posted
But if we were a pre-existing ward we'd have a bishop called before we were left all alone, right?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Do the apostles make sure they're never all in the same place at once to prevent a disaster killing them all at once?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: Do the apostles make sure they're never all in the same place at once to prevent a disaster killing them all at once?
posted
Well, if the Lord wants to kill off everyone but Hatrackers, I'm sure He can manage to call an apostle who is a member of the forum (or get an apostle to register) before hand. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Cardboard house anyone? No need for sewage plumbing; there are colonies of worms and beetles to take care of that.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: actually the tropics are potentially even worse for long term survival, deasiease, insects, unpredictable tropcial storms etc.
This is why I advocate a Socialist Society, that way, those who are physically weak and cant do the hard labour are still entitled to a fair share of what the community produces because they contribute through other means, Beekeeping is for example a must, we need honey.
You're assuming that members of a bartering society wouldn't help their neighbors. I certainly would. Most people can do *something* to generate something to barter, but if they can't or are too old or infirm, and they don't have family, they could be adopted into another family.
But taking someone into your family shouldn't be forced.
And on the topic of killing where necessary... there are those of us who would do it, and what are those who disagree going to do about it? They can't kill us to stop us... So, the ones who are willing to kill become the leaders. And I don't think that's so bad... as long as they're fair and only kill when absolutely necessary. I suggest those people quietly take out the crazy murderous megalomaniacs first.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I think I will take the role of the guy who warns everyone about what not to do, but is promptly ignored, and is later tragicly proven to be right when things go disasterously awry. Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
But, a barter society isnt efficient for directing the resources effectively, remember its not just a matter to survival, we are aiming for the ability to do reconstruction as well and only with 100% of the resources being utilized to their fullest extent can we begin reconstruction at an efficient steady pace. Some people in a straight off barter society WILL NOT help their neighbours long term, Adam Smith once said that the product is worth whatever the purchaser is willing to pay for it, barter society will always transform sooner or later into a capitalistic society because once you are able to delagate someone else to do the job for you and make a profit off his or her labours it becomes capitalism and once it is capitalism you have no need to help anyone, if people are starving to the capitalist it only means that they will PAY MORE for an essential good and as such charge them more for it.
Scientific Socialism is the only correct way to manage a new society, socioeconomically. It insures that the people who would not be able to fend for themselves will not die off but also prosper. Everyone contributes and everyone ha access to what is contributed.
The idea that it is wrong to steal or that it is theft, that the majority will not go for it, or that if you need to eventually resort to force to ensure it works, is laughable, there is something called a government, they take your taxes and return an essential services and AFAIK 99.9% of people accept this, why? Because it works.
And as for taking people into your family? what do you mean? where did I say this? No one would force you to take care of someone, if you had the skills say as a nurse to take care of the sick villagers then you would already probably have volunteered to take care of them, if your a couple with no child and theres an orphan you will probably take care of them, the idea is that if there are people who are infirm, or old or young or without family the community as a whole will do something to insure they prosper because it is not only the right thing to do, but it also contributes to our long term survival.
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quote:Scientific Socialism is the only correct way to manage a new society, socioeconomically. It insures that the people who would not be able to fend for themselves will not die off but also prosper. Everyone contributes and everyone ha access to what is contributed.
Since when is this the fact you state it is?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Scientific Socialism is the only correct way to manage a new society, socioeconomically. It insures that the people who would not be able to fend for themselves will not die off but also prosper. Everyone contributes and everyone ha access to what is contributed.
You are to become one of my bodyguards.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:though I'd want to be involved with writing the charter of our new little community.
HAHA
You know what the flaw of a Hatrack Community would be, it would be too much thinking and analyzing. Too much charter building. Too much religious introspection, if you'll forgive me. Too much art and not enough doing.
I also think we overestimate our leadership abilities. Yes, there may be many leaders but this doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a natural leader who would emerge, or say two or three natural leaders. EDIT: I think that in any community, leaders find niches.
I also think people might be underestimating their own abilities to learn and grow into new roles. Everyone claims the role of storyteller/historian, but the reality is most of us who are able to work would be working learning to do things we've never done before. You know something, anything about gardening, you're working on making sure crops are harvested and sowed. You know something about engines, radios, clothes, food preparation... people wouldn't perform simply as "artist" because that's not the way society works. People who want to produce art of any type, who want to record history, research etc. would do that in their spare time when they were NOT doing other tasks- or even during. You would quickly cease to become useless, you would become skilled whether it was at knitting or plowing or hunting or childrearing. I think people's skills and abilities are more adaptable than they think.
