Author Topic: The Great Reset  (Read 11557 times)

imolina

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The Great Reset
« on: November 16, 2020, 10:39:44 PM »

What are your opinions about the “Great Reset” the world economic forum is aiming for?. They have seen covid-19 as an opportunity to reset the world. There is a video of Trudeau making headlines recently.

In one of the videos, one of their predictions for 2030 is “ You will own nothing and you will be happy”, . Kind of scary in my opinion. Working so hard to achieve FI and we may lose all?.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/

Would they be able to make it happen?. These guys are the richest and most powerful, but would their egos allow them to agree on everything?. Also, they said all the countries in the world will have to agree, will they?

uniwelder

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2020, 01:51:09 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

habanero

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2020, 02:32:48 AM »
From reading the stuff it pretty much translates roughly to something like "all countries should be a bit more like Scandinavia". We have most, if not all of the stuff on the list, and last time I checked I still own my assets. I do, however, pay some wealth tax on it, effectively lowering the SWR by around that amount.

Anyway, not gonna happen.


imolina

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2020, 03:06:03 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2020, 03:19:39 AM »
This is largely about the SDGs, have you read much about them?

There's what the SDGs mean and then there's the nonsense conspiracies about what they mean.

Imma

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2020, 03:34:56 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

Bloop Bloop Reloaded

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2020, 04:34:37 AM »
I'm happy with the status quo. I'd love to see an inheritance tax and have the extra money poured into prenatal, early childhood and primary education, but that aside I am pretty happy with the current make up of society.

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2020, 04:52:04 AM »
I'm happy with the status quo. I'd love to see an inheritance tax and have the extra money poured into prenatal, early childhood and primary education, but that aside I am pretty happy with the current make up of society.

You have no concerns about global inequality or the impacts of climate change?

Bloop Bloop Reloaded

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2020, 04:56:48 AM »
Inequality - no. Other than what I said about improving access to education. In my country, income inequality hasn't gone up since the GFC, so I don't see it as an issue. In terms of global inequality, I don't know enough to comment.

Climate change - I don't think "the Great Reset" is going to help climate change one way or another. I'd say the best way to help mitigate climate change is to put a huge tax on most forms of unhealthy consumption and I'd be okay with paying higher consumption taxes for that.

hal

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2020, 05:28:32 AM »
I'm happy with the status quo. I'd love to see an inheritance tax and have the extra money poured into prenatal, early childhood and primary education, but that aside I am pretty happy with the current make up of society.

For the most part, I agree with this but would add global climate change as a priority. The coronavirus pandemic has shown the absolute importance of childcare in society, and I think we have a ripe opportunity to expand access to parental leave and childcare in the coming years so that working parents don't have to choose between their careers and raising their children. This is one area where, in my opinion, Scandinavian countries really get it right. It's also an area where the US could really attack inequality in ways that would be palatable to a broad spectrum of people (as opposed to universal basic income or other measures).

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2020, 05:41:12 AM »
Inequality - no. Other than what I said about improving access to education. In my country, income inequality hasn't gone up since the GFC, so I don't see it as an issue. In terms of global inequality, I don't know enough to comment.

Climate change - I don't think "the Great Reset" is going to help climate change one way or another. I'd say the best way to help mitigate climate change is to put a huge tax on most forms of unhealthy consumption and I'd be okay with paying higher consumption taxes for that.

If you read about the SDGs, they focus heavily on climate change.

Also, individual prosperous countries kind of play a huge role in global inequality, so you can't really exist in a bubble where you're like "shit's good in my country right now, so leave us out of this". The SDGs are a global initiative, that's kind of the whole point.

Bloop Bloop Reloaded

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2020, 06:01:58 AM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.

uniwelder

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2020, 07:13:31 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

Excuse my ignorance.  I'm just now educating myself on what the great reset is all about.  I do wish I could find the other thread about this, which I think was conspiracy theory focused.

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2020, 08:09:40 AM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.

You can look into exactly what your country's strategies on this are, I recently read a 20 page report on Australian government, non profit, academic, and private sector initiatives and collaborations when it comes to the SDGs.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2020, 10:31:18 AM »



In one of the videos, one of their predictions for 2030 is “ You will own nothing and you will be happy”, . Kind of scary in my opinion. Working so hard to achieve FI and we may lose all?.



Owning things including lots of money provides so much personal satisfaction, security, and  human happiness  to so many that I cannot conceive of the establishment of an own-nothing global regime as conducive  to the general welfare of any populace on Earth.

Rational agents always seek to maximize their satisfaction.

If an own-nothing global regime were established what would be left be to incent human aspiration, an indispensable element of the human condition?

A global, own-nothing regime would homogenize mediocrity and suffocate the human spirit.

It would be the worst impediment to human progress in the history of humanity.

Money is precedent of ownership and its manifold, concomitant satisfactions which is why "Money makes the world go round."
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 10:44:00 AM by John Galt incarnate! »

Luck12

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2020, 10:45:30 AM »
Did you all who expressed horror at the not owning things prediction, did you even read the link about it?  You guys sound crazy for shitting your pants about this.  I think the different opinions reflect different personality types:  There are those who seem to always be aghast at changes in society vs those who embrace changes and are open to different modes of living and dare to dream of better ways.  Aside from the lack of privacy mentioned in it, what would be so horrible?   Here are 4 excerpts:   Sounds fucking awesome to me environmentally, emotionally, health-wise, etc.   Sounds quite Mustachian too.   

" When AI and robots took over so much of our work, we suddenly had time to eat well, sleep well and spend time with other people. The concept of rush hour makes no sense anymore, since the work that we do can be done at any time. I don't really know if I would call it work anymore. It is more like thinking-time, creation-time and development-time."

