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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1723 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I'm basically with you. I practice something like communism with my family. I think it can probably be successfully done in a collective of many dozens to perhaps even a few hundred humans, but at some point the scale tips and competition for scarce resources has to be managed through something less personal than familial love. Today abundance and prosperity is predominantly the result of trade, which is itself driven by scarcity (no point trading for what I already have). A world with Star Trek replicators and functionally infinite energy would be super cool, but we don't live there now and certainly won't get there by pretending that we do.

According to German leftists, the replicator equivalent we do have is "tax rich people".

"Wait, why are they all leaving?"

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