Quote from: grondilu on September 18, 2012, 01:35:13 AM

Quote

The point of the OP is not that everything should be free, it's that certain things that are necessary for life but very easy to now produce can be paid for by those who are motivated by peer pressure, if the land/manufacturing is productive enough. If only 10 people in a whole country are motivated by peer pressure and can't produce enough for everyone, then people will still be forced to work anyway and this is largely irrelevant. This is, incidentally, a major reason of why I believe communism failed (along with all the crazy). On the other hand, if 10 people working and 10 in training is all it takes to produce all the food/shelter/clothing/entertainment/all the wants of an entire planet, the OP is just a simpler system of organizing what's going to happen anyway.

Please explain what you mean by "peer pressure".

There's probably a better word for it, maybe social conscience, but by peer pressure I mean: the presence or influence of any human(s), causing someone to act without a necessary reward save recognition or acceptance by the peer(s).

This includes doing what your parents say, what your friends are doing, what your town is doing (e.g. saving water in a drought), as well as getting a job to have a bigger TV than your neighbour only to invite him over to show it off.

If a society has a minimum income for all, how many will actually stop working completely, if 70% of people ostracize them for doing so? At the moment, it seems only those that don't care what others think of them do it...I very seriously doubt it will grow that much, but I'm sure studies can be done for a better prediction. There's only a major risk of collapse if the prevailing thought is that everyone is better off doing nothing, which I just don't see happening. I could be wrong, but people will still want to show off their bigger houses, cars, etc. If these people outnumber those who want to sit on the beach all day, and enough basic stuff is still made, then who cares if they get it imo.

Quote from: jojo69 on September 18, 2012, 04:00:35 AM

I used to think shit like this, but I came to understand that, sadly, without the threat of starvation most people will not do a god dammed thing.

I don't know about most people, but certainly a lot of people...but even then, so what? What amazing thing are these people doing with their lives such that them working menial jobs to pay for basic things achieve the dreams of humanity? Is the threat of starvation going to cause someone to decide to become a nuclear physicist?

You might say they could work in a car factory so the nuclear physicist can drive to work, but this discussion is about there no longer being a requirement for humans to do these menial tasks.