NOW - New Ordered World

[MSTRS:Me]

With no reward for (extra) effort, in fact no need to strive for anything, the scene is set for mediocrity.

[Swoop]

The motorcycle is a little trickier. You will order it through a Government website ...

We used to have the Government Stores Board with its associated purchasing/requisitioning nightmare of bureaucracy. Best to not return to it, either.

So who is going to stop me being a drunken, fat, motorbike ridin, non working non contributing member of this society?

We already have the labour party to represent that sector of society.

[mashman]

Whilst it seems like a brilliant idea - on the surface - the more it gets scratched at, the more it's flaws are exposed.
I 'accused' MM of promoting the UltimateCommunistState (TM) and I still think it is. Factor in a large dose of the Hippy movement of the 60s/70s and think Commune. Exactly the same sort of thinking. They worked out well, too. Didn't they?
Commune - Communist. I'm seeing a BIG similarity here.

With no reward for (extra) effort, in fact no need to strive for anything, the scene is set for mediocrity.

There are bound to be flaws, nothing is perfect and as this is only my perspective, it's hardly surprising. Irrespective though, NOW seems to soleve more problems than it introduces? I agree with you in so many ways. There are most definately similarities and probably more so with Communism than any other ism. Perhaps it's the state of mind that dictates what it is/will be seen as?

@no reward. Really? Sure, we've never innovated for any other reason than financial . 99.9% of us are less than mediocre, so it'll be a step up offering people a real opportunity to reach for the stars

What's the problem with sharing?

To those currently less off than me my wants are luxurious
To me they are simply wants and maybe a little aspirational
To those better off than me my wants are insignificant and easily attainable

I guess my point about greed is who's benchmark do we take for determining what level of want is acceptable and are they handed out even handedly, or will there still be have's and havenot's in NOW - with the major difference being that all will have their needs properly met?

incidentally I heard an opinion on the radio the other day that stated, "how many millions of people in the world would love access to my rubbish bin, in reality despite the recession and downturn, we are still filthy rich"

sobering thought really.

I guess a starting point is, what you never had you will never miss. As brutal as that may sound it's a reality that will have to be dealt with and by dealt with I mean communicated to people. Probably done at a community level and backed by the Govt saying they don't have the money/resources to furnish the wants, similar to how things currently work. I guess it all comes back to the sharing thing? I assume most of the filthy rich will fuck off, but I also assume that plenty will arrive as not everyone needs stuff. When new tech comes out we may get a better bang for buck as we would buy in bulk. Perhaps it would be a yearly thing, those who use the tech more taking precedence... who knows, but it's certainly something that would have to be explored.

Some of the greed element will be removed by what the country can afford. We have to get away from the consumerist society in its current form as it serves next to no purpose at all. Things become disposable and that's not a sustainable way of doing things, hence we need to be smarter with how and what we build/consume. I think some of that will dictate wants, a common sense approach. The idea is that everyone has their basic needs met. Perhaps wants can be earned, but again you then have to assign value to time and then things start getting just as messy as they are today, perhaps it's easier than I think, dunno???

As davereid highlights in his NZTA post, peopless information is worth money to someone.

[MSTRS:Me]

@no reward. Really?

Yep. Really.
I don't mean a collective benefit/reward.
I mean individuals. Sure, there's always someone who will go out of their way for no reason other than they can. And society benefits greatly in some of those cases. But to rely on that for the whole thing to work? I don't think so.
People are basically selfish. If I do more than the bloke next door, assuming we have the same type of job, then I want more money/girls/better house/stuff than him. If my extra effort/time gets me the same as he gets from his lazy-arse effort, why should I bother...
As I said - welcome to mediocrity.

[mashman]

We used to have the Government Stores Board with its associated purchasing/requisitioning nightmare of bureaucracy. Best to not return to it, either. :harumph:

There are plenty of ways of implementing this sort of system. Yes it will take some thought and it will have to be done with NOW in mind, but how many things are we really going to need to have imported? No doubt lots of them, but if they can be categorised before ordering, then budgets can be set, or at least validated against and bulk ordering can take place. There may not be the immediate response we have today in regards to getting our goods, but I guess that's a trade off for doing things differently. Making decisions based on the data that you have is easier than guessing at what we need and dealing with the many price fluctuations through many systems etc... I would hope that the pain of bureaucracy would be short lived. Can you think of another way to manage this wort of things under NOW?

Yep. Really.
I don't mean a collective benefit/reward.
I mean individuals. Sure, there's always someone who will go out of their way for no reason other than they can. And society benefits greatly in some of those cases. But to rely on that for the whole thing to work? I don't think so.
People are basically selfish. If I do more than the bloke next door, assuming we have the same type of job, then I want more money/girls/better house/stuff than him. If my extra effort/time gets me the same as he gets from his lazy-arse effort, why should I bother...
As I said - welcome to mediocrity.

