133 réponses à ce sujet

[Volus Warlord]

I always love it when people use jargon as a guise for their jackassery.

[termokanden]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

People talk about how unsightly it is to have a factory in their backyard (which I don't understand, many factories are awesome)

Alright. First of all, I don't disagree that factories are absolutely necessary. But living next to a factory isn't awesome. It just isn't. Did you try it yourself? I know some people who lived close to a slaughterhouse for a number of years. It's not just because of the way they LOOK...

That's not to say that you should be willing to endure ANYTHING for the sake of a small improvement.  But the nice thing about free-market capitalism is that it's a self-correcting system--if the tradeoff is not in your favor, people stop making it.  The worst businesses go out of business, either because people stop buying from them or they get buried under a landslide of wrongful harm lawsuits.  They don't get declared to be "too big to fail" by the Nanny State and propped up so they can continue their bad policies.

One one hand I certainly understand why people complain about "the Nanny State". On the other hand, I always found it naive to think you can have a system that always corrects in the best possible way. I wouldn't say I believe in having NO government intervention but rather a minimal amount where it's actually needed (yes, I know this is is already a subject of heated debate). Similarly, I believe you should have the right to do whatever you want (and I do mean anything) as long as you are not hurting someone else. So if someone wants to have 3 wives, 2 husbands and 1 satanic funeral, I wouldn't mind at all (as long as I'm not one of them).

These are not all my political views though, but in any case I gave up on finding any political candidates who even halfway agree with me. We have a bunch of systems I hate. There are a bunch of alternatives I also hate. Democracy lets me do about this much to change things:

If you find factories hideous and city life absolutely disgraceful, you are free to move to the ass end of nowhere and spend your life eating bugs in a cave.  No one will stop you.

 
Those are my alternatives? Nice.

I mean, what kind of a statement is "I'm making you do this for your own good, and if you don't do it, I'll kill you!"  And I'm supposed to believe that you give a damn about what's good for me?

A classic example: You're hurting yourself by eating too much candy -> extra tax on products with a high sugar content.  It's a way of thinking that's much too standard where I live (Denmark). Ultimately it fails and people still get fat. You can't regulate personal responsibility like that. And why should you even try?

Actually that's also a classic example of how extra taxes are introduced in Denmark. Find some weird "altruistic" reason that extra taxes will somehow regulate a bad thing away. Extra cash. It's so transparent it's almost embarrassing to watch.

Am I sounding like a bitter old man yet?

[cJohnOne]

@mousestalker: I really found that to be funny as a joke about atlas shrugged but after over thinking it, what's wrong with admiring those guys?

[mousestalker]

cJohnOne wrote...

@mousestalker: I really found that to be funny as a joke about atlas shrugged but after over thinking it, what's wrong with admiring those guys?

Even a libertarian would find interfering with a public broadcast by a private concern to be sort of black hat hackery. I admire self made steel tycoons very much.

And what makes you think I was joking?

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Oh I got it here:
http://en.wikipedia....vism_(Ayn_Rand)
The Nonsense which turns humans into perception-action machine with lowering the role of the mediator (mind itself).
Still subjects are more important and without them you're worse than an Illiterate old man. IMO

[In Exile]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
Having argued this precise issue with many people, I think you are wrong about this.  Many, many, MANY people believe that if they don't know something (or it is, in fact, not possible TO know it), the *actual state* of the *physical objects* could be one or the other.

There is a difference between other people (as in, people who are or were undergraduates) and the philosophical view as espoused and articulated by those who developed it and who continue to develop it. Certainly there are tracts of subjectivism, and certainly some people believe that physical reality is itself malleable, but that needn't be the only form of subjectivity to speak of.

These are questions for the specific sciences, not philosophy.

Not neccesarily. Philosophy of science is a discipline, and if you study it, you realize that epistemologically speaking science makes very broad fundamental assumptions about what and how things can be known prior to conducting a scientific investigation. There are lots of things at play.

What Objectivism (big O) does state is that all knowledge is acquired via some *means*, and that in evaluating an item of knowledge, HOW you know it is just as important as WHAT you know, if not more so.  It is impossible to evaluate validity without evaluating method as well.

Personally, I know very little about Objectivity (big O, as you put it). How does this particular verificationist epistemology lead to a radical capitalist system that is at odds with many fundamental modern empi

Now, personally, I'd say declaring that something is unknowable is a bit premature--we can't know what future means of knowledge may be discovered.  But declaring off the cuff that everything is knowable by means available to humans is likewise premature and both declarations are rather pointless in any case.

As of right now, we can speak about knowable in principle. And there are many things which we cannot know in principle, because of the way in which we know them. Molecular and atomic and subatomic particles being an example, because "seeing" them requires adopting the theoretical framework that justifies the operation of the machinery that discovers them. 

Not to say that the reasonable belief isn't to avoid worrying about this at all. 

