Deference Issues!

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Dude, you understand that we don't give wealthy people want they want out of classism right? We give it to them because they give us money. If a hobo won the lottery and asked to have my coat and offered me a thousand bucks for it, I've give it to him, not out of deference, but for the $1000. Likewise, a senator isn't rewriting the laws to benefit your company because he respects you, but because these wonderful birthday gifts and opportunities just keep magically finding their way to his family (amazing!)

Well, there's still the matter that Wealth gives the ability to raise Status by 1-3. That seems to be quite close to classism, though I wonder how much of it is left in 2100 (canonically, it seems like all of it is unchanged).

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, there's still the matter that Wealth gives the ability to raise Status by 1-3. That seems to be quite close to classism, though I wonder how much of it is left in 2100 (canonically, it seems like all of it is unchanged).

That's quite an interesting question, especially when exploring other societies.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Dude, you understand that we don't give wealthy people want they want out of classism right? We give it to them because they give us money. If a hobo won the lottery and asked to have my coat and offered me a thousand bucks for it, I've give it to him, not out of deference, but for the $1000. Likewise, a senator isn't rewriting the laws to benefit your company because he respects you, but because these wonderful birthday gifts and opportunities just keep magically finding their way to his family (amazing!)

Classism has been waining true. But no one in the Washington Power elites is seriously working to change the present campaign finance system which rewards toadying to billionaires over all other traits. Why? It's certainly both offensive and grotesque.

The answer is that it isn't being punished at the polls. Politicos that toady to the KKK, NeoNazis, or other grossly racist groups are punished at the polls. The GOP is only slowly learning that being radically out of step with the nation on issues of Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation, is being punished at the polls. Why? Because the punishments are still slow and weak. As they grow stronger, the GOP, like the British Conservatives, will learn to change their ways.

Toadying to billionaries isn't punished at the polls because we subconsciously still offer a certain defference to wealth, and inheireted wealth. The Koch Brothers, children of inheireted wealth have vastly more influence in American politics than Bill Gates or Elon Musk. Why? Gates and Musk earned their wealth through intellegence and hard work. The Koch brothers inheireted their wealth and really haven't worked as hard as the average middle-manager or grade school teacher. Why do the Koch brothers get more respect? It can only be residual classism working in their favor.

A THS, where such forms of defference have continued to erode would probably see far more respect for figures like Gates and Musk, you earned their money and brought greater wealth to the broad society as well, than for old money scions like the Kochs. This would have long term political effects and consequinces.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, there's still the matter that Wealth gives the ability to raise Status by 1-3. That seems to be quite close to classism, though I wonder how much of it is left in 2100 (canonically, it seems like all of it is unchanged).

And it is that element of canon I think is wildly unlikely.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Classism has been waining true. But no one in the Washington Power elites is seriously working to change the present campaign finance system which rewards toadying to billionaires over all other traits. Why? It's certainly both offensive and grotesque.

Because money gets you things you want. That's what money is, an abstraction of things people value. Or to paraphrase Steven Levitt:

Economics is, at its root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, especially when other people want or need the same thing

You want something? Maybe you want a yacht and a bunch of cocaine and a bunch of gorgeous escorts on your arm? That costs money. Maybe you want to feed starving African children, educate them, and rebuild their village so they will have the things they need in the future and can make a real impact on stabilizing and advancing their country? That costs money too. Maybe you want to clean some land spoiled by industrial excesses and return it to a pristine, edenic state, and then go about lowering the carbon levels of the atmosphere. That also costs money.

Whatever you want, it costs money, and if money can't buy it (Happiness, love, acceptance, enlightenment) it can certainly keep you fed and clothed and pay for your travels around the world as you hunt for it.

Money is a potent form of power, and politicians who lack power tend not to remain in power very long. It's not "deference," it's not "toadying up to billionaires" (quite a few politicians are wealthy themselves, which is hardly surprising if you think about it), it's about getting what you want, and politicians want things. Hell, you want them to want things, just ideally the same sort of things you want, so they act as a proper representative to you.