"When products are turned into services, no one has an interest in things with a short life span. Everything is designed for durability, repairability and recyclability. The materials are flowing more quickly in our economy and can be transformed to new products pretty easily. Environmental problems seem far away, since we only use clean energy and clean production methods. The air is clean, the water is clean and nobody would dare to touch the protected areas of nature because they constitute such value to our well being. In the cities we have plenty of green space and plants and trees all over. I still do not understand why in the past we filled all free spots in the city with concrete."

"I enjoy the exercise and the ride. It kind of gets the soul to come along on the journey. Funny how some things seem never seem to lose their excitement: walking, biking, cooking, drawing and growing plants. It makes perfect sense and reminds us of how our culture emerged out of a close relationship with nature."

"We started transporting ourselves in a much more organized and coordinated way when public transport became easier, quicker and more convenient than the car. Now I can hardly believe that we accepted congestion and traffic jams, not to mention the air pollution from combustion engines. What were we thinking?"
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 10:51:21 AM by Luck12 »

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2020, 11:36:59 AM »
Did you all who expressed horror at the not owning things prediction, did you even read the link about it?  You guys sound crazy for shitting your pants about this.  I think the different opinions reflect different personality types:  There are those who seem to always be aghast at changes in society vs those who embrace changes and are open to different modes of living and dare to dream of better ways.  Aside from the lack of privacy mentioned in it, what would be so horrible?   Here are 4 excerpts:   Sounds fucking awesome to me environmentally, emotionally, health-wise, etc.   Sounds quite Mustachian too.   



I addressed the OP's specific concern about the purported happiness of  own-nothing governance.

I agree that one's personality influences  their preference of governance.

Ownership is integral to individual sovereignty that is necessarily precedent of one's  self-actualization.

Within the trammel of ordered liberty there are no "better ways" of living than one's freedom to choose their mode of living which is central to their individual liberty.


"The smallest minority on Earth is the individual." Ayn Rand
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 11:44:04 AM by John Galt incarnate! »

Kazyan

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2020, 11:48:09 AM »
I am personally dissatisfied with how personal caretaking of devices like cars requires an incredible amount of mental overhead to deal with maintenance, but more to the point, this applies to just about every device you own. My smoke detector wants me to test it weekly. Screw that. My own body gives me enough to worry about maintaining.

On one hand, I'd be totally on board with having community cars, community bikes, and other items that get swapped in and out between people, leaving it to the repair shops to deal with all of that--and to do it more efficiently than having hundreds of people all try to ineptly puzzle out why their car is making a weird noise. It's easy to imagine how this public service is represented in utopian (or at least 'not dystopian') sci-fi, and it's exciting. On the other, I'm apprehensive about how the power structure would shake out, since this is obviously putting a shit-ton of power in the hands of whoever owns the hypothetical Bike4Rent service. You need to have complete trust in the owner to make that happen. To take the most extreme example I can think of for this all-objects-are-subscriptions model, imagine one of the maintainer companies develops a problem with corruption, incompetence, or bankruptcy. Could ClothesCorp literally take the shirt off your back, with police enforcement, because you did a naughty against their EULA?

I guess we'll see if we get there, and it's a big if. I'd definitely prefer not to feel bad because I didn't kno to change my car's widget spinners every 2,500 miles and change the arbitrary fluid, which is why the part-I've-never-heard-of-but-everyone-else-has broke and costs two week's salary to fix.

Luck12

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #18 on: November 17, 2020, 12:16:50 PM »
Ownership is integral to individual sovereignty that is necessarily precedent of one's  self-actualization.


I don't think this is universally true and certainly a lot less true if you take $ out of the equation.  IMO the only reason to own a home e.g. is b/c there's a chance to reap greater financial rewards than if you rent.  There's a lot of hassle and mental stress involved in owning a home or even owning a car (if you live in a densely populated area).   Sure doesn't sound like a lot of freedom to me.  Also owning fewer possessions frees up space physically and mentally. 

zolotiyeruki

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #19 on: November 17, 2020, 01:27:19 PM »
Ownership is integral to individual sovereignty that is necessarily precedent of one's  self-actualization.
I don't think this is universally true and certainly a lot less true if you take $ out of the equation.  IMO the only reason to own a home e.g. is b/c there's a chance to reap greater financial rewards than if you rent.  There's a lot of hassle and mental stress involved in owning a home or even owning a car (if you live in a densely populated area).   Sure doesn't sound like a lot of freedom to me.  Also owning fewer possessions frees up space physically and mentally.
Realistically, though, you can't take money out of the equation.  I own a home because 1) I can get more bang for my buck, 2) my monthly payment increases my net worth, and 3) I have the freedom to modify it to meet my family's needs.  Oh, and 4) there's the mental peace that comes from not having to worry about whether the landlord is going to increase the rent, or sell the house, or whatever.  The calculus on the first two will vary by location, but not the third or fourth.  I could turn around your assertion so: "There's a lot of hassle and mental stress involved in the extra years of work required to reach FI, if I rent instead of own.  Sure doesn't sound like a lot of freedom to me."

Owning fewer possessions *can* free up space physically and mentally, but that's only a benefit if you already have too much stuff.  Possessions can also improve your quality of life tremendously--for our suburban family, for example, owning two cars means that DW doesn't have to drive me to/from work, freeing up 40 minutes of her time every day.

John Galt Incarnate is right.  The key here is choice (or "sovereignty").  Allowing each individual or family to choose what's best for their situation and personality will, almost universally, result in a better outcome.  Would spending $20/day to take Uber to work and back be better for me than the 25-year-old Corolla in my garage that's available with zero notice or planning?  Or a bike rental service than the bike I picked up for $60 five years ago?  Ha! (and a double facepunch for anyone who blanches at the idea of DIY bike maintenance)

Sci-fi often leaves out exactly how that stuff is paid for, and understandably so--it's boring, and only stands up to scrutiny under a pretty limited set of assumptions.