All human knowledge is concepts, unless you're talking about direct perceptual information.

There is a difference between a concept that is, in principle, funded on perceptual information and considered independent of human beings, and a purely theoretical concept. 

Unless, like I (believe) I said, you want to talk about an actual moral reality. 

"Justice" requires a huge foundation of further abstract concepts, like "relationship" and "society" and "earn" and "consequence" and "restitution" in order to define it down to the level where you can point at something and say "the word refers to THAT", whereas "table" just requires you to point at a table and say "table refers to THAT".  Every level of abstraction requires a new level of mental rigor to make sure that your concepts stay tied to the concretes they reference.  This is no simple task, but it is the only way to make sure you're not just philosophizing about something you made up in your head or pulled out of your ass.

I'm not ignorant of epistemology, as I said. But we can quite easily demarcate concepts on grounds of concretness, which is to say that you can point and say "I see an object" in a way that you cannot when you talk about virtues "I see morality."

Of course this itself is contestable, but not really relevant to my discussion with the one.

Now, if you use the term "moral reality" to refer to, say, a type of Platonic ideal realm of perfect moral action, yes, this is total horse pucky and nobody who speaks of such a thing can claim to be discussing anything that has anything to do with reality.  But if you're talking about the operation of morality in reality--that is, real, physical reality, then yes, there is such a thing as a "moral reality".  It's not some other magic realm of floating philosophical concepts.  It is simply reality, when you're talking about the meaning of people's choices and actions.   

No, I mean Platonic realm of forms. That's moral realism, in the narrow sense. 

[In Exile]

[quote]PsychoBlonde wrote...
Yes, and if you read any actual Objectivist literature, you'd know that there's an entire body of thought on the jurisprudence regarding so-called "negative externalities", that being a fancy word for "indirect or accidental damage".  But, hey, why bother to do the research when you can just make wild claims. [/quote]

Negative externality is not a fancy work for indirect or accidental damage. One of us is making wild claims, but it isn't me. 

An externality is a cost. It references hidden costs to usage or production of goods that, based on the state of affairs (either particular or in principle) is not added to the cost of doing business. It can be positive or negative.

A great example (right now) of a negative externality being the usage of water in industry. We have a water shortage, globally. We are looking at a potential crisis of supply against increasing demand in the next few decades. But does the price of goods reflect this? No! In fact, we don't even price water at all.

In the same way that we don't price air. If you don't appreciate the environmental examples, then we can talk about any kind of public goods. Public goods introduce externalities by their very nature.

Even if you believe that people are somehow rational (and long-run thinkers at that) and follow self-interest to the letter, by accurately assessing cost & benefits, it still remains that the entire cost system is out of whack.

[quote]It is actually not necessary to devote an entire legal code to "negative externalities" (nor is regulation necessary or advisable as a corrective measure) because anyone with a legitimate complaint already has recourse to the courts for restitution.[/quote]

Absolutely not. This is ridiculous. You've just compounded ignorance of economics with ignorance of jurisprudence. 

The court system cannot handle all possible litigiuous complaints. For one, the legal system would simply collapse under it's own weight. For another,the common law would establish precedent that works in principle just like regulation to reduce cost and create a manageable caseload. 

These are both fundamental consequences of how the legal system works.

This ignores the many, many problems with this: 1) the "restitution" that a court offers may in no way be equivalent (how do you value the life of a father who died at 35 because of asbestos poisoning)2) proving cause may be impossible (abestos is toxic in small quanities in the long run, and to prove cause you have to show the ailment was caused ; the company could easily get away with paying much lower costs and only in the long-run, and then only if they get found out at all); 3) this ignores the balance of power in legal representation that different individuals can afford. 

If you believe what you've posted here, then I suggest picking up a book on Law & Economics. There is a tremendous amount of literature on this. 

[quote]Nor is this their only option.  The only option they would lack in true laissez-faire capitalism (the system Objectivism endorses) is the ability to force other people to do or not do certain things PRIOR to the commission of any wrongdoing, lawbreaking, or harm.[/quote]

If you have a legal system, you're going to have precedent. You're going to have case-law. If you abandon the common law entirely, then what you will have is a court of arbitration without any kind of bite at all, because (frankly) you wouldn't even have a legal system. 

Contract law (just looking at the common law!) is a great example, because there are lots of things that are just outright illegal prior to writing any contract. And we can take the 1800s as our cut-off point for that. 
[quote]People talk about how unsightly it is to have a factory in their backyard (which I don't understand, many factories are awesome) and how THEY have to pay the price of this but those dirty capitalists don't, but who pays the price for the factories that don't get built because a couple of jerks don't want their view spoiled?  [/quote]

Who pays the price of thousands of kids born with deformities because of the toxic air pollution? Who pays the cost of the encroached forests, that now are much more likely to have forest fires? Who pays the cost of mining the raw materials that the factory collects, and the toxic waste dumped into the drinking water from that?

