History Greatest debate in modern history? Socialism(not Stalinism) vs Capitalism

[Al68]

Capitalism obviously fails because...

Have any idea how the overwhelming majority of humans lived prior to the rise of capitalism?

Claiming that the current shortcomings of society are the result of capitalism is like claiming that an egg shortage is the result of chickens.

 

[Sea Cow]

Have any idea how the overwhelming majority of humans lived prior to the rise of capitalism?

I presume you mean prior to the Industrial Revolution, in which case the answer is that most humans lived as peasant farmers, although there were still a fair few hunter-gatherers dotted about. Some lived quite decent lives if they could avoid such things as the plague and stay out of the way of wars. Others didn't.

What's your point?

With a good harvest, a medieval peasant had a pretty good life. Work hard when there's work to be done; eat, drink and have lots of sex when there isn't... They may have lacked political freedom, but their lord exerted much less influence over their day-to-day lives than a 19th-century factory owner did his workers.

 

[brainstorm]

With a good harvest, a medieval peasant had a pretty good life. Work hard when there's work to be done; eat, drink and have lots of sex when there isn't... They may have lacked political freedom, but their lord exerted much less influence over their day-to-day lives than a 19th-century factory owner did his workers.

I don't think sex was quite as exciting before the repression of the victorian era propelled it to contemporary levels of eroticism.

 

[Kajahtava]

Have any idea how the overwhelming majority of humans lived prior to the rise of capitalism?

What was this 'before capitalism' you speak of?

There was always capitalism, perfect ideal capitalism is taking no artificial steps to control the market. Even primitive tribes trading is capitalism, supply and demand.

There was capitalism in the renaissance, in the mediaeval ages, in classical times, in prehistoric times and so on. Socialism is a fairly new innovation, before that, all markets essentially worked without artificial control, the idea of socialism is for some governing authority to take active control and steer the market.

Claiming that the current shortcomings of society are the result of capitalism is like claiming that an egg shortage is the result of chickens.

I can't remember to ever having named the word 'current'.

In all fairness, it's the result of advertisement campaigns. Capitalism works on the assumption that the consumers will always buy the best product for the lowest price, thereby forcing companies to produce the best for the lowest.

However that's not true, that's only one factor that plays, and a very slim one, in the end, the best advertisement campaign wins, not the best product. If I advertise and overpriced and bad product brilliantly, it will out-sell a cheap and high quality product without an advertisement campaign.

 

[Frame Dragger]

What was this 'before capitalism' you speak of?

There was always capitalism, perfect ideal capitalism is taking no artificial steps to control the market. Even primitive tribes trading is capitalism, supply and demand.

There was capitalism in the renaissance, in the mediaeval ages, in classical times, in prehistoric times and so on. Socialism is a fairly new innovation, before that, all markets essentially worked without artificial control, the idea of socialism is for some governing authority to take active control and steer the market.

I can't remember to ever having named the word 'current'.

In all fairness, it's the result of advertisement campaigns. Capitalism works on the assumption that the consumers will always buy the best product for the lowest price, thereby forcing companies to produce the best for the lowest.

However that's not true, that's only one factor that plays, and a very slim one, in the end, the best advertisement campaign wins, not the best product. If I advertise and overpriced and bad product brilliantly, it will out-sell a cheap and high quality product without an advertisement campaign.

Hell, a good portion of The Code of Hammurabi (circa 2250 BCE) deals with how one is to be compensated with money or grain for various jobs, hirings, fines, etc. It didn't seem to be a new or shocking notion at that time either. That said, there are many different flavours of capitalism, as with socialism.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I don't think sex was quite as exciting before the repression of the victorian era propelled it to contemporary levels of eroticism.

I don't know, being given a copy of the Kama Sutra as standard fare, along with the various forms of art which were, frankly, quite explicit would seem to indicate that sex, like food, is a matter of taste and technique.

Repression is interesting, but then, sex without fear and with a skilled partner is MUCH better than a lifetime of fumbling caresses and petticoats.

 

[brainstorm]

There was capitalism in the renaissance, in the mediaeval ages, in classical times, in prehistoric times and so on. Socialism is a fairly new innovation, before that, all markets essentially worked without artificial control, the idea of socialism is for some governing authority to take active control and steer the market.

Capitalism and socialism have never existed without the other in some form. They are two sides of the same coin. One is freedom in economic activity and the other is any attempt to control it for the benefit of (some or all) people at the expense of the freedom (of some or all).

Free market capitalism is predicated on the absence of market control (except to ensure the basic conditions of a free market) and what reason is there for any form of market control except the social benefit of some or all people.

Sometimes people argue with me that socialism is only socialism when it involves the intent to create more equality through redistribution. That's not true, because socialism never redistributes more than it has to in order to keep the poorest people happy and consenting to the regime. Some people always benefit more than others, while other people have to keep working at tasks they may not like but nevertheless have to do because if they don't, others would have to go without their product. It's not like those who govern or those who benefit from redistribution are offering to share in the productive labor of those whose products and services they consume.

So socialism really comes down to modern aristocracy, with fixed social positions and a relatively flat distribution of income to legitimate maintaining class distinctions. Office workers and trash collectors may make closer to the same amount of money, but the reason the office workers support paying the trash collectors more, is because they expect them to be happy and continue to take care of their trash as a result. Socialism, in other words, is buying off the poor when communist revolution or other economic crisis/failure of capitalism is feared. It's saying, "we'll pay you more and guarantee your job - just keep preserving the system that privileges us."

