Jan 7, 17 / Aqu 07, 01 18:36 UTC

employees of government  

I'm interested in the question of the momentary payment of the salaries.I think it's a fulltime job for the admins and it's asking too much to work in an honorary capacity.

Feb 17, 17 / Pis 20, 01 15:08 UTC

I agree with you, but in an internet environment, it seems more like a volunteer work (after all, in my point of view, we should allocate all income for scientific research and development). When Asgardia establish its own territory, however, payment will be necessary -especially when we deal we a new nation, when we have to really build everything from zero, an entire system, ways to make things happen. It's a full time job and fundamental for our society. But when it comes to payment, first we have to establish minimum wage (and before that creat a currency, develop an economy, etc). I think that all the wages should be enough to cover ALL needs (considering universal healthcare and education), and also that wages in general shouln't have a big gap (from the lowest to the highest). That way, we would preserve economical equality as much as possible.

Best regards, Martine.

  Last edited by:  Martine Beauregard (Asgardian)  on Feb 17, 17 / Pis 20, 01 15:18 UTC, Total number of edits: 2 times

Feb 17, 17 / Pis 20, 01 20:33 UTC

Forum moderation is traditionally an unpaid volunteer position, even on corporate forums. I don't like the growing trend of unpaid labor, but the simple fact is that whenever a new forum goes up and a call for volunteer moderators and admins go out, willing volunteers inevitably appear to fill the positions.

Feb 18, 17 / Pis 21, 01 03:23 UTC

There's genuinely no reason why it cannot occur continually via community donated time/effort. To be honest, it's not as if the current admin/mods have a particularly difficult task - even a poorly designed suite of tools should allow for operations in a few clicks. And it's a computer, it can do much repetitive processing for you. Get cunning with your filters and it can even do most of the "reading" for you too. Maybe if everyone that'd signed up was actually using the service, there might be a scale of traffic that even with automation assistance the current pool would have to expend effort, but really it's a handfull of people - about 1% - that are actively posting, most traffic is from about two thousand users. In that eventuality you just "promote" (I'd consider it a punishment) more citizens to moderators.

If the government was to develop into a "direct democracy" model then this is pretty much what would be happening, across the board - Community donated time/effort - except not limited to the "chosen few" but unilaterally applied to citizens(maybe "of voting age" would be sensible) this can work because now, and for any forseeable future, with have no requirement to make rapid decisions so can spend time arguing amongst ourselves about what to do, and then about how to do it. It should scale as we do, and not only manage and maintain itself but do so almost entirely without cost. The sum of our whole is greater than the sum of our equal parts.

The "growing trend for unpaid labor" is something unfortunately you will have to deal with. Spiraling increases in population densities combined with enhancements in robotics, AI and automation in addition to the recognition that the current 3-5yr lifecycle on parts is unsustainable - as is the entire disposable thinking - and the changes this is going to bring as more design with lifecycles to span generations do not paint a pretty picture for the concept of employment as you understand it currently. The good news is this should open up more of your time for whatever it is you would like to do. Asgardia shouldn't need to employ people. It should just require to provide them with opertunities. Everyone likes to do something, give them everything they need and I'm sure they'll go and do it. It's not so much about unpaid labour, as much as chasing dreams. The product of them chasing their dreams is just a welcomed bonus.

Feb 18, 17 / Pis 21, 01 04:31 UTC

I honestly hope this trend never becomes popular amongst industry where the work actually matters. It would be disasterous, the quality of said work will be iffy at best if it gets done at all and the quality of all goods and services would greatly suffer too! In my opinion form moderators should be paid, they are expected to work at least three hours a day, deal with people who can be quite bothersome, do it all professionally, and on a daily basis while not receiving a dime!!! That is an unreasonable request of an unpaid employee if you ask me. The whole unpaid labor trend is bs in my opinion

Feb 18, 17 / Pis 21, 01 08:28 UTC

Those three hours could feasibly be covered by someone that'd be there anyway. You'd be surprised what can be done in three hours. The dealing with "bothersome" individuals would be why I'd suggested it was a punishment more than a promotion - but this within itself doens't warrent payment. Possibly therapy. The wider this was spread through the community, the less individual workload should need to be shouldered. I'd not suggest what is existant could be considred particularly taxing regardless. However should you choose to compensate them financially for their efforts, I'm sure they will readily accept it.