Also, the "own nothing" movement is a bit terrifying when you consider how it could be misused, or abused, or simply mis-managed.  I've heard too many stories about Gmail users waking up to find out their account has been disabled because some algorithm flagged their account for malicious activity, and the incredibly massive problems it causes when your bank account, utilities, logins to every website you use, etc. are all lost.  All your email, contacts, google docs, calendar, everything.  Or how about that New York subway?

Ownership is (in part) about independence, stability, predictability, and control.

rocketpj

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #20 on: November 17, 2020, 01:51:29 PM »
As far as I can tell what they mean by 'own nothing' is not the communist iron rice bowl boogeyman that Americans get so panicky about, just that people will own fewer things, and rent/share more things.  Examples include cars, bikes etc.  Not exactly the big scary gulag coming for your loved ones or your stash.

Most of what I have seen seems pretty mustachian.  I don't think it will happen though, because current economic policy is basically 'More to the richest, even if the world ends'.

sixwings

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #21 on: November 17, 2020, 02:00:50 PM »
I fail to see the downside of more cooperation between countries for the betterment of the human race and the planet as the world becomes a smaller place. So yeah, bring on the great reset.

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #22 on: November 17, 2020, 04:15:07 PM »

Ownership is (in part) about independence, stability, predictability, and control.

This, for me, is key.

As often, it really comes down to one's view on humanity.
And I have probably a more cynical view on the nature of many humans.
There is no way I would voluntarily surrender property control in (to me) crucial things (like housing, transport and communication).

Apart from the fact that I don't think that the "sharing economy" would be more sustainable and durable and creative. But that may just me being a cultural pessimist. 

Luck12

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #23 on: November 17, 2020, 04:30:09 PM »
As far as I can tell what they mean by 'own nothing' is not the communist iron rice bowl boogeyman that Americans get so panicky about, just that people will own fewer things, and rent/share more things.  Examples include cars, bikes etc.  Not exactly the big scary gulag coming for your loved ones or your stash.

Most of what I have seen seems pretty mustachian.  I don't think it will happen though, because current economic policy is basically 'More to the richest, even if the world ends'.

Exactly.  I view it not as you are forced to share things and not as government will forbid you from owning things, just that it'll make more sense from an efficiency and enviromental points of view for the vast majority of people so that just becomes more of the default way of life. 

It'll never happen wholesale in America.  Just look at the responses from Mustachians in this thread.  We're very likely as a group much likelier to support these kinds of changes than the average American.

Something else that hasn't gotten mentioned:  I really do believe even if on just an unconscious level one reason some won't like the sharing economy is that by owning things they get to feel a sense of superiority over others.  This already goes on to a large degree with respect to home ownership.  People are assholes so I don't think this is some outlandish claim. 


scottish

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #24 on: November 17, 2020, 04:59:45 PM »
Wait - didn't almost 1/2 of the US electorate just vote for smaller government, fewer regulations and more privatization?

Why would these people accept a bunch of lefty policies from some elite liberal economists in Geneva?

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #25 on: November 17, 2020, 05:19:51 PM »
Did you all who expressed horror at the not owning things prediction, did you even read the link about it?  You guys sound crazy for shitting your pants about this.  I think the different opinions reflect different personality types:  There are those who seem to always be aghast at changes in society vs those who embrace changes and are open to different modes of living and dare to dream of better ways.  Aside from the lack of privacy mentioned in it, what would be so horrible?   Here are 4 excerpts:   Sounds fucking awesome to me environmentally, emotionally, health-wise, etc.   Sounds quite Mustachian too.   



I addressed the OP's specific concern about the purported happiness of  own-nothing governance.

I agree that one's personality influences  their preference of governance.

Ownership is integral to individual sovereignty that is necessarily precedent of one's  self-actualization.

Within the trammel of ordered liberty there are no "better ways" of living than one's freedom to choose their mode of living which is central to their individual liberty.


"The smallest minority on Earth is the individual." Ayn Rand

Agree with the above. Also, I already have the ability to not commute, to live mindfully, to be at one with nature, etc. Because I earned it and planned for it. While I don't begrudge others the chance to do the same, I don't want to be joined at the hip with them. For example, if I don't own a car then how am I going to do an impromptu road trip with a friend? Do I have to get permission from the collective? If I don't own my own home then can I renovate and decorate it as I wish, can I have as many (or as few) social gatherings as I wish?

Sharing etc, all sounds nice but I don't think it can work easily in practice. Would you let me share your home? If so, hand over the title! Nah, I don't want your home, actually, because you earned it and I would rather you have the amenity associated with it.

Having less concept of 'ownership' to me means less stability and less freedom for those of us who do own things that we want to be able to use. You might say, for example, that if I only use my car 1 day a week and I only use 3 out of 4 bedrooms in my house that I have 25% spare housing availability and 86% spare vehicle availability that could be shared. I would agree with this. And I have no issue, actually, with "sharing" it - I often let people stay over, or friends drive my car. But I want the ability to control that and say no to sharing that I'm not okay with.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #26 on: November 17, 2020, 05:32:21 PM »
Did you all who expressed horror at the not owning things prediction, did you even read the link about it?  You guys sound crazy for shitting your pants about this.  I think the different opinions reflect different personality types:  There are those who seem to always be aghast at changes in society vs those who embrace changes and are open to different modes of living and dare to dream of better ways.  Aside from the lack of privacy mentioned in it, what would be so horrible?   Here are 4 excerpts:   Sounds fucking awesome to me environmentally, emotionally, health-wise, etc.   Sounds quite Mustachian too.   



I addressed the OP's specific concern about the purported happiness of  own-nothing governance.

I agree that one's personality influences  their preference of governance.

Ownership is integral to individual sovereignty that is necessarily precedent of one's  self-actualization.

Within the trammel of ordered liberty there are no "better ways" of living than one's freedom to choose their mode of living which is central to their individual liberty.