 

[Kajahtava]

Capitalism and socialism have never existed without the other in some form. They are two sides of the same coin. One is freedom in economic activity and the other is any attempt to control it for the benefit of (some or all) people at the expense of the freedom (of some or all).

No, that's oligarchy, socialism, or communism as the words suggest is chiefly trying to control it for the people.

Communism, to commune, community? It basically means 'sticking together'.

There is a distinct difference between socialism and a market that is not free. If I suddenly ban the selling of certain drugs that has nothing to do with socialism or not. And indeed, many advocates of capitalism call for banning of drugs and prostitution for instance, while many socialists simply advocate treating it as a business like any other.

Free market capitalism is predicated on the absence of market control (except to ensure the basic conditions of a free market) and what reason is there for any form of market control except the social benefit of some or all people.

None.

Sometimes people argue with me that socialism is only socialism when it involves the intent to create more equality through redistribution.

Did you ever read Das Kapital?

Just asking, because you're re-defining the term socialism here.

That's not true, because socialism never redistributes more than it has to in order to keep the poorest people happy and consenting to the regime.

Counter-example: Netherlands, the country that I live in. It re-distributes a lot more than that, it also subsidizes art from taxes for instance, often pretty high culture art that has no appeal to at the poorest layers of society.

Some people always benefit more than others, while other people have to keep working at tasks they may not like but nevertheless have to do because if they don't, others would have to go without their product. It's not like those who govern or those who benefit from redistribution are offering to share in the productive labor of those whose products and services they consume.

I have no idea what this means, sorry.

So socialism really comes down to modern aristocracy, with fixed social positions and a relatively flat distribution of income to legitimate maintaining class distinctions. Office workers and trash collectors may make closer to the same amount of money, but the reason the office workers support paying the trash collectors more, is because they expect them to be happy and continue to take care of their trash as a result. Socialism, in other words, is buying off the poor when communist revolution or other economic crisis/failure of capitalism is feared. It's saying, "we'll pay you more and guarantee your job - just keep preserving the system that privileges us."

You almost make it sound as if the richer layers of society willingly give it up to the poorer.

Of course not, they're forced to do so by the law.

 

[brainstorm]

No, that's oligarchy, socialism, or communism as the words suggest is chiefly trying to control it for the people.

Communism, to commune, community? It basically means 'sticking together'.

"Sticking together" and "for the people" are just legitimating ideologies. In reality "the people" or "the collective good" are never really about distributing all privileges and work equally among everyone. It's just about buying off the lower classes in order to guarantee the social position of those with higher status. The logic is, "the government treats you so well, why should you complain about doing your job."

There is a distinct difference between socialism and a market that is not free. If I suddenly ban the selling of certain drugs that has nothing to do with socialism or not. And indeed, many advocates of capitalism call for banning of drugs and prostitution for instance, while many socialists simply advocate treating it as a business like any other.

Drugs and prostitution are businesses like any other, except the product is highly addictive and the consumers lose control over their ability to resist consuming. This means basically guaranteed sales for the producer/dealer/pimp. It also means guaranteed tax revenues for the government that taxes it. I'm familiar with the Dutch rhetoric legitimating the toleration of drugs and prostitution, but I'm afraid it's just the result of some people being addicted to the products and others being addicted to the level of business and tax revenues that the industries generate.

Did you ever read Das Kapital?

Just asking, because you're re-defining the term socialism here.

Yes, it's short. Marx saw socialism as the worst enemy of communism. I am basically repeating his critique here. He saw it as the bourgeoisie's attempt to buy off the working class to avoid communist revolution. I'm not for revolution, personally, but I think a free republic is very close to Marx's ideal communism, except the means of production are owned individually by the workers instead of collectively. The main benefit of Marx's communism anyway, imo, in the synthesis of proletariat and bourgeoisie, which basically translates to everyone having a universal consciousness in which they both perform productive labor and take responsibility for the means of production. Capitalism, according to Marx, is what alienates each class from the consciousness of the other.

Counter-example: Netherlands, the country that I live in. It re-distributes a lot more than that, it also subsidizes art from taxes for instance, often pretty high culture art that has no appeal to at the poorest layers of society.

Again, I'm familiar. That government is basically subsidizing class-culture pluralism. It's called "pillarization," I think. There is little if any class mobility. Workers work, cleaners clean, artists paint, and intellectuals communicate. Each is guaranteed in their position and income and is forbidden from branching out into other sectors. Individuals are imprisoned within a formalized division of labor, supposedly instituted by unions in their own interest and protection.

I have no idea what this means, sorry.

It means that true redistributive equality would also include redistributing forms of labor and places to live every so often. In other words, a college professor would switch to sweeping the street after a couple years, then to working in a supermarket, etc. Also, someone living in a nice expensive apartment in Amsterdam would move to Groningen or some small town, and vice-versa. The fact that these kinds of trades do not take place indicates to me that while income and consumption-opportunities are somewhat leveled by Dutch government, class distinctions based on profession and where people live is not addressed for redistribution/sharing/equalization.

You almost make it sound as if the richer layers of society willingly give it up to the poorer.

Of course not, they're forced to do so by the law.

It seems that way, doesn't it. The truth is that by funding the poor through government, the rich make the poor dependent on a lifestyle they provide them. The government and unions are just used to propagate the belief that the poor are exercising power by taking money from the rich. In reality the ideology, which is explicit for the most part, is to share the spoils of capitalism to make everyone happy with it.