You might consider the "unpaid labour trend" to be "bs" but look at many community-driven open source projects - essentially the fruits of unpaid labour - and this really doesn't have to mean low quality. High prices just attract people trying to make money, it's no assurance of quality. Open source tends to attract people that would want to make useful products. And it's not just bedroom geeks that get on this, even microsoft recognise their entire business model is about to take a nosedive and they're starting to play in the open source sandbox nicely now too. Many major players in the automotive industry are contributing to the open source car etc. There is much change afoot, and the sensible ones will be moving that way now, getting ready.

  Updated  on Feb 18, 17 / Pis 21, 01 08:49 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: Additional data

Feb 19, 17 / Pis 22, 01 04:31 UTC

And i am busy with setting up some linux systems

Um, PXE? This is how it commonly occurs industrially - then all you have to do is boot it from the network and it sets itself up... Especially if this is something you are going to be doing more than once, much can be automated. A sysadmin isn't going to install OS's on 1000 machines across a site, they'll expend effort once in teaching the computer how to do it and then sit back and watch it do itself. A squid on or before the gateway can massively cut down external network transfers - and deployment times - as these things acquire latest packages from repositories as they apply defined payloads.

But yes, once it becomes a "job" then all the fun vanishes. People expect more for less, for a start. Of far more value than money is appreciation and sometimes recognititions - but ultimately both pale in comparision to actually enjoying doing it.

Feb 19, 17 / Pis 22, 01 07:39 UTC

Hello Eyer, Who said anything about high prices? I was referring specifically to unpaid workers like forum mods. I used to play a game by French publisher Ankama called Dofus and over the years I saw forum mods come and go. The main reason for the turnover rate was stress. Stress from having to work during the day and stress from having to come home, work some more, and deal with the trolls and the like while not receiving a dime! I even had an experience with one mod out right ignoring me regarding a matter he in my opinion unjustly penalized me for! Which would likely not have happened if the guy were receiving a paycheck for his work. But because he was not he did not have the incentive or professionalism to respond. So, in situations where the work being done matters it is best to pay the folks doing the work. So, yes unpaid labor is indeed bs, make no mistake though I do think the open source thing is nice and all, but I would not trust my life to a car with open source coding in control of it's systems.

Even though it is an illusion I would want the illusion of safety that a car without open source coding controlling it's system would provide. It provides peace of mind and there is already enough to be worried about in the world

Feb 20, 17 / Pis 23, 01 01:51 UTC

The main reason for the turnover rate was stress. Stress from having to work during the day and stress from having to come home, work some more, and deal with the trolls and the like while not receiving a dime!

But reciept of funding for this still doesn't amount to compensation. If this is the sort of thing that would bother you then no amount of money will balance it and the persuit of the money via this means will just cause you long term damages. It's not a healthy thing to promote. Or set near trolls, for that matter. Some people like to eat trolls, they don't need paying as they get to eat the trolls.

I even had an experience with one mod out right ignoring me regarding a matter he in my opinion unjustly penalized me for!

This is not something removed by the application of funding for the attribution of the "workforce" as it still hinges on the precise same flaw with either model - the human element. Should that person of been paid it would of very unlikely had any viable impact on the "unfair" disagreement which resulted in penalisation. Quite how you manage to form these links is honestly amazing. Professional people are professional, always. They are professional with no money, they are professional with all the money. What adjusts their output is the quality of their tools. The solution isn't to throw money at the problem, it's to impliment peer review(already in place here, apparently) and install greivance policy/procedures whilst opening up both for full transparencies. Problems can still happen, but they can be corrected by those lesser emotionally compromised.

I would not trust my life to a car with open source coding in control of it's systems

You should look around sometime at how much commercial tech leverages open source - in many cases without the slightest adjustments to the functional code and just exhibiting a custom frontend - in order to make itself operate. You'd be possibly amazed at what open source already does - and may learn precisely why it's that recognised as the future of operations even companies like Microsoft have started contributing. Especially coding, open source hardware is still a newish thing, open source is masively reliable and hence it's wide use. On the whole. Open source is perfect for cars, you can't be doing with rebooting the car every few days and malware in your vehicle sounds really clever. Open source projects with active and competent devel commonly roll off fixes much faster than their commercial counterparts - not becuase they are being paid, becuase they are trying to solve a problem better than anyone else.

See that open source vehicular AI system that Geohot kid popped off? Okay, open source was a spite move there, and it's obviously not the most advanced thing on the market, but not an overly poor solution. Because that's open source improving upon it and expanding it's capabilities is incredibly easy. Unlike the alternates. Over time, to assume continual developments, then it should result in a system that more than exceeds the costed solutions, and it's already pretty close on many fronts, most at least par.

