From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 21:23:47 MST
--- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> wrote:
> > (Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@yahoo.com>):
> >
> > Don't know if it develops in the story, but it seems to me that the
> > whole whuffie economy is based on an enticement for people to
> behave
> > the way others want them to behave and not according to their own
> true
> > natures. It is peer to peer consensual fascism. Reminds me much of
> the
> > society of Brave New World.
>
> Seems to me you're describing good old free market capitalism: people
> earn money only to the extent that they do things or produce things
> others want to pay for voluntarily. Why should people be rewarded
> for
> acting according to their "true nature", if, for example, they are by
> nature predators and not honest traders?
Well, no. A predator will find a niche as a hunter. Free market
capitalism strikes a balance between individual desires and communal
demands. I can make 1000 gizwhats a day if that makes my life
fulfilled, but if everyone else only wants 100 a day, I'm gonna have to
either find something else to do with the rest of my time or else
figure out a way to generate all the income I need to live from just
100 a day.
The karma market previously described takes absolutely no consideration
for the desires of the producer and only acts as a signal of the
desires of the consumer. It is therefore an initiation of force against
those which produce that which the karma assignors are evaluating.
Free market capitalism is a negotiation of the desires of both. A truly
free market karma system would balance a rating by the author of a post
of how fulfilling it was to write the post, to how fulfilled the
readers were upon reading the post.
Thus, if a writer achieves total fulfillment writing a post, and
everybody in the reading pool achieved zero fulfillment reading it,
there is net zero karma, just as a writer who only wrote things which
gave total fulfillment to everyone else but none to themselves would
achieve zero karma. You get positive karma when both sides gain
fulfillment, and negative karma when both sides lose fulfillment.
How you equate the value of fulfillment of the one writer to that of
the many readers is a value judgement that is entirely subjective to
your prejudices.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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