"The smallest minority on Earth is the individual." Ayn Rand

Agree with the above. Also, I already have the ability to not commute, to live mindfully, to be at one with nature, etc. Because I earned it and planned for it. While I don't begrudge others the chance to do the same, I don't want to be joined at the hip with them. For example, if I don't own a car then how am I going to do an impromptu road trip with a friend? Do I have to get permission from the collective? If I don't own my own home then can I renovate and decorate it as I wish, can I have as many (or as few) social gatherings as I wish?

Sharing etc, all sounds nice but I don't think it can work easily in practice. Would you let me share your home? If so, hand over the title! Nah, I don't want your home, actually, because you earned it and I would rather you have the amenity associated with it.

Having less concept of 'ownership' to me means less stability and less freedom for those of us who do own things that we want to be able to use. You might say, for example, that if I only use my car 1 day a week and I only use 3 out of 4 bedrooms in my house that I have 25% spare housing availability and 86% spare vehicle availability that could be shared. I would agree with this. And I have no issue, actually, with "sharing" it - I often let people stay over, or friends drive my car. But I want the ability to control that and say no to sharing that I'm not okay with.

The essence of ownership of private property is twofold: If they so choose, the  owner's use and enjoyment of it are exclusive and immediate.

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #27 on: November 17, 2020, 06:07:03 PM »
I had to search SDG - thanks Malcat.

After lots of reading, I have a much better idea of this topic.  The 10 yr timeframe on The Who site seems highly aggressive/unrealistic.  I certainly don't see any goals that concerned me.  Countries could do a better job of addressing the expanding inequality in westernized economies.  This will require countries to work together to make it more difficult for corporations to evade taxes. Manage corporate greed without eliminating the fundamentals of free enterprise.  Communism doesn't work, but unregulated capitalism doesn't work longterm. At some point, when too many people feel they aren't getting a fair shake, civil unrest bubbles up and society starts to unravel.  Regardless of your views on "The Great Reset" or SDG's, I would think that most would agree that we can't continue down our present path longterm without dire consequences.

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #28 on: November 17, 2020, 06:14:09 PM »
In terms of 'continuing down the present path', Australia's Gini has been in the 0.30-0.33 range for a couple of decades and seems to be holding stable. Not sure about other countries. I know America has a much higher Gini.

I would say that if we aimed to maintain the Gini around the low .30s mark then there would be little risk of revolution of long-term stability.

Ideally, as I said before, you'd tax inheritances too to keep the wealth Gini stable.

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #29 on: November 17, 2020, 07:07:58 PM »
I had to search SDG - thanks Malcat.

After lots of reading, I have a much better idea of this topic.  The 10 yr timeframe on The Who site seems highly aggressive/unrealistic.  I certainly don't see any goals that concerned me.  Countries could do a better job of addressing the expanding inequality in westernized economies.  This will require countries to work together to make it more difficult for corporations to evade taxes. Manage corporate greed without eliminating the fundamentals of free enterprise.  Communism doesn't work, but unregulated capitalism doesn't work longterm. At some point, when too many people feel they aren't getting a fair shake, civil unrest bubbles up and society starts to unravel.  Regardless of your views on "The Great Reset" or SDG's, I would think that most would agree that we can't continue down our present path longterm without dire consequences.

NP.

I just have to kind of shake my head because none of this is new. The branding and PR are new, sure, but globally, countries have integrated mandates for the SDGs. Not everyone, obviously, but many of those who haven't yet are actively working on it.

This stuff has been in play for years, it's just that nobody noticed. The information is all there, it's transparent and readily available, although a bit of a beast to curate, but governments across the world have been integrating major mandates at multiple levels of government and with huge bilateral collaboration with private industry.

When read, the goals just sound nice and unrealistic, but if you start seeing what various countries have done with them, you start seeing it systematically, and the world's governments have been up to some shit over the past 5 years, it's kind of neat.

Just Joe

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #30 on: November 17, 2020, 07:30:08 PM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.

I'm probably ignorant but wouldn't that mean unmanageable numbers of people would move to prosperous places and swamp the economy? Sort of like Southern California as an example?

Wouldn't it be better to move / spread economic opportunity across the globe?


Just Joe

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #31 on: November 17, 2020, 07:37:06 PM »
I am personally dissatisfied with how personal caretaking of devices like cars requires an incredible amount of mental overhead to deal with maintenance, but more to the point, this applies to just about every device you own. My smoke detector wants me to test it weekly. Screw that. My own body gives me enough to worry about maintaining.

On one hand, I'd be totally on board with having community cars, community bikes, and other items that get swapped in and out between people, leaving it to the repair shops to deal with all of that--and to do it more efficiently than having hundreds of people all try to ineptly puzzle out why their car is making a weird noise. It's easy to imagine how this public service is represented in utopian (or at least 'not dystopian') sci-fi, and it's exciting. On the other, I'm apprehensive about how the power structure would shake out, since this is obviously putting a shit-ton of power in the hands of whoever owns the hypothetical Bike4Rent service. You need to have complete trust in the owner to make that happen. To take the most extreme example I can think of for this all-objects-are-subscriptions model, imagine one of the maintainer companies develops a problem with corruption, incompetence, or bankruptcy. Could ClothesCorp literally take the shirt off your back, with police enforcement, because you did a naughty against their EULA?

I guess we'll see if we get there, and it's a big if. I'd definitely prefer not to feel bad because I didn't kno to change my car's widget spinners every 2,500 miles and change the arbitrary fluid, which is why the part-I've-never-heard-of-but-everyone-else-has broke and costs two week's salary to fix.

Perhaps you've never lived in a family or extended family where everything was expected to be shared. Thinks get broken. Nobody seems to know how. The repairs can be slow to happen. Not everyone cleans or cares for your things the way you do. No grand sharing scheme for me thanks. I've been doing DIY maintenance and repairs all my life. Not that hard. You learn to do some things and build upon that. With all the help on the internet - videos, pictures and text - its completely doable.

Just Joe

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #32 on: November 17, 2020, 07:43:10 PM »
Happy to share knowledge and skills. Even share chores. Not my most expensive things except with a very limited group of people.

