Dinh AaronMk

Borgies pls go

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>
Well, it's a shame that the farmers failed to realize the consequences of the systems and techniques that they used, and that few-to-none of them used all that surplus wheat to create biofuel.

@catchamber

Borgies pls go

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>
Oh really, is that so? Are you sure about that?

@catchamber

I think you're missing the point of what Vilage was going at. Vertical farming at this point is sort of a pretty pipe-dream a milque-toast liberal society does to say they're doing something great while evading the real issue at hand.

And that is their fancy gentrified restaurants throwing away all the uneaten food.

In Global Food Losses and Food Waste, 2011: "In medium- and high-income countries food is to a great extent wasted, meaning that it is thrown away even if it is still suitable for human consumption." Though in low-income countries: "In low-income countries food is mainly lost during the early and middle stages of the food supply chain; much less food is wasted at the consumer level."

The issue is further underscored by the notion that in the developed first-world, retailers will straight up toss out food that doesn't meet quality standards. Any banana or apple that is too small, too misshapen, or doesn't look like the packaging is tossed out despite it being as fit to eat as the "perfect" bananas and apples. This may go for grain sizes, and is even applied to eggs (seriously, go to the grocery store and look at all those uniform egg colors and sizes on display, then look for the local cottage-industry chicken owners and see the eggs they sill; the later will have a lot of variety that'd be considered a sin to sell by the major food producers and packers despite being as good as the store-brand).

So in a world where 1/3rd to 1/2 the food is wasted or destroyed because its imperfect, or because the developing world hasn't developed the same level of modern agristructure as the west, we could easily feed the 12.9% of the starving people in the world with the infrastructure and the produce we grow NOW. We don't need to build additional infrastructure and use up more land in already rent-strapped cities like New York and London. Maybe you could in Detroit; but that's not exactly going to save the city.

Borgies pls go

But they don't have the property to make that happen.

One little pertinent fact about Marxist economics is that Marx thought early American was not a capitalist society for exactly this reason. Because most people were small-time farmers and therefore owned their own means of production, they approached the market as individuals capable of bargaining. Capitalism happened when the farmers gave way to industrial workers who did not have the ability to negotiate because, lacking the means of production, they didn't have a way to live without the approval of the business men. To go back to the tractor guy making his neighbors unemployed, what do those neighbors do? Sure, they could refuse to purchase from tractor guy, but tractor guy doesn't care because he sells his goods on a national market. Your unemployed neighbors boycotting you? Fuck'em, sell your goods in the city. Neighbors won't talk to you in church? Fuck'em, go make new friends in the town next door. Those unemployed neighbors have no recourse because they have no power to bargain. And at the end of the day they have to buy food from somebody (if they can afford it), and chances are that person will be another dude with a tractor.

To add to Vilage's point too: within the greater context of the Dust Bowl and the market crash of the thirties it's not like these farmers had ANY means to stop the banks from simply taking their land to make good on debts and plough it down to plant cotton. During the first World War they were encouraged to grow more and more mustard and wheat and principle food-stuffs to feed the soldiers and the allies through subsidies tossed around by Herbert Hoover, who was acting agriculture secretary at the time. They were able to buy more land and fancier modern tools because times were good during the war and the money was coming in and they could confidently take out whatever loan they wanted to pay for whatever they needed to make more money and take out more loans.

Then the war was over, and the price of wheat declined, and the farmers needed to repay their debts and interest so they began to do what they could: plant. They hoped to plant enough wheat that when sold on the national or global market they could repay off their dues through sheer mass. This of course failed, and the set the stage for the environmental disaster known as the Dirty Thirties and the stage for the Grapes of Wrath got set.

By that point in the story no one had any money because the bank took it all and they were barely living. The Jobes didn't pull off the same tricks as other communities were the neighbors and everyone in town would go to a property auction to keep out the bankers and all bid pennies on land and equipment that'd be returned to the man in debt (Anarcho-Commies love this). But for the Jobes, everyone left because the bank had already taken over all the neighboring farms, and as chanted several times at that point in the story: "The monster's sick".

The monster's sick because it took everything they already had. The monster's sick because it crashed down after a period of artificially high demand and subsidized high-production volume. The entire Great Depression is one great situation that proves the point of Marx: Capitalism is a system doomed to forever be staring down a state of crisis.

Now, you can fix this with Vanguardism if you'd like. But then we come to the Soviet dilemma. But really, I'm thinking seizing all the toothbrushes would be a good idea right now.