Of course it would be wonderful if everyone could live at the standards provided by the Dutch government, but obviously it isn't or else there wouldn't be such strong resistance to migration. Dutch social benefits fuel the desire of citizens to "protect their paradise from outsiders." Again, this is an effect of being on a payroll. I have been trying to figure out what interest there is in making people so protective of their nanny-state, and I think it has to do with creating solidarity and national pride, and also maintaining high population density, since that stimulates high property prices for relatively small living areas.

Ideally the Dutch way of life could be extended to a global universal, but I wonder if it would be either feasible or sustainable if there was no exploitative/exploitated capitalist markets outside the socialist paradises to use as investment markets to generate the surplus wealth that gets redistributed to the beneficiaries of the system.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You almost make it sound as if the richer layers of society willingly give it up to the poorer.

Of course not, they're forced to do so by the law.

I believe that Brain means the "rich" or "upperclass" are the ones who make the laws and they mandate higher wages for workers in order to keep them happy and preserve their own place in the social structure.

Brain also brings up an interesting idea of equality. At least the question of whether or not economic equality is really a true measure of equality. Just because one has money does not necessarily mean that they are possessed of the same equality of opportunity for liberty and self fulfillment as anyone else. While I, as a garbageman, may make the same amount of money as some technician it does not mean that I am anywhere near as happy or fulfilled as the technician. For individualists in particular happiness and liberty are rather valuable commodities and most strive for economic advancement for little other reason than to attempt to attain these more abstract desires. In fact giving me more money may only be a means of oppressing me by making me feel that I should be happy with my occupation and not disrupt the allegedly equal social structure.edit: Looks like Brain beat me to it.

 

[SixNein]

Personally, I find all of these ideologies suck.

Capitalism contains a contradiction.
Pure socialism contains a contradiction.
Both systems involve government, so they carry the baggage of politics.
Both systems can be abused so easily that its too tempting for those with the opportunity to resist.

Why not a brand new ideology rooted in the scientific method? Why are we stuck between two failed economic ideologies?

 

[Frame Dragger]

Personally, I find all of these ideologies suck.

Capitalism contains a contradiction.
Pure socialism contains a contradiction.
Both systems involve government, so they carry the baggage of politics.
Both systems can be abused so easily that its too tempting for those with the opportunity to resist.

Why not a brand new ideology rooted in the scientific method? Why are we stuck between two failed economic ideologies?

I don't know that either ideology sucks in theory, but in practice no ONE ideology can encompass the sum of humanity in an ideal fashion. The thing is, in the absence of a stable ideology around which you form a lasting rule, once your benevolent/effective president/king/congress/synod/etc... DIES, you're hoping for more of the same. That tends not to work. (Henry V -> Henry VI for instance).

 

[Thetom]

I was just going to make a quick comment. Seems I wrote a small book. Needed to get it of my chest though...

I'm not sure which is best (capitalism or socialism) as I have never experienced either. All I know coming from England is a twisted form of equality. Corrupt, and masquerading as an opportunists dream.

I know people who have worked hard all their life and still have nothing to show for it. The majority of us have to work long, hard hours for pittance while others become rich from half the effort. Why do bankers deserve more money than bin men or street sweepers? Which is really more important? Why do celebrities deserve hundreds of thousands of pounds for appearing on a t.v show when I know people who shovel chicken poo for twelve hours a day and barely get anything for it. It's incredibly unfair.
If you think that in this world most people are rewarded for their hard work you are gravely mistaken. Me and the other billion below the poverty line will gladly attest to that. Many of us work till out hands bleed, yet politicians claim second homes as expenses from our tax. Capitalism is dog eat dog - anything goes - each to their own - look after number one. And people wonder what is wrong with the youth of today. We even coin new phrases to describe it: 'anti-social behavior'. Well capitalism is anti-social behaviour. The children are just following our social ideals.

I like the idea of socialism. Spread the wealth. I would happily give half of what I have to the next man. Maybe then the little old lady who lives down my street could afford to eat and heat her home and wouldn't have to worry about tyrants taking her possessions. And I'm not talking about the kids. Maybe, if we all shared the global resources abit then people from poverty stricken countries could actually eat. Poverty stricken countries, ha! Capitalist stricken more like it. Take America, was once a free and promising place until we brits took it by force and enslaved the indigenous people. Now we go about attacking other countries, in the name of peace, no-less. Basically to steal their resources. Oh, and to 'give them democracy'. Well our version of democracy is really pick your new dictator. When was the last time you voted on anything? never right? America uses enough resources each year to support the rest of the planet three times over. Three times over! I suspect england is just as bad. Why do we deserve to be so selfish and wasteful? because we have earned the right through hard work? I don't think so. There is a huge imbalance. Can you not see it?

All under the farce of capitalism. Equal opportunities for all? If you work hard you will be rewarded? Don't make me laugh. Maybe capitalism could work but what we have now is pure corruption. Anyone advocating capitalism,... you do realize that most of our wealth was stolen don't you? We didn't earn it. It is no coincident that some countries are rich, and others poor. We made them poor. We have murderer and enslaved millions in our history and stolen any resource worth having. I think we should give it all back! Spread the wealth. Maybe then Planet Earth could see a true golden age.