It would only be the very old who would take the role of storyteller, historian fulltime, if that.
I also think that many people are more able to rise to the occasion than they think. People with mild disabilities can "overcome" or work around them if the necessity is high enough.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I should add that the civilization that slowly grows out of every catastrophe will inevitably be significantly coloured by things that we cannot predict. If we have problems of succession of leadership we might institute a voting process, thus making the voting process, however we deal with it, would naturally become the basis of the new civilization that grows out of the early days.
And this is assuming that we get that far in the first generation. If its our children, or our children's children, or etc. then the process becomes even more unknown.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:And on the topic of killing where necessary... there are those of us who would do it, and what are those who disagree going to do about it? They can't kill us to stop us... So, the ones who are willing to kill become the leaders.
Not necessarily.
I think that for the community to survive, it will need to be highly (but not completely) communal, whether it's done formally or not. Neighbors helping neighbors and people looking out for each other fits.
If some people decide it's OK, against the will of the largely pacifistic majority, that majority is not helpless just because they cannot use violence. Those violent few might suddenly find that their neighbors and friends aren't as helpful and friendly anymore, that they never seem to have surplus eggs or milk, and that nobody ever has time to come to their barn raisings.
If they kept it up, these violent few might be left to fend for themselves -- a virtual banishment from the community.
How they react to this -- well, who knows? There are many possibilities.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:When did 'presently unarmed' get turned into 'lifelong pacifist?'
I was just going off or Katarain's scenario where some people were willing to kill where necessary, and there were others who disagreed.
My point was that there are things non-violent majority can do besides roll over and take their lumps.
Personally, I don't think a completely non-violent society like that would arise from Hatrack, and even if it did, I don't think it could survive.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Primal Curve would probly strangle me the moment I gained power.
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Helping people voluntarily is completely different than socialism. You don't have the RIGHT to the fruits of someone elses labour, but they share it with you because they like you or might need your help in the future.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
MPH: What I typed out, then deleted was "Or because they get a good feeling." I think good people get a good feeling out of helping others. I didn't want to open that debate.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:You don't have the RIGHT to the fruits of someone elses labour, but they share it with you because they like you or might need your help in the future.
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I think that Jatraqueros are all mature enough to share.
Assuming a pseudo-socialist community, how do we resolve disputes like the following:
MPH and Pixiest need to have their fields pollinated by my bees.
MPH requested the bees first; Pixiest's fields are larger and provide more food for the community. There are not enough hives to do them both at the same time.
Nor is there enough time in the season to do them both and expect favorable results.
MPH lives off of his field; Pixiest also lives off of hers, and gives the surplus to the community.
posted
Ya know, with this thread I think we have the start of some interesting collaborative fiction if someone wants to actually serialize it.
"Group of philosophers, geeks and artists go on a weekend retreat in the hills. When they try to return home they find the world has ended. Can they stop arguing long enough to rebuild the world?"
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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That's the thing. I don't think they're *my* bees. They're my responsibility to the community; they're my goodwill. The skills I use to take care of them are mine; the equipment I use might be mine too.
But the bees serve the community.
I think one way to handle this situation would be to require from Pixiest a larger-than-normal share of her crop for the use of my bees, which could then be distributed to MPH's theorhetical family to make up for the deficit. Also, some planning so that next year, we either have enough hives to go around, or there's enough diversification of crop so that two people's fields don't need pollination at the same time.
Or we could work on reviving wild honeybee hives, and make me redundant...
What I was TRYING to go for, though, is an encoded system of law-- how do we go about that? How do we ensure that our lawmakers keep the common touch?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
In case of a Hatrack-only surviving post-apocalyptic frenzy, I'll happily pitch in with y'all and set bones, birth babies, cook off the land with my mad herbal skillz, and jerry-rig various mechanical items. At least, until I need antibiotics for an infection (with rationed antibiotics and my unstellar heart valve, I may well become one of the first unfortunate sacrifices). And since I am flagrantly allergic to penicillin, I cannot grow my own bugjuice from moldy Wonder Bread.
