83 sats \ 7 replies \ @tomlaies 7 May \ parent \ on: What would Utopia look like to you? culture
What about reaching this world without murder, violence, theft WITHOUT changing the laws? We just become richer economically.
I honestly think that a lot of crime is just rooted in poverty or any reason that is 2 steps removed from the underlying reason of poverty. Ever seen a rich person steal makeup from Walmart? I doubt. That wouldn't solve all crime, sure. But we'd be a lot closer to your utopia.
I honestly think that a lot of crime is just rooted in poverty or any reason that is 2 steps removed from the underlying reason of poverty. Ever seen a rich person steal makeup from Walmart? I doubt. That wouldn't solve all crime, sure. But we'd be a lot closer to your utopia.
however i think i push back against this claim as i think crime has more to do with inequality and poor law enforcement than anything else. i don't believe most thieves in western democracies are stealing because they are starving: they are stealing because a) they feel justified as they feel the system is rigged against them and / or b) they can get away with it.
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crime has more to do with inequality and poor law enforcement than anything else
Let's take this thought to the extreme: Everybody is rich. Everybody has a mansion in the countryside and a NYC skyscraper apartment and a dozen cars etc but the world is still unequal: Jeff Bezos has a Yacht and a private island and a personal spacestation.
You think there would still be theft? Why should anyone break into another house if they live comfortable anyways. Why should anyone waste their time patrolling the streets against home break ins or robberies?
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i was thinking about your post-scarcity thought experiment last night. it's an interesting question when you push it to the extremes.
on the one hand, i am inclined to agree with you. while there are reasons to steal other than satisfying material wants (such as protest and general hooliganism), one could argue that the plebs would be so inundated with their fantastic lives that they wouldn't really notice that bezos continues to stiff them.
yet on the other hand, humans are status-oriented creatures and this is a relative game. if everyone has a yacht, but bezos has 100 yachts coated in gold, then i truly do believe that a sizable chunk of the population would feel hard done by this and would cause chaos as a result. because the goal is not to acquire yachts, but to climb the social hierarchy. and if you cannot climb it through competence (perhaps you are low-iq or uncharismatic) then you instead ascend through violence (tearing apart bezos). i think this is inherent in human nature and a rare case of "bitcoin does not fix this".
time will tell. it would be nice if you were right.
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oh by laws in this instance i am referring to natural law rather than anything explicitly defined in a legal system / constitution / etc. the former is self-evident, the latter requires some kind of authoritative body to enforce and so is circular and self-defeating: you require a group of people capable of enforcing violence to protect you from, uh, people enforcing violence.
so for this reason i don't typically find political discourse to be all that compelling or useful. i am not too interested in voting on who gets to steal from me via taxes. advances in technology that tip the incentives towards freedom and property rights do far more for humanity than anything discussed in the houses of parliament. this is why bitcoin is so fascinating to me: it's a self-contained system where all the laws in my utopia are upheld.
i suspect we agree on most things, my original comment was worded poorly.
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I asked for the most thoughtful response - I think because you came back to clarify your original comment means that you were questioning yourself and came back with more thoughts on what you believe to be your utopia and that is why I paid the bounty to you :)