[quote]Who pays for the jobs that don't get created, the wealth that doesn't get created, the greater ease and comfort of everyone who can use the products created by those factories?  [/quote]

Who pays for dead children and workers?

Here: 

http://en.wikipedia....tos_and_the_law

This went on for a century. And who paid for all of the lives that were lost? What value do they have?

[quote]If the "negative externalities" people weren't hypocrites, they'd be considering just THAT sort of harm, too.  But of course they don't, because you can SEE a factory but you can't see an ABSENCE of factory. [/quote]

What are you even on about? 

A negative externality is a cost. Is the cost of 16% unemployment equivalent to the environmental damage (including health problems) resulting from factories? Who knows! That's an empirical question.

And you know what you've talked about? Positive externalities. The devative investment from industry, the higher standard of living from an economy at full employment. These are real benefits that are not reflected in the straight up price. 

But it's the real cost, so if you want to act as if there is (or isn't!) a tremendous harm done by a factory, then price it right. Let people choose between goods, with their real cost. 

Do you object to the government artificially reducing the cost of green technology? A factory whose pollution is not priced has, by neccesity it's pollution subsidized by the state. 

[quote] It's so much easier to rally the troops against something that's rather ugly and perhaps smells bad.  (Btw Frederic Bastiat's treatise "that which is seen and that which is not seen" is excellent reading.)[/quote]

It's apparently even easier to rally the troops against books and 40 years of economic (and psychological!) theory. 

A factory has an opportunity cost. And the opportunity cost has to be priced right for the factory to be the efficient choice, per capitalism. 

[quote]Everything in life is a tradeoff, but many people aren't willing to bother integrating their values to the point where they're willing to endure a few smokes and fumes if it means they get to enjoy much better employment than they could have otherwise obtained.  [/quote]

And if you actually understood what an externality was, you'd understand that 'trade-offs' can't even be spoken about without pricing the cost right. 

[quote]People want to eat meat but shrink from doing the butchering.  They want to look like Mr. Olympus but don't want to exercise.  They want to live in a fabulous mansion but don't want to start a company and work 15 hours a day for 30 years.[/quote]

Whatever crazy rant this is, it has nothing to do with an externality.

[quote]That's not to say that you should be willing to endure ANYTHING for the sake of a small improvement.  But the nice thing about free-market capitalism is that it's a self-correcting system--if the tradeoff is not in your favor, people stop making it.  [/quote]

If you actually understood how free-market capitalist works (it's really comical to see you try) you'd understand that an externality destroys the whole system by not being priced effectively. 

[quote]The worst businesses go out of business, either because people stop buying from them or they get buried under a landslide of wrongful harm lawsuits.  They don't get declared to be "too big to fail" by the Nanny State and propped up so they can continue their bad policies.[/quote]

I will avoid a real-world political talk, except to say this:

Google the Canadian banking industry. It is now one of the strongest in the world. TD Canada Trust, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, Scotia Bank and CIBC. They didn't just weather a recession - they've had tremendous growth. They avoided the entire real-estate bubble that shoved it's fist up America's behind.

And all of that came from financial regulation. Like, as it turns out, one American state that didn't sit down and play with stupid. And that was Texas, which had the most stringently regulated housing industry in the US.

[quote] The argument for free-market capitalism is that it does what is proper and moral for humans: it leaves people free to think for themselves (should they choose to) and to act on the results of their thinking, to the extent that they're not violating the rights of other people to do the same.  [/quote]

That's not the argument for capitalist. That's the fanatasy that Objectivists apparently believe in.

Free market capitalism is an economic system that's designed to generate wealth based on the most efficient allocation of resources, where "efficient allocation" is considered proportional to the amount that is willing to be paid for a resource. 

The simplest example being property. If I am willing to pay more for property, it is (in capitalist theory) because I will have a greater yield use for the land, which will (in the long-run!) generate wealth for all of us.

But this BS about freedom to do what you want, it's not even comical. It's ignorant and sad. 
 
[quote]No political system can fix the ills of life.  Will there be ills under free-market capitalism?  Sure.  What's the difference then?  Under free-market capitalism, people are FREE to pursue SOLUTIONS to those ills.  They have no need to hopelessly resign themselves to misery as the rule and measure of life.
[/quote]

That's just outright stupid. Under free market capitalist, all you're entitled to (IN THEORY) is efficient return on your assests, including your own labour. Freedom has nothing to do with capitalism. Unless, of course, you're ignorant. In which case I suppose it has a lot do with it. 

Modifié par In Exile, 03 septembre 2011 - 04:56 .

[grregg]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

(...)

The only option they would lack in true laissez-faire capitalism (the system Objectivism endorses) is the ability to force other people to do or not do certain things PRIOR to the commission of any wrongdoing, lawbreaking, or harm.