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #33 on: November 17, 2020, 08:11:05 PM »
I am personally dissatisfied with how personal caretaking of devices like cars requires an incredible amount of mental overhead to deal with maintenance, but more to the point, this applies to just about every device you own. My smoke detector wants me to test it weekly. Screw that. My own body gives me enough to worry about maintaining.

On one hand, I'd be totally on board with having community cars, community bikes, and other items that get swapped in and out between people, leaving it to the repair shops to deal with all of that--and to do it more efficiently than having hundreds of people all try to ineptly puzzle out why their car is making a weird noise. It's easy to imagine how this public service is represented in utopian (or at least 'not dystopian') sci-fi, and it's exciting. On the other, I'm apprehensive about how the power structure would shake out, since this is obviously putting a shit-ton of power in the hands of whoever owns the hypothetical Bike4Rent service. You need to have complete trust in the owner to make that happen. To take the most extreme example I can think of for this all-objects-are-subscriptions model, imagine one of the maintainer companies develops a problem with corruption, incompetence, or bankruptcy. Could ClothesCorp literally take the shirt off your back, with police enforcement, because you did a naughty against their EULA?

I guess we'll see if we get there, and it's a big if. I'd definitely prefer not to feel bad because I didn't kno to change my car's widget spinners every 2,500 miles and change the arbitrary fluid, which is why the part-I've-never-heard-of-but-everyone-else-has broke and costs two week's salary to fix.

Perhaps you've never lived in a family or extended family where everything was expected to be shared. Thinks get broken. Nobody seems to know how. The repairs can be slow to happen. Not everyone cleans or cares for your things the way you do. No grand sharing scheme for me thanks. I've been doing DIY maintenance and repairs all my life. Not that hard. You learn to do some things and build upon that. With all the help on the internet - videos, pictures and text - its completely doable.

Shrug.

I like my condo with shared spaces, laundry, pool, gym, garage, work shop, etc, I enjoyed car sharing when I had it, libraries are cool, and tool libraries are even cooler IMO. So are community gardens, public pools, gyms, tennis courts, etc. Uber and AirBnB have also been pretty useful.

I'be also enjoyed renting VHS tapes, steam cleaners, carpet cleaners, skis, snow shoes, skates, moving vans, musical instruments, ebikes, e scooters, GPS units, archery stuff, event supplies (decorations, tables, chairs, dishes, etc), DJ equipment, PA systems, a Santa suit, an airplane, a generator, a snow blower, a drone, a camera, various exotic animals for photoshoots, lighting, a motorcycle, a race car, a few luxury cars, bowling shoes, a wheelchair, and crutches.

Owning less and sharing things doesn't have to have anything to do with socialism, and can work out pretty darn well sometimes.

Incidentally, this is also not in any way a new initiative. My sustainable development friends were running federally funded major conferences think-tanking possibilities for expanding sharing economies over 20 years ago.

All this stuff just gradually percolates to the surface and then some exhausted policy wonk rolls their eyes and grumbles "FFS, I was writing about this in the 90s".

Imma

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2020, 02:53:16 AM »
I am personally dissatisfied with how personal caretaking of devices like cars requires an incredible amount of mental overhead to deal with maintenance, but more to the point, this applies to just about every device you own. My smoke detector wants me to test it weekly. Screw that. My own body gives me enough to worry about maintaining.

On one hand, I'd be totally on board with having community cars, community bikes, and other items that get swapped in and out between people, leaving it to the repair shops to deal with all of that--and to do it more efficiently than having hundreds of people all try to ineptly puzzle out why their car is making a weird noise. It's easy to imagine how this public service is represented in utopian (or at least 'not dystopian') sci-fi, and it's exciting. On the other, I'm apprehensive about how the power structure would shake out, since this is obviously putting a shit-ton of power in the hands of whoever owns the hypothetical Bike4Rent service. You need to have complete trust in the owner to make that happen. To take the most extreme example I can think of for this all-objects-are-subscriptions model, imagine one of the maintainer companies develops a problem with corruption, incompetence, or bankruptcy. Could ClothesCorp literally take the shirt off your back, with police enforcement, because you did a naughty against their EULA?

I guess we'll see if we get there, and it's a big if. I'd definitely prefer not to feel bad because I didn't kno to change my car's widget spinners every 2,500 miles and change the arbitrary fluid, which is why the part-I've-never-heard-of-but-everyone-else-has broke and costs two week's salary to fix.

Perhaps you've never lived in a family or extended family where everything was expected to be shared. Thinks get broken. Nobody seems to know how. The repairs can be slow to happen. Not everyone cleans or cares for your things the way you do. No grand sharing scheme for me thanks. I've been doing DIY maintenance and repairs all my life. Not that hard. You learn to do some things and build upon that. With all the help on the internet - videos, pictures and text - its completely doable.

Shrug.

I like my condo with shared spaces, laundry, pool, gym, garage, work shop, etc, I enjoyed car sharing when I had it, libraries are cool, and tool libraries are even cooler IMO. So are community gardens, public pools, gyms, tennis courts, etc. Uber and AirBnB have also been pretty useful.

I'be also enjoyed renting VHS tapes, steam cleaners, carpet cleaners, skis, snow shoes, skates, moving vans, musical instruments, ebikes, e scooters, GPS units, archery stuff, event supplies (decorations, tables, chairs, dishes, etc), DJ equipment, PA systems, a Santa suit, an airplane, a generator, a snow blower, a drone, a camera, various exotic animals for photoshoots, lighting, a motorcycle, a race car, a few luxury cars, bowling shoes, a wheelchair, and crutches.

Owning less and sharing things doesn't have to have anything to do with socialism, and can work out pretty darn well sometimes.

Incidentally, this is also not in any way a new initiative. My sustainable development friends were running federally funded major conferences think-tanking possibilities for expanding sharing economies over 20 years ago.