 

[SixNein]

I don't know that either ideology sucks in theory, but in practice no ONE ideology can encompass the sum of humanity in an ideal fashion. The thing is, in the absence of a stable ideology around which you form a lasting rule, once your benevolent/effective president/king/congress/synod/etc... DIES, you're hoping for more of the same. That tends not to work. (Henry V -> Henry VI for instance).

Even in theory, I do not see these ideologies working because they contain contradictions.

For example, look at capitalism.
In a capitalist market, owners of production want to increase profits. Workers are a cost of production. In order to gain more profit, the owners want to pay the workers less. The workers are also the consumers of the products being produced, and they can no longer afford to buy the product. America is debating if it wants to return to a pre-ww1 era economy. By the look of the inequality, I think the economy is well on its way to mirroring that period of time.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Even in theory, I do not see these ideologies working because they contain contradictions.

For example, look at capitalism.
In a capitalist market, owners of production want to increase profits. Workers are a cost of production. In order to gain more profit, the owners want to pay the workers less. The workers are also the consumers of the products being produced, and they can no longer afford to buy the product.

Owners of the means of production want to make a profit. Capitalism does not necessitate a need for increased profits. Corporatism requires increased profits because the corporation is at the mercy of its investors.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Even in theory, I do not see these ideologies working because they contain contradictions.

For example, look at capitalism.
In a capitalist market, owners of production want to increase profits. Workers are a cost of production. In order to gain more profit, the owners want to pay the workers less. The workers are also the consumers of the products being produced, and they can no longer afford to buy the product.


America is debating if it wants to return to a pre-ww1 era economy. By the look of the inequality, I think the economy is well on its way to mirroring that period of time.

Contradictions abound... that's why you need people to apply ideologies to circumstances, and not broadly. That then goes back to "the good leadership" dying, and being left with someone less... effective.

 

[SixNein]

Owners of the means of production want to make a profit. Capitalism does not necessitate a need for increased profits. Corporatism requires increased profits because the corporation is at the mercy of its investors.

The same is true in all forms of companies working in capitalism. If someone makes an investment, he or she wants the highest return possible.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The same is true in all forms of companies working in capitalism. If someone makes an investment, he or she wants the highest return possible.

If I own a shop then I need to make a profit or the shop will not last. I do not however need to make increasingly larger profits to have my shop and to make enough money to live on. The average business owner attempts primarily to maintain a steady profit to live on. In contrast a corporation must continue to increase profits just to maintain itself because it needs its investors.

Too many people seem to think that corporatist mentality is the core of capitalism. It is not. I often see people defining capitalism as if it were corporatism. It seems that people are brainwashed into believing that they are one and the same.

 

[brainstorm]

I like the idea of socialism. Spread the wealth. I would happily give half of what I have to the next man. Maybe then the little old lady who lives down my street could afford to eat and heat her home and wouldn't have to worry about tyrants taking her possessions. And I'm not talking about the kids. Maybe, if we all shared the global resources abit then people from poverty stricken countries could actually eat. Poverty stricken countries, ha! Capitalist stricken more like it.

It is true that capitalism creates poverty, but if the market were truly free, poverty would become so widespread that everyone would gain access to get what they need. It's only by virtue of the fact that certain markets privilege certain beneficiaries that prices and wages are kept artificially high enough to guarantee some poor people getting better access to resources than others.

It's a nice fantasy to imagine that spreading money around would make it possible for everyone to get more, or at least enough, of the things they need and want. In reality, this is a self-defeating fantasy because money itself is designed to create scarcity. The way it works is this: each person who gets/has money to spend tries to get the most value for it they can. This means that businesses compete to provide the lowest prices on the highest value goods and services. The more people consume those goods and services, the more prices rise to prevent existing buyers from depleting the available supplies. If the supply of something exceeds the demand for it, a glut results from the abundance and, in theory at least, competition between sellers drives the price down until the poorest individual can afford it.

So, the more money you give to the poor to spend, the more they consume, which drives up the scarcity of goods and services, generating more revenues and profit for the businesses selling the products. This raises the incomes of the people with the privilege of profiting from the increased sales and prices, and by so doing makes it possible for them to pay even more for things, which drives the prices up even higher.

Eventually, the result is that prices inflate to levels that once again make it difficult for relatively poor people to consume at the level of those with more income. The situation is once again the same, with some people being able to consume more and others able to afford/consume less.

So if you really want to help the poor, the best thing you can do is get the rich or middle class to conserve their spending to the point of creating so much abundance in goods and services that the prices drop to levels that everyone can afford. This is actually the natural result of a free market in which relative abundance replaces relative scarcity. The problem is that the people who make money on business don't like to see prices fall, because it cuts into their revenues, profits, and incomes - so they market and otherwise encourage people to pay higher prices and buy more of their product more often, which creates a class-culture that is even further out of reach for the poor.

 

[Thetom]

Well I understand what you said brain. I am very much an idealist when it comes to these things. My brother tells me to get real. I say we cannot loose our ideals. What exactly are we striving for? Where are we heading? What is our goal, if not to realize our ideals?
I can't get over the feeling that if i eat steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner and someone else eats only rice and beans, then with abit of a swap, we could both eat well (i'm a pretty simple sort).

The capitalist system does seem to have an inherent inability to provide well for all. This is a bad system IMO. It leads me to wonder what is beyond the capitalist (and indeed socialist) system. Are these really our only options. There must be a better way. Ignore any technicalities at this point. Identify our ideal. Radical change is almost impossible, but with a clear goal (abundance for all) we can get there incrementally, surely. Capitalism seems stagnant. Where is it heading? hopefully not here..

