Saving the world with your phone.

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

Okay. Tab’s plan to save the world with your smartphone.

Problems.

  1. religions as social stabilizers/moral guides are failing as science undermines their core scripture. Science cannot provide the same function because it lacks emotional drive. However, in any given situation, people generally have at least an inkling of what would be the good thing to do, and the bad thing to do, they just lack the motivation or abiliy to do anything about it.

  2. political systems - democracy fails because it asks more of the populace than the majority is willing to sacrifice to make informed decisions. Dictatorship fails because it asks too much of the dictator involved, and even if he or she is a remakably long-viewed, self-sacrificing type, there remains the problem of succession. Anarchy fails because people are assholes.

  3. Capitalism fails because it needs constant growth to work. Communism fails because people are assholes. Self-sufficiency fails because erm, it’s hard work, and no-one would be able to make coffee.
    Currency in general, makes people unhappy, shoehorning many many people into occupations which are not rewarding spiritually. A system enabling those who chose to do so, to earn a living through less conventional acts of social value is desperately needed.

How to solve all in one fell swoop.

Ta-da. Karmic smartphones.

Say there is a new app. And new stores, something like Amazon on steroids with world wide drone coverage. It uses karma points instead of money.

Everyone at midnight gets free, a base level of karma points credited to their phone. They get an equal amount that they cannot personally use, but must give away during the day. If they don’t give away their allotted number of points, the remainder is subtracted from their personal stock. They cannot donate points to relatives or friends, mutual support groups and other provisos to keep exploiting the system to a minimum.

They can also sacrifice 1 of their own personal points at anytime to punish another by removing one of theirs.

Everyone’s phone gives them a unique identity. People donate/remove points to/from people by simply pointing and clicking at the person they wish to reward/punish in daily life, or at whatever interactive device involved if they see someone act in a way they support or abhor. News, YouTube, Facebook, festivals, concerts, speeches, terrorist attacks whatever. Donations and punishments are anonymous, unless the person involved wishes otherwise.

It would just be a novelty at first, but there are many ways in which such a scheme could really make a difference.

Think about it. :smiley:

A friend from another site brought up these objections:

My reply.

2 and 4 are tech issues. Hell, and you’d probably get hacker networks queuing up to help police a system like karmaphone and if it became big enough phone manufacturers would be driven by sales to facilitate it.

1, yes probably. But then half the world in training to be nice to each other is good enough perhaps to drag the other half along. People want to help people, its just the actual process of helping is inhibitive to your average couchdweller. Imagine when you sit down to a meal, and some guy cracks out the line “there are people who can’t even afford your entree you know…” and you whip out your phone, flip a few buttons and suddenly there’s a live feed from a drone airlifting a club sandwich to some poor bastard in timbuktu.

And electricity/phone supply start-ups would finance themselves simply from all the micro donations they’d attract. Call it the geldof-effect.

3 is a stumbler to an extent. But still, people can get around IP bans, and government blocks. Enabling this scheme would also be an instant popularity winner, temptation wise, politically.

Anyway. At base its a way of getting people into the habit of making judgements about right and wrong on a daily basis in their local area, among the people they see as well as on the more typical wider issues , and giving them the power, however small individually, to do something immediate, anonymous and safe about it, not to mention getting live feedback about their own behaviour in daily life and/or making a living simply by being conspicuouly good. Everybody becomes micro-batman.

On the whole, I can’t see a downside. Sure it will get abused, but then everything gets abused, aiming for the plus side of the ratio is still a win.

2

How does that have a bearing on saving the world? beyond the measurement of karma.

3

Quiet Magsj… he has been away for years working this one out, and you gotta immediately destroy his idea. That is very rude of you.

4

Lol, it was an idea I had a couple of weeks ago. Get back to you mags after a bit of brekkie.

5

Actually Mags, how about you give me a couple of bullet points of world social problems, and I’ll tell you how this scheme would help.

6

CERN keeps running the Boson Collider, which has a small statistic chance each time it runs of opening a black hole up and killing us all.

How will your Karma phone help us here?

7

Lol. The UK astronomer royal put the risk at 1 in 50 million. But that was at the initially proposed high energy runs level, new runs at lower levels apparantly heighten the risks of creating prion-like strangelets that will wander about converting ordinary matter into copies of itself. A sort of cosmic mad cow disease run riot.

Those odds are lower than the lottery you can say I suppose, and someone does win the lottery nearly every week. However, a whole lotta people play the lottery, compared to how often they fire up the old LHC.

Sry, rl calls, back in a tick.

Ok, supplies bought, wife happy.

So anyway, say you heard the news that the LHC was due to fire in a month’s time. You are violently against it. You consider the risk outweighs the gain, and want to stop the run. Right now, what could you do…?

Realistically, zip. Nada, Nuffin’.

