Tell me how to build a self sustaining modern society of 10,000 people

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me how to build a self sustaining modern society of 10,000 people

ljw1004: Jan 18, 2005; rum

redshirt posted:

10,000 people
10miles x 30miles
mountain, forest

Modern society is a huge interconnected web with huge raw-material demands. There are mines that are 3*3 miles large and employ 20,000 people already. The world population of 7 billion is only big enough to support two or three chip fabs. A software company like Microsoft employees 100k people.

What are you going to do with just 10k people? You're not going to produce any of the trappings of modern society. With that few people you can't mine them, refine them, design them, build them. The best you can do is give them a snapshot of modern society, with enough spares to last them a few decades, and watch as they stagnate.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 20:45

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 11:35

ljw1004: Jan 18, 2005; rum

I'm starting to think that the premise is misguided.

We were asked "tell me how to build a self-sustaining modern society" -- by which we understood it to mean "a society like today's western technological gadget-filled society that is built upon an entire planetary economy and ecosystem and raw-material chain"

By focusing on gadgets, we're missing out the other equally key aspects of modern society - capitalism, globalism, democracy?, nationwide journalism and press, Hollywood or Bollywood film industry, media business, mass sports, fast food chains, "melting pot" cultures, riots, homelessness, military, museums, history, culture. A mere 10,000 people could never recreate a society that's recognizably modern-western in any of these respects.

It'd be better to focus on what kind of appropriate society could you make with the given resources. There used to be so many thinkers and theorizers of "utopian" societies in the 1900s. I think our current western society is predicated on a crazy continually-growing unsustainable exploitation of other countries and of resources. If we had unlimited energy and money, I bet we could build a very different self-sustaining society of 10,000 people that's better than today's society.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 01:56

ljw1004: Jan 18, 2005; rum

redshirt posted:

In this scenario, the people are all chosen. So I'd assume most everyone would work, even kids.

I'm still intrigued about food distribution. Would restaurants work? Grocery stores? Since it's a closed economy, I'm assuming there's no money and no need to pay for food. But could you actually run a mexican restaurant, for example? Or a grocery store?

I think at least half the people won't do constructive work. They'll be artists, writers, entertainers, actors, musicians, actors. They'll be the ones who satisfy the cultural needs of your 10,000 (rather than the techno-gadget needs or the food needs).

Why would you assume no need of money? I think money (as a token for barter) arises spontaneously even in small groups. Money arises as a consequence of labor-specialization + need.

Either you have a centrally planned island (hence, every need is met poorly). Or you don't (hence, money).

What you don't have in a closed system is CAPITALISM, i.e. the ability for money to grow through greater exploitation of natural resources or greater efficiency of production. So founding a Mexican restaurant will be hard. But running it will still use money like normal.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 17:57

ljw1004: Jan 18, 2005; rum

redshirt posted:

My assumption is this has to be a centrally planned society. I don't see how it could work otherwise. If it wasn't centrally planned, what's the motivating principle behind anyone's actions? Profit? Does the farmer become the richest man on the island?

What's the motivating principle for why people work today? Is it just to get wealthy? Why do people work who are already wealthy? Why do some poor people not work harder? What is the motivating principle of any actions?

I think you're barking up the wrong human psychology in your vision of the island. I was impressed by the papal encyclical on work in the early 80s:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens_en.html

The Pope posted:

Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth

Work is a fundamental dimension of man's existence on earth

[capitalism]

For certain supporters of such ideas, work was understood and treated as a sort of "merchandise" that the worker -- especially the industrial worker -- sells to the employer, who at the same time is the possessor of the capital, that is to say, of all the working tools and means that make production possible. This way of looking at work was widespread especially in the first half of the nineteenth century. Since then, explicit expressions of this sort have almost disappeared, and have given way to more human ways of thinking about work and evaluating it.

[toil]

Toil is something that is universally known, for it is universally experienced. It is familiar to those doing physical work under sometimes exceptionally laborious conditions.... [and to industrial works, to intellectual workers, to scientists, to doctors and nurses, to parents]. It is familiar to all workers and, since work is a universal calling, it is familiar to everyone.

And yet, in spite of all this toil -- perhaps, in a sense, because of it -- work is a good thing for man. Even though it bears the mark of a bonum arduum, in the terminology of Saint Thomas, this does not take away the fact that, as such, it is a good thing for man. It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 18:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me how to build a self sustaining modern society of 10,000 people