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/579/42207552evolution4200.jpg
^that is the human race evolved into a multi-cast society.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Well I understand what you said brain. I am very much an idealist when it comes to these things. My brother tells me to get real. I say we cannot loose our ideals. What exactly are we striving for? Where are we heading? What is our goal, if not to realize our ideals?
I can't get over the feeling that if i eat steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner and someone else eats only rice and beans, then with abit of a swap, we could both eat well (i'm a pretty simple sort).

The capitalist system does seem to have an inherent inability to provide well for all. This is a bad system IMO. It leads me to wonder what is beyond the capitalist (and indeed socialist) system. Are these really our only options. There must be a better way. Ignore any technicalities at this point. Identify our ideal. Radical change is almost impossible, but with a clear goal (abundance for all) we can get there incrementally, surely. Capitalism seems stagnant. Where is it heading? hopefully not here..

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/579/42207552evolution4200.jpg
^that is the human race evolved into a multi-cast society.

I wouldn't worry... we'll all have modified ourselves or be dead long before evolution changes us in such a meaningful way. I can imagine a future in which the very wealthy have access to superior means of self-modification (longevity, hardiness, beauty), but as with all tech, that will eventually become more widely available through legal and illegal means.

 

[brainstorm]

I can't get over the feeling that if i eat steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner and someone else eats only rice and beans, then with abit of a swap, we could both eat well (i'm a pretty simple sort).

This is coming from a vegetarian, but meat costs a great deal more in terms of land-use and water to produce than vegetables. I have actually read that this is a major problem when people who were previously poor gain access to some purchasing power, the first thing they tend to spend it on is increasing the amount of meat in their (family's) diet. Ironically, this results in greater diversion of farmland and water resources to livestock and slaughter (slaughter requires LOTS of water for sanitation) - which drives up the price of other crops by making land and water more scarce.

The capitalist system does seem to have an inherent inability to provide well for all. This is a bad system IMO. It leads me to wonder what is beyond the capitalist (and indeed socialist) system. Are these really our only options. There must be a better way. Ignore any technicalities at this point. Identify our ideal. Radical change is almost impossible, but with a clear goal (abundance for all) we can get there incrementally, surely. Capitalism seems stagnant. Where is it heading? hopefully not here..

The inherent inability of capitalism to provide well for all lies in its misapplication, which results from the elevation of social interests over rational market behavior. In fact, while many people behave rationally in markets, their rationality has been conditioned to immediate short-term gains that are not ultimately rational in the long-term or bigger picture. For example, many consumers are rational enough to buy meat that is priced more attractively or on sale, but they don't make the rational choice of foregoing meat altogether to save money for other things. If they would, presumably the meat industry would disappear or shrink to a level where agricultural resources would be used to generate more abundant crops.

What happens instead is that the relatively high demand of meat compared with vegetables causes both types of food to become relatively more expensive and scarce. This, in turn, motivates people to seek more money to avoid hunger. People seeking money creates a labor pool. And competition for income drives down wages, as does unemployment since practically any income is better than none.

Capitalism doesn't create the initial scarcity and poverty. It just regulates it. What creates it is the consumer choices and preferences for what to buy, and what pressures those products put on resources and labor markets. Capitalism just ensures that if people consume something to the point of scarcity, the price will go up which motivates producers to (try to) produce more in order to make more money on the higher prices.

The problem is that some resources are simply limited, which means that if enough people buy enough of them, the price will be high, which will allow an elite class of wealth-controllers to form. Those who control wealth actually want as many people as possible to consume as much as possible, because that generates as much scarcity as possible, which raises the prices of everything they control, allowing them to make more money and control more resources.

I don't think any other system can replace capitalism as the basis for economic regulation, because supply and demand are practically economic laws of human behavior. People are willing to give something that's abundant more easily than they are of something that is scarce. Social-control of economics, in whatever form, can attempt to make expensive things more accessible, but if the reason they're expensive is because they're very resource-intensive (like meat), how can they make such goods available to everyone without running out?

The other option is to substitute relatively scarce products with more abundant ones, like growing crops on farmland used for livestock-raising. The problem with that, however, is that if government tries to mandate that, when consumers are willing to pay more for meat, farmers will complain that government isn't allowing them to make as much money as they could and they will call that oppression.

So really the only way to create more equality and reduce poverty for the maximum number of people is to allow capitalism to regulate the production and distribution of goods, and attempt to convince consumers to modify their cultural behavior and choices to avoid buying products that result in greater scarcity. E.g. if you and everyone else who eats meat gives it up, there would be more farmland and water available and a lower price to produce vegetable crops more abundantly, which would drive the price down to a level hungry poor people could afford, but that would also cause relatively prosperous westerners to have to give up many of their privileges and luxuries - and many are willing to allow poor people to be killed or starved to avoid modifying their consumption cultures.

So, in principle I'm with the socialists that everyone's standard of living should rise. I'm just not naive enough to think that raising the standard of living of the poorer classes in wealthy economies will contribute to a rise in the global standard of living. If anything it would worsen it. Therefore, the best thing to do is allow capitalism to continue impoverishing people and hope for culture to evolve to the point where the impoverishment of many results in a higher minimal standard of living for everyone.

