Would I rather my house pile in shit or learn plumbing? Probably the latter. And then when my neighbor is having plumbing issues, I'll give 'em a hand.

And not everyone has to do this. My neighbor and I decide he'll take the garbage I'll take the plumbing. Or maybe we both learn both, and just switch.

You seem to forget that these things were born out of a need anyways. There's nothing stopping people from doing what they need to do to fulfill their community's needs.

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You seem to forget that these things were born out of a need anyways. There’s nothing stopping people from doing what they need to do to fulfill their community’s needs.

I actually grew up in a pretty remote village and back then it was devoid of infrastructure, so we did pretty much what you mentioned above. Burnt the garbage in the backyard, dug trenches for drainages, built outhouses (basically just a hole in the ground, but with roof and door), dug wells for water source, etc. But the village is small and everyone know each other, and thus very willing to help each other. However, I'm having a hard time imagining similar stuff would work in a high density modern city. The sheer complexity of plumbing that service a high rise apartment can't be maintained by some random dude without appropriate training for example.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah I'm sorry but all these people who just assume you can just fix some plumbing and learn it easily are really misunderstanding the importance of specialization. I wouldn't want my neighbor to fix my water heater without prior knowledge.

I don't really want people doing half a dozen jobs each poorly but having enough people properly trained to do the right job while having enough spares to make sure people have free time and the needs of community is met. Each paid a fair and livable wage for their specialized contribution.

This hippy idea of a utopia in so many people's minds about communism is not one bound to a reality that works.

[–] cyclohexane@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

That's a different kind of plumbing than what I was talking about, and I only simplified it for the case of an example. There's nothing preventing people to organize into a complex team of plumbing specialists, just like they would learn advanced engineering or medicine, and build chemical plants and factories or hospitals. Again, it would still be driven by need. If your need drives you to be an individual plumber for suburban homes, it can also drive you to be part of a specialist plumbing team in a large city.