this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Socialism

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Thought this was pretty interesting and entertaining. Made me dream for a while about what living in a society with a mature library economy would be like. Figured I'd share and try to get a discussion going. Enjoy!

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[–] vent@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

So I figured I'd try to think about some immediate obstacles to setting up an anything library, or a usufruct (thats me trying to coin a more elegant name).

One thing that comes to mind: how to stop randos from taking stuff and selling it. Sure this might not be a problem in a post-scarcity society where resources are distributed well and people know their neighbors, but right now we aint living in that.

A solution might be to make private usufructs first, exclusively for members of an affinity group or neighborhood, and have some security to stop outsiders taking things. Its not pretty, but might be necessary for getting the library economy off the ground.

Another problem is where to store things. Where to put a usufruct? Buildings aint cheap, whether rent or mortgage. Especially in cities. My thoughts were maybe not having a physical usufruct in the beginning at all. Have a site in which stocks can be listed, and people simply stop by each others houses to pick stuff up. No capital needed.

@phneutral@feddit.de had a similar idea, although I'm skeptical of having it completely open (at first) and attaching any kind of points/rep based system onto it, i.e. likes. Reputation is obviously important to any social system, but I think humans do a far better job than an algorithm or formula. However, maybe they had a different purpose in mind for likes on such a system.

[–] EthicalAI@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We need to actually do it! Anyone could start one. Someone in the no-buy community, or an actual librarian, would be the best choice.

[–] PostmodernPythia@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a librarian who has done some of the exploratory research into starting a local asset-sharing collective, LendEngine is useful, intuitive, and pretty cheap. I have not found anything FOSS that does the equivalent, but any programmers that want to help the movement, have at it.

[–] EthicalAI@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

That sounds like a great project to work on, I’ll look into it.