All this stuff just gradually percolates to the surface and then some exhausted policy wonk rolls their eyes and grumbles "FFS, I was writing about this in the 90s".

It's funny that some Americans view the sharing economy as some form of socialism. Many Europeans think this is capitalism gone wild!

For example, there's a bike subscription service called Swapfiets in here. It's extremely popular, several 100.000s of members. For €16,50 a month you get to use a bike, and if it breaks they come to your location, wherever you are stranded, and swap the broken bike for a working bike. Of course, with a similar new bike costing around €200, from a financial point of view it's a total ripoff. But people are happy to pay because €16,50 is a small amount of money and bike maintenance is a hassle. Not to mustachians, of course, but the average person who doesn't have a large workshop and has to fix a tire on the side of the road, or drag the bike several kilometers to the nearest shop when it rains and you're in a high heels. It's a clever idea and it works.

For car-sharing, it's financially usually way more sensible to share if you're a typical urban dweller and hardly ever use a car. I'm working on getting my license and if/when I do I'll certainly sign up for a car share service. The monthly costs of a car are at least €200 where I live + costs for a parking permit (because in the city hardly anyone has their own driveway) and that's before you've even driven a mile. So when I'm going to need a car one a month for work I'm certainly going to look into the car share service at the corner of the street. If you're in a rural location, do your own maintenance and drive a lot car sharing may not be for you, but I think it certainly makes sense for most people in urban locations.

Catica

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #35 on: November 18, 2020, 04:21:37 AM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.
How would this work? Can you elaborate?

gimmi80

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #36 on: November 18, 2020, 04:57:07 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

zolotiyeruki

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #37 on: November 18, 2020, 05:36:20 AM »
It's funny that some Americans view the sharing economy as some form of socialism. Many Europeans think this is capitalism gone wild!

For example, there's a bike subscription service called Swapfiets in here. It's extremely popular, several 100.000s of members. For €16,50 a month you get to use a bike, and if it breaks they come to your location, wherever you are stranded, and swap the broken bike for a working bike. Of course, with a similar new bike costing around €200, from a financial point of view it's a total ripoff. But people are happy to pay because €16,50 is a small amount of money and bike maintenance is a hassle. Not to mustachians, of course, but the average person who doesn't have a large workshop and has to fix a tire on the side of the road, or drag the bike several kilometers to the nearest shop when it rains and you're in a high heels. It's a clever idea and it works.

For car-sharing, it's financially usually way more sensible to share if you're a typical urban dweller and hardly ever use a car. I'm working on getting my license and if/when I do I'll certainly sign up for a car share service. The monthly costs of a car are at least €200 where I live + costs for a parking permit (because in the city hardly anyone has their own driveway) and that's before you've even driven a mile. So when I'm going to need a car one a month for work I'm certainly going to look into the car share service at the corner of the street. If you're in a rural location, do your own maintenance and drive a lot car sharing may not be for you, but I think it certainly makes sense for most people in urban locations.
Yes, a lot of people get spooked about anything that looks like creeping socialism.  I say, as long as people have a choice between private and shared, and government isn't sticking their thumb on the scale, then there's no problem.  The problem is that there's a strong tendency against both choice and government non-involvement.

Yeah, if you're in a dense urban area, where a lot of your services are within walking distance, or you have ample public transport, or where there's no parking (or it's expensive) then private car ownership doesn't make a lot of sense.

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #38 on: November 18, 2020, 05:46:04 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?

Catica

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #39 on: November 18, 2020, 05:50:38 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE
I wholeheartedly agree with this. A lot of these sharing companies are hijacked for explodingly exponential consumeristic model, where the stock investor in the manufacturing company and the stock holder puts the blind eye to the destructive usage of resources for the sake of profit and manipulating the general public with concepts of environmentally friendly models that tap into the progressive social principles.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE
And to this statement I would add that we should have an honest discussion about demographics, which is somehow always a taboo and there are not many principled people to address it within the institutionalized political spheres and in academia.


Catica

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #40 on: November 18, 2020, 06:00:52 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
Yes, there are some sharing principals that make sense; public squares, parks, beaches, public museums etc.  The library is not owned by some stock holding company.
It's different when a private corporation monopolizes a production of bicycles or other apparatus for sharing for the entire world. Profit is the only motivation, so they will be upgrading bikes every 6 moths or so and tossing the old ones. How can you compare this to a public library, which has a very minimal destructive footprint in comparison?

Bloop Bloop Reloaded

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #41 on: November 18, 2020, 06:05:31 AM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.
How would this work? Can you elaborate?

I've said I don't know much about it. It seems to me that opening borders to labour and capital will over time ease inequalities among nations. But I'm happy to be corrected.

Metalcat

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #42 on: November 18, 2020, 06:07:32 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
Yes, there are some sharing principals that make sense; public squares, parks, beaches, public museums etc.  The library is not owned by some stock holding company.
It's different when a private corporation monopolizes a production of bicycles or other apparatus for sharing for the entire world. Profit is the only motivation, so they will be upgrading bikes every 6 moths or so and tossing the old ones. How can you compare this to a public library, which has a very minimal destructive footprint in comparison?

That's exactly it, I'm comparing and contrasting two examples of sharing.

An example of sharing economy increasing consumption is important to examine to understand what can go wrong with it, it doesn't mean that the private ownership of rarely used items is the only responsible option.

Imma

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #43 on: November 18, 2020, 06:19:59 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

I'm sorry but that's the opposite of my experience. I have no idea what the situation is like in NYC because as I said I live on the other side of the pond, but in here it works.

Of course our bike services have repair shops and maintenance services. They wouldn't make a profit otherwise! They pay for a bike upfront, say, it's €200. The subscriber pays €17 per month, there's overhead of course, say €10 goes towards the purchase price of the bike. If the bike subscription service would get rid of the bike when it has a flat tire after 3 months, they'd make a loss of €170. So instead, you contact them, they drive their roof rack car to your location, swap your bike for a working one and take the damaged bike back to the shop (they are a familiar sight in here, they look like this: https://images.app.goo.gl/jVhh95PV2gZnvznbA ). When the bike is fixed it goes back into circulation.