The reason the process goes slow is that each time a wave of people is impoverished to the point of giving up consumption and lifestyle privileges, other people swoop in and take over the goods that those people lost access to. If lots of people become vegetarian, sell their cars, etc. the price of meat, cars, gas, etc. goes down and the other people who don't change their lifestyle choices get stimulated to consume more meat, cars, gas, etc. at the lower price. Ironically, though, the more scarce goods are consumed by an increasingly small elite of consumers, the harder poverty hits them when the next wave of people are ejected from prosperity and they're part of it.

 

[Thetom]

I can imagine a future in which the very wealthy have access to superior means of self-modification (longevity, hardiness, beauty), but as with all tech, that will eventually become more widely available through legal and illegal means.

Hey that sounds great! I can't wait for the future

 

[Frame Dragger]

Hey that sounds great! I can't wait for the future

Hey, I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I think many of the fears we have regarding a "ruling class" are unfounded, and more importantly, they subsume far more relevant concerns that have nothing to do with social ideologies. Hell, Brainstorm just explained why, I believe, human nature will be our doom, rather than some shadowy and irrationally cruel oligarchy. We'll manage to **** ourselves over, or we'll manage to lower the price of energy (production, transmission, and stoage), and find alternative foods which even people with newfound access find satisfying.

Some believe culture and nature can be modified to that degree... I don't.

 

[Thetom]

The inherent inability of capitalism to provide well for all lies in its misapplication

Yes, I guess 'we' are using it badly. It seems that it compels us to do so. It never occurred to me that it's 'us' users of capitalism that are the problem (or part of), and that if we where to personally regulate the prices of goods we could create a stable economy.

My economics (and sociology) are dire. But I can see the problems you describe. And the ebb and flow of economic divides, driven by the relentless desire to acquire more is particularly interesting. It sounds like it could escalate, creating an even vaster gap between the rich and the poor. My initial thoughts where of regulation, but as you explained this would be seen as oppression. No one should be limited like that.
It makes sense that raising the living standard of the lower class can, in-fact, create a greater economic disparity (in a pretty twisted way - screams broken). I can also see the power of the buyer in this system, too. Better education could help. People don't realize they have an such an impact. It would take more than just telling everyone though.

how can they make such goods available to everyone without running out?

Ok, so (and I don't pretend to have any answers here, just exploring the subject) exotic items aren't abundant enough for every one to have a fair share of. Possible solution could be...
basic rationing of abundant stuffs with a free market system for everything else. arggh. it gets me annoyed. If we didn't pump resources into the war machine, we could easily supply everyone with basic food, water, shelter right away, without disrupting the current system too much atall.

I can see that trading is actually natural. I can see that capitalism drives progression. Where I live, every citizen is given a basic living condition standard. After that you must earn your way. This is a good idea. I think the given reason is to 'raise living standards'. But I think its just being humane. Maybe every one can't eat cake (i'm sorry if the steak example offended, btw) but we should all be able to eat.

 

[brainstorm]

Yes, I guess 'we' are using it badly. It seems that it compels us to do so. It never occurred to me that it's 'us' users of capitalism that are the problem (or part of), and that if we where to personally regulate the prices of goods we could create a stable economy.

My economics (and sociology) are dire.

It astounded me that you could immediately understand the concept that users instead of capitalism as a system could be responsible for economic plight. Maybe it is thanks to the level of distance you've maintained from the academic discourse that allows you to escape the tendency to conform to a view that systems determine individual behavior instead of being betrayed by it.

But I can see the problems you describe. And the ebb and flow of economic divides, driven by the relentless desire to acquire more is particularly interesting. It sounds like it could escalate, creating an even vaster gap between the rich and the poor. My initial thoughts where of regulation, but as you explained this would be seen as oppression. No one should be limited like that.

I've watched with fascination as the government supposedly pumps out unimaginable loads of money into private hands. The amazing thing is that the same people who want the government to spend less money are the ones who want private sources to spend more to stimulate revenues and jobs. I'm waiting to see if people start to process that the government is the people, and if they want government to spend less, they have to get the people to spend less.

It of course widens the gap between rich and poor when government and private people spend less, but at the same time it should reduce demand for goods driving prices down to the benefit of the very poor. This is of course contingent on whether the supply-side lowers prices to make the surpluses available to more people for cheaper. The problem is that there's a lot of consumption-resistance needed to get consumption down to the level where the poorest people can afford to buy in. And, what's more, there are lots of producers who don't see it as worth the investment to continue producing at increasingly lower levels of revenue, especially when their input-costs aren't going down.

It makes sense that raising the living standard of the lower class can, in-fact, create a greater economic disparity (in a pretty twisted way - screams broken). I can also see the power of the buyer in this system, too. Better education could help. People don't realize they have an such an impact. It would take more than just telling everyone though.

Middle-class parents used to live very modestly to avoiding showing off their wealth, which they preferred to save anyway. Many middle- and upper- class people still practice this culture of conservative consumption - it is, imo, more so those who are upwardly mobile in terms of income that celebrate their increasing purchasing power with greater consumption. They "live it up" because they didn't have it before. Those who have gotten used to having it to spend avoid spending it more, I think, and as a result are satisfied with consuming less. It's a strange paradox, and I think it causes poverty to actually increase when redistribution of money to the middle- and working- classes increases their purchasing power.

Ok, so (and I don't pretend to have any answers here, just exploring the subject) exotic items aren't abundant enough for every one to have a fair share of. Possible solution could be...
basic rationing of abundant stuffs with a free market system for everything else. arggh. it gets me annoyed. If we didn't pump resources into the war machine, we could easily supply everyone with basic food, water, shelter right away, without disrupting the current system too much atall.