Borgies pls go

The crux of Catchamber's argument appears to be that for society to even do anything it absolutely needs to have a central pervading authority to do anything, or organize anything. And seems to imply that organizationally flat, non-democratic institutions are incapable of doing good; when they do. And seems to more-or-less ignore the fundamental flaws in regards to putting all your resources into a single political or NGO-organization. Allyster Smith discusses this in part in the Dictator's Handbook, basically the most powerful governments have the most resources concentrated into a single aspect of their rule, but this aspect or pillar has so much concentrated power that there's not many other pillars around it holding it up, so when it decides to rebel or is destroyed the supporting government collapses and so does the distribution network it upholds.

Cat seems to be proposing that groups or people should hold absolute authority of the means and ways of production, which ended well for the Russian economy when the USSR collapsed (it didn't). He also seems to believe that a group invested with all the surplus food production to feed the poor or everyone else will totally not use this material influence to form its own clique within government to challenge the status quo.

It may be hard to imagine it in the western world, But interrupting the flow of food and commandeering it to make it go where you want it to go, damn everyone else isn't an unheard of tactic in recent, contemporary history. To put the full weight of distributing any resource on a single group and individual to people incapable or otherwise procuring it is a setup for disaster or corruption.

We also rope back around to the notion of pride-in-work which I guess by this point is entirely ignored or forgotten.

But you also shoot yourself in the foot over this, and you're arguing for the sake of arguing. You make a point, Cat, that this automated food-growing process is open source which is really the entire anti-thesis to the notion of investing any sort of reliance in single groups or people to advance a project or a mission, since the whole notion of open sourcing is to allow anyone to access the project to use it or further its abilities organically, democratically, and with a management structure.

So really, comparing this to your other thread I can't tell if you're willfully failing to understand what you're saying because you still believe you're right; or you're angry anyone can ever disagree with you so you want someone to say, 'ur rite kiddo'.

Borgies pls go

Borgies pls go

I'm not married to the ideas I am arguing for here by the way. I totally recognize there are some glaring flaws here. But I think, generally speaking, any place where you deprive the general population of power is a net negative, whether this be in government or in the economy. Shit, I think the only political idea I am totally married to is the idea of civic engagement as, like, some sort of 11th commandment.

@Vilageidiotx

I say we move all meetings of local-level government to a time and day of the week that causes minimal interference with people's day-to-day lives and offer either free beer, food, or the mix of the two in order to encourage a state of local-level civic engagement. If at the least no one actually has any tangible influence in the proceedings of county-level or city councils the council people can be held closer to the fire and the broader population is made more aware of their own local politicking, which is - if anything - more important to day-to-day lives than Washington shit-posting.

Once they figure out shit's more important than they thought, and why they're suddenly paying more or less in taxes because of a millage passed or dropped then maybe local elections will be less dead and we can start boosting overall participation in democracy.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

tfw u find gud Chinese revolutionary music and u think "dam fam wish i had pow"

THRIVE

+1 Communism

Borgies pls go

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>
However, Gabe Newell is still the CEO of Valve. I can't speak for Valve, but I expect that certain actions in the company require approval from some form of manager, which is a form of managing labor. Someone has to ensure the facility meets certain standards, and that everyone is compensated as their contracts dictate. The same applies to The Bostwick-Braun Company, even if employees have a voice regarding how things are run.

I agree that current corporate law puts significant authority in the hands of shareholders, primarily those that outrank colleagues with fewer shares. I suggest drafting legislation that forces them to become, or limiting your economic support to, companies that guarantee a greater voice to the employees and the shareholders with fewer shares. Shareholders contribute capital, even if they generate it through automated trading. Simply stripping them of wealth and hoping that fixes everything is as foolish as scrubbing a toilet once, and expecting it to stay clean forever.

@catchamber

Gaben actually doesn't have much power apart from being sort of a figure head in most respects. People on the team are free to pursue whatever projects they want, which may or may not include Gaben's role in development or managing the mundane. No one at Valve really tells anyone they have a concrete release date, since that'd interfere with their corporate culture.

While this is why we haven't seen Half-Life 3 in a century, or why the next TF2 pyro update is taking so long it'll mean they release something that's more functional than an EA or Ubisoft title on launch and is more organically managed after the fact when the inevitable unforeseen or unaccounted for malfunction happens (*cough*MeetYourMatch*cough*).

Automation isn't the issue, but how it's applied. FarmBot Incorporated provides open sourced automated farming units that could indefinitely feed the unemployed.

