Why millennials are drawn to socialism

[Foxaèr]

Yeah, I might have gotten lost somewhere in your last post. No fault of yours.

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As much as we lionize our founding fathers.....you;d think we were all well aware.  The trouble, ofc, is that it;s risky.  Maybe not rebellion risky (blood and sweat)...but at least financially risky.  I didn;t just dive in, myself.  I toed the water, first, with subversion.  That worked...now I;m looking for a way to capitalize on that to fully opt out.

Then you have the brave motherfuckers...like Cap.  I stack bricks....Cap just fuckin jumped.  OFC he would, guys comfortable with rocks and high places.  Me...I;m more a down in the dirt and walking slowly kinda guy, lol.

Still confused by this, though.

Been reading it over and over. Just not clicking.

[The Grand Nudger]

I can bring you round to how I roll, pretty easy.  I read a story years ago about this old man who had a garden in his backyard.  Small garden, middle of the city.  Basically tore up the turf from fenceline to fenceline and just started growing veggies.  People started asking him whether or not they could buy his stuff..tomatoes and the like..and being uncomfortable with transactions and not needing the money...in the end, he decided to leave a basket by his backyard gate.  He managed the garden, people u-picked what they wanted and left whatever they wanted as payment in the basket (if they wanted to pay).  To his surprise....people payed more than things were worth.  Not a little bit more, alot more.

Now...it;s not actually human generosity at play here, it;s the psychology of value and status in transactional relationships.  Most people would have read that story and thought it was a quirky, uplifting human interest piece.

I saw a subversive business model.........

[Foxaèr]

I can bring you round to how I roll, pretty easy.  I read a story years ago about this old man who had a garden in his backyard.  Small garden, middle of the city.  Basically tore up the turf from fenceline to fenceline and just started growing veggies.  People started asking him whether or not they could buy his stuff..tomatoes and the like..and being uncomfortable with transactions and not needing the money...in the end, he decided to leave a basket by his backyard gate.  He managed the garden, people u-picked what they wanted and left whatever they wanted as payment in the basket (if they wanted to pay).  To his surprise....people payed more than things were worth.  Not a little bit more, alot more.

Now...it;s not actually human generosity at play here, it;s the psychology of value and status in transactional relationships.  Most people would have read that story and thought it was a quirky, uplifting human interest piece.

I saw a subversive business model.........

I saw humanity.

That's the thing. I don't think money is necessary for people to do anything. Including working, by which I do not include any of the absolutely unnecessary jobs we have cluttering our society. The problem is that we keep expanding into these unnecessary positions.

We don't need the majority of what we consider necessary for a constructive society.

[The Grand Nudger]

Something entirely like money in every relevant way is required.....if onerous.  That feeling that money is..in many ways..dirty, is what lead the old man to put the basket up in the first place.  He was doing something he enjoyed doing, that he would do anyway.  He didn;t want to sully it with business...but that didn;t mean he had no costs or that what he was doing produced no value.  

I, like him, would do this even if no one payed me.  I;ve been known to pay other people in the past, either literally or effectively to allow me to do so.  I don;t know if you've ever seen the pictures I used to post of the research farm I worked on down in s. florida....but, I quit a 70k a year job for the privilege of driving two hours a day and being payed the federal minimum wage..just to see how it worked.  Not just the production method....it was the business model that interested me.

Affluent people have affluent hobbies and tastes....and if you can provide them with a product they value, you can then redirect that money to people who have none..in a variety of ways. The product they value is not the tomato they buy...although the poor man who has nothing values the tomato in excess of what he can afford to give. I facilitate that transfer. Quiet class war....clandestine redistribution of wealth.

[Foxaèr]

I wrote a novel about a society where there was no monetary system. The people worked because nothing would get done if they didn't, they worked for the benefit of the community, providing for all, ensuring that everyone had what they needed. No monetary or bartering gain was necessary.

That is how our society could be, how it should be.

[The Grand Nudger]

Theres always a monetary system, or something so close to make it pointless to imagine otherwise.

In any case, I have a dream of a society without money or bartering..or, at least..a part of society without it. The trouble is that, in our system..it takes money to research, design, and build such a system.

[Foxaèr]

I agree. Removing the monetary (I am well aware that bartering is in the same category, albeit more primitive) system is beneficial.

[The Grand Nudger]

lol, rioght now...my main dependency on our late stage capitalist system is through Purina, lol.  32% protein feed...is...expensive.

-and, ofc, in electricity, that;s my next project. I;m working on going completely off-grid. The energy dependency is easier to solve than the feed dependency.

[Foxaèr]

I'm guessing you're referring to stocks? Just another unnecessary thing needing to go.

[The Grand Nudger]

I;m all out of that game, now..as much as I love it.  It;s kind of like having a casino at your fingertips....and so long as you don;t play against the house theres money to be made.

No, I mean to say that the cost of feed in my operation necessitates revenue..until such a time as I can produce my own feed or secure an agreement with someone else who wants to do what I;m doing..but makes feed instead of food.

Purina, the heartless bastards, wont even give me a single bag for free, lol.

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Drawing this in, and as a sort-of response your interest....the viability of a post capitalist society (in part or in whole) isn;t really a question of possibility.  It;s a question of transition.  How to get from here to there.  

What we millenials need..is a bunch of demonstrations as to how that might be effected.  That;s not going to come from our capitalist overlords.  It has to come from us.  Bottom up. It will never be a credible answer..and shouldn;t be taken as a credible answer by any thinking person with responsibilities..in the absence of those demonstrations. That mean that more of us who can do this...need to take that hit before anyone else will, or would, or should.