Sorry for the delayed reply. Been AFK.
What, to you, is the actual difference between a community working together and organizing their resources for the common benefit, and a government?
The ability to collaborate solely with values-aligned community rather than being forced to reach consensus across all people in a geographic region regardless of how antagonistic or philosophically misaligned we are.
The city/state level is much more likely to achieve things like this and that’s great but it’s not always the case. Regulatory capture and complex relationships with industry players make the government an imperfect vehicle for doing what’s best for communities. Sometimes a downright impediment to it.
My point is that there’s nothing inherently stopping us from doing it for ourselves in any situation where the state is not optimally stewarding the public trust on our behalf, and the sooner we figure that out the sooner we start solving up-til-now rather intractable problems.
I’m an Uber driver and it’s a godsend of flexibility and decent, consistent income for me but I’d be so much happier with a collectively-owned alternative that charges less and passes more of the ride fare onto the drivers.
There’s nothing inherently stopping us from crowdfunding services with a similar “business model” separate from the government. Can’t wait for that light bulb to flicker on for most of us.
Can’t quite put my finger on it but something about this doesn’t sit right with me
Abusing terminology, especially by marketers, is frustrating and cringe. But don’t underestimate the value in having a simple, shared term to describe a paradigm many things fit into.
I’ll have to check that out. I’ve enjoyed some of Vinge’s other work as well. The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, and Rainbow’s End were all pretty great reads as I recall (been awhile).
Did you say sequels??? I’ve read A Fire Upon the Deep and a Deepness in the Sky. There are others???
That’s easy. Rinse, repeat.