Fulfillmentism

The End of Selfishness and Poverty

Zena O’Brien
 Fulfillmentism
The End of Economic Individualism

1. Fulfillment Equilibrium

1.1 Nature of Desire and Relational Theory of Value

1.2 Constructing The Fulfillment Equilibrium
1.3 Individual and Group Form

2. The Group Form

2.1 Common Value, Variable Value, and (do variable work requirements,
variable biology, and variable neurology/psychology.
2.2
2.3 The Necessity of a Global Economy( Talk about regional self-
sufficiency and lack of competition over resources, about regional
insufficiency and either one-sided giving of resources to prevent
shortages and territorial disputes OR two-sided exchange based on both
being insufficient in one or more areas where this exchange would
promote cohesion and create equilibrium)

FME In Group form includes working together where we are able to

accomplish a common goal together with more energy and team work.
Taking down a mammoth or lifting a log. Then talk about division of labor
and interdependence and how common value and working together in
specialized groups can lead to exchanges with the rest of society. Include
set of society and farmers-rest of society and in rest of society include
subgroups like doctors, etc.
1) Explain variable value and how to overcome it. Like how preference
determines the production of different forms of a means of fulfillment and
how this is okay. Like red apples over green apples.
2) Explain how different jobs require different amounts of resources. Like
military requiring more water and possibly food to maintain their physical
fitness to protect us. Or firefighters needing water to put out fires.

Different requirements for job

Different biology
Different neurology/psychology

Explain how we all want to have fun and that there can be different forms
of means of fun where different things can be produced for others to have
fun and that can be a job. Like making violins or drama props. And even if
“means of fun” aren’t of common value to all people you could still
produce means of fun on the side for yourself, as a gift, or for trade.

Difference in amount isn’t too big of a problem. Difference in nature is a

problem though.

Feelings as ultimate aim or end goal in the nature of desire. Then discuss
belief in relational theory of value because what we value may not always
be actually beneficial and talk about constant correlates of feelings and
actual causes of feelings. Then formalize it as ends and means of
fulfillment and explain what “fulfillment” is and the equilibrium

Introduction
 I created this economic system to be a replacement for the philosophy of

economic individualism and a replacement for the market system where working

alone for yourself and competing with others is encouraged. My whole life I’ve

experienced the materialism and individualism of this system where money

comes before others, where money comes before anything else, and the self-

centered mindset reigns. Where other facets of life are neglected

1. Fulfillment Equilibrium

We all desire a multitude of things. We desire their use because it’s

associated with (Talk about desire and transition into talks of a fulfillment

equilibrium).

The fulfillment equilibrium is the result of a new way of thinking about

supply, demand, and economic equilibrium. In order to understand what a

fulfillment equilibrium is and how it works you have to understand this new way

of thinking.

This new way of thinking comes in the form of new concepts and theories

such as a clearer understanding of the nature of desire and its many forms as

well as a new theory of value called the relational theory of value. These

concepts and theories give a detailed look at the mind of individuals, the
formation of their goals, attaining those goals, and whether they should attain

those goals in the first place.

With these new concepts and theories a new type of supply, demand, and

equilibrium emerge that doesn’t require a price mechanism to determine

production and distribution. This is true whether its an individual meeting all their

demands alone or a group of individuals working together to meet each others

demands. The group form of this economic system will be explained later in the

book because it requires additional concepts.

1.1 Nature of Desire and Relational Theory of Value

Desire and meeting our desires

When I speak of the nature of desire I mean identifying what makes all

the different desires we have “desires”. We all use the term desire in everyday

thought. We may “desire pizza”, “desire a new dress”, etc. But what is this

mental state or event that is desire?

To figure this out I tried to discover the commonalities between all “desires”

such as the desire for pizza or the desire for a new dress. What minimum

mental states were required for desire to exist? Through introspection I came to
realize that whenever I desire something it involves present states I’m

experiencing as well as present and future states I’m thinking about.

When I desire food I’m experiencing possibly a headache, light stomach

pain, and my surrounding environment while also thinking about the absence of

food now and the pleasure I’d get from eating food in the future. When I looked

at other examples I noticed a pattern. They all had feelings in common whether

experienced and/or thought of. I went on to construct 6 types of desire but I

believe only 5 of them are possible. They all have a type of present state

experienced and a type of future state thought of.

The first type of present state experienced is a negative feeling like pain,

misery, or something like that. The first type of future state thought of is a

positive feeling like pleasure, happiness, or something like this. Together these

states produce desire for the presence of a future positive feeling. This is a

“Type 1 Desire”.

The second type of present state experienced is a positive feeling. The

second type of future state thought of is a negative feeling. Together these

states produce desire for the continued presence of the present positive feeling.

This is a “Type 2 Desire”.