The IDA - International Docking Adapter - on the ISS, that was open source http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/. Think we can agree that mating docking adapters are a pretty safety critical thing. Open source doesn't have to mean "slapdash basement productions".

  Updated  on Feb 20, 17 / Pis 23, 01 02:00 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: Added link

Feb 20, 17 / Pis 23, 01 16:41 UTC

I used to beta test games for a company. It was very fun. It was very rewarding. I don't do it anymore, because now I have a full time job and don't have time for it. Beta testing was a more fulfilling use of my time, but my job is more productive and I have chosen it because it is a compensated position and though I have less free time, I have better use of the free time I do have because of the increased income.

I look forward to the day when robots enable the vast majority of people to have full-time hobbies and do as they please. But sometimes things work better when they are involuntarily done. An obvious example is dealing with homelessness with charity versus dealing with homelessness with welfare. The former increases the number of homeless people and is fully voluntary, the latter decreases the number of homeless people and is mostly involuntary. I want a government that solves problems and the easiest way to do that is to pay people to solve them.

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 01:10 UTC

Paying someone else might be considered the "easy" option, but if you look at what actually is involved with completing the task it's the same if you pay someone or don't. What makes this tactic "easy" is that the effort is expended by "someone else". Not that this has involved monetary compensation.

As you'd noticed unpaid beta testing was "fun" so thusly was it's own reward. I could of interpreted this wrong but I took your statement to loosely read that you only really stopped it becuase you'd really required money for other reasons - general day-to-day living expenses. Should this not of been a concern and should the company keep turning out games you'd enjoy playing then it's likely you'd of continued this indefinitely?

You will not have to look far forwards to that day, already multiple variables have aligned into "tipping point" - there's no going back now - increased automation effectiveness and advancments in "AI" are assured and are already steadily wiping out available employment positions. It's inevitable, and will manifest responses like UBI-esque schemes within a decade in order to prevent companies going under when no-one can buy anything because no-one has a job to earn money. It's either that or there will be a mass global population cull, or they'll leave everyone to their own devices and hope they all starve to death before the ciminal activities and roiting wrecks everything. I'd like to think somehting similar to UBI will be persued first. Considering we will be operating in this almost certain eventuality, fueled for the next decade or so by other nations schemes as they account for their current population - there should be no requirement to offer monetary compensation for all the requirements of the population shall be otherwise dealt with. You want people who will want to be there, doing that, not those who will resent having to do it in order to get just a little more money.

You can look at charity and welfare as two ways of solving homelessness. I'd build more houses. That tends to solve homelessness, giving them somewhere to live. I'd not imagine homelessness to be a problem in Asgardia - by the time we can account for habitation of our population the manufacturing capacities to make that viable will of grown to the point where popping off habitation faster than we can collectively breed to be a certainty. Considering the harshness of space, things like housing and access to life support are more likely than not to be considered basic rights.

Things work better when the focus is solving the problem, not generating revenue, or trying to spend less money.

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 02:21 UTC

I had no pressing need for additional income, I simply preferred having more income more than I preferred continuing to beta test and work part time.

You're hitting on something important, with easy and someone else, but you're missing what makes that equation so important. We need other people to do things for us. Sometimes, oftentimes, we are highly dependent on other people doing things for us. Money facilitates that by functioning as objectified value or (even objectified will if you want to get 19th Century about it). I can transfer my value to you in a value that is worthwhile to you and in a medium that all parties consider to be fair and measurable. Otherwise, I have to convince you to do that thing for me or I have to pay you in non-monetary goods and services, which means one of us is getting a better deal than the other 99% of the time. What if I can't convince you and my life depends on it? What if I don't have anything you want and my life depends on it? There is an upside to everyone having their price. If we didn't, the homeless would starve as businesses refused to sell food to them, though there is always selling one's body when liquidity crises are severe enough to merit the desperation.

I can't look at charity as a way of solving homelessness. It has never solved homelessness. It usually exacerbates the situation in the non-immediate term. I chose it as an example that is unlikely to be a problem in Asgardia, because the realities of living in space will make it nearly impossible to tolerate homelessness merely ameliorated by charity. It's likely the government will own all or most housing modules on the station, too, so there won't be indifferent landlords to contend with.