I think the vast majority of subscribers switch to a service when either their own bike is stolen or they are facing expensive repairs on their own bikes that they can't afford. A car owner in that situation may replace their old, owned car with a leased vehicle, someone who used to own a bike replaces it with a bike subscription. It's not cheaper but it is more convenient. While some subscribers may keep a very old backup bike in the shed just in case, very few users will have both a properly functioning owned bike and a subscription bike - after all you can only ride one at a time. And when you already pay a subscription fee you're not going to also pay for a new bike + maintenance.

I think it's the same with car share. My street has 20 houses, street parking only. Around the turn of the century a small patch of green was dug up to create more parking space as there was a massive parking issue at that point (my neighbourhood was built when only the doctor and the mayor had a car). They created a parking spot in front of every house. 20 years on, those 20 families own 5 cars. There's a car share location at one end of the street and a car rental business on the other end of the street. I work for a major employer and when I pass for my license, I can use the cars from the car share place for free. I'd be an idiot if I would buy my own car (unless you were in a very specific situation where you may need it at all times, like if you're a doctor and you're on call frequently). My employer can't be the only one offering those benefits.

Those electric scooters, I think you're right they're not really replacing any vehicles. But they do offer major benefits: they are very popular especially in low income areas that are underserviced by public transit and only occasionally need the vehicle. Those people couldn't afforf their own vehicle anyway but I'm sure it makes their lives easier now they can get around faster. Actually their popularity with poor people gives those electric scooters a bit of a bad reputation. The bike subscription service now offers electric bikes too (at €75/month) so that's what people that don't want to be seen as "plebs" do nowadays.

It's also not my experience at all that people are less careful with vehicles they don't own. They are all registered to your account/drivers license/credit card/bank account, those services know exactly who is using which vehicle at any particular time and if you're not careful with them, leave them dirty, leave it with an empty tank or battery, you will get fined.

Catica

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #44 on: November 18, 2020, 06:48:02 AM »
I can’t seem to find it, but someone recently posted about this here in the forums. The general response seems to have been that it’s a conspiracy theory. Can somebody locate the original posting? I don’t think it’s more than a couple weeks old.

It is not a conspiracy theory, if you go to the World Economic Forum it is there. The conference will be in May.

This is the link https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

What exactly worries you about this? Because it doesn't seem concerning to me at all.

Some experts have been asked for their opinions and they've given their predictions. And actually these seem pretty realistic. Especially the share economy is a real thing that's happening as we speak.

I don't know where you live, but in my urban West-European city half of the people don't own a bike anymore, but use a subscription service and car and motor scooter share services are extremely popular. I've heard of people getting laptop through similar schemes as well. It's not for me but I understand the attraction. With a subscription bike service (Swapfiets) you never have to do any maintenance at all. If your light is broken or your tire is flat, just call the company and they come and exchange your bike with a working bike again. And they are extremely recognizable so they don't get stolen. If you use a car share service where you pay a set price per km, you don't have to worry about parking permits, insurance, maintenance, etc. I don't drive at all but if I did have a license I'd probably use a car share service too. It's much cheaper as well as less of hassle.

I completely disagree with this argument:

Considering production (it uses resources and pollutes to produce stuff).
The shared economy does actually increase consumption and pollution.
Think about all the electric scooters that are polluting the streets of costal cities. How many cars, bicycle or subway cars have they meaningfully replaced (not produced or led to recycle)? ZERO. They are just an addition to what we have and what already worked. The additional fleet of shared bike, did not reduce the number of "owned" bicycle in circulation. The increase in Uber/Lyft did not all of a sudden make the Taxi disappear or being properly recycled. If any the opposite. When in the past we had one taxi, now we have one taxi and one shared car.
Have you been to NYC before COVID? It's a mad house. It's impossible to drive. I lived there in 2006 during my college studies and you "could" (if you were brave) drive around, now it's impossible. the blocked are so packed that you are literally faster on foot.

Considering use:
The shared economy increases the consumption foot print. Half of those scooter are non-functional because people don't take care of it (you don't need it in the first place, they treat it like a toy, user don't take care of it). A ton of the shared bike, once broken (sometime even a flat tire) get tossed away, and not repaired. Those sharing company don't have a repair team (have you ever seen them in a shop being fixed)? The shared car follow the same destiny, people don't care for it, have you ever being inside one of them, it's a dumpster, vomit, coffe, urine, sperm... unbelievable.

The only way to reduce the environmental foot print (therefore to take care of the general obsession with climate change) is to meaningfully reduce consumption. and the COVID lockdown has demonstrated this.

REDUCE
REUSE
REUSE
REUSE
RECYCLE

Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
Yes, there are some sharing principals that make sense; public squares, parks, beaches, public museums etc.  The library is not owned by some stock holding company.
It's different when a private corporation monopolizes a production of bicycles or other apparatus for sharing for the entire world. Profit is the only motivation, so they will be upgrading bikes every 6 moths or so and tossing the old ones. How can you compare this to a public library, which has a very minimal destructive footprint in comparison?

That's exactly it, I'm comparing and contrasting two examples of sharing.

An example of sharing economy increasing consumption is important to examine to understand what can go wrong with it, it doesn't mean that the private ownership of rarely used items is the only responsible option.
Do you think bike sharing could be funded via taxes same as public libraries? 

zolotiyeruki

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #45 on: November 18, 2020, 07:18:02 AM »
Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
I suspect it's very location-dependent.  Our local library has a budget of about $9 million, to serve a community of 34,000.  That's over $250/year per resident.  Several years ago, I heard about their budget report, where they proudly announced that they had exceeded 1 million checkouts in a year, on a budget of $4.5 million.  I.e. the taxpayers spent $4.50 for each checkout.  For that kind of money, you can *buy* used books online and own them permanently.  Sure, the library also hosts other stuff, but I've *never* seen it busy in the nearly 10 years we've lived here.  It's a delightful library, with helpful staff, but from an aggregate economic point of view, even if we only had two kids, that $1000/year could buy a LOT of books.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #46 on: November 18, 2020, 07:28:26 AM »
Well perhaps we can open up borders to labour and capital more easily - that should help alleviate global inequality? I've always found it strange that we limit immigration to the extent that we do.

