sumofchemicals @ sumofchemicals @lemmy.world

Posts

5

Comments

50

Joined

2 yr. ago

I could see a world where people are guaranteed shelter but it's a hole in the wall and they're not allowed to be other places like restaurants, businesses etc. because they don't have the money for it.

Glad you're with us.

I think there's some legitimate concern about essentially giving prisoners a broadcast. You're right that they ought to have some minimum amount of guaranteed communication, but more in the sense that they can call their family or friends without having to pay fees.

Also would love to see solitary confinement outlawed.

I hadn't thought about air, but seems like it will become a more and more relevant right (and one everyone can claim even in a more traditional sense of a right)

Seems like you might want to go broader than talking about a specific method or feature of technology. Maybe something like "right to private communication"?

I guess the tricky part is when we think of something like freedom of speech, in order to exercise the right, a person can just start talking. If we think of the right to shelter, it's difficult for a person to just, have a place to live. It requires more active intervention by the government. And I think that intervention should happen. I only point it out because there does seem to be a distinction that could trip up the conversation. But I don't have a better term than "right." Anything less seems vulnerable to attack and gradual chiseling away by its opponents.

Most people are not in a financial position to start their own business. And in a sense, starting your own business in a best case results in a benevolent dictatorship. Every person makes mistakes and has blind spots. So one person should not be in charge of decisions controlling everyone's work.

I would encourage people to freelance or start a co-op, and I think in the long term large co-ops (like fortune 500 size) are the preferable path. But if we waited for bootstrapped co-ops to reach critical mass we'd be waiting hundreds of years. One thing I'm excited about is the Obran cooperative, because they look set to convert private businesses to co-ops at a relatively large scale.

From a government standpoint in the long term I think about businesses with more than one employee being required to use one person one vote governance. (not necessarily all direct democracy, for example it could be electing a board who appoints management) But we're a long ways away from that and it would be smart to move in phases to not destroy the actual value in existing corporations. So maybe some policies as a starting point would be: government funds for creating co-ops and converting co-ops, bidding advantage for co-ops responding to government RFPs and a requirement for corporations of certain size to have some minimum employee representation on their board.

This is a very helpful bot.

I do? And most people I know?

It's not a personal problem, it's a systemic one. Americans are disenfranchised by little percentages that add up here and there until broadly popular positions can't get made into law. The Senate is inherently gerrymandered. Congress is gerrymandered depending on each state legislature. We've got the electoral college for president and supreme court justices are selected for life just depending on when the last one died. And everything driven by who can raise the most campaign funds.