Recent content by Siv

When comparing with communism, it may be better, I agree. But where is this (unwritten) rule that there should be no other options?

Sure, Czibor. But which claim, precisely? I had quoted E.O Wilson's famous "Great idea, wrong species."

Human nature is essentially the behavioural and psychological aspects of human beings, a lot of which helped our evolutionary journey. There are common aspects to all human behaviour. This is a very brief description to something that can cover libraries ... Bad aspects - oh there are so many...

I agree. But I think there are plenty of examples of its imperfections. The bad aspects of human nature need to be suppressed and discouraged. Thats the whole definition of "civilization". Capitalism does just the opposite. Going one step further ... and I know there will be cries of "Nazism"...

I think that curiosity and the hunger for knowledge are wonderful aspects of human nature :smile: They have made us discover so many fascinating things about ourselves and our universe. I sometimes wonder why people need so many myths in life, reality is so much more fascinating !

I think it was Jacob Bronowski who said this - I don't think that smacks of elitism ... it is the only meaningful destination there can be. Knowledge includes knowledge about ourselves and our interactions with each other, as well as about the universe. I think, as scientific minded...

And I hope you liked it, Zapper.

This is what I will be making for lunch today, so thought I would post about that ... Kerala Fish Stew http://mariasmenu.com/fish/fish-molly There are slight variations but the common thing is ... fish, coconut milk and spices :smile: My family loves it !

Life expectancy increase is a result of capitalism?? Thats a stretch. Louis Pasteur discovered the benefit of washing hands with soap ... and then medicine became scientific ... until the profit motive caught up with it to seriously damage these benefits. Increasing life expectancy has...

What long term gains ? I have read Steven Pinker's book too ... but my benchmark is not how bad things were centuries ago, my benchmark is how much better it could have been ... and the opportunities we have lost. We are destroying the environment, our entire food, health and nutrition...

There is plenty of evidence for human nature, but it is vast, volumes and volumes of research papers and books. I would have a tough time citing a few links for a forum debate.

Whoa ... what's with all this pouncing around? PF certainly has lost a lot of its warmth and charm :wink: So Lavinia, you want evidence for the existence of human nature??

The foundation of capitalism is motivating people using the profit motive. You can use nice sounding terms like "harnessing" but the fact is that the whole free market encourages this short term, selfish thinking in humans. Can you post me some evidence of what's being done to "improve"...

Thanks, lavinia. There are tons of examples ... http://www.biospectrumasia.com/biospectrum/analysis/192973/worlds-big-pharma-frauds http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/08/pharma-misbehaviour-gsk-fine Why would pharma companies bother about researching long term health benefits of...

Accepting the imperfections in human nature is one thing ... encouraging those very things which make us imperfect and short sighted is quite something else. Communism was not the right system for us I know - as E O Wilson said - "Great system, wrong species!" but capitalism is really not much...