Nice idea, but you're still missing the idea that free market capitalism is supposed to be a rationing mechanism in itself, through supply and demand. I suppose the US farm bill, for example, does a somewhat good job of stimulating lots of farmers to grow abundantly by offering them subsidized prices for their crops. The problem is that even with all that food being grown, it doesn't get adequately distributed to everyone who's hungry because there are too many wasteful practices in between the fields and the poor hungry consumer.

The only real way, I think, to get the people who are poor and hunger enough to eat is to put them in direct contact with the farms. This can be done by allowing migrant farm labor for people who don't have access to local farms OR it can be done by establishing prolific farms locally in areas where people are hungry. Of course, some people always complain that starting a farm next to a bunch of poor hungry people and getting them to work on it is a form of slavery. The question then is how to allow people access to food without enslaving them.

I can see that trading is actually natural. I can see that capitalism drives progression. Where I live, every citizen is given a basic living condition standard. After that you must earn your way. This is a good idea. I think the given reason is to 'raise living standards'. But I think its just being humane. Maybe every one can't eat cake (i'm sorry if the steak example offended, btw) but we should all be able to eat.

I guess steak and other meat offends me on some level but it's so common that I don't really think about it. I think guaranteeing a basic standard of living is nice, but you probably live in a post-industrial economy - which means the production of most products that maintain your basic standard of living are produced by people who don't have access to it. The question is whether they would continue to produce it for you if they had access to it themselves, or if they would hold out for better work/jobs.

 

[Frame Dragger]

It astounded me that you could immediately understand the concept that users instead of capitalism as a system could be responsible for economic plight. Maybe it is thanks to the level of distance you've maintained from the academic discourse that allows you to escape the tendency to conform to a view that systems determine individual behavior instead of being betrayed by it.


I've watched with fascination as the government supposedly pumps out unimaginable loads of money into private hands. The amazing thing is that the same people who want the government to spend less money are the ones who want private sources to spend more to stimulate revenues and jobs. I'm waiting to see if people start to process that the government is the people, and if they want government to spend less, they have to get the people to spend less.

It of course widens the gap between rich and poor when government and private people spend less, but at the same time it should reduce demand for goods driving prices down to the benefit of the very poor. This is of course contingent on whether the supply-side lowers prices to make the surpluses available to more people for cheaper. The problem is that there's a lot of consumption-resistance needed to get consumption down to the level where the poorest people can afford to buy in. And, what's more, there are lots of producers who don't see it as worth the investment to continue producing at increasingly lower levels of revenue, especially when their input-costs aren't going down.


Middle-class parents used to live very modestly to avoiding showing off their wealth, which they preferred to save anyway. Many middle- and upper- class people still practice this culture of conservative consumption - it is, imo, more so those who are upwardly mobile in terms of income that celebrate their increasing purchasing power with greater consumption. They "live it up" because they didn't have it before. Those who have gotten used to having it to spend avoid spending it more, I think, and as a result are satisfied with consuming less. It's a strange paradox, and I think it causes poverty to actually increase when redistribution of money to the middle- and working- classes increases their purchasing power.


Nice idea, but you're still missing the idea that free market capitalism is supposed to be a rationing mechanism in itself, through supply and demand. I suppose the US farm bill, for example, does a somewhat good job of stimulating lots of farmers to grow abundantly by offering them subsidized prices for their crops. The problem is that even with all that food being grown, it doesn't get adequately distributed to everyone who's hungry because there are too many wasteful practices in between the fields and the poor hungry consumer.

The only real way, I think, to get the people who are poor and hunger enough to eat is to put them in direct contact with the farms. This can be done by allowing migrant farm labor for people who don't have access to local farms OR it can be done by establishing prolific farms locally in areas where people are hungry. Of course, some people always complain that starting a farm next to a bunch of poor hungry people and getting them to work on it is a form of slavery. The question then is how to allow people access to food without enslaving them.


I guess steak and other meat offends me on some level but it's so common that I don't really think about it. I think guaranteeing a basic standard of living is nice, but you probably live in a post-industrial economy - which means the production of most products that maintain your basic standard of living are produced by people who don't have access to it. The question is whether they would continue to produce it for you if they had access to it themselves, or if they would hold out for better work/jobs.

Re: in bold: I have a very good friend who has NEVER liked meat... even when she was a young girl. Yes, she loves animals, but she's no vegan... she just doesn't like the texture, flavour... or the notion of eating an animal. I WISH I had the strength of that conviction, but as with you... I think some people are just disgusted by the very notion. I find that quite respectable.

For the rest: Much of what you've said has a real remedy: EDUCATE PEOPLE. Teaching people how to deal with money, even small amounts, is critical if they are not able to learn this at home. Teaching people that while government and social structures may keep them from abject poverty (barring crippling mental/physical illness, or addictions), only they can actually elevate themselves and others.

I spent a great deal of time listening to a (now deceased) friend of mine, who was black. He was in the HS I attended, on a full scholarship, and he had a PLAN for life. He saw the poverty he grew in (Slums which replaced Cabrini Green, as "Urban Renewal" merely shuffled the poor) and was determined to avoid that. The thing is, he lacked any sense of social consciousness, and was completely "in it for himself". He was going to enter the (us) military, use that as a lever to enter a political career, etc... etc...

