public living?

[alan2here]

Is there a word or short way of refering to having more things public and shared, appart from Recource Based Ecconomy or Venus Project like. It seems so ineficent to me for everyone to sepratly own everything, your computer only uses a small proportion of it's capability at one time, the rest goes to waste. Stuff is hard to upgrade and maintain sepratly etc... The problem ofc being uniformity, but technoligy brings with it customizability, even if there was a city wide central processor it dosn't mean everyone using it needs to be running the same operating system. Some examples of this are the BBC's big screens, bikes for hire in London and hotels, although none of thease are long turm cheaper and better than the private alternatves, appart from in the sence of greater community involvment and less isolation, which is important but not enough alone, they should be able to be techolicially far superiour, more conthatable etc... as well at a lesser cost even in the long turm.

[Marat]

There are also important advantages to individual ownership and control, however. If I have my own computer, I can decide to work on it when I want and I always know when it is available. Because it is mine, I take better care of it. There doesn't have to be any top-heavy administrative system to regulate access to it or supervise its use to ensure that proper care is taken. Those who most need certain things can determine by themselves what they need and acquire it, rather than people who don't need certain things having equal access to them, or some central administration having to decide who should have how much access to various items which are scarce or expensive.

 

Many of these problems are discussed by economists under the rubric of the 'tragedy of the commons.'

[lemur]

Is there a word or short way of refering to having more things public and shared, appart from Recource Based Ecconomy or Venus Project like. It seems so ineficent to me for everyone to sepratly own everything, your computer only uses a small proportion of it's capability at one time, the rest goes to waste. Stuff is hard to upgrade and maintain sepratly etc... The problem ofc being uniformity, but technoligy brings with it customizability, even if there was a city wide central processor it dosn't mean everyone using it needs to be running the same operating system. Some examples of this are the BBC's big screens, bikes for hire in London and hotels, although none of thease are long turm cheaper and better than the private alternatves, appart from in the sence of greater community involvment and less isolation, which is important but not enough alone, they should be able to be techolicially far superiour, more conthatable etc... as well at a lesser cost even in the long turm.

Theoretically it should be possible to lease out your private property to public/state or public/corporate enterprises. So someone could start a company that pays individuals' to lease their unused processing capacity - but of course then there has to be a client who wants to pay to use that capacity. It would also be theoretically possible to set up online networking software that allows people to borrow and lend each others tools and other items. The problem with that, though, is that when you lend out an item, say a chainsaw, and someone else uses it, there is wear and tear, maintenance and sharpening that needs to be done, etc. so unless you have some way to regulate the liabilities and responsibilities, sharing things can be a hassle. Plus, capitalism generally seems to have evolved into a profit market where everyone uses every form of economic transaction to maximize profit. This means that you'll end up paying more in the long term to share things publicly, because there are loads of people looking to make a comfortable level of income from administering, regulating, and investing in organizing anything and everything people are doing publicly.

 

Some things, like the public bicycle idea, seem great until you think about what they're really doing. After all, each bicycle has to be cared for and maintained, flat tires fixed, chains and bearings lubed, etc. So while the majority of users are just picking up a bike and leaving it when they're finished, numerous other people have to fix the flat tires they create and keep the bikes in good mechanical condition for them. Better, imo, for everyone to have their own bicycle because this stimulates personal responsibility in riding it carefully. What's more, I even think people should learn to maintain their own vehicles so that they will understand how to ride/drive them to minimize repair/maintenance headaches. It's easy to treat your bicycle/car roughly when repairs are nothing more than a question of dropping off the vehicle and paying the bill (when you have abundant income). It's a different story when you know that it will be you slaving over the machine to fix whatever you break.

 

 

 

[alan2here]

Thanks all.

 

Also what I'm saying about the bike for example is that it should be chaper in recources, including effort, time etc... for the bikes to be maintained by a single group than by multiple individual owners. If some of the people picking up a bike for the day want to spend the whole day in one long wheely then they would likely want to do this with their own bikes as well, so the amount of maintenance is the same just distrabuted differntly. It should still take less total recources (including effort) to maintain and monitor the bikes in mass.

[lemur]

Thanks all.

 

Also what I'm saying about the bike for example is that it should be chaper in recources, including effort, time etc... for the bikes to be maintained by a single group than by multiple individual owners. If some of the people picking up a bike for the day want to spend the whole day in one long wheely then they would likely want to do this with their own bikes as well, so the amount of maintenance is the same just distrabuted differntly. It should still take less total recources (including effort) to maintain and monitor the bikes in mass.

You would have to know something about specific bicycle maintenance procedures to come up with techniques that make it more efficient to fix multiple bikes using multi-bike methods than fixing one at a time. I think, though, that if you go to a bike repair shop, they will tell you that they make repairs one by one. Further, I think you underestimate the effect that having to maintain one's own things has on the way people treat those things. Maintaining a machine can be a hassle and almost always involves making a greasy mess of your hands and often clothes as well. Straightening a wheel is just tedious, and usually impossible to get perfect, so I would never do wheelies or jump and crash unnecessarily, knowing that I would be paying for either in labor, the irritation of a slight wobble in the wheel, or having to buy a replacement wheel. Of course, many people don't care about the cost of a replacement because they have plenty of money but what if they had to serve a certain amount of time in a bike wheel factory for every new wheel they needed? Would they THEN try to take better care of their own bicycles? I bet that if you set up a public bike-sharing system where maintenance was done by users according to a lottery that assigned a certain number of flat-tire repairs and other scheduled maintenance that people would prefer to own and maintain their own personal bike individually than to have to perform their share of labor on the public bikes.

Edited April 18, 2011 by lemur