I don't think that's such a small thing as you make it out to be. I'm afraid that currently our capability of doing harm vastly outstrips what we can possibly redress. A case in point, "true laissez-faire capitalism" as I understand it would allow me to build a nuclear plant in my backyard. If it explodes, feel free to sue me. Not many (if any) societies are willing to take this kind of risks, and this is the source of a lot of regulation. To use a less dramatic example, if a company makes a car that tends to explode killing its operator, it is indeed very likely that the company will go out of business. Regardless of how much they go out of business (and how much they're forced to pay in damages), the dead people will stay dead. Since we cannot "correct" someone being dead, regulation is necessary. Or perhaps I shouldn't say necessary, I should say wanted.

Of course, you can push out the responsibility to the buyer and say that I am supposed to research my car purchases and if I bought an exploding piece of crap, it's my own fault. However, since not everyone is willing (and able) to research everything and since I can still be killed by an exploding car that my neighbor bought neglecting his research, that exactly why governments were formed.

PsychoBlonde wrote...

People talk about how unsightly it is to have a factory in their backyard...

(...)

I am honestly not sure what's the point of your rant (that's what I have to call it) here. That some people disagree with you? To an Objectivist that should hardly be a surprise and actually be a desired state of affairs, right? Surely people can decide to not have a factory in their backyard. Presumably they are willing to take the consequences of their decision. They will have to take them anyway.

The various exclamations against people being lazy bums that want everything without work are also somewhat mysterious. I do understand that people can be annoying but that's hardly an argument for or against Objectivism, is it?

[termokanden]

As I said before, I do not personally dispute the need for some regulation, I just think it's being done in entirely the wrong way. We're trying to save the environment, but nobody really knows what they're doing anyway (in Denmark right now, the big thing is saving a freaking plantation, which was man-made in the first place). We're saving people from themselves by attempting to economically punish bad habits like smoking and eating unhealthy food (it obviously doesn't work). The economy of course is a big topic for the upcoming election. There are a lot of ridiculous ideas being thrown around that experts and even your average person on the street can tell you won't do a thing to help.

It's a system that's very hard to love. Throwing it away entirely, however, would also be disastrous.

Modifié par termokanden, 03 septembre 2011 - 05:05 .

[In Exile]

termokanden wrote...

As I said before, I do not personally dispute the need for some regulation, I just think it's being done in entirely the wrong way.

I am not pro-regulation. But I am pro-cost, in the sense that I want everything to be priced as it should be, because I'm an ardent capitalist.

This includes account for psychological flaws. Hyperbolic discounting shows us how people fail to appreciate long-run costs. So we need to (for example) up the long-run cost of certain things such that people have the appropriate costs in front of them, to regulate their behaviour.

We're trying to save the environment, but nobody really knows what they're doing anyway (in Denmark right now, the big thing is saving a freaking plantation, which was man-made in the first place). We're saving people from themselves by attempting to economically punish bad habits like smoking and eating unhealthy food (it obviously doesn't work).

Tax policy should be behavioural neutral. Stupid tax policy isn't regulation, though.

[termokanden]

A different kind of regulation than what you mean perhaps, but certainly an attempt at regulating people's behavior through taxes.

My expertise is computers, not political science, so I may not be 100% precise in my language about it. But I do think I see what's going on here at the moment before the upcoming election, and I don't like it one bit.

I may be drifting off topic here.

[Ulous]

Behaviour is dictated by environent, in the science communities this isn't even controversial anymore.

So when you have an environemt that says one person has to get by at the expense of someone else! then that is exactly what people will do, regardless of if it is illegal or not.

[termokanden]

Ulous wrote...

Behaviour is dictated by environent, in the science communities this isn't even controversial anymore.

So when you have an environemt that says one person has to get by at the expense of someone else! then that is exactly what people will do, regardless of if it is illegal or not.

You make it sound like it's entirely dictated by environment. I don't think that's true. If you have a bunch of people in pretty much the same environment, they won't all do exactly the same thing every time.

[Ulous]

termokanden wrote...


You make it sound like it's entirely dictated by environment. I don't think that's true. If you have a bunch of people in pretty much the same environment, they won't all do exactly the same thing every time.

If you had been plucked from birth and put with a tribe of head hunters i'm afraid to tell you that right this moment you would be a head hunter, simply because you would be in that environment. If you had been kept in a dark room and just barely kept alive with food and drink with no human contact then I would dare not think what you would be like now, you sure as hell would not behave like any other human being on the planet.

Of course you are also right to an extent, but what you refer to as behaviour would be more simply put to individual thought, actual behaviour or more to the point bad behaviour is caused primarily by environment, an environment with scarcity is a prime example for causing bad behaviour in humans and/or animals, while most humans in our modern society do not witness extreme scarcity we still witness others in society being exposed to more scarcity than others.

