Facebook and a Classless Society

[STI]

One big concern a lot of people have when it comes to the possibility/desirability of a classless, moneyless, exchangeless, propertyless society is that there could be some who'd consume *far* beyond their fair share without contributing enough productive/creative effort to make up for it.

Well, it'd probably happen in some instances. A lot of the time, it'd be temporary, circumstantial, and on a personal level, justifiable. But not always. It'd be important, then, to find a way of discouraging chronic free-loading.

Facebook offers a potential remedy.

In a classless society, getting resources would be a simple matter of going to a nearby resource depot ("the store"), picking up the stuff you want, then scanning your personal resource-card and you'd be on your way. The information (ie: how much you took... or possibly just the total amount of human labour that went into the stuff you took, to keep personal consumption habits private) could be sent directly to your facebook profile and compared to the "consumption per capita" levels for your community, with the results constantly displayed and updated.

This already exists, in a way. There's a facebook application called Moochspot ( http://developers.facebook.com/products.ph...0&desktop=&s=10 (http://developers.facebook.com/products.php?sort=0&desktop=&s=10) ) that keeps track of it on a small, interpersonal scale (who paid for dinner, etc). Given what little I know about software programming and data transfer technology, it doesn't seem like such a massive project to impliment what I outlined above. [aside: there are something like a hundred peripheral applications that work on top of the facebook platform, and some of them are effin' sweet. Check 'em out at http://developers.facebook.com/products.ph...0&desktop=&s=10 (http://developers.facebook.com/products.php?sort=0&desktop=&s=10) There's a good chance some of them would be at least a proto-solution to a lot of the problems we'd have to face]

The same could probably be done with labour, though the logistics would be a *bit* tougher.

Anyhow, others' perception of you would be directly affected by your consumption level (Compare how you perceive picture 1 to picture 2 in terms of attractiveness, friendliness, "coolness", intelligence, whatever's important to you). This would motivate everyone (since everyone would have a facebook profile, and will in what, fifteen years maybe?) to keep their consumption levels sensible or risk suffering social consequences.

Problem: mitigated.

Not bad considering such a society would have to exist in a place where productive technology allows for constant abundance in the first place (ie: the former advanced capitalist societies).

Here's what I'm talking about:

[STI]

This person's contribution outweighs his consumption by 50% over the last year.

[STI]

Do you perceive a difference? Of course, it would take a ton of counterbalanced trials using pictures of people of differing levels of attractiveness, gender, "race", age, etc. to solidify the phenomenon as fact, but you get the picture.

Anyhow, do you think something like that would be effective, or am I just grasping at straws here?

[ComradeRed]

I read your first post three times and one question quickly comes to mind: what the hell are you talking about?! :huh:

[Jude]

A mod should really consolidate this. And although this is a good idea, STI, I don't think that you created it. There's something called technocracy, which is exactly what you just outlined. :):):)

[Raúl Duke]

Anyhow, others' perception of you would be directly affected by your consumption level (Compare how you perceive picture 1 to picture 2 in terms of attractiveness, friendliness, "coolness", intelligence, whatever's important to you). This would motivate everyone (since everyone would have a facebook profile, and will in what, fifteen years maybe?) to keep their consumption levels sensible or risk suffering social consequences.

Problem: mitigated.

But I think your solution is in a theoretical stage and its effects are not proven yet to solve the problem.

What if people's perception of you are not really affected by their consumption level? Or, if they did, what if you hang with a crowd that doesn't judge you according to consumption levels?


Compare how you perceive picture 1 to picture 2

They look the same to me....

Is there a difference?I can't see one... :unsure:

I'm confused :( ...Does overconsupmtion change your picture or something?


I read your first post three times and one question quickly comes to mind: what the hell are you talking about?!

He's talking about using societal influences to curb down overconsumption ("This would motivate everyone to keep their consumption levels sensible or risk suffering social consequences.") through social programs/websites like facebook, myspace,etc.