There's an easy way to get them away from "toadying up to billionaires." The communists did it: Take all that money away and let the politicians decide where it should go. Oh wait, it'll be into their own pocket (oh, sure, some will be sweet and generous, I'm sure, but the ones who don't have deep pockets after that giant money-grab will not stay politicians in this new order for long). At least in the current system, politicans answer to outside forces.

But you want to expand the base that they listen to, so it's not JUST the wealthy and powerful, right? Well, they do listen to votes... but money speaks too (it can help them get votes... and get their kids into the right schools), so you do have some influence, though I will note that it's highly diluted down to 1 in 300 million (okay, voter turn out is, what, 30%? So 1 in 100 million) while the billionaire, has, well, a billion reasons for the politician to pay more attention to him. And he also has a vote, one just as powerful as yours.

No, what you want isn't for the politician to stop listening to people with money and power. You want to spread that money and power around. You want to flatten the heap a little bit. Of course, that's what the communists wanted to do too, and we saw what their efforts resulted in. I don't mean to suggest that your drive is inherently evil, just noting that it's... a tricky path to walk. But growing inequality worries me too (and I'm a right-winger!)

But anyway, it's not a cultural thing, but a darwinian thing. Drop billionaires in a highly egalitarian society where politicians listen "to everyone" and in a few generations, the wealthy will have the government in their pocket again, because politicians who accept bribes will always be more powerful than politicians who don't, to be somewhat crass about it, and the more powerful individuals will tend to defeat the less powerful ones. You can certainly build the system so this effect isn't necessarily so corrosive, and we've done a lot to do that (hence why we're not a naked oligarchy like Russia), but I don't think you can ever remove it completely.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

You can certainly build the system so this effect isn't necessarily so corrosive, and we've done a lot to do that (hence why we're not a naked oligarchy like Russia), but I don't think you can ever remove it completely.

One way we can divorce deference from wealth is to likewise divorce what some people want from the power of the wealthy to grant it, and this might actually fly in 2115. Suitably equipped or modified people might have very low costs of living. Controls on currency, technology, IP exchange, and even on commerce itself meant to support predictable, stable, and rent-iferous planned economies might make it literally impossibly to buy, give, or steal anything of value to person A by person B, even if they both live in country C.

Or perhaps there's some reason in some subculture that people frequently have to anonymize their personas in some sphere, so that there's no way for people to know who to suck up to or whose palms to grease this week to get what they want next week.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Because money gets you things you want. That's what money is, an abstraction of things people value. Or to paraphrase Steven Levitt:

Do you have an answer to the rest of his post? The bits about the Koch brothers compared to Bill Gates & Elon Musk?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Do you have an answer to the rest of his post? The bits about the Koch brothers compared to Bill Gates & Elon Musk?

The notion that the Koch brothers are an insidious force of evil in American politics and that, for example, George Soros is not, is largely one born of sitting in a left-wing echo chamber. The Koch brothers usually champion a right-wing, conservative agenda while Warren Buffet and George Soros champion left-winged agendas, so if you're hanging out with leftists or going to leftist websites, then you hear endlessly of the evils of the Koch brothers. On the other hand, I hang out with more conservative people, so I see fist shaking over the evil tyranny of George Soros.

Neither of them, incidentally, are the top individual top political contributors. I found a list here. Charles Koch is #10, Soros is #12.

Moreover, why Charles Koch would be "insidious" while Elon Musk would not be is because one does not agree with Charles Koch. If one agreed with Charles Koch, then he is a selfless champion of good and right, naturally.

[Flyndaran]

I don't like elected officials having too much power. Why would I like the unelected having it?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

One way we can divorce deference from wealth is to likewise divorce what some people want from the power of the wealthy to grant it, and this might actually fly in 2115. Suitably equipped or modified people might have very low costs of living. Controls on currency, technology, IP exchange, and even on commerce itself meant to support predictable, stable, and rent-iferous planned economies might make it literally impossibly to buy, give, or steal anything of value to person A by person B, even if they both live in country C.