Now when you know the formula for making money/profit you will know that it works on a system of scarcity + problems = profit, this makes money an enemy of abundance & efficiency, an environment with abundance & efficiency would create a sane/good society where people would behave much better, obviously there would be exceptions with regard to potentially mentally ill people but it would still be much better than it is now. Many people who read this would think I am talking about communism, however this is not true as communist societies also use and are corrupted by money, their societies are also exposed to massive amounts of scarcity.

I could go on forever and a day about how monetary infrastructure has created an immoral environment that spawns immoral behaviour but that would be quite a long read .

As I suggested earlier the only real way to create good behaviour is to create a good environment, the only way I believe this can be achieved is with the abolishment of politics and money and applying science and technology (a technocratic style society). Yes it is idealistic but so were many things we take for granted now.

Modifié par Ulous, 03 septembre 2011 - 06:47 .

[termokanden]

I just meant that you can't know that someone will be a criminal because they are from a poor area, for example. There are other factors to consider. But environment has a huge effect for sure.

Abolish poltics and money huh? As a (former) member of the scientific community, the thought of scientists controlling anything scares me a bit. I'm a big believer in science, but when you spend a lot of time with scientists, you realize that they are as silly as politicians (and there is a LOT of politics in science these days). But if you could have science without the politics, now that would be awesome indeed.

[grregg]

Ulous wrote...

(...)

As I suggested earlier the only real way to create good behaviour is to create a good environment, the only way I believe this can be achieved is with the abolishment of politics and money and applying science and technology (a technocratic style society). Yes it is idealistic but so were many things we take for granted now.

I feel compelled to point out that what you are proposing is in all likelihood an extremely brutal dictatorship. I guess even dictatorships have fans.

[termokanden]

You'd want to behave optimally, that's for sure. Otherwise...

[Rorschachinstein]

grregg wrote...

Ulous wrote...

(...)

As I suggested earlier the only real way to create good behaviour is to create a good environment, the only way I believe this can be achieved is with the abolishment of politics and money and applying science and technology (a technocratic style society). Yes it is idealistic but so were many things we take for granted now.

I feel compelled to point out that what you are proposing is in all likelihood an extremely brutal dictatorship. I guess even dictatorships have fans.

Yup. No money, no incentive, thus no willingness to do horrible job, no willingness, then force them, force them with soldiers. In theory of course. For all we know you could just brainwash people in cleaning toilets. But then that would be slavery wouldn't it.

[termokanden]

That's not entirely fair. You are assuming money is the only possible incentive. But money is only an incentive because our whole society is built around it. That's not necessarily the only way to do it.

Not that I have a better idea.

[grregg]

termokanden wrote...

That's not entirely fair. You are assuming money is the only possible incentive. But money is only an incentive because our whole society is built around it. That's not necessarily the only way to do it.

Not that I have a better idea.

It's not even the question of incentives. You can incentivize people with iPads, beer, or I don't know, potatoes. The real problem is that money is not just currency (like dollars, euro and what not), it is a mechanism to facilitate trade. As long as trade exists, money will exist too. If you abolish currency, something else will take its place. For example people will use beer as money. Or potatoes, although they are perishable, so alcohol is better.

So in order to truly abolish money, you have to abolish trade. Which leads us to the next problem, namely all human societies have to figure out how to deal with the fact that people want more stuff than there is stuff to go around. Free market with trade (and such) is one way of doing that. You want something? Trade for it.

But Ulous wants to scrap trade... So there has to be an organization that decides how much stuff you get. Think about it, you cannot even buy food. You get only to eat as much as Ulous says you get. And you can't even sell stuff you don't eat, because there's no trade.

The result is fairly predictable. First, there is an organization with an enormous power of controlling your life, since it literally decides whether you eat or not. Given that the organization has to consist of humans and given the human nature, it'll immediately get corrupt (absolute power corrupts). Second, there will immediately be an enormous black market. People WILL trade for stuff regardless whether that's legal or not. So... you'll need a powerful police-type of organization to control all this.

Sounds all around unpleasant, if you ask me.

[Ulous]

grregg wrote...


It's not even the question of incentives. You can incentivize people with iPads, beer, or I don't know, potatoes. The real problem is that money is not just currency (like dollars, euro and what not), it is a mechanism to facilitate trade. As long as trade exists, money will exist too. If you abolish currency, something else will take its place. For example people will use beer as money. Or potatoes, although they are perishable, so alcohol is better.

So in order to truly abolish money, you have to abolish trade. Which leads us to the next problem, namely all human societies have to figure out how to deal with the fact that people want more stuff than there is stuff to go around. Free market with trade (and such) is one way of doing that. You want something? Trade for it.

