Now, an important point here is that we would not conceptualize productive activities as "work" in the same way as as we do on this society. One thing is to have a productive activity and another, very different, is to have to work. Both can refer to the same endeavor yet their meanings are substantially different. For instance, you can perform a personal satisfying productive activity because it suits you, it makes your life interesting, gives you a sense of personal value and it gives you meaning.
In contrast, slaves (in this society) have to work for their right to keep themselves alive. They born in debt and will be forever in debt. Only a very few, selected individuals can dedicate themselves to productive activities that are not monetary "rewarded". After all... it is said, you HAVE to WORK for a LIVING... Truth is, you only have to work when your assets can't cover your basic needs for as long as you live, if you do have such assets then you definitely don't have to move a finger for a living.
You know, even in today's society, you don't even really have to work to stay alive. There are millions of people in the United States that don't work at all, by choice. Of course, their lives are not as comfortable as people that actually contribute to society, but I fail to see as reason as to why they should.
So, I believe a leap of world view is needed here. You would not be able to give anything "for free" because it would be a nonsensical to claim that something has to have a price. Nothing would be "free" as nothing would cost a dime.
No, they would still be free. Things like housing, healthcare, clothing, food, and education require the resources and energy of society, and if they are given without requiring anything in return, you could still say they are given away for free.
But you have reckoned that people often do productive activities without receiving a dime. So, how do you KNOW this? I believe most would choose to have meaningful lifes, but that's my feeling. What differentiates your view from mine? both are just ideas, assumptions, until we have some actual facts. And we will not have such facts unless proper methodologies of research are implemented. Actually, I would like to see something like this happening in the hands of the people behind the ZM.
How do you even define a meaningful life? I suppose that question could only be answered by the person in question. Perhaps for one person it is being a doctor and for somebody else it is trying to achieve spiritual enlightenment by using huge doses of LSD all the time. I know people that do this. By the way, doing upwards of 500 hits of acid at once is an extremely bad idea unless you are very familiar with the drug.
Last time I checked, they were are a small minority. And who knows what would happen to them if more interesting things than McJobs were around, ready for them to explore.
Yeah they are a small minority, but still one of the many that would leech of society. There are already plenty of things more interesting than McJobs that they could do. They don't because stoners are lazy. At least a lot of them are. I know, I used to be a stoner.
Again, this is a non supported assumption. As a side point, why do you pay your taxes at all?? Because you are giving them all kind of public services, for free, and you don't seem to be upset about it.
You must not know any druggies. I know a lot of them. A huge percentage would love nothing more than to get high all day and your system would enable them to do that easily.
I would rather not pay most of my taxes. I am a libertarian at heart and I do have a problem with the government my money and redistributing it. But I do voluntarily live in this society so I should follow the rules. Plus, the consequences of not pay taxes if I get caught are not worth the risk.
This is a better question. Society will, exactly like now. I have also proposed that every citizen would be part of the government, from say 30 to 33 years old, there are no elections, no democracy, nor technocracy, no bureaucracy, every single member of society have to be the government, so every decision is collective. Someone can invent a productive activity, for example, and ask via internet who would be interested in taking part. If there is interest things would happen automatically. For example, say you want to teach "karate on a snowboard", if people is interested in learning that, you would have a productive activity.
What you described as a government
is a democracy, a direct one instead of a representative one we have now. Do you have any idea how inefficient that would be in a country of 300 million people? Or if you are talking about the whole world, 6.7 billion people? Congress can often barely get anything done and there are only 535 of them.
So you could just invent BS jobs like teaching "karate on a snowboard" and if people were interested society would give you the big screen TVs, sports cars, ect? You know what I see happening with that. People would invent BS jobs, get their friends to say they are interested, do nothing and reap the benefits. You would have to have people in place to prevent such fraud. But oops, you just said that there are no bureaucrats. Hmm, I guess it would just go on unchecked then.
There you go, an excellent choice for you. Would be nice, wouldn't it?
I could do it right now if I wanted to. But I wouldn't expect to have the life style of a successful doctor, for example.
Well, I don't know if it is efficient for individuals to have their "own" planes, maybe their own Veyron, I can't see why not, but certainly not the mansion. They are very inefficient waste of space, and require many people to perform some manual jobs that would be not required if we all lived in more efficient environments. I think in small cities, where we would have incredible nice private spaces, maybe something like current homes and apartments, but certainly more engineered than the "chaos" we live now on.
Anybody could have their own Veyron? Really? You think that? You must not understand economics at all. There is a reason it costs almost $2 million (and I think they actually lose money with every one that they sell, it just exists as a technology demonstrator). The price tag isn't just some arbitrary number. It costs so much because they require a lot of time, labor, and resources to build. It is not possible for every person that wants a Veyron, or a car like it, to have one.
As for the plane and mansion, yes they are probably inefficient for individuals to own. But what if I provide an incentive for people to build them for me. Would you still tell me that I couldn't own them? Sounds a lot like fascism to me.
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