There will be people who won't work, there will be people who don't strive, there will be a high level of mediocrity and all of these things exist today but the amount of $$$ one gets paid has a huge say in these things. If people understand the concept of NOW, enough so that they'd have voted it in, then I don't see this being a show stopper at all. I wonder what the percentage of don't minds are in regards to the do minds? In a non-financial context that is.

[MSTRS:Me]

...but the amount of $$$ one gets paid...

That's a whole other bone of contention. And under NOW, it would be a thing of the past.
But, and there are many of them, nothing about NOW encourages the betterment of individuals and their families. Putting aside rates of pay, people work harder/longer/smarter for basically one reason...to benefit that person and their dependents. If everyone is entitled to the same standard of living, by dint of being a citizen, the motivated might have the motivation, but for what purpose? And it is not a sound argument to compare the busy/lazy in the current system...over time the lazy will always be worse off than the motivated. Under NOW the lazy will be way better off, and still do FA for it, whereas the motivated will be exactly the same as the lazy in terms of their standard of living.
Either that, or the motivated will end up in positions of government, which is where the new elite would be.
You can't change human nature.
And human nature, at it's very core, is what ensures any communistic form of system must ultimately fail.

[mashman]

That's a whole other bone of contention. And under NOW, it would be a thing of the past.
But, and there are many of them, nothing about NOW encourages the betterment of individuals and their families. Putting aside rates of pay, people work harder/longer/smarter for basically one reason...to benefit that person and their dependents. If everyone is entitled to the same standard of living, by dint of being a citizen, the motivated might have the motivation, but for what purpose? And it is not a sound argument to compare the busy/lazy in the current system...over time the lazy will always be worse off than the motivated. Under NOW the lazy will be way better off, and still do FA for it, whereas the motivated will be exactly the same as the lazy in terms of their standard of living.
Either that, or the motivated will end up in positions of government, which is where the new elite would be.
You can't change human nature.
And human nature, at it's very core, is what ensures any communistic form of system must ultimately fail.

In what way is it another bone of contention? We currently trade our time for money, under NOW we give it for free, because a job needs doing. Same diff? just different "rewards"?

Ahhh human nature rears its ugly head again. I disagree, to an extent, that human nature will get in the way. If we've voted NOW in and there are people who perceive that they are better than someone else, then that's their problem. They too will "suffer" if they limit their effort. Talk about biting one's nose off to spite one's face. We'll better ourselves as we currently do (some people like to stretch themselves outwith financial reward), we'll skill up as we go, some people will excel, some won't, but all contributions will be required or we all "suffer" the consequences. I'd say we work harder because the job needs doing, not for our families etc... after all if we're on a salary with no bonus system, we've worked for nothing and it hasn't improved anything for us in the slightest... other than self-esteem maybe.

The more effort we all put in, in regards to exporting, the more wants we can afford? Should be incentive enough. One doesn;t get, we all don;t get (give or take)... who knows, there may be some form of incentive scheme, but that is inherently dangerous as that breeds those who believe that they are better than someone else, an attitude that is exceptionally stupid and narrow minded and quite possibly the primary reason the world is in the shitter.

What I'm saying is that if we have voted out the financial system in favour of NOW, then we are probably prepared to do what we need to do for everyone, otherwise there'd be no reason to implement NOW if it was doomed to failure through lack of participation... ending up in us returning to the financial wing. I reckon you'd see much better attitudes in people under NOW. There ya go with them thar labels again. I understand why you'd use them, but even Communism used money in their society's...

At the end of the day you can choose to watch the shit mount up, or you can do something about it and if that means losing out on some of your wants, why wouldn't you? and if NOW was voted in by the majority, those who don't like it can take the money and leave. Not every system is doomed to failure. We have so many things in our favour that former "communistic" country's didn't have. Shame we let our own prejudices fuck over future generations. People can and do change! I obviously have more faith in human beings being able to be positive than some do, removing money and value will go a long long long way to changing our society for the better and yes, we will probably have to make a sacrifice or two. I'm game, the pros by far outweigh the cons for humanity and society and by default me.

[Swoop]

Yes it will take some thought and it will have to be done with NOW in mind, but how many things are we really going to need to have imported? No doubt lots of them, but if they can be categorised before ordering, then budgets can be set, or at least validated against and bulk ordering can take place.

Yup. Still sounds like the GSB.
Order the item "now" and get it delivered in around 10 months time. But not the item you ordered.
Someone else wanted a gsxr 1000, you wanted a harley and we all get a GN250 delivered.