But Ulous wants to scrap trade... So there has to be an organization that decides how much stuff you get. Think about it, you cannot even buy food. You get only to eat as much as Ulous says you get. And you can't even sell stuff you don't eat, because there's no trade.

The result is fairly predictable. First, there is an organization with an enormous power of controlling your life, since it literally decides whether you eat or not. Given that the organization has to consist of humans and given the human nature, it'll immediately get corrupt (absolute power corrupts). Second, there will immediately be an enormous black market. People WILL trade for stuff regardless whether that's legal or not. So... you'll need a powerful police-type of organization to control all this.

Sounds all around unpleasant, if you ask me.

You first mention trade? Now can one person trade something with another person unless an individual can claim ownership on a certain resource? And also how can that be fair? For example a person or a small group of people strike oil, in today's system that qualifies that "lucky" person and the rest of his bloodline to claim exclusive rights on that resource, when in reality the planets resources should be the common heritage of every human being on the planet, and also to an extent every living creature on the planet. While still on this subject money has very little to do with trade per-se, money was invented for two reasons the first being to elevate people who know the money system inside out to the top of society and secondly as a means to control scarcity.

Secondly I do not propose a ration type system as such, I believe that by using technology and science you could simply take what you need at will (abolishing the need to trade), despite what people think there are more than enough resources on this planet to proviode for every human being and then some, the intelligent use of technology would also help maintain this abundance, don't forget as I mentioned earlier scarcity is a key part of creating value in todays system, therefore some things are intentionally made scarce to drive up value. The second factor in creating value/profit is problems, by simply treating problems you guarantee a constant flow of profit, if you cured the problem then that would cause that chain of profit to stop, hence where is the motivation to solve problems? I don't think it takes a genius to work out how many people and organisations would go bump if certain diseases where cured overnight.

You mention food distribution as though the current system handles it really well? Are you aware that around forty million people have died of starvation this year? Are you aware that over 60% of the worlds wealth and resources are owned and controlled by less than 5% of the worlds population? Again it doesn't take a brain box to work out that by re-distributing this intelligently that everyones need on the planet could be fulfilled as well as having luxuries, by having an environment so abundant human behaviour would be much better and I believe could eliminate the need for police full stop and definately would not require a police state as you mentioned (although it is apparant that we are moving into a police state under our current system).

If you went to the south pacific islands some years ago you would see that the people there were very friendly and were in an abundant environment, if you were a visitor they would throw you fish and fruit at will, they would not say "that's ten bucks please", they also did not have police but they didn't rape, beat and murder each other, while again their technology is/was not up to par with ours they still used it in their own way, for example they would build small boats and fishing equipment to fish with and ladders to climb trees to get fruit, they used technology intellectually to create abundance and to create a system where everything was shared so each individual probably only worked a few hours a week (which is vital when raising a child and it's early brain development). Many people would laugh and say that their is no way to aplly that to modern society because we are so heavily populated, but again this is wrong because our level of technology has increased with it, so it simply requires intelligent use of technology.

Now the idea of a system like this being some kind of scientific dictatorship is unfounded I believe, all it requires is again technology, for example computer technology without the barriers of illogical thinking would tell us that we need to replace oil as opposed to keep draining it out of the planet like there is no tomorrow (lol the irony of oil and no tomorrow), the current system demands that we keep pumping oil because of the potential monetary collapse it would cause if it slowed or was replaced, and to add an even bitter taste to it the more scarce it is becoming the more money a few elite people in society are making from it, if that isn't ****ed up then I don't know what is.

Modifié par Ulous, 04 septembre 2011 - 10:49 .

[Ulous]

*double post sorry*

Modifié par Ulous, 04 septembre 2011 - 08:13 .

[grregg]

Ulous wrote...

You first mention trade? Now can one person trade something with another person unless an individual can claim ownership on a certain resource? And also how can that be fair? For example a person or a small group of people strike oil, in today's system that qualifies that "lucky" person and the rest of his bloodline to claim exclusive rights on that resource, when in reality the planets resources should be the common heritage of every human being on the planet, and also to an extent every living creature on the planet. While still on this subject money has very little to do with trade per-se, money was invented for two reasons the first being to elevate people who know the money system inside out to the top of society and secondly as a means to control scarcity.

Secondly I do not propose a ration type system as such, I believe that by using technology and science you could simply take what you need at will (abolishing the need to trade), despite what people think there are more than enough resources on this planet to proviode for every human being and then some, the intelligent use of technology would also help maintain this abundance, don't forget as I mentioned earlier scarcity is a key part of creating value in todays system, therefore some things are intentionally made scarce to drive up value. The second factor in creating value/profit is problems, by simply treating problems you guarantee a constant flow of profit, if you cured the problem then that would cause that chain of profit to stop, hence where is the motivation to solve problems? I don't think it takes a genius to work out how many people and organisations would go bump if certain diseases where cured overnight.

