CraigOhMyEggo

Was thinking of this after a conversation I had on a thread about dreams. Someone joked “I was dreaming of the events of The Matrix, then I was woken up by someone worried my dream was infringing the Wachowski’s copyrights”, and it turned into a whole train of thought in my mind, like violating IP law because you stole fire from Zeus which was his intellectual property.

Was thinking of this after a conversation I had on a thread about dreams. Someone joked "I was dreaming of the events of The Matrix, then I was woken up by someone worried my dream was infringing the Wachowski's copyrights", and it turned into a whole train of thought in my mind, like violating IP law because you stole fire from Zeus which was his intellectual property.

A pay-it-forward scheme works like this. Person A does a good deed for Person B and just asks that, in return, Person B does a good deed for someone. Person B does a good deed for Person C and just asks that, in return, Person C does a good deed for someone. The cycle continues like this, with the goal being to create a flowing river of good deeds.

Pay-it-forward schemes have been a trope for a very, very long time, there was even a bad movie made about it (oh Hollywood, what would we do without you). However, as even the movie acknowledges, they are notorious for eventually fizzling out. If you had the authority or whatever that would allow you to and were to ignite a chain for as long as possible, how would you do it?

Where I live, we have a saying.

"Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today."

~ Master Wu, from Ninjago (just looked this up, Master Wu got this from Benjamin Franklin, that wise old monk of Pennsylvania)

I was passing some houses recently and noticed a neighbor just spontaneously put in a wheelchair ramp to their front door. Afraid, I stopped by and asked who was in a wheelchair now. "Oh no one's in a wheelchair" he said, "this is just what we did."

I was finding a new job once and they were very keen on asking me if I had any medical conditions or stigmas. They said that they try to reserve their spots for people who specifically fall short of other places.

An artist I know once made any work of hers created during the passing of the comet C-2022 E3 ZTF public domain for anyone living in the Southern hemisphere under the belief that the comet which comes only once every 50,000 years would only be visible in the Northern hemisphere, offering a way to make up for the loss (which in the end turned out to be moot, the comet was a dud and still ended up visiting the Southern hemisphere via telescope).

What's your unique or almost unique way of making life less uneven for people?

Not judging and am genuinely curious. Am asking here because this version of the "ask" community doesn't have a "no politics" rule. Again, I'm not here to bash, this has just been on my mind for a while. This question has two components that are both relevant to capitalism and communism.

So we should start off with the context that capitalism, love it or hate it, is very preachy. Capitalists, like Communists with Communism, like the idea that as many nations as possible are Capitalist. This is regardless of a nation's properties.

At the same time, the very nature of the Earth is not equal opportunity. Much like how one person can be born with better eyesight or athleticism than another person, one nation can exist with more natural valuables than another nation. You certainly aren't going to find people moving to Australia "because the rainforests are nice".

Natural valuables, however, are valuables nevertheless. Did you strike gold or valuable plant life in your native region? You can snag it from the Earth and drag it into the economic system and money will unquestionably pour in. Did you try to find valuables in your Saharan nation but can only find sand? Too bad, nobody is going to buy your sand.

That means that capitalist prosperity is not equal opportunity. One nation's maximum possible level of capitalist prosperity could be levels lower than another nation's maximum possible level of capitalist prosperity. At the same time, this does not stop the classic Capitalist view that Capitalism should be ubiquitous and the same everywhere. Also at the same time, there is no obligation to create a crutch.

Along comes Communism (by that I refer to hard Communism, since there are many highly pick-and-choose versions of it). Communism tries to acknowledge a lack of being equal opportunity and so it sets up a system where everything, from parts of the environment to the people themselves, are given roles based on their skills and needs, abandoning mutual exchange as a backbone. However, partially going back to the part about people themselves not being equal opportunity, this leads to a hierarchy of respect based on one's work and skills. Are you a very sickly person who can't afford to take part in the wolf pack, someone whose needs overshadow the little providable skill? You will, in many circumstances, be put on the back burner (note that wolves are bad model here, they care for their less fortunate). Same with the environment.

And to be fair, this is a valid question for many other ideologies as well. Libertarianism especially, if you live in a world where people have the liberty to leave people behind without the guilt of having been called murderers (since you're acting on your liberties).

How do you explain this away and/or stray from the conventional form of your ideology (in a doctrinal way or maybe in the form of little habits you do) so that your approach makes things a little more equal opportunity (for example, my employer made a system to cycle errands according to employee sleep issues)?