knitwitt

Thanks for the response! In my scenario I consider ownership to be the ability to make executive decisions surrounding the business. This could range from what products we choose to sell, what the sign on the front says, who we buy our ingredients from, how much we charge customers for, how much we spend on cleaning supplies, the color of the wallpaper, when we decide to look for new employees, ect…

If I’m the sole worker at my operation, I have full authority over all these things!

What about partially sighted or dyslexic individuals? Sure, a game like halo would need a lot of modification to be fully blind accessible, but a visual novel, for instance, might not. In my experience most visual novels are built as passion projects on shoestring budgets.

Lots of existing games have robotic narrators already (e.g minecraft), they just speak with a monotone voice. By incorporating more advance machine learning capabilities the same narrator could be capable of outputting a more nuanced and pleasant delivery for those that need it.

Using a robotic voice could make the game more accessible to blind, partially sighted, and dyslexic individuals. I’m not sure how an AI voice is inherently different than the voice that comes out of a screen reader, especially if it’s trained on the voice of employees or volunteers.

When you vote for a candidate you hate you’re telling them that they don’t have to change their platform to have your support. People making safe votes against their own interests is precisely why the people in power get away with all this bullshit. Don’t waste your vote by giving it to someone who doesn’t stand for what you believe in.

Either way I’m not sure why it’s anyone else’s business whether or not I simply own the thing. If I’m the only one who uses it, it’s not harming anyone else.

If I don’t feel like ploughing the fields by hand, shouldn’t it be my decision to invest my labour into something that will make my life easier, regardless of what others think?

Is not the tractor itself is the product of labour? Someone put in the work to build it, and I compensated them with the product of my own labour. I don’t think the people who constructed the tractor were entitled to my labor any more than someone who compensates me for tilling their field is.

If I understand correctly, society would democratically decide that lightbulbs are approved for private ownership but that tractors would not be?

Thanks for the comment! I agree that owning ten tractors that I don’t personally use VS leasing out my one personal vehicle in the off season feels different, but I’m not exactly clear on where the line is drawn and by what standards it is.

Isn’t me being the sole person who can decide who can and can’t lease my equipment and at what rate / how much compensation I expect to receive for the privilege of doing so kind of make me a boss already, even if I don’t formally employ anyone in a business?

I think we both understand that some form of compensation is fair, as use of the equipment will gradually degrade it’s quality, presents an inconvenience to me (no option to use it on the days it’s gone), and an increased risk of the tractor becoming inoperable (catching fire, catastrophic failure, falling off a cliff, ect…) all of which as the sole owner of the equipment I am expected to absorb the cost of.

I’m also sure that whomever I’m leasing the equipment out to understands what fair compensation is and won’t likely take me up on an offer if I ask for too much. (Half of whatever is harvested with my machine! Mwahaha!)

But I can also see a case where perhaps the equipment is so much more efficient that over time, choosing not to lease from me will result in me being four or five times more productive than you are, creating a big resource disparity between us and giving me extra bargaining power over you.

Thanks for your response! I’m imagining in my scenario, perhaps the tractor doesn’t exist until someone decides that one is desired and then a cooperative of fabricators builds one in exchange for what its workers consider to be fair compensation for their labour. As a farmer, perhaps I agree to exchange several years worth of grain for one of their tractors. As the individual who grew and harvested the grain personally, wouldn’t it make sense saying that I have a greater right to “own” the tractor over my peers who maybe chose to use their share of grain to purchase different things?

Perhaps they didn’t feel like a tractor was as necessary a use of resources as say a silo or mill would be? Or maybe collectively we agreed to purchase those things and it was with only the resources out of the whole I have been permitted to expend for personal use that I purchased the tractor with - others spending it on home improvements or a nicer car for example?

Thanks for your response! As I understand, even under marxism I still have the ability to use the product of my labour to buy things for my personal use? Like if I want to own a painting or piece of art, I can exchange the products of my labour with an artist for the products of their labour.

Regarding ownership, personal property still exists on some level, right? I don’t want other people wearing my clothes or sleeping in my bed for instance. I might not even want people driving my personal car if it’s something that I collected, built, or restored myself.