this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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Decentralized governments/leaders in small communties, decentralized power sources, decentralized market, currency and so on. On top, every community gets own decentralized social network.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Decentralized governments: already a reality in most places, with a clear hierarchy (federal, state/province, city). Local communities aren't always formed, but can coexist

Decentralized power sources: kinda there already? The thing is that it makes more sense economically to have a small number of big power plants than spread then thinly, especially due to industry needs that can be much larger than what residential lines typically transmit

Decentralized market: I mean, open fairs and small, corner markets are still a thing, no? Or what kind of market do you mean?

Decentralized currency: crypto kinda does that? There's no central authority issuing whatever-coins. In more real-life terms, decentralized currency is deeply tied to local economy and you can look at history for how something like that used to work: small kingdoms almost always wanted to mint their own coins, then whenever conducting trade with external markets, some exchange rates would be set based on supply/demand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You just described real life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean in smaller scale than countries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Exactly the first thing I thought of after reading the post. OP sounds like they'd enjoy reading about syndicalism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If everything is completely decentralized then it essentially means that each person is providing for themselves... including basic services like water and waste processing. Centralizing these things makes sense, they're more efficient when operated at scale, and there are significant benefits to task specialization. And frankly, you don't want decentralized medical care - you want big, modern, well-funded hospitals with the latest technology, which means centralized locations and management.

Decentralizing services doesn't make sense. Individual residence solar panels are substantially less productive than large-scale solar plants. Services like energy, water, medicine and waste handling should be concentrated and publicly funded - but then that means you need to collect public funds and then decide how to use them, and that means government. The larger the public project is that you want to build, the larger the government around it has to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

You are making good points, but I'd say there is a point in "size" which no longer a centralised entity makes sense, and it must be divided in order to provide better, independent service.

Everything has a critical size. It would be terrible if there was a "hospital" city for an entire country instead of a hospital per X amount of citizens.

Or it would be terrible to power the entire world from a single power plant, for many absurd reasons.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You’re assuming parts of decentralized entities can’t cooperate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, no, certainly there could be cooperation. But operating a complex entity like a hospital or a sewage processing plant requires proper organization and a permanent dedicated staff. I don't see how you could do that in a decentralized way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Parts of the communities interested in running a hospital can just band together and run a hospital. Decentralization doesn't mean no organization, but the freedom to move between and form organizations. (Anarchist contexts would also say "just no hierarchical organization".)

Sewage and stinky jobs are interesting problems. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full.html#text-amuse-label-seci413 offers a variety a solutions, including giving benefits to those who volunteer, community agreement on a rotation, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

How would you decentralize physical infrastructure like roads, rail, power lines, sewers etc.? Someone will need to be responsible for maintenance, and you can't exactly switch out which sewer is connected to your house in case you're unsatisfied with whoever is running that show. I'm imagining 20 identical roads running in parallel from A to B so people can choose which one to associate with. And a hundred different internets cramming the already limited electromagnetic spectrum we have because there's no central authority to regulate them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You just described basic anarchism <3 though it may only work if currency is abolished

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I feel like many forms of anarchism exist on a spectrum that contains communism as well. I'm not the most well read but I wonder if anarchism with some kind of currency can be established, or maybe just some kind of interim anarchism somehwere in that spectrum as the mode of production changes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My personal wet dream would be the street you live on making the decisions for that street like building a traffic light, the block making decisions about say, the plumbing.

everyone voting in a direct manner every week or month via app. Our representative democracy has been corrupted a long time ago so it is time to change that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You've just described an HOA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

This was what I came here to say.

My HOA is thankfully decent, but I know many have but had positive experiences.

When we're talking Lemmy instances, packing up and moving is one thing, but when we're talking residence, who's going to want their local dictator running things?

People like to hate on things like McDonalds or Budweiser and so on, but with that massive oversight and standardization, you gain a consistent product. With laws and their enforcement, it's nice to have that consistency.

Worry about red/blue states is bad enough, let alone if we're talking red/blue streets! Some things are better big and boring.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Have you ever lived in a building block?

I don't know in other countries. In Spain we have horizontal property law, that means that a building block is managed by all it's members. Probably the same in other countries but IDK.

The thing is that it is a NIGHTMARE. We have not one, but two of the most famous spanish comedy shows are about how hellish building block communities are.

I know cases were old people have to walk stairs everyday because other members of the block refuse to put an elevator. I wouldn't want to know what would happen if a few buildings could just choose not to put plumbing, or not to put traffic lights.

And if I'm correct the US equivalent would be this communities in the suburbs that make "law" that you cut your lawns at 3 inches tall exactly every sunday a 7:03 am, exactly. And become extremely anal to everyone complying to their ridiculous aesthetic ideas.

People in small communities can be incredibly shitty. I feel like bigger communities tend to grant more rights to people and ensure those rights are applied.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's totally unworkable. Almost everything in society would completely stop functioning

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Okay. How did you arrive at this conclusion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because there are enough people who are selfish, short sighted, or disinterested, and an enormous number of things in society require coordination, long term thinking, and decisions made every single hour of every single day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Okay, thanks for elaborating.

I agree. There are many selfish people out there. But they dont live in a vacuum. In a world where you have the repsonsibility for your surroundings, many people could rise to the occasion. Also, if a water pipe breaks in front of my home and you decide to vote against fixing it together, what do you think will happen to you, either when you need help or if Iβ€˜m vindictive, sooner?

We dont have anything to compare our living conditions to because we have never lived any different than now. We dont attempt to test self governed communities. What do you think why that is?

One hint that shows me that it works are coops. They work without central oversight because its not the oversight that makes us interact but our own intellect.