Or perhaps there's some reason in some subculture that people frequently have to anonymize their personas in some sphere, so that there's no way for people to know who to suck up to or whose palms to grease this week to get what they want next week.

If you're arguing that we need to flatten the economy, I don't think many people will disagree with you. A lot of people have no real idea of just how unequal it has become. I did some hunting and I still don't think I entirely understand the scale of it. The less people need and the more they can inherently produce, the more power they have.

Naturally, you can't remove this entirely. Even in a "post-scarcity society" there are things of limited quantity that people still compete for, like the romantic attentions of sweet Susie or a chance to sit at the table of a famous chef, or the only signed baseball of Buck Bokai, or to be the one and only President of the United States. The ability to get these things still matter, of course.

Now, I mentioned that money is one form of power. There are others: Legitimacy, influence, popularity, knowledge, etc. The romantic attentions of sweet Susie are not something you can buy, but if you are friends with the right people, she might see you more and you might have more opportunity to impress her (though having some money won't hurt that either) and if you know her, understand her, then you'll better know how to make her pulse quicken in your presence.

THS definitely has more of that kind of power, though it doesn't get into it as much as Nova Praxis or Eclipse Phase do. Presumably, the equivalent to podcasters and influential twitterers would have some power in THS, because it costs nothing to be on the internet and you only need to be particularly clever and understand social media well. In fact, I would suggest that these sort of people would wield considerable influence in a cyber-democracy: If nearly everyone in Switzerland has heard the rantings of Rielle "Kit" Peddler and 60% of people agree with her, the next time someone is randomly chosen to be in the cyberdemocratic parliament, then there's a 60% chance that it'll be someone who agrees with Kit and you can't really buy that person's vote (or, at least, if you do, even if that person is loyal, it's a short-term investment).

Which is not to say that THS would be all roses and rainbows. There's a problem in it that we already see in our world: An increasing dominance of the capital-owning class. As we move into an increasingly automated industry, the guy who owns the factory can make more products for less and pays wages to less people. That means he sees a real increase in wealth. The only real threat to this is that people with small-scale, local production means might break his monopoly on crafting. For example, you mention people being able to build their own food. But what if most of the biofac patents and copyrights were owned by Mosanto? Then you'd still have to pay Mosanto a few pennies every time you ordered up a frankenburger.

That might sound ridiculous in such an advanced setting like THS, but I would point to two facts that seem to support it. First, most of the wealthy, even the common wealthy, have some form of independent income. This suggests that they earn money without doing anything, which would be typical of people whose wealth comes primarily from either some form of welfare, or from automated industries. Second, THS is split between copyright-defenders and nanosocialists, and the former waged war on the latter and won. When I first read about that, I just figured it was an expy "red-nlooded Americans defeat the wicked Communist threat!" But increasingly, it looks like "Corporations defeated the patent-pirates." Peru tried to raise a middle finger to Mosanto, Mosanto poked a few First Wave nations, and they sent a bunch of RATS to kick the tar out of Peru.

So I would suggest that THS looks a lot like today, except more extreme. The equivalent to social media and the scaling down of technology continues to improve the power of those who have access to it. First Wave people have enough money that they don't need the wealthy and can and do vote with their feet and leave, or exert influence in ways that aren't dependent on money. But on the other hand, people who own capital, the people who own the robofacs and the patents and copyrights, are able to leverage that mind-bogglingly enormous wealth into vast leverage over their societies, which explains why some of the former are leaving.

I used to have plenty of discussions with Keiko about whether THS was "utopian or dystopian" and I always felt it had a strong, post-modern cyberpunk vibe. It had the crushed 3rd Wave Nations, and elite 1st Wavers who were either largely cocooned off from the problems of the world or out-of-touch activists who were worrying about whether or not we were ruining the pristine, untouched nature of Mars while 3rd Wavers were dying in proxy wars. If you expand on the nature of corporations and copyright holders, on why the nanosocialists were a thing, especially if you run the game from their perspective, you get freedom fighters trying to break the grasp of your evil "Koch Brothers" types.