But I'm already planning for the everyone-surviving post-apocalyptic scenario, which necessitates me and Dave buying a sailboat (in the works for the years-distant future) and learning the near-extinct Haida language (working on it). Pop in the sailboat, take off up the Inside Passage to the Haida Gwaii islands (aka "the Galapagos of the North," note that they survived the last Ice Age immune from glacialization due to an astonishing microclimate -- nice for post-nuclear war possibilities) and try to barter my medical training for shelter. If I speak the language and can birth babies, I figure I have a shot.
We will need to equip the sailboat with LDS-style provisions and a water purifier that runs on sunlight, of course. Hmmm ...
---
Edited to add: Better make sure the sailboat is at least 35 feet long and blue water ready, in case we run into the inevitable maritime piracy that will eventually develop. Safer initially than roads, though.
posted
Scott: In a few years, without pesticides, I think wild honey bees would thrive even if we didn't want them to. Pollination won't be a problem then.
Still, we don't get stung if we buy our honey from you. And given our bland diet, we're going to NEED your honey.
As to your example, in a socialist society, my fields get pollinated and my crops get divided amongst society. In a capitalist society, I bid higher, get my fields pollinated and hire MPH to help me tend them. I come out ahead, MPH gets fed, you come out ahead and next year you get more bees.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I'd just like to point out that without readily available antibiotics (penicillin isn't the only thing that grows on moldy bread, of course, and you might make things worse by assuming it is), you all are going to need that honey to pack wounds for disinfection.
Preserve your beekeepers.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:In a few years, without pesticides, I think wild honey bees would thrive even if we didn't want them to. Pollination won't be a problem then.
Pesticides aren't really the problem NOW. Diseases are. Don't get me wrong, some pesticides contribute (and have contributed) to the decline in wild bee populations; however, they're not the big killers.
Mother nature (via imported varroa mites) is the killer.
posted
"My fields" is an abstract notion of belonging, they are the communities fields, your the one however who is incharge and responsible for that field, as for whose field so my for the sake of speedy conversation is appriobiat. gets first dibs on the bees Im not sure how farming works or if it works that way but whoever has the biggest field should get it first or rather needs it first. To each to their abilities to each to their needs.
A simpler way would be a hierarchy of priority, Scott, being the Bee keeper knows how best to use the bees so it would be first his decision I agree to decide whose fields not only needs to be pollenated first but also wuld best thrive when pollinated. If Scott cannot come to a decision a higher circle of authority will stud the matter and come to a reasonable conclusion and of course allocate to whoms field they believe needs to bees first.
Although situations will probly hardly be that simple, for example what if if Pixiests fields were a fruit farm and the other guys is a wheat field, how do we decide whats more important a balanced diet of fruits and/or vegetables or insuring our staple? Hopefully well have the needed experts to come to the correct conclusion.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Im certain we can find the ruins of an abandoned hospital somewhere and find more pills WCS.
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Can our government be a anarcho-syndicalist commune, where we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer of the week. But decisions by that officer would have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting. A simple majority would suffice in purely internal affairs, but a 2/3rds majority in more major decisions?
Or I suppose we could all go down to the lake and see who gets a scimitar lobbed at them.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Im certain we can find the ruins of an abandoned hospital somewhere and find more pills WCS.
Not to mention once we found a militia's headquarters or a government armory we would have plenty of guns and ammunition for hunting. The contents of the armory would have to be under the strictest guard however.
I am not sure how to keep the arms secure without worrying about who is guarding the guards.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Like the one in Monty Python? Im thinking due to size, itld have to be a bit longer then biweekly, i have a council of appointed representatives will suffice. Ild say 1 rep per 500 people. Assuming a pop of 5000 that should be 10 reps, although 1 per 250 sounds better and is more flexible so 20 reps.
Anyone skills wood and stone working? Were gonna need a special building constructed.
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For some of the health problems people here are suffering, finding the right pills isn't enough. We'd have to know how much to give them. And how often.
Pixiest's response bothered me a bit, and I couldn't figure out why. I think I know now-- the capitalist solution hangs on MPH being forced to work for her. (Not being forced, I know...but for lack of a better phrase...)
Otherwise, our solutions are about the same: Pixiest pays more in both scenarios, and MPH doesn't go hungry. In my solution, MPH has to rely on the charity of the organized government; in Pixiest's he has to rely on an individual.
Hm... it's an interesting conundrum. I don't like the idea of having to rely on the goodwill of either; but to rely on the goodwill of the individual means a certain amount of stratification may occur. I think that's something to be avoided.
On the other hand, I didn't post anything about MPH having to work for his charity from the government... and I'm concerned that he might lose some personal dignity unless he gets to work.
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