knitwitt

joined 11 months ago
[–] knitwitt 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Another way you could achieve this is by hiring bakers of equal skill level and splitting all the tasks evenly among us!

[–] knitwitt 1 points 3 weeks ago

The question becomes who determines the size of the stake. Without equal ownership in the business isn't the relationship between me and the other workers more akin to an owner -> employee relationship as opposed to a co-ownership? If I'm the only one who can make execuitive decisions, determine the rates of profit sharing, choose who gets hired and who gets let go, it doesn't seem that much different than how things might look in America today, for instance.

Suppose the contract I draft up is for $5 an hour and 1% of the excess profits, split evenly among all non-owners, I see no difference than hire things look like in Starbucks.

[–] knitwitt 3 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for the response! Would the idea then be that over time, the other two workers would eventually have to be given equal ownership over the operation?

As an asside, regarding the unanimous minus one vote policy as well, it seems like all you'd need to ensure that you never got removed was to ally yourself with one other person who would promise to never vote against you.

[–] knitwitt 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks for the response! In my scenario I consider ownership to be the ability to make executive decisions surrounding the business. This could range from what products we choose to sell, what the sign on the front says, who we buy our ingredients from, how much we charge customers for, how much we spend on cleaning supplies, the color of the wallpaper, when we decide to look for new employees, ect...

If I'm the sole worker at my operation, I have full authority over all these things!

 

Suppose I have studied for years to become a pastry chef. I set up my own bakery, investing my time, energy, and labour into procuring equipment and building up a reputation as a delicious place to eat. I run the entire operation myself as the sole worker. Eventually, after years of turmoil, word of my exceptional pastries spreads and my bakery becomes the number one spot in town. Soon there's a line up around the block, long enough that I have to turn away customers on the regular.

Not wanting to have to send people home hungry, I decide that having someone to wash my dishes and somebody to tend to the counter would buy me enough time to focus on the main reason people come to my shop: my delicious pastries.

I do, however, have an issue. I worked really hard to build my bakery up to where it is today, and don't want to have to give up ownership to the two people I want to bring onboard. They didn't put in any effort into building up my bakery, so why should they have an equal democratic say over how it's run?

Is there a way I can bring on help without having to give away control of my buisness?

Furthermore, what's to stop the two new workers from democratically voting me out of the operation, keeping the store, name, brand, and equipment for themselves?

[–] knitwitt 1 points 4 weeks ago

What about partially sighted or dyslexic individuals? Sure, a game like halo would need a lot of modification to be fully blind accessible, but a visual novel, for instance, might not. In my experience most visual novels are built as passion projects on shoestring budgets.

Lots of existing games have robotic narrators already (e.g minecraft), they just speak with a monotone voice. By incorporating more advance machine learning capabilities the same narrator could be capable of outputting a more nuanced and pleasant delivery for those that need it.

[–] knitwitt -2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Using a robotic voice could make the game more accessible to blind, partially sighted, and dyslexic individuals. I'm not sure how an AI voice is inherently different than the voice that comes out of a screen reader, especially if it's trained on the voice of employees or volunteers.

[–] knitwitt 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

When you vote for a candidate you hate you're telling them that they don't have to change their platform to have your support. People making safe votes against their own interests is precisely why the people in power get away with all this bullshit. Don't waste your vote by giving it to someone who doesn't stand for what you believe in.

[–] knitwitt 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Either way I'm not sure why it's anyone else's business whether or not I simply own the thing. If I'm the only one who uses it, it's not harming anyone else.

If I don't feel like ploughing the fields by hand, shouldn't it be my decision to invest my labour into something that will make my life easier, regardless of what others think?

[–] knitwitt 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is not the tractor itself is the product of labour? Someone put in the work to build it, and I compensated them with the product of my own labour. I don't think the people who constructed the tractor were entitled to my labor any more than someone who compensates me for tilling their field is.

[–] knitwitt 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If I understand correctly, society would democratically decide that lightbulbs are approved for private ownership but that tractors would not be?

[–] knitwitt 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks for the comment! I agree that owning ten tractors that I don't personally use VS leasing out my one personal vehicle in the off season feels different, but I'm not exactly clear on where the line is drawn and by what standards it is.

Isn't me being the sole person who can decide who can and can't lease my equipment and at what rate / how much compensation I expect to receive for the privilege of doing so kind of make me a boss already, even if I don't formally employ anyone in a business?

I think we both understand that some form of compensation is fair, as use of the equipment will gradually degrade it's quality, presents an inconvenience to me (no option to use it on the days it's gone), and an increased risk of the tractor becoming inoperable (catching fire, catastrophic failure, falling off a cliff, ect...) all of which as the sole owner of the equipment I am expected to absorb the cost of.

I'm also sure that whomever I'm leasing the equipment out to understands what fair compensation is and won't likely take me up on an offer if I ask for too much. (Half of whatever is harvested with my machine! Mwahaha!)

But I can also see a case where perhaps the equipment is so much more efficient that over time, choosing not to lease from me will result in me being four or five times more productive than you are, creating a big resource disparity between us and giving me extra bargaining power over you.

[–] knitwitt 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Thanks for your response! I'm imagining in my scenario, perhaps the tractor doesn't exist until someone decides that one is desired and then a cooperative of fabricators builds one in exchange for what its workers consider to be fair compensation for their labour. As a farmer, perhaps I agree to exchange several years worth of grain for one of their tractors. As the individual who grew and harvested the grain personally, wouldn't it make sense saying that I have a greater right to "own" the tractor over my peers who maybe chose to use their share of grain to purchase different things?

Perhaps they didn't feel like a tractor was as necessary a use of resources as say a silo or mill would be? Or maybe collectively we agreed to purchase those things and it was with only the resources out of the whole I have been permitted to expend for personal use that I purchased the tractor with - others spending it on home improvements or a nicer car for example?

 

Howdy! I'm new here and was hoping someone might have some insight to a question I've been thinking about for a while:

If I saved up my money and bought a tractor, would it be permissible/ethical to charge others to use it when I didn't need it?

This seems awfully similar to owning the means of production. What if I instead offered to plow their fields for them instead, driving the tractor myself and negotiating fair compensation in exchange?

Sorry if this is basic stuff I'm still learning. 🙏

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