They can do it in their free time, and even barter trade. But from sunup to sundown (or whatever labor scale they use to measure shifts) they are doing something materially useful. No contribution, no food that day. Should only take about 3 weeks to get rid of all the slackers (and I say that as a slacker myself) either they've gone back home, or they've starved to death.
I propose that political officers be sent to these psychics randomly. The officers would sit down with these plebs and ask them to read their futures. If they don't guess that they're going to get beat up, then they're going to get beat up for being frauds. The ones who know what's coming to them, will still get beat up, but lightly, and they will be asked nicely to contribute something more meaningful to society... or else.
Everyone talk about doing the fun jobs, yet no one talk about doing the hard and necessary jobs like a plumber, garbage men, or farmer. Poops and garbage aren't magically disappear and foods don't magically appears except in star trek utopia.
Literally the comment above this one is talking about wanting to be a farmer because they grown good weed. A lot of people actually want to just clean up stuff. A lot of people like being a plumber. That said communism doesn't mean everyone just does what they want.
What would I rather, collect garbage, or let garbage pile up in my house?
Probably I'll collect garbage.
And since I'm doing it, might as well do cooperate with a couple members of my community and clean up the whole thing.
Would I rather my house pile in shit or learn plumbing? Probably the latter. And then when my neighbor is having plumbing issues, I'll give 'em a hand.
And not everyone has to do this. My neighbor and I decide he'll take the garbage I'll take the plumbing. Or maybe we both learn both, and just switch.
You seem to forget that these things were born out of a need anyways. There's nothing stopping people from doing what they need to do to fulfill their community's needs.
You seem to forget that these things were born out of a need anyways. There’s nothing stopping people from doing what they need to do to fulfill their community’s needs.
I actually grew up in a pretty remote village and back then it was devoid of infrastructure, so we did pretty much what you mentioned above. Burnt the garbage in the backyard, dug trenches for drainages, built outhouses (basically just a hole in the ground, but with roof and door), dug wells for water source, etc. But the village is small and everyone know each other, and thus very willing to help each other. However, I'm having a hard time imagining similar stuff would work in a high density modern city. The sheer complexity of plumbing that service a high rise apartment can't be maintained by some random dude without appropriate training for example.
I suck at plumbing and electrical work. I’ve done Painting and Sheetrock work. I’ve also done pest control, and been a Walmart janitor. I have cleaned Walmart bathrooms, and honestly it was one of my favorite jobs. When people hire you to potentially clean puke, piss, blood, and feces they pretty much don’t fuck with you. I literally cleaned all the bathrooms in about 2 hours then I would hide out. Then spend 2 hours making sure they were clean before I left, and no one ever questioned it.
I don’t mind doing gross stuff. As long as it gets me what I need, and sometimes what I want.
I can fix/make electronics. Don't know how useful that is in a commune that probably doesn't have a lot of electronics. I guess I can keep the latte machine maintained and working.
Communist =! Luddites. Just because they're choosing to live in a different social structure does not remove them from modern technology. You'd still be useful, up-skill to basic power systems to keep the lights on and you'd be golden.
As a software engineer, skills I think I could contribute are systems design, debuging, writing software, and also trash pickup on the back af the truck. I'd be happy to help build software tools that help people actually enjoy life, and also I eon't mind pitching in to my community.
i’d be a math teacher. hopefully in the commune i’d be able to avoid the rigidity and tedium of the regular math curriculum, instead being able to focus on the fun stuff and foster people’s curiosity.
we know there are different sizes of infinity, and we know what the "smallest" infinity is, but it's impossible to "know" (ie prove in ZFC) what the "second smallest size of" infinity is
we took the regular number line and made it longer just to see what would happen
The Hairy Ball Theorem, which says "you can't comb a hairy ball flat without creating a cowlick" (quote from source)
but as with any discipline, a big part of how much fun it is to learn has to do with how it's taught. i think it's possible to teach middle school/high school geometry in a way that makes it fun and engaging, but it's often not taught in this way. there's a great article/paper that talks about this. it's written to be very readable and accessible, although it is a bit long (but you can get the basic idea in the first 5-7 pages). he talks about how terribly math is taught in school and how it's no wonder so many people hate it as a result.
he also talks about how learning math could be much more fun if it was taught differently. he gives a really great example of this when he discusses something as simple as the formula for the area of a triangle (on the bottom of page 3 to the end of page 4). i tried to summarize it for this post, but i don't think a summary would do it justice, so i strongly encourage you to read it if you're interested.
Literally the same thing I do now, programming robots. Except we'd vote on what the robots are going to do, and everyone would appreciate the robots taking away their work.
Nonsense! You can work as a miner or factory worker! If you aren't as physically capable, you can always be bureaucrat who records who exactly believes reading tarot cards is labor!
It would be cool to spend some of my time gardening and landscaping to make the community look better. Having greenery around me and seeing public spaces that look cared for and lived in always puts me in a better mood. For that matter, we could bring back some of the skilled decorative trades and start embellishing buildings with stone and wood carving, tile work, tapestries, rugs, relief sculptures, and stuff like that. Maybe we could develop some new aesthetics instead of copying ostentatious old buildings. I just like when you can tell someone put attention and time into a building, and it's not all disposable prefab that will get torn down in twenty years.
Hot take but I also dig creative brutalist buildings like Boston City Hall and the Boston Government Services Building. I just like how permanent it looks, like cold war architects were reminding people to think of the future. But I'm probably in the minority.
Oh plenty of things. I could teach, do some manual labor, be a peace keeper (a real one, not a pig), assist with legal matters. Hell would love to do a day of each one a week.
These trenches aren't going to dig themselves. Maybe you could do half a day's manual labour in the mornings, then the desk-based work in the afternoon?
Imma take care of your kids and teach them about logic and critical thinking, how to deal with their emotions, and how to be a good, productive commrade. Imma ask them to guide me on what and how they want to learn, but most importantly, I’m going to teach them how to learn.
A shame communes are utopia socialism, and can’t last! It would be so nice.
I can program, but are willing to learn and work in a bakery. Also something with animals, like shelters.
I'd also like to help people, like elders or people with necessities. I have no specific formation for that, though.
I'd do a lot of things if I was sure I'd have everything necessary to live.