[dktekno]

Technocracy is basically the idea that everyone works for free and recieve everything for free. That is, we recieve what we want, and we work for nothing.

I wanted to conduct a study on how many doctors there would be in such a society. That is, do people really work because they find it interesting, or do they just do it for money?

Unfortunatly, I can't find an international forum so I had to ask on a danish forum.

This is a forum for doctors and people studying medicine.

http://www.pdamed.dk/viewtopic.php?p=58196#58196

The question is basically that if everything was free in the world, and money was abolished, would you work as a doctor?

The answers are clearly a NO. They say that they would just consume all they wanted and stop working and studying.

This however has also shown the public something which may have been a taboo. But it is now clear: Academics are not academics because they like their field. Doctors do not become doctors because they want to help people. People work for money, and if they could recieve everything for free and not having to work in order to recieve something, they don't want to work. The workers say so themselves.

This will undermine the whole idea of Technocracy.

It is saddening, but this is the reality. People ARE selfish by nature, and if they can choose to not work, and just consume big cars etc. they would do so. Only a very small minority would work.

[I]

Academics are not academics because they like their field

My missus is an academic. Investing in a PhD actually meant a pay cut (which meant more bleedin work for me!). She did it for the love of the profession

[dktekno]

But not enough labor would be there. The demand will be higher than what we can deliver.

Some few people will study and become academics. But not the majority. This will leave us with lack of labor force.

[dktekno]

It is cheaper to use machines for labor, yet we do not have machines for everything.

If we had, there would not be so much lack of workers. We need more workers already. Just look at the danish society where we have to search forign countries. In 2045 there will be 50 % more eldery people and this will cause our society to collapse.

Simply put, the western world in general lacks workers. We have the opposite of high unemployment. A technate is fine with high unemployment, it works great. But we are in the opposite position. We need more workers.

[dktekno]

I think I might rather propose a transition phase to technocracy.

While Technocracy is the ultimate goal, there seem to be some problems attached to it. We cannot get away with the economic system just right now. Too many things are attached to it, and getting away with it from day 1 to day 2 might cause collapse and anarchy.

[Lux]

Remember Dktekno, although you may have a point, I agree with Kolzene that people often are conditioned to behave in a specific way due to how the current civilisation is organised.

With experimentation, we would maybe be able to predict the behavior of people better, but for now, all speculation is just speculation. Personally, I think that a doctor who does it just for the money should rethink either her profession or her values. But that is her issue.

[dktekno]

http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2006/12/10/064409.htm

Technocracy can not work. Here is the proof:

The article is in danish, but I will tell you about it:

The largest Post Office in Denmark, Postdanmark, needed 110 mail carriers.

In Denmark there are 200.000 unemployed currently recieing unemployment benfits.

But none of them wanted a job as a mail carrier. Not a single one of the 200.000 unemployed.

How do you expect people to work in such areas as mail carriers if they don't recieve money? This is a proof that it doesn't work. Of course, some areas may attract workers, because the job is satisfying in itself, but there are areas where people work mainly because of money. Like mail carriers.

[Lux]

Actually, we would work to take away paper mail wholly and completely. It is a great waste, and we are pro-paperless society. And I would have thanked no to such a job as well [bad working time, low salary, great uncertainty prospects].

BTW, visited www.technocracyeurope.eu recently?

[dktekno]

Actually, we would work to take away paper mail wholly and completely. It is a great waste, and we are pro-paperless society. And I would have thanked no to such a job as well [bad working time, low salary, great uncertainty prospects].

In Denmark, or in rest of Scandinavia, we don't really use paper mail that much. The mail carriers more often carries parcel post.

We still need people to bring out packages and other non-paper mail.

[Lux]

Remember that we would abolish the cities and instead install urbanates where we would design infrastructure so that we would avoid waste of resources. And yes, some delivery would still be needed.

Moreover, the reason why people chose to not work as mailmen is that they do not like the spirit of that work. Before the mail system was privatised in Sweden, the personnel felt better for example.

[dktekno]

Remember that we would abolish the cities and instead install urbanates where we would design infrastructure so that we would avoid waste of resources. And yes, some delivery would still be needed.

Moreover, the reason why people chose to not work as mailmen is that they do not like the spirit of that work. Before the mail system was privatised in Sweden, the personnel felt better for example.

But how would you attract people to deliver something at all?
Delivery is not something you can enjoy. You can "enjoy" or have satisfaction with helping other people, or you can enjoy programming. But I don't think delivery of items is joyful, exciting or anything like that.

We would have to establish an automatic delivery system in the urbanates.

[Lux]

Could be, if the workplace is socially or technically rewarding, for example by a good work spirit. The things that makes postmen in cities, behind bars and in systems where they won't meet their clients resentful is the lack of social input. During the 40;s for example, the postmen were more happy because they actually had some sort of direct contact with those who they served.

[El Gilroy]

As long as a technate does provide consumables for free but relies on a consuming workforce to produce them, it risks the scenario outlined above.
It must either be able to produce all goods without any solid workforce, eg. by complete automatisation, or introduce a system by which the single worker is encouraged to study or work - not a capitalist one, per se, but one that not only coordinates but forms the workforce, beginning in early education.
This would consist of 1. Considering interest, abilitiy, avaliability and motivation of every single worker 2. in correspondence with the work to be done, and 3. choosing the workers which are most suited to do it after evaluating the named factors. This procedure would propably lead to an near-optimal distribution of workers, yet requires a high-tech IT machinery.
As it would operate within the boundaries of the opression-free, it would have to rely on encouraging, educating, encouraging again, showing what difference one can make to the overall standart of living and hoping for the best.

Although it feels right by me, I am not sure wether this (purely theoretical) system is capable of solving the named difficutly, since I do not know how far the broad masses can be educated and encouraged into contributing.

[N'Djamena]

Can a technate attract workers?

To develop the technology used to support the state yes.

[Lux]

Yes, they would earn a lot by working less then.

[Lux]

NET agrees with the position that a technate should'nt be a state, while for example Skip Sievert on technocracynow.org thinks that it should be a state.