instead of necessary to get stuff.
I apologize, as English isn’t my first language either.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I think it would be wonderful to live in a single town, even, that followed the guidelines of the good old bartering system.
“I’ll knit you winter clothes in exchange for firewood all winter.”
I support the farmers market and I do my best to not buy imported food and goods. Oh boy do I look forward to the summer time for boiled peanuts to be sold by the road-side.
November 6th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I use the barter system every chance I get. Being an artist that does public shows, I find several people that like to Barter. I like to look at Craigs List also. There are people that are willing to do that, or they will trade things.
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:15 am
Jeremy, Try ‘Player of Games’ - Quite easy Banksian Sci-Fi to get into and not as mind-twisting as ‘Use of Weapons’ which most people say is the best first one to read.
ian is mainly talking about Banks’ The Culture, an advanced society where there is no money, no crime, and the inhabitants mainly fill their days with games, art, working for the fun of it, and changing sex whenever they feel like it.
The Algebraist is a non-Culture banks book, ‘Player of Games’ is a Culture book, and so is ‘Consider Phlebas’ and ‘Look to Windward’ both excellent.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I don’t know that is is a sense of entitlement to want a dvd-player when you can’t really afford a good one. Our cultue expresses much of itself through movies, and if you can’t watch them you are going to have a lot more difficult time participating in our culture. You must also consider that it is easy to create an artificial need (like a toaster) as it is profitable to do so, and very difficult to communicate to people that the marketed ideas they are buying are false or unnecessary.