You mention food distribution as though the current system handles it really well? Are you aware that around forty million people have died of starvation this year? Are you aware that over 60% of the worlds wealth and resources are owned and controlled by less than 5% of the worlds population? Again it doesn't take a brain box to work out that by re-distributing this intelligently that everyones need on the planet could be fulfilled as well as having luxuries, by having an environment so abundant human behaviour would be much better and I believe could eliminate the need for police full stop and definately would not require a police state as you mentioned (although it is apparant that we are moving into a police state under our current system).

If you went to the south pacific islands some years ago you would see that the people there were very friendly and were in an abundant environment, if you were a visitor they would throw you fish and fruit at will, they would not say "that's ten bucks please", they also did not have police but they didn't rape, beat and murder each other, while again their technology is/was not up to par with ours they still used it in their own way, for example they would build small boats and fishing equipment to fish with and ladders to climb trees to get fruit, they used technology intellectually to create abundance and to create a system where everything was shared so each individual probably only worked a few hours a week (which is vital when raising a child and it's early brain development). Many people would laugh and say that their is no way to aplly that to modern society because we are so heavily populated, but again this is wrong because our level of technology has increased with it, so it simply requires intelligent use of technology.

Now the idea of a system like this being some kind of scientific dictatorship is unfounded I believe, all it requires is again technology, for example computer technology without the barriers of illogical thinking would tell us that we need to replace oil as opposed to keep draining it out of the planet like there is no tomorrow (lol the irony of oil and no tomorrow), the current system demands that we keep pumping oil because of the potential monetary collapse it would cause if it slowed or was replaced, and to add an even bitter taste to it the more scarce it is becoming the more money a few elite people in society are making from it, if that isn't ****ed up then I don't know what is.

In no particular order...

I never said that the current system, loosely described as free-market capitalism, is perfect. Unlike PsychoBlonde (and other Objectivists) who generally believe that capitalism is right, proper and moral, I do not. It is simply one of the systems for controlling scarcity or distributing goods/services/etc in the society. It just happens to be the best one so far. Or perhaps to put it differently, it is the worst system except all the others that have been tried.

Your various critiques of capitalism are duly noted, believe me you are far from being alone there. But I'd rather you focus on fleshing out your utopia, since this is where most utopias fail. As long as they are in the nebulous stage it all looks good, as soon as they try to get down to details, they are in trouble. And you might find Plato's The Republic and its philosopher king interesting...

And speaking of utopias, where they usually fail is that they do not account for human nature. And I imagine that's really what this discussion is about. Is the current world the way it is because humans made it so (human nature), or are humans the way they are because they were shaped by the world (nurture)? And that's why most utopias sooner or later get around to the "create a new Man" part. Often accompanied by violently discarding the old (and presumably obsolete) type.

But, to step away from nurture vs. nature debate which is always tricky...

I do not believe that you will ever be able to make supply outstrip demand without instituting some kind of demand limiter. Ever. Even if you do manage it for some specific resource (say potatoes), all it will do, it will shift human competition to something else. People will compete for something, I don't know, land, place to live, number of plastic surgeries you have, whatever. It doesn't matter, what does matter is that people are competitive and they'll find something to compete for. And whatever the most desired good will be, you will run out. So either there will be shortage (and money will come back) or there will be rationing (hello police state). There certainly will be corruption. Human nature.

Not to mention that it does require some kind of organization that will say "this year we need X tons of potatoes." And then can actually enforce the production of X tons. How would that work without some kind of coercive system that will tell me "grregg, this year you will work on potatoes and you have to grow Y tons, or else." The current, imperfect, system uses money as an incentive. What happens in yours?

Also, I am extremely skeptical of the examples of happy pacific islanders and such. The state of nature is all nice and dandy in Rousseau's writings but in reality it is nothing pleasant. There was an interesting research about rates of violent death throughout history and what they found out was that the 20th century with its genocides, wars and revolutions was actually the safest century to-date. In some of the primitive societies they examined, your chance of violent death was around 40%. And that does not mean "eaten by a tiger", it means "murdered by a fellow human".

In short, I think your idea is a nice utopia but like all utopias it will fail because it does not account for human nature. And like all utopias it is impossible to even try it without a bloody revolution to begin with. I'd stay away from bloody revolutions if it's all the same for you...

[Ulous]

grregg wrote...

In no particular order...

I never said that the current system, loosely described as free-market capitalism, is perfect. Unlike PsychoBlonde (and other Objectivists) who generally believe that capitalism is right, proper and moral, I do not. It is simply one of the systems for controlling scarcity or distributing goods/services/etc in the society. It just happens to be the best one so far. Or perhaps to put it differently, it is the worst system except all the others that have been tried.

Your various critiques of capitalism are duly noted, believe me you are far from being alone there. But I'd rather you focus on fleshing out your utopia, since this is where most utopias fail. As long as they are in the nebulous stage it all looks good, as soon as they try to get down to details, they are in trouble. And you might find Plato's The Republic and its philosopher king interesting...