However, with karma points, a now burgeoning counter currency, floated on the markets, and scientific endeavors always short of funds… You point your phone at the source of news, if you’re not actually reading it off the phone itself. The app boots, chases down all the associated accounts of the LHC. Those of the institute itself, the scientists working there, the janitors, data entry temps, IT boys, those of whom donate funds to the LHC… And click click click, punish them all.

Microbatman to the rescue. Doesn’t sound like much sure. You’re just one guy, takin’ a stand. But there are more of you than you think, all around the globe. All clicking.

8

Can you exchange karma points to buy real products and services? If so, how do those companies or individuals get compensated with real money for those goods and services they’re selling? If not, then what’s the real bottom line benefit of having a lot of karma points?

9

I take the same stance as season 4 of the TV show Lexx does, and I’m not just talking about the search for the Boson alone, but in general… that season fairly expresses my political outlook.

So… Your saying your app operates like the Spanish Inquisition, and is anti-science to boot?

Can you use the karma app on the karma app, bankrupting it’s creator into homelessness and shutting the vile monstrosity down? I think everyone can get behind this.

Or is he and the app somehow immune, and can other corporations and rich individuals buy this immunity protection for themselves for a small indulgence fee?

10

Yes, dronestore, you can order basic foodstuffs etc. Online through the app. Or buy other currencies through exchange services. It’s possible this way to live a life without mainstream job-salary mentality, or supplement it to whatever degree.

Real money is no more real than karma points. The pound is no more real than the dollar. Simple stuff.

Sry. RL again. Back in a tick.

Okay back.

In the furture employment will become an increasing problem, as software replaces people, and robots encroach on the production line to greater and greater extents. The welfare sector etc. will begin to self-destruct.

A) Those in work, hell everyone really, kinda hates the whole “money for nothing” concept. Even when I was unemployed back in the early nineties, I was bored stiff, I needed stuff to do, and the stuff I was good at, art and bsc-level biology, weren’t very desired skills at the time. So you sit, dabble in your hobbies, and drink mainly.

B) Welfare for a government is a one way business - money goes out, doesn’t really come back in, not directly anyway. Harshly, the unemployed are a demograph broadly defined as parasitic meatbags who can unfortunately vote. However, that’s only some of them. However however, :smiley: it’s difficult to sort out the ‘good’ but unemployed people, from the ‘bad’ and unemployed people, at least from the stratospheric levels big government looks down from.

Karmaphone is a bottom up regulatory device, utilizing the wisdom of crowds to help support the alternatively employed. Some people already do business on eBay, the karmastore would offer the same services to producers of rare marketability, alongside its more nuts and bolts business of providing the staples of life.

Beggars. Pity them, hate them, either way, the multitude wish they’d disappear. The biggest problem is game theory based.

Man walks down the street, on the way back from the shops, Laden with bags. There’s a begger. Man doesn’t know if the guy’s genuine, lazy, or insane. There is no way to instantly tell, and no real incentive on the part of the man to sit down, start up a conversation long enough to discern the reality.

Man walks down the street, on the way back from the shops, Laden with bags. There’s a begger. Beggar gets up, says “hey mate, let me help you.” The man pulls out his phone, looks at the begger through it. Now, hovering over the begger’s head is the legend ‘99% karmastore rating - 934 reviews’. Man says “sure” and hands the guy most of his bags. Begger lugs his shopping home, man blips the begger X karma points.

Sorry, RL again.

11

Ok, so your idea would require governments to legislate that karma points are legal tender? Who would set the exchange rates between regular money and karma points? How would prices for goods work, since the total number of karma points wouldn’t be fixed… inflation could be a real problem.

I have a hard time seeing governments agreeing to legislate that these karma points are legal tender. I think a side economy that is “unofficial” is much more likely to really be workable. But in that situation we need to figure out what the incentive is for businesses to sell their goods and services in exchange for karma points.

You’re probably right that it would need to be a legal tender, to really work. It’s a cool idea, especially how you can add or take away karma points from other people or organizations.

12

Wyld, I editted, but you’ll have to wait a bit sorry. Busy today.

13

wyld

You’re right, the biggest problem is the startup costs. Drone tech would have to get real cheap, real fast. Some rich altruistic soul, or group of souls, would have to finance the karmastore initially. But, I can see government funding supplementing this quickly if it begins in anyway to take some of the day to day pressure off areas like welfare and policing.

To continue. Exchange rates would be tied to the prices of staples on the karmastore menu, a sort of loaf of bread standard in place of the old gold standard if you like.

The points inflation looks like a real,problem, but not as big as you think.

E.g… let’s say, everyone gets 20 personal points free a day. They also get 20 points to give away. They also have the option to sacrifice personal points to remove points from someone they want to punish.

