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Re: [ox-en] Re: [ox] Re: Oekonux and politics



On 17 Oct 2003, Rich Walker wrote:

<snip>

Resource allocation? If we wish to do prioritised resource allocation
with fallback to "by desire" then we need mechanisms in place. The
"market religion" claims that it has the best answer. We suggest that in
a society based on something other than property [bolo'bolo] we might
find other ways to do resource allocation - but I cannot see concrete
proposals to deal with the problem that I want all the gold for my
robots to make giant statues of J.R."Bob" Dobbs, whilst you want them
for your *idiotic* "space exploration" nonsense...

I don't see the problem - at least not on this level of generality. For
free software projects the main problem of resource allocation is 
allocation of labour. Unrealistic, uninteresting, or pointless projects
attract fewer people than interesting and useful projects. Resource
allocation just happens. It is probably not optimal (counts dead projects 
on sourceforge...), but it works.

Unless there is some kind of collective madness[1], expecting gold miners 
to
have any interest in doing a lot of work just to build your giant statues
is going to be pretty difficult. On the other hand, the woman who wants to
go to mars is going to have to convince people in an awful lot of
different fields that it is worth putting their energy into space
exploration, so she may not have an easy time getting the resources either
- which is as it should be; resource allocation on that scale SHOULD be
decided by a lot of people, who may well feel something else is more
important to them. But at least she has a chance; she has a project that
might just enthuse people enough for it to happen.

I can see more of a problem with issues like pollution, or risky
projects[2] in general - how does it get decided whether nuclear power
plants should be built? Interest and expertise are not enough to make a
valid decision. Closer to hand, there's the same problem with
do-it-yourself genetic manipulation, which sounds like it is going to come
very soon (I mean, I assume it is already possible, and likely to be
happening right now - but what happens when it becomes visible?)
 
Graham
[1] eg. the J.R."Bob" Dobbs religion spreads like wildfire, which is 
another possibility - I can't see any reason why Oekonux rules out new 
religions, which is another possible source of conflict, along with 
Milwall supporters.
 [2] in the sense of Ulrich Beck, The Risk Society.

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/



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