The third type of present state experienced is no feelings. The third type of

future state thought of is a positive feeling. Together these states produce a

desire for presence of a future positive feeling. This is a “Type 3 Desire”. An

example of a type 3 desire may be sexual desire.

The fourth type of present state experienced is a positive feeling. The

fourth type of future state thought of is no feelings. Together these states

produce a desire for the continued presence of the present positive feeling. This

is a “Type 4 Desire”.

The fifth type of present state experienced is no feelings. The fifth type of

future state thought of is a negative feeling. Together these states produce a

desire for the continued presence of no feelings. This is a “Type 5 Desire”. An

example of a type 5 desire would be wearing a cup when playing sports so your

genitals aren’t hit causing pain.

There is no “Type 6 Desire”. If there was it would look like this:

The sixth type of present state experienced is a negative feeling. The sixth type

of future state thought of is no feelings. Together these states produce a desire

for the future presence of no feelings. This is a “Type 6 Desire”.

The reason a type 6 desire is impossible is because you can’t eliminate negative

feelings with the addition of mere nonfeelings. By “nonfeelings” I mean things

that aren’t feelings like colors, sounds, shapes, etc. This is because nonfeelings

by themselves can co-exist with negative feelings. The world you see, hear, etc
doesn’t just disappear while experiencing a negative feeling. They exist together.

The only nonfeelings that can eliminate a negative feeling are nonfeelings that

cause positive feelings but by causing positive feelings we don’t transition from

negative feelings to no feelings. We transition from negative feelings to positive

feelings.

I claim we transition from negative feelings to positive feelings because a

positive feeling and its opposite negative feeling can’t co-exist. If they could co-

exist then desire would never exist because the only reason we desire positive

feelings is because when they exist negative feelings don’t.

As you can see desire is relational. It’s all about this relation between the

present state experienced and the future state thought of. That’s what desire is.

It’s worth mentioning that desire has something else in common with some other

relations other than just being a relation. It has an inverse relation that always

exists with it. I call this inverse relation “indesire”. Whenever you desire an

element in this relation you indesire the other element. It’s like saying you can’t

have inside without outside or above without below. You can’t have desire

without indesire and vice versa.

 These five types of desire are essential parts to all our good or service is

going to contain one of these types of desire as essential to it. Like the aim to

have and wear a cup playing sports or the desire for food.

The relational theory of value states that the value a good or service has

is determined by the feelings related to it. This can be the feeling’s absence or

presence depending on the relation. It looks at the causes and correlates of

feelings’ existence and absence but considers causes of feelings to be of

primary focus. This is because correlates of feelings are contingent and

nothing more. The feeling may or may not exist with the use of the good or

service. It’s never guaranteed. The only goods/services of value are ones that

actually cause the feeling’s presence or absence.

Despite this it’s important to consider correlates of feelings because many

times correlates of feelings are falsely believed to be causes of feelings. By

“causes” of feelings I mean things that necessitate those feelings.

Necessitation is when one thing’s existence means another thing MUST exist or

not exist. For example whenever water exists oxygen MUST exist. Another

example is whenever total darkness exists total light MUST not exist.

Even though correlates of feelings are falsely believed to be causes of

feelings that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an explanation for the constant
correlation between the use of a good/service and our feelings. It happens so

often that it makes sense to develop some doubt that it’s just a coincidence.

This is why I came up with the concept of “variable causes”. Variable causes

are causes that vary in existence between people. Differences in biology along

with differences in neurology and associated psychology together with our use

of goods/services can cause different experiences and feelings. This would

explain why individuals experience different effects from the same good that

happen to be constant.

(Must talk about how some value things that hurt them and about false

beliefs and desire)

1.2 Ends and Means of Fulfillment

The causes of our feelings’ presence and absence are called “means of

fulfillment”. This is because they bring about the presence or absence of the

feelings that we desire. Along with the means of fulfillment you have the “ends

of fulfillment” which are our ends that we want to bring about. These ends are

the presence and absence of particular feelings. The presence of happiness,

joy, etc and the absence of pain, misery, etc.

 Ends of fulfillment and means of fulfillment can both be in supply and in

demand. You have “fulfillment ends demanded” and “fulfillment ends

supplied” as well as “fulfillment means demanded” and “fulfillment means

supplied”. When you meet fulfillment ends demanded with fulfillment ends

supplied you have a “fulfillment ends equilibrium”. When you meet fulfillment

means demanded with fulfillment means supplied you have a “fulfillment

means equilibrium”. Both have their own unique graphs.

In this graph the “1” stands for one feeling’s desired presence/absence and its

real presence/absence. Although you can always increase the number based on
current demand and supply of a feeling’s presence/absence brought about. The

reason Y doesn’t equal X at the same time is because desire for the feeling’s

presence/absence usually goes away when you experience the feeling. For

example think of the times you’ve experienced a feeling after desiring it. You

usually don’t desire it as you experience it.