The idea sounds interesting and creative...but would it really work? :unsure:

[STI]

Originally posted by ComradeRed+--> (ComradeRed) I read your first post three times and one question quickly comes to mind: what the hell are you talking about?! huh.gif[/b]

I tried proposing a possible method of encouraging people to consume and contribute at reasonable levels in a classless society using existing social networking technology. I guess... I failed?

Is there anything specific you want me to clarify?


Originally posted by [email protected]
A mod should really consolidate this. And although this is a good idea, STI, I don't think that you created it. There's something called technocracy, which is exactly what you just outlined. smile.gifsmile.gifsmile.gif

Haha. Scooped, eh? Meh, such is life... it won't hurt for the idea to get out there, at least :ph34r:


JohnnyDarko

But I think your solution is in a theoretical stage and its effects are not proven yet to solve the problem.

Agreed.

That said, *of course* it's theoretical... as is any speculation as to how problems in a future classless society would work.



They look the same to me....

Is there a difference?I can't see one... unsure.gif

I'm confused sad.gif ...Does overconsupmtion change your picture or something?

The pictures are identical... the whole proposal is based on an (expected) difference in how you perceive the person in the picture in terms of attractiveness, judgements about his intelligence, etc.


The idea sounds interesting and creative...but would it really work? unsure.gif

It's all theoretical right now (or maybe there's been some research done on it. I should check), but for it to be confirmed, it'd probably have to be done with around 50 photographs and at least 10 participants in a controlled environment, etc.

[Jude]

I think that you have some good ideas, but your methods are filled with giant, gaping holes. First of all, Technocracy is simply a more complex form of capitalism. It is basically just Marx's theory of labour value applied to the consumer as opposed to the commodity; everyone is a MasterCard.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by STI+April 26, 2007 06:45 pm--> (STI @ April 26, 2007 06:45 pm)
ComradeRed
I read your first post three times and one question quickly comes to mind: what the hell are you talking about?! huh.gifI tried proposing a possible method of encouraging people to consume and contribute at reasonable levels in a classless society using existing social networking technology. I guess... I failed?
[/b]
Well you didn't really present the problem too well or coherently...you just launched into the solution.

Which left me with the question "Where the hell is the problem?!" :lol:


Is there anything specific you want me to clarify? As T.E. Lawrence once said: All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!

[Jude]

:rolleyes: yup, CR pretty much summed it up. STI, I think I can speak for may of us when I say that much of our time is spent thinking about these little theories, scrapping them, and repeating the process. So do what I do, and whenever you think of one, write it down, shove it in a drawer, and work on the next one. In a few days, open up the drawer, and if you still like it, post it. If not, someone else will think of it too, and then you will be able to expand on it.

[Floyce White]

I exposed this anti-worker propaganda in the "free rider" thread. It's intellectually dishonest to keep spamming it.

Bourgeois movements favor property ownership and exchange. The working-class movement favors sharing. The promotion of exchange is anti-communism.

[STI]

Originally posted by Floyce White+--> (Floyce White) I exposed this anti-worker propaganda in the "free rider" thread. It's intellectually dishonest to keep spamming it.

Bourgeois movements favor property ownership and exchange. The working-class movement favors sharing. The promotion of exchange is anti-communism.[/b]

*sigh*

I've been gone for months, and already I wonder whether to bother with you.

The first sentence of the original post specified "a classless, moneyless, exchangeless, propertyless society".


Originally posted by ComradeRed+--> (ComradeRed)
Well you didn't really present the problem too well or coherently...you just launched into the solution.

Which left me with the question "Where the hell is the problem?!" laugh.gif[/b]

Seriously? I thought the problem was at least "there"... and presented in a way such that you'd be able to "get the picture" (it isn't such an uncommon objection to a classless society, now):


[email protected]
One big concern a lot of people have when it comes to the possibility/desirability of a classless, moneyless, exchangeless, propertyless society is that there could be some who'd consume *far* beyond their fair share without contributing enough productive/creative effort to make up for it.

