-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Ed Weick
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 5, 1998 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Basic Income
>Dear Thomas,
>
>Your digitalized debate with Ed Weick is classic. It's not only
>informative (where did you two *get* all that information!?), it's
>fun and concise and lively and thought-provoking and everything a
>good debate should be. The Lunde-Weick Exchange is right up there
>with Benny & Allen, Lincoln & Douglas, Dirksen & Johnson (before he
>went bad), and McGovern and Buckley. After reading your last post,
>I pushed back my chair and said - what I don't say enough after an
>exchange on the Jim Lehrer (how McNeal is missed) News Hour - "now
>*that's* what television (email) should be all about!"
>
>Thank you.
>
>rob robinson
>netperson / mark twain democratic club / whittier-la mirada, california
>
Dear Rob:
Thank you for your kind words, though I must admit, praise makes me squirm.
I was reflecting on why FutureWork is such a good list the other day and of
course one of the reasons is that it has attracted a particular type of
individual. The avowed purpose of FW is to explore the role of work in the
future and that was probably the reason most people who joined became
involved. Now I cannot speak for others, but as I examined the concept of
work in the future, it came down to a number of subjects.
1. What have humans done in the past?
2. How does the various forms of governance affect, channel, limit,
support the activity called work?
3. Economics and economic systems have dealt with work in different ways
providing different potentials. What role does economics play in
work?
4. What does science have to say through it's findings and it's
offshoot - technology have to say about work and where it is going?
So what those of us who are exploring the concept of FutureWork have found
is that we have to talk about the past, the present, economics and science
before we can begin to discuss work in the future. In many cases these
discussions go around and around, trying to find some consenus from tribal,
agricultural, industrial ideas, and from societies such as hunter gather,
feudalistic, capitalistic, communistic, fascist and socialistic forms of
governance. In economics, we grapple with what is money, credit,
investment, savings and all these ideas and terms. And then there are world
views, Christian, Aristotelian, Platonic, Scientific, etc.
So, it seems to me, that what we have attracted is a number of people who
hold strong views backed by thought and study in one or more of these
various viewpoints. The engagement of these viewpoints around a question,
largely unspoken about where the future of work lies provides a forum for
each of us to put forth our view and in a reasonably polite way challenge
each others ideas. One of the things that make this work is the basic
respect we give each other in terms of accepting the honesty of the other
debater in being a true seeker. In other words, we may not agree with their
argument, but we do agree with their right to argue.
The fact that the Internet allows us to have people engaged from Europe,
North America and any other part of the world and that some of those
individuals have had experiences and life stories that are totally foreign
to each other provides a credibility that might be lacking in a one culture
debate or a one topic debate. Because the quality of debate is high, we
have attracted people who write well, and are well read, we even have a few
that are well educated and still learning. Perhaps, more important, we have
attracted a few that fill Brad's recent posting on "Szczepanski, J." and his
insightful comments on "individuality" as against those would be classed
within the meaning "individualism".
There are no paychecks on the Internet, no fame in scholarly journals or
invitations to be a talking head on a TV show, so we don't get a large
number of participants who fall into the classification of individualism.
everybody trying to be even more like everybody else by getting a bigger
piece of the existing sum of goods for themselves) In that sense, we who
participate, do it from the spirit of play rather than advancement.
Well, I've went on and on and taken some liberties about others motives that
I probably shouldn't have, but these were my thoughts and your posting
became goad that allowed me to put them forth.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
