The World Is Fine Even If Everything Is Free

This article was first written in my other blog. It is re-published here under my very own permission. :)

Received some feedback on my previous post of "What if everything in this world is free?", just thought it would be interesting to discuss others concerns. Afterall if the system I propose is full of flaws, what's the use to go pursue it any further right?

The comment that I am posting here is posted by cheong, whom I believe is one of my primary school mates but :x Not too sure. Either way here it goes.

I salute you for your nice thoughts and suggestions on these free stuff for the people, the society and the world. Everything looks like possible as you wrote. I do agree with you for all your points.

Thank you. :) Hope you find it as an inspiring read.

hmm..can i voice out mine?

Yea sure go ahead!

If everyone owes a ferarri, wants to go out for countdown on 31/12, do u think everyone can get a parking place? how about traffic jams? U might be saying, ppl now having everything for free, so they will bulid better roads, paths, highways, parking lots because they'll contribute their best ideas of roads design to the society since everything is free..

First I would like to point out that, the system is definitely not without flaws. It is not perfect. Situations like the ones you mentioned is definite probable shall we convert the society structure into a free-for-all system. But I would like to ask in return, how would you deal with such situations if you know that where you will be driving to, is gonna be freaking jam and without parking space?

This isn't quite a free-society-only problem, so the solutions are already apparently in the existing world. Yup, you got it right. You don't drive. Will there be any sort of public transports? I would like to think so. But I can't tell you for sure because I am proposing a system, not creating a game. So I don't have every control on how the new society would like to reform itself. Would there be volunteer bus drivers doing community services? Will enthusiasts build train systems for the public? Will there be helicopter taxis that get you anywhere for free? Or maybe we will just all cycle because enthusiasts might not build enough cars for everybody. And they don't care because they don't sell the cars. They are just making it for fun.

So I suppose I came to another interesting point to delve into. If everything is free, would there be enough supply to satisfy the demand? People would build things just based on what they want to do. If you want something, say a car... You would need to ask for a favour. So is it very easy to get that many Ferraris on the street? I think no. When you are asking for a favour, you better have very convincing reasons of why you want a Ferrari. A good answer would be like, I am passionate about driving and I want to go into F1! A bad answer would be like, I just want to go around and pick up chicks. However, I foresee a bloom of DIY revolution, where information and technologies are so freely available, everyone can build their anything. I suppose when you go to a spareparts warehouse and you ask for free parts, they ask why? An answer that you are building your own car is rather acceptable.

But it would be inaccurate to say that a free society would have better everything, roads, highways, parking etc. It will only have better everything if the society deems that such things are required. Take note that to build any massive infrastructure, you need to mobilize a lot of people. Unless enough people are convinced that they are using their time for the betterment of the society, it's unlikely that people will spend their time fulfilling others agenda for no reason. They may be free, but they are not without other things to do too you know.

One thing though I know would be better is that: everyone would be happier not needing to worry about money and their own survival.

If everything is free, then there will be no control and quota on everything, everywhere. Everyone wants to stay in a big house with nice sea view or mountain view. Definitely the earth doesnt have enough place for each and everyone's dream.

I have briefly touched on the big house issue in the previous post. Similar to wanting a car, to build a big house, either you do it yourself or you ask someone else to do it for you. The bigger the house is, the more people you will need to ask a favour from, and the more justified you have to be. Again, why would people waste their time just to satisfy your ego? You offer zero compensation for their time you know? So the only other alternative would be, you build yourself. A big house, just you and your few family members? It's not going to be easy. You might just give up trying after going about it for a few years.

As for living in a nice sea view or mountain view. You do have a point. I am able to point out that, given the lack of developers strengthening the slopes of mountains, it may be a very bad idea to build a house up there yourself, but sea view has none of these nature disaster problems so it's a little tricky. Would everyone want to move to have a nice sea view? I definitely agree that a lot would. A lot wouldn't too. Living by the sea, you smell very bad, and everything in your house just rust so much faster. So it has its own share of problems too.

Yet it would be interesting to see how the free society would adjust to such change. Granted, if enough people want more sea view or mountain view houses, I am confident that they will either extend the shore lines themselves, or build one entire mountain if they have to. Afterall it isn't news that we have many man-made islands now right? How hard is it to construct a mountain since it's really, just moving all the dirt you dumped into the sea, onto the ground.

I love to become a fashion designer, everyone can wear nice clothes, dresses for free. Who will be the one going to sew? The one that loves sewing?? how many ppl loves sewing? 100,000 wants to become designer to design the best dress ever to billions of ppl in the world. We definitely need more than 100,000 people to do sewing. So, who gonna do this dear Ben? haha..

This scenario is very similar to my rubbish collector argument previously. Given that there is a job that no one is willing to take it up on, it would be perceived very highly by the society itself if someone volunteerily take it up. It is the so-called honour points that you get to score and add onto your reputation if you are willing to take up the unwanted tasks. Same person does not need to commit himself or anything. Just on and off volunteer would be enough. Afterall there are so many people in the society, there will be sufficient man power to deal with things. The thing with charity or volunteering work is that, people don't do it all the time. Not everybody flies to Africa and lives there to save the people you know. But going in there once in a while is already thought very highly by everyone around you. So there are definitely, advantages in doing such work.

Sooner or later, the society may have a minimal expectations of everybody. This could be unwritten expectations that everybody should at least get into some volunteering work. Then due to community pressure, more and more people might take up all these unwanted jobs.

What I would like to point out is that... You see in Malaysia, rubbish collectors are done manually. It would be hard to imagine why anybody would volunteer for such shit work right? You need to smell and grab the plastic bags full with rotten smell to dump. But in Australia, such work are done semi-automatically. That is, you get a rubbish truck with a mechanical arm. The truck driver stops in front of your house, extends the mechnical arm to grab the trash bin and dump it at the back of the truck. All work is done while the truck driver just sits comfortably in the air-conditioned truck sipping his morning coffee.

Now here is a few points to consider. Firstly, In Malaysia, a rubbish collector truck has like 1 driver plus at least 3 other collector. In Australia, just one driver is enough. So the amount of people needed is minimized greatly. Secondly, what stops Malaysia from getting the same mechnical truck that Australia uses? Money and tax, which is technically another form of moeny anyways. If everything is free, can Malaysia get it too? Hell yea. Finally, given enough people not wanting to perform such work, do you think human beings are not capable of designing something to perform the duties? For one, we could have rubbish collector robots. Or maybe we would have a rubbish sewage, automatically sucking all your rubbish away? What stops all the innovations from being implemented? Money! If there is no money in anything, people wouldn't even bother researching anything!

But coming back to your sewing questions. Yes fashion designers do sew their own clothes, they might be the ones that "love to" sew that you were talking about. The rest would likely to be volunteers sewing on and off as community service. Again, since all of these are done for free, I don't think that you suppose to get a new shirt every week. Everything is exchanged based on good will, and being greedy is not part of good will. However though, you are always welcome to DIY and sew your own clothes.

But, I truly feel happy for you to have such a big dream and feel great to have a friend like you.. hahaha..buddy..

Lol. It is really just a theory I have in my mind that I thought I would share any see what others think about it.