  Last edited by:  Michael Hoselton (Asgardian)  on Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 02:24 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 05:08 UTC

Hello Eyer, Actually, receiving payment for the time and effort you put into a project is compensation. Also, while the unfair judgement may still have occured, the being ignored part would not have. Employees have rules to follow and seeing how that guy was a MOD, he was basically a customer service employee and I was the customer the most important thing to any business might I add! What conclusion? You simply assumed I was talking about being penalized and not having been ignored repeatedly at that! Of course, you have been doing nothing but assuming things this entire time so, it is no surprise. The open source project allows for some amazing things, yes I am aware of that however, I still would not knowingly entrust my life to a vehicle with open source coding. Call me crazy but, it does not seen very safe to me when, anyone with the knowledge could alter the programming!

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 11:27 UTC

The need for other people to do things for us can be minimised by allowing those within our number capable to do it - if they would choose. Already within our number the diverse range of skills, knowlege and experiences make for light work of most requirements. This is only going to increase. Combined with the lack of pressing requirement to conclude much of operations in a timely fashion then this model should be sufficient for some time. Especially with a direct democracy model in place, structured correctly manual maintainence would be remarkably minimal. It's natural operations should account for most things.

You don't need to convince anyone to do anything, really, they look at the project and decide if they want in. Even if not they might be able to offer a few pointers to assist. If it's something we've collectively decided should be happening then it's more than likely finding capable folks that are eager should not represent a particualr issue.

Regarding open source and adjustments to programming - yes, open source is intentionally easy to be adjusted. This is part of it's great strength. But it's not like the adjustments you make impact every possible copy everywhere. Only your copy. Unless you run the project or have applicable rights, the changes go nowhere. Anyone can contribute, but acceptance of the contrbution and merging into the active codebase isn't mandatory. Should anything malicous end up in the codebase and it's removal refused - it's open source, someone will fork it, make it safe, and call it something different(like when truecrypt became veracrypt. It's still not safe, but at least it's absent intentionally weakened algorithyms now). Closed source code is far less trustable as they're already trying to hide something, even if it isn't malicous this attempt makes it more difficult for reuse or repurposements. Even microsoft are lessening in this thinking with even entertaining of open sourcing their OS eventually. In the interim they've started open sourcing things like .Net and Visual Studio in order that programs built with can operate in any environment - just needs compiling for that system. Then you don't need to make a Windows/Linux/Mac/Android version of a program - you can just write one bit of code and it'll work everywhere. Open source can operate a lot like lego, when you don't have to build the bricks making things is a lot easier. Once you can freely take the things other people have made, add to them, change them - it makes it far easier for you to do anything, as most parts involved with getting it done are already functional. Open source is less crying like a five year old child because someone wants to play with your toys, and more sharing your toys so everyone has fun - and the more toys shared the more fun you can have. With respect to cars being powered by open source, and this being reponsible for safety, BMW - a company not known for making stupid descisions or unsafe vehicles - back in 2013 decided open source is the way forwards. http://www.bmw-carit.com/downloads/publications/ResearchOnAnOpenSourceSoftwarePlatformForAutonomousDrivingSystems.pdf. Many .gov - including yours - are going open source. Some already are. It already forms the core of many devices you likely would not suspect as many manufacturers simply change nothing of the code they steal, pay no respect to the licences involved and simply splash their logo in front of open source code.

With regards to the customer service employee, these rules are in place regardless of payment. You had made no mention previously of being ignored repeatedly, and my assumption was not that your spiel was about being penalised or ignored, but instead that of payment somehow magically adjusting the outcome. Instead of some applicable procedures, like performance reviews, peer review of all "official" action, transparent processes, greivance procedures - or anything else that could make a difference in such situations to anyone that can think sanely. Ultimately you couldn't of been that bothered or you'd of thought it's just a mod and gone and found someone higher in the chain that can actually do something, as it seemed like a "professional" company then I'm sure their customer services dept would of been a good place to start complaints about such minimally. I personally would be going straight to individuals responsible for that facet of the service. At their home seems to get the point nailed nicely. If their behaviour was that irrational and the company actually cared what people did in it's name, then such wouldn't be happening many more times once official complaints have been lodged.

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 23:04 UTC

Helloe Eyer, What makes you think I did not do just that? Just because I did not mention doing so does not mean you should assume that I did not! As for the open source project, I know the ease of altering the code is it's strength however, it is also it's weakness something that intentionally easy to alter is not safe and the lack of the ability to stop someone, from potentially making possibly dangerous alterations to the software is my concern and given the nature of humans it is a big concern of mine