Well, it'd probably happen in some instances. A lot of the time, it'd be temporary, circumstantial, and on a personal level, justifiable. But not always. It'd be important, then, to find a way of discouraging chronic free-loading.

Facebook offers a potential remedy.

I really hope my writing skills havn't deteriorated so completely as to render myself incomprehensible.


Rybin
. First of all, Technocracy is simply a more complex form of capitalism.

I wasn't the one who labelled it "technocracy", you were. The original proposal was, "in a classless, moneyless, blah blah blah". Would it not hold as true then?


but your methods are filled with giant, gaping holes.

Care to point them out?


STI, I think I can speak for may of us when I say that much of our time is spent thinking about these little theories, scrapping them, and repeating the process. So do what I do, and whenever you think of one, write it down, shove it in a drawer, and work on the next one

YOU shove it in a drawer!

:lol:

Honestly, though, shouldn't the *point* of an internet forum like this be the open discussion of ideas with theoretical potential? Refining them, or, if need be, just trashing them on sound grounds?

[Raúl Duke]

Honestly, though, shouldn't the *point* of an internet forum like this be the open discussion of ideas with theoretical potential? Refining them, or, if need be, just trashing them on sound grounds?

No worries, sometimes I feel the same! (about this forum)) ;)


"technocracy"

Why keep calling it Technocracy? If a technocrat would reply, he would say it isn't.

All he's pointing out is the use of some program in social websites as facebook, for example, so to curb "overconsumption" through societal influences. (However, would there be "overconsumption"? CR mentions alot about Nanotech and abundance.....Would Nanotech end scarcity?)


I exposed this anti-worker propaganda in the "free rider" thread. It's intellectually dishonest to keep spamming it.

Bourgeois movements favor property ownership and exchange. The working-class movement favors sharing. The promotion of exchange is anti-communism.


Not this again! :wacko:

[dannie]

Anyhow, others' perception of you would be directly affected by your consumption level (Compare how you perceive picture 1 to picture 2 in terms of attractiveness, friendliness, "coolness", intelligence, whatever's important to you). This would motivate everyone (since everyone would have a facebook profile, and will in what, fifteen years maybe?) to keep their consumption levels sensible or risk suffering social consequences.

I think I would be a little scared if your propositions was to be turned into practice.
By making the personal level of consumption a factor in a future social construct you risk creating "social castes" as more demanding consumers might be viewed as some sort of second rank citizens. although peer pressure is an incredibly effective way of controlling people´s habits, I'm afraid it doesn't get us closer to a free stateless and classless society.
Instead of the economic construct, now the social construct will become the dominating factor in everyday life.
Another problem would be that there is no rational way of determining one's social acceptance as this is pretty subjective.
One of the aims of us leftists I believe is not only to abolish the current economic model, but also the social model because I believe they go hand in hand.

[Raúl Duke]

^^^ Very possible, thats why I'm very skeptical in the use of anything that harnesses social influences.

[Janus]

Anyhow, others' perception of you would be directly affected by your consumption level (Compare how you perceive picture 1 to picture 2 in terms of attractiveness, friendliness, "coolness", intelligence, whatever's important to you). This would motivate everyone (since everyone would have a facebook profile, and will in what, fifteen years maybe?) to keep their consumption levels sensible or risk suffering social consequences.
So you're implying that someone who consumed much more than his/her "share" would be automatically shunned by other community members based on his/her profile picture (would their profile be contorted to resemble their consumption or are you saying that it would be natural?)?

An alternative solution is just to have the computer program automatically print out the receipts for someone who's grossly overconsumed for the entire community to examine and decide on.

[LSD]

I'm sorry not to be rude. But what the hell is this thread about? Seriously? Because for the life of me, I have absolutely no fucking idea.

And since I'm supposed to be moderating this forum, I figured it might be a good idea if I could understand what some of the threads are actually talking about.