However sometimes you do desire a feeling while experiencing it. This is when

you’re experiencing the feeling and are thinking of another feeling you don’t

desire which makes you desire the current feeling to continue. It can be

represented as Y = X. In this case 1Y = 1X.

A fulfillment means equilibrium doesn’t include ends of fulfillment demanded and

supplied. Instead it’s known already that the means of fulfillment cause the

presence or absence of particular feelings.

1.3 Individual and Group Form

There is an individual and group form of this economic system. The

individual form looks at a single person’s fulfillment ends and means demanded

and how that individual meets those demands with their creation of the supply.

The group form looks at the total fulfillment ends and means demanded of

a group of people and how to meet these demands.

One form is chosen over the based on whether an individual is easily able

to meet all of their demands by themselves. If they are then the individual form

is chosen. If they aren’t then the group form is chosen. It may be hard or

impossible for an individual to meet all of their demands. In which case it’s

preferable and/or necessary to work with others to meet their demands.

Preferable because it’s easier to accomplish a task with others and necessary

because because you can’t accomplish the task by yourself.

One example are early humans hunting woolly mammoths. Doing it by

yourself would be hard, dangerous, and maybe even impossible so it would

motivate you to work with others to take a mammoth done. It’s easier, less

dangerous, and possible.

Another example is lifting a log. Some individuals can lift a log so this isn’t

a perfect example. However for many lifting a log is hard and maybe even
impossible for that individual. These individuals working together to lift the log

eases the burden on all of them. It’s not so heavy when everyone lifts it. Now it’s

easier and possible to lift this log and walk it to its destination.

I believe that currently we should adopt the group form of this economic

system because I don’t believe human individuals are able to meet all of our

demands by ourselves. It’s hard and impossible. We have too many demands

and the world is too complex. We would have to learn and do everything to meet

our demand for healthcare, shelter, food, water, clothing, etc. It’s preferable to

work together as teams of specialists in a group and to divide up the work.

It’s important to note that in the future our descendants may be able to

meet all their demands by themselves and may choose the individual form of

this economic system. This would be because they are super powerful and

super intelligent post-human beings. Post-human beings are discussed in

Transhumanism where individuals modify their biological systems and connect

mechanical and electronic parts to their biological systems. An interesting thing

to think about is it may not even be electronic parts but photonic parts that

operate quantum mechanically. It may even be that they wouldn’t be biological

at all anymore. This may sounds outlandish but I encourage you to look into

photonics and quantum computing.

 I talk of this potential future because we must learn to expect and accept

change. Sometimes things change for the worse but sometimes change is an

inevitable result of changing conditions such as humans modifying ourselves

and becoming more able to meet our own demands. Of course these

transhuman or post-human beings may choose to stay together because of fond

memories they have of others. That’s a real possibility but we shouldn’t think of

the group form of this economic system as the end all be all for all time. That’s

what many economic systems do and they never address their problems

because they’re ahistorical and don’t address changing conditions. They’re

static.
2. The Group Form

Unlike the individual form the group form is complex. The individual form

has a one being meeting their demands. The group form has multiple individuals

working together to meet everyone’s demands. That raises questions of how to

do this. How do we work together to meet everyone’s demands?

First off we have to consider the different ways of working together. There

are two ways. The first is as a team where we are all doing the same thing but

with our combined effort we accomplish the task we set out to accomplish. One

example of this is programmers all working together on a project.

The other way is by dividing up the work so each individual can focus on

one task. This is because there are a multitude of tasks to accomplish and it

would be easier to assign each individual just one or a couple of the tasks to

solely focus on completing. You can’t be at more than one place at once and

doing everything would overload and overwhelm any individual. An example of

this would be farmers producing food and architects designing buildings.

The first way of working is easy enough. Everyone does basically the

same thing and accomplishes a common goal. However the second needs more

detailed explanation of how it works. That starts by discussing the concept of

“common value”.
1.2 Common Value

In order to prevent this system from devolving into a barter and market

system we have to introduce the concept of “common value”. Common value

is when everyone values the same thing. Some examples would be that

everyone values food, water, and shelter to name a few.

Goods and services of common value can be exchanged with all members

of your community for other goods and services of common value. An example

of this would be a farmer exchanging food with doctors, nurses, construction

workers, etc for healthcare, housing, etc. Of course an individual by themselves

may be insufficient to produce enough of a good or service for everyone so they

would have to work with others who produce the same good or service as them.

These are called “specialized groups”.

These specialized groups require a certain amount of specialists to

produce enough of a good or service that can be exchanged with all members of

their community. Some examples of specialized groups would be farmers,

doctors, and construction workers.