Person x, too preoccupied to even boot up the app today. Gains 20 points at midnight, loses 20 points the following midnight. Net gain/loss zero.

Person y, boots it up at breakfast, gains 20, and in the course of the day, gives 20 away. Punishes no-one. Net gain/loss 20+20= +40.

Person z, boots up at breakfast, gains 20, over the course of the day gives 10 away. Gets mad at life in general, punishes 10 random people he interacts with during the day, then watches the news at night, goes ballistic and punishes all and sundry to the tune of 20 points (after whipping his credit card out to buy more points to punish people with) and gives away his remaining points too to support things he likes. Net/gain loss 20+20-10-10-20-20= -20.

The key is that punishing someone costs the system double -1 to you -1 to the target. And that life, in general, at the moment, is irritating. During an average day, think, how many instances of bad behaviour do you witness, compared to instances of good…?

14

Sorry mate, have no idea what Lexx is, and no time to watch today. :smiley:

Spanish inquisition/anti science. It is a moral device. Or if you like a device to facilitate the imposition of your personal moral code upon the world around you. You might be sitting there punishing the scientists, but don’t forget, I’m sitting there giving them points just as fast, and it’s costing me nothing, in fact, I’m also protecting my personal points by doing so, whereas you are penalizing yourself for the priviledge of punishing the evildoer and their infernal black hole machine. Also, you feel good, and I feel good, which is important to note.

Note also, the system is slightly biased to rewarding good, and in conjunction, making people actively seek/notice good deeds in the world around them, or at least deeds that compliment their concept of ‘good’.

The system has no exemptions, if the target has an account, or people/institutions connected to said target, they are vulnerable to the punishment process, just as they are open to the reward system.

You alone wouldn’t be meaningfully able to impact upon large bodies, but you and a couple of hundred thousand friends, would.

15

I can too if I use my philosophy skills to turn public opinion. I live next to Ohio and Pa, spend some time a few hours a week convincing them to vote Trump. Both swing states.

You realize this is gonna just substitute good will on a abstract, fake basis from actually helping others. I use a smile.Amazon.com account, generally 0.05% of every purchase goes to a charity of my choice. I give to The Angels of East Africa, which is ran by The Machine Gun Preacher… he starts orphanages in African war zones, and fight off the guerillas with his machine gun… true story, look it up. Cost me nothing… money from my purchase goes in, same price with or without it. I can rest satisfied knowing I’ve brought him a few magazines full of ammo to kill people with, but know this alone isn’t really a charitable act… In my daily life I got to make effort. Like pushing people in wheelchairs across deep gravel parking lots, or buying a hobo food, or pushing cars, or unlocking fences dogs ate trapped behind (big problem in this area, don’t know how they get trapped in those yards).

If I could just click it, would we dehumanizes human contact otherwise? I’m sure many people think just giving the machine gun preacher money in and of itself us enough, but I know you got to do more with your life. Not everything can be solved commercially, or with money.

16

Sure, but the karmaphone isn’t aimed at the usual big charity targets. And I don’t care how fake the interaction is on an individual basis. On the other hand, fake goodwill, is still goodwill :smiley: .

I’m agnostic, much of the UK is effectively agnostic, Europe is pretty much the same. That’s not to say that great number of uk/Europeans don’t go to church etc. or say, “erm Christian I guess.” if asked their religion. However, no-one takes the concept of sin very seriously, nor the concept of hell. Mainstream religion has lost most of its teeth, with respect to everyday moral guidence. Motherfucker.

Cunt arse kiddyfiddling fucktard. My dad would have beaten me black blue and some other colors, so would my teachers, back in the day. A poor example, but what I mean is, morally speaking, the post millennia really bites. Socially. Seen “the evil dead”…? When it was released, I couldn’t. It was banned in the uk for being immoral. How tame it is now, comparatively.

Yeah yeah, I sound like some lame old biddy, spouting self righteous bull shit. I know.

The Stanford prison experiment, and something else, the broken Windows effect. Basically, morally, society behaviourally adapts to environmental cues. The background hum of morality is at probably an all time low right about now. And the social/financial cost to the individual to do anything about it is prohibitively high, not to mention dangerous.

Karmaphone anonymously crowd sources local standards of morality, and conditions people in everyday life to consider other people before they act. The effect of providing unconventional income streams for the under employed is just an added benefit.

17

A phone app to save the world. How very quaint and new age.

18

Mate, how would you like to actually be able to earn a living by posting your philosophy online…?

19

This is a bit like what China is doing with social media credits. Theyre connecting private finances to a credit system based on social media popularity and socmed standards. The idea is to have social dissidents financially restrained to the most basic of lives and to reward social lubricants with wealth.

Very smart.

20

Wow, precedent. Like that then, but inverted, localized and free of overly obtrusive oversight.