And speaking of utopias, where they usually fail is that they do not account for human nature. And I imagine that's really what this discussion is about. Is the current world the way it is because humans made it so (human nature), or are humans the way they are because they were shaped by the world (nurture)? And that's why most utopias sooner or later get around to the "create a new Man" part. Often accompanied by violently discarding the old (and presumably obsolete) type.

But, to step away from nurture vs. nature debate which is always tricky...

I do not believe that you will ever be able to make supply outstrip demand without instituting some kind of demand limiter. Ever. Even if you do manage it for some specific resource (say potatoes), all it will do, it will shift human competition to something else. People will compete for something, I don't know, land, place to live, number of plastic surgeries you have, whatever. It doesn't matter, what does matter is that people are competitive and they'll find something to compete for. And whatever the most desired good will be, you will run out. So either there will be shortage (and money will come back) or there will be rationing (hello police state). There certainly will be corruption. Human nature.

Not to mention that it does require some kind of organization that will say "this year we need X tons of potatoes." And then can actually enforce the production of X tons. How would that work without some kind of coercive system that will tell me "grregg, this year you will work on potatoes and you have to grow Y tons, or else." The current, imperfect, system uses money as an incentive. What happens in yours?

Also, I am extremely skeptical of the examples of happy pacific islanders and such. The state of nature is all nice and dandy in Rousseau's writings but in reality it is nothing pleasant. There was an interesting research about rates of violent death throughout history and what they found out was that the 20th century with its genocides, wars and revolutions was actually the safest century to-date. In some of the primitive societies they examined, your chance of violent death was around 40%. And that does not mean "eaten by a tiger", it means "murdered by a fellow human".

In short, I think your idea is a nice utopia but like all utopias it will fail because it does not account for human nature. And like all utopias it is impossible to even try it without a bloody revolution to begin with. I'd stay away from bloody revolutions if it's all the same for you...

In fairness I also believe Utopia is for the best part unachievable, it's just that I believe a system as I mentioned would be a hell of a lot better than it is now.

Moving on to the human nature thing as you said it is very difficult to differentiate human nature from environment, this mainly because it is impossible to study behaviour outside of environment, but what sets us apart from other species on this planet is that we can create environment, the problem is that the environment we have created for us now was created by the few to please the few, but back when it was all instigated it was seen as the best option as we were lacking the technology to implement anything else, I presume they thought "well it's better to have some living in luxury than everyone having next to nothing", the communist manifesto was at the time an alternative to this which I believe fell flat on it's face because it did not take technology into account and/or at the time lacked the technology to put into place properly, not that any country has actually implemented it as it was wrote anyway.

I can't really comment on the studies you mentioned with regard to murder rates (without research) but I would put anything like that again down to scarcity once again, i'm not sure how far you are going back but if you head back to tribal and earlier times then scarcity was a serious threat and although a majority of the deaths probably were not from animal attacks we still had to compete with animals for food, I would also presume that even in times of abundance we would have murdered from fear of scarcity, we even used to kill new borns because of this and again this was not because we are evil, nasty or bad by nature, it was simply survival. With this in mind today we can eliminate both scarcity and paranoia of scarcity, as technology is advanced and far reaching.

With regards to competition again it is a tricky subject, how much of it is human nature and how much of it is actually good or bad? Either way the system we are saddled with now forces us to be competitive and we are left with no choice but to partake, what makes this worse is that people actually fail to see that the forced competition is actually immoral, nobody see's their succesful job application as being immoral and why would they? Because it is both taught to us as being okay and legal. While mentioning our legal systems this is also another way the population is dumbed down, we are consumed with thinking things are only wrong if the government says they are, we will curse and spit at the scum bag that steals our car but we will not think twice about what resources were stolen to build our cars, infact how many people even know that what they buy is made with stolen resources or made with slave labour?

Staying on the subject of legal/law systems again these can be dealt with by science and technology, let's take an example of road safety violation and let's use speeding to be exact, a politician deals with the problem by giving us a fine if we break the speed limit, but everytime someone gets a fine that statute has failed, science would say "why can the car even go those speeds in the first place?", but then we go back to the immoral profit making system again, that super fast BMW is going to make someone a lot of money, why should they care if someone drives it at 160mph on a 70mph road?

But with all this said it is good that we see at least somewhat eye to eye, but if you are like me you will know that sooner or later (sooner i think) the global monetary system is more than likely going to collapse, then what happens? We can only hope that our poor thinking politicians can save us, but i'm not convinced.

Modifié par Ulous, 04 septembre 2011 - 07:37 .

[Ulous]

Ulous wrote...
:innocent:

Modifié par Ulous, 04 septembre 2011 - 07:37 .