Comment on How would you run a society?

• libra00@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  We definitely have aliens in spaceships flying around in the real world.

  I, uh… we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, chief.

  but you don’t get magic powers you still have to have scientist and tech bros figuring shit out and inventing new shit and YOU have to teach at least the first few generations how to do that.

  But the aliens have already invented all that shit, so it seems like a real dick move to not let us use it. Especially since if we have to reinvent technology from the ground up all over again there’s a whoooole lot of people who are going to die that wouldn’t have had to otherwise, so that’s trending into ‘if god exists he’s a fucking asshole for allowing people to suffer needlessly’ territory. I’m gonna assume they’re helpful aliens, cause otherwise I’d have to pause my experiment to tell them just exactly what I think of them, but with guns instead of a few impolite words.

  Why do I assume people wouldn’t contribute? It seems reasonable that at least some people will want to smoke weed instead of building houses, but idk! I literally said that I wasn’t sure and asked what the solution was because this is fun little prompt that I am curious about and want to hear everyone’s different perspectives on. I think that asking follow up questions is kinda reasonable.

  That’s fair. If everyone’s needs are taken care of then there’s no requirement to contribute at all. Sit on the couch and smoke weed if that’s what makes you happy. But having done that for a few years I have to say I found it hard to not get up and do something useful on occasion. In the scenario where everything isn’t fully automated? Well, if you don’t care about your community and don’t want to make your/their lives better, why are you a part of it? Maybe you’d be happier somewhere else. Life (currently) requires effort to sustain, if you aren’t willing to put in that effort then it seems like you’re probably not terribly interested in continuing to live, so maybe there’s a conversation to be had about that.

  source
• notabot@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  This is an interesting prompt. Critically it seems like you definitely aren’t omnipotent, so whilst you can try to influence and teach the new inhabitants, there’s nothing stopping them simply ignoring you and doing something else.

  Rather than some wanting to just not contribute, I’d be more concerned by a group deciding to focus their efforts on building weapons and simply taking what they want from others.

  Fully automated luxury gay space communism is certainly an ideal, but it is extremely vulnerable to hostile forces until it gets large enough and willing enough to excert eqivalent force in return. Hostile forces can be military, ideological, or resource limit based. Responding to all of those, is a massive challenge.

  source