You miss the entire point about being a working man in America, or really in much of the western world. No one wants a handout for existing, or very few people do. They want to feel as if they earned it, or at the least what they're working for doesn't escape their means of achieving through inflation via the free-market capitalist system. From as far back as the Great Depression there was an immense cultural stigma associated with getting handouts to help out non-working families that loomed over people as they went to collect even when they would otherwise die if they didn't. Up until today even among the young-left people aren't saying they want free-college they just want it to be affordable so it's something that can be considered an achievement having worked to get it.

While there are some people who can't work for a number of reasons, just because we can automate all the processes to feed people for free doesn't mean it's the best sort of thing because for many people alive that would violate their sense of purpose; to do something for themselves to acquire the means by which to live or to acquire personal property.

This has been the narrative I read about a lot when venturing through the leftist circles. Some groups in this circle openly sneer at the concept of the government or other people doing something for others in the name of socialism because that goes against the goals of socialism: to give to the workers collective ownership of their labor and the fruits of their labor.

To provide a rebuttal to the Grapes of Wrath quote, "Why the fuck did the man with a tractor accept a contract that turned their asshole into a gaping chasm?"

Because his family would starve otherwise, the monster is sick, so he's gotta feed the monster, and the monster feeds him. Never mind the people he put under because he's gotta look out for his own. As was written in chapter 5:

“Why, you’re Joe Davis’s boy!”

“Sure,” the driver said.

“Well, what you doing this kind of work for—against your own people?”

“Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner—and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day.”

“That’s right,” the tenant said. “But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?”

And the driver said, “Can’t think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don’t you know? Can’t make a living on the land unless you’ve got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor. Crop land isn’t for little guys like us any more. You don’t kick up a howl because you can’t make Fords, or because you’re not the telephone company. Well, crops are like that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That’s the only way.”

Gotta feed the chillern' on three dollars a day. Be damned if they starved. T'is as Vilage said. Is it really volunteering if the only other choice is to die?

Borgies pls go

They don't just sit down and receive money. They manage the division and efficiency of labor, ensure that the facility meets certain standards, and that everyone is compensated as their contracts dictate. If you consider this an effortless set of tasks, you should totally become a CEO.

@catchamber

This isn't really necessary though. There are entire organizations that operate without the operational head, and the members - the employees - can and do drift between projects as they see fit. Valve, for all the shit they get, operates on the same basis. They're a very flat organization and people float between development teams as they wish. They're only weakness is that they actually don't hire all that much because they like to keep themselves tight-knit.

But beyond that, the larger Bostwick-Braun company - who is the main supplier for my dad - is very much an employee owned company. The people who work there are a voice in company operations.

But when you get to it, any company with a CEO has actually lost the internalized control a CEO or owner might provide. When you get to the point of Corporate Executive Officers and Corporate Financial Officers you're so large you're catering to outside stockholders who actually end up managing the policy decisions of a company on votes based on the size of the stockholder's share. And these stockholders have absolutely NOTHING to do with the company on a day-to-day basis. They only care enough about it to see revenues rise so their holdings in the company grow more valuable so they can turn around and sell them at two or three times the cost at which they bought those shares at. Most of the time it's not individuals that hold these stocks but organizations or banks even and they got entire automated systems dedicated to buying and selling stake holdings.

On a managerial level the boss or CEO may not be so much an issue. But it's the outside owner or owners that are the issue in this situation. The fruits of the labors of Ford or GM aren't going to the workers in the company and the company isn't making decisions to the benefits of its own people - the workers and the associated communities - but shareholders in New York or Boston who just want to see Ford and GM do whatever the hell it takes to raise revenues so they can sell their shares at ever inflating costs down the road and make heavy bank on it. And democratically these share-holders votes are weighed the same, those who own more of the company have more say in the company to the point that if they own enough of it, they can literally vote someone they hate out and then vote themselves in.

Shareholders have no point to be a part of this if they're not producing anything for the greater whole.

Remove the borgies.

In my view, everyone on this planet is poor, as they are dependent on the rest of society to provide them with goods and services necessary for them to survive and prosper.

We wouldn't really have an issue with the unemployed poor either if we didn't make such a push towards automation. Arguably, we wouldn't have an issue with them when we moved away from the independent neighborhood craftsman and the mom-and-pop store. But we did. So we rendered people poor. To pull from the Grapes of Wrath even: pay a man with a tractor a wage and take the crop, and you can do more work than twelve families.

Well, you just made twelve families homeless and unemployed, and taking the entire labor of one man with a pitiful fraction of compensation for work equal to that which supported twelve independent, individual families.