[mashman]

Yup. Still sounds like the GSB.
Order the item "now" and get it delivered in around 10 months time. But not the item you ordered.
Someone else wanted a gsxr 1000, you wanted a harley and we all get a GN250 delivered.

heh, praps it would work were people gave a shit? Bikers buying bikes for bikers etc... specialist units

[MSTRS:Me]

heh, praps it would work were people gave a shit? Bikers buying bikes for bikers etc... specialist units

Which is how Man came to be an urbanised creature in the first place. Of course, no-one wanted to give up the spare time/luxuries that were then afforded to them by doing their bit - so SLAVES were created to do the scut work.
What makes you think that wouldn't be exactly what happens again?

[mashman]

Which is how Man came to be an urbanised creature in the first place. Of course, no-one wanted to give up the spare time/luxuries that were then afforded to them by doing their bit - so SLAVES were created to do the scut work.
What makes you think that wouldn't be exactly what happens again?

That's a tad unfair? It was a small group who decided that because they knew better, or felt they were smarter, they could have slaves. So very very very few gave up their time. The majority put in the effort.

You could argue that exactly the same mechanism is in operation today with all of the stupid laws that we have in place, couple that with holding people in check using inflation and interest rates to minimise the "buying" power of employees (slaves). If everything were free we wouldn't need to work other than to subsist our existence. But as we are an amazing creature, some of us will excel and build useful things as individual creativity is very much in our nature, yet it's constrained by budget. I'd like to see that unleashed, oh fuck would I... what are we truly capable of? How much untapped potential is there? I will always believe that the majority would forgo their luxuries if they were offered something, "better".

As for stopping it from happening... There will be no "owners" for one, no single entity able to tell you what to do. That's the whole point I've been trying to make. Coercion will eventually fail, as will undervaluing people in a financial world (hence the right getting rid of unions... no strength in numbers, no LEGAL right to protest your conditions ). Free will is everything. People just need to exercise it and hopefully will be willing to do "their bit" to keep us rockin forwards. We're much smarter these days, well, in the context of what we know. Why not use it to its maximum instead of drip feeding it because it costs too much of that paper stuff that banks print when they feel like it. INSANITY!

[mashman]

I care not if this does the idea a disservice. It is true. It's going out to tonight or tomorrow night. I have 173 parliament related email addresses and am looking for a list of media email addresses if anyone has any (someone must have a list after the ACC thing?). Fuck it. If it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere... it isn't just my fault

OMG another wall of text, heh...

Representatives of New Zealand.

http://www.now-nz.com

In light of your apparent lack of idea, I have created the above website to offer a different way forwards for the people of New Zealand.
One which will do more for this country than you have been unable to provide for decades if not centuries of your political ideologies. You
have failed. It's a simple as that. I don't care who and what you blame for the problems we face today, you have done nothing but shift
budget from one vote winning policy to the next. You pay lip service to the people of New Zealand and claim that you are serving the people.
Child poverty, homelessness, austerity budget cuts in the name of saving money whilst blowing out borrowing like no government has ever
before you, recession, the removal of personal freedom, the incarceration of people for things that YOU deem as crime, the list is almost
endless... You have failed as we are not going forwards. What are the chances that we'll be the next Greece in 20 years time? Perhaps 40
years? Yes it matters! That should give us another 2 or 3 recessions. You can't deny that recession will return to these shores and if
we're down to selling off the assets that New Zealanders have paid for over countless decades, then what will be left to sell the next time
we have a recession? You have been unable to protect us from any recession, what makes you think that you can change that cycle? That's an
honest question, one that I would like an answer to if you could take a little time.

Who am I to question your ability? I am no-one and as far as I am concerned that is damning to your credibility. I can see a way forwards
for Kiwi, where you keep going sideways, or backwards, playing the same game year in year out and expecting different results. Einstein
describes this as insanity: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. "... We
are looking for real leadership not the political side show you offer, the nice smiles, the dirty laundry, the empty promises etc...! Where
are the new ideas? All we have is the right wing wanting private industry to run things and the left wing wanting to socialise everything
with a finite budget. Are you ever going to change your stance given that it has achieved absolutely nothing other than make a few people
financially rich and a lot of people financially poorer? Or do you feel it has worked thus far and therefore if it ain't broke don't fix it?
I am disappointed given that you have sought out office and are holding yourselves up as the right people for the job, the people who want
to lead Kiwi into a brighter future. Where are you leading us?

In my 41 years you have given me NOTHING to vote for! So I've built upon a well known idea and offer you a way of freeing New Zealand
and it's inhabitants, a glimpse into what really seems to matter to people. Do the majority of the people feel the same way as me? I don't know, but I'm guessing that they do. We need to change the way we live, you keep saying as much, the whole world keeps saying as much. Time to up your game and come out fighting for all of New Zealand.

I challenge you to remember who you represent.

Yours sincerely

NOW