I'm probably ignorant but wouldn't that mean unmanageable numbers of people would move to prosperous places and swamp the economy? Sort of like Southern California as an example?

Wouldn't it be better to move / spread economic opportunity across the globe?

Yes.

This desirable outcome is facilitated by  immigration policies  tailored to the ebb and flow of the market demand for labor.
 
Rational agents always seek to maximize their satisfaction.

This most fundamental  principle of microeconomics ensures that in an open-borders welfare state the unregulated influx of immigrants would be  overwhelming and unmanageable.

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman cautioned that   "You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state."

Regulated immigration  that is coordinated with the market demand for labor  benefits   immigrants themselves, the nation they leave, and the nation they immigrate  to, a win, win, win.





« Last Edit: November 18, 2020, 07:31:27 AM by John Galt incarnate! »

Bloop Bloop Reloaded

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #47 on: November 18, 2020, 07:37:51 AM »
Quote
It's also not my experience at all that people are less careful with vehicles they don't own. They are all registered to your account/drivers license/credit card/bank account, those services know exactly who is using which vehicle at any particular time and if you're not careful with them, leave them dirty, leave it with an empty tank or battery, you will get fined.

Go look at some of the horror stories about car-rental services like Turo (renters trashing vehicles) or just have a careful look next time around at the condition of a rental car.

People who hire cars don't have much mechanical sympathy for them. Will they try to not floor the engine while it's cold? Will they take as much care parking the car as an owner would (in 4 years of owning my current car I've never once touched or scraped the rims. Ever)? I'm not saying they'll trash the car, but they won't drive and maintain it with the same sense of care.

Maybe that doesn't matter...for me, I take pride in owning certain things - watches and cars, mainly, things that I share a mechanical interest in. I don't want to share my car any more than I want to share my watch.

Catica

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #48 on: November 18, 2020, 07:46:26 AM »
Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
I suspect it's very location-dependent.  Our local library has a budget of about $9 million, to serve a community of 34,000.  That's over $250/year per resident.  Several years ago, I heard about their budget report, where they proudly announced that they had exceeded 1 million checkouts in a year, on a budget of $4.5 million.  I.e. the taxpayers spent $4.50 for each checkout.  For that kind of money, you can *buy* used books online and own them permanently.  Sure, the library also hosts other stuff, but I've *never* seen it busy in the nearly 10 years we've lived here.  It's a delightful library, with helpful staff, but from an aggregate economic point of view, even if we only had two kids, that $1000/year could buy a LOT of books.
Seems like a problem of management/bureaucracy rather than the sharing model. I don't think this representation is universal. A lot of libraries are transitioning/transitioned to digital model and also act as an access point for underprivileged to access the internet. Libraries over the course of their existence have transitioned from formative storing of books to more progressive spaces for public interactions. The library in Nunavut, Canada has to be contextualized differently than a library in Sydney, Australia. You can't think of a library just from your perspective of your neighborhood library any more.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: The Great Reset
« Reply #49 on: November 18, 2020, 09:15:40 AM »
Yes, there are specific examples of the share economy not decreasing consumption, but what about things like libraries and tool libraries? Public transportation?

Many aspects of the share economy have been around for a long time and work very well, how can you make such an absolute statement that it can't and doesn't reduce consumption?
I suspect it's very location-dependent.  Our local library has a budget of about $9 million, to serve a community of 34,000.  That's over $250/year per resident.  Several years ago, I heard about their budget report, where they proudly announced that they had exceeded 1 million checkouts in a year, on a budget of $4.5 million.  I.e. the taxpayers spent $4.50 for each checkout.  For that kind of money, you can *buy* used books online and own them permanently.  Sure, the library also hosts other stuff, but I've *never* seen it busy in the nearly 10 years we've lived here.  It's a delightful library, with helpful staff, but from an aggregate economic point of view, even if we only had two kids, that $1000/year could buy a LOT of books.
Seems like a problem of management/bureaucracy rather than the sharing model. I don't think this representation is universal. A lot of libraries are transitioning/transitioned to digital model and also act as an access point for underprivileged to access the internet. Libraries over the course of their existence have transitioned from formative storing of books to more progressive spaces for public interactions. The library in Nunavut, Canada has to be contextualized differently than a library in Sydney, Australia. You can't think of a library just from your perspective of your neighborhood library any more.
You're right, it's not just a book repository any more.  But my point is that the effectiveness of the shared economy model varies greatly from one location to another.  Population density, income distribution, and local culture have an enormous effect on the viability and bang-for-the-buck of various forms of the sharing economy.  To me, it seems like in general, the sharing model is far more viable in areas of high population density, because:
1) high density reduces individual utilization of privately-owned stuff.  For example, if the supermarket is a 5 minute walk away, that's less need to own a car, and living in apartments reduces the need to own your own tools.  Thus, more people can be serviced with fewer cars/tools, which leads to...
2) high density can overcome the downsides of a shared object/service--not just the rental cost, but also the time to get to it, the risk of it not being available, the inconvenience, etc.  For example, with high density, you can afford to have a rental bike rack every 200 meters, which lowers the cost for a consumer.

For someone in low-density suburbs like me, the idea of having to walk five minutes to borrow a car to drive two miles to the grocery store, and then, after unloading the groceries at home, having to return the car and then walk back home, may be unacceptable.  I prefer to pay my $100/year registration, plus a couple hundred bucks per year in maintenance, plus a few hundred in insurance, for the convenience and independence.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!