He did enter the US Army, did 2 full tours in Iraq (the current 'war'), and thereby achieved his goal. Instead of entering politics however, he wanted to make some more money, quickly. He joined Blackwater, and was killed by an IED. I can't help but wonder if he had lived for more than himself, that an ancillary benefit would be that he would alive right now. He had the offer of a full ride to college, and after his service he had plenty of money (he was a SAVER, not a spender), but he wasn't comfortable with that.

Maybe I'm not being kind, and maybe growing in poverty shaped what he felt he needed, but I knew him well (boarding school) for 3 years... I doubt that. My point, is that often people don't consider the benefit of living and treating others in a fashion they wish to be treated. The Golden Rule... is a good one. Applied to economics, it can temper the harsher edges of capitalism, but it's something that is competing with corporatism, which is unsustainable, and merciless.

This kid wasn't lacking in brains, but he didn't know when to stop, and gambled with his life, for money. Is it such a leap from that to gambling with the lives of OTHERS for money? Gambling with their homes, or their crops, or their jobs? I don't think so. We have a trickle-down effect to be sure, but it's not money... it's the ideology of an apex predator that has no concept that it's writing its own extinction in every excessive kill. Corporatism is a game that a few people play, at the cost of the rest, an it kills people.

 

[brainstorm]

This kid wasn't lacking in brains, but he didn't know when to stop, and gambled with his life, for money. Is it such a leap from that to gambling with the lives of OTHERS for money? Gambling with their homes, or their crops, or their jobs? I don't think so. We have a trickle-down effect to be sure, but it's not money... it's the ideology of an apex predator that has no concept that it's writing its own extinction in every excessive kill. Corporatism is a game that a few people play, at the cost of the rest, an it kills people.

One of the main problems with corporatism, and with division of labor and economic complexity in general, is that it becomes very difficult to connect ones actions with things happening to others elsewhere, or to yourself at a future point in time. There are very long and complex series of chain-events that connect people to others and to themselves.

I think you hit it on the head when you talk about writing your own extinction in every excessive kill. I think everyone is doomed to die eventually sooner or later (in body anyway) but it could be sooner or later depending on how you live. When you live your life going around slaughtering people, why would you be surprised if you end up losing it when someone comes around to slaughter you?

I definitely think sustainability is created not just in yourself but in social-patterns that emerge from good choices and ethics. The more people see the connection between how they live, consume, and treat others and the things they end up having to endure in their lives, the better they will be able to choose actions like the ones they would hope others would choose when they are doing things that end up affecting them.

This is starting to get into a complexified expression of the golden rule so I'll stop, but it's very hard to see, especially when you're so consumed with desire for something(s) that it's blinding in many other ways (which we all are in various ways, I think).

 

[Frame Dragger]

One of the main problems with corporatism, and with division of labor and economic complexity in general, is that it becomes very difficult to connect ones actions with things happening to others elsewhere, or to yourself at a future point in time. There are very long and complex series of chain-events that connect people to others and to themselves.

I think you hit it on the head when you talk about writing your own extinction in every excessive kill. I think everyone is doomed to die eventually sooner or later (in body anyway) but it could be sooner or later depending on how you live. When you live your life going around slaughtering people, why would you be surprised if you end up losing it when someone comes around to slaughter you?

I definitely think sustainability is created not just in yourself but in social-patterns that emerge from good choices and ethics. The more people see the connection between how they live, consume, and treat others and the things they end up having to endure in their lives, the better they will be able to choose actions like the ones they would hope others would choose when they are doing things that end up affecting them.

This is starting to get into a complexified expression of the golden rule so I'll stop, but it's very hard to see, especially when you're so consumed with desire for something(s) that it's blinding in many other ways (which we all are in various ways, I think).

Well said. It's hard for people to know "how much to want" sometimes, and that distribution of blame and responsilbity is as much a factor in corporate cultures as it is in a violent mob. If you haven't already, and I wouldn't be surprised if you had in fact, you might enjoy reading about a portion of our brain called The Nucleus Accumbens.

That said, I'm not religious, I don't believe in Karma or absolute morality... but even then, as you say... you choose many of the circumstances we find ourselves in. We can choose not to kill people, and thereby spare ourselves the chance of retribution. Granted, some people will be murdered anyway, but being in a warzone is not improving your chances. Yes, good people who treat others kindly do suffer, but if you look at violent crime, the two biggest catagories are: Friends/Family killing other Friends/Family... and rival criminal organizations.

I understand wanting comfort and safety, but there is a point where that desire can be perverted and Greed becomes the real issue. Greed on the scale that we experience it, spills over into society as a whole; for example: people born in the 90's in the USA, have RADICALLY different views on what portion size for food should be. If you believe that you need a bucket of pasta, or a 16 oz steak to be "well fed", that's going to distort your view of what you need to live!

In the same way, people "need" things which are merely convenient, and not necessary. I see little harm in that, if one is aware of that fact, and not driven by it. The culture however, begins with very young people, and those habits often last a lifetime. Perceptions are even harder to change, be it beuaty, how much to eat, who "deserves" to live or die... etc. What is "rich"? Is it a million dollars? 10 million? A billion? At what point do people say "enough!"?

 

[brainstorm]

I understand wanting comfort and safety, but there is a point where that desire can be perverted and Greed becomes the real issue. Greed on the scale that we experience it, spills over into society as a whole; for example: people born in the 90's in the USA, have RADICALLY different views on what portion size for food should be. If you believe that you need a bucket of pasta, or a 16 oz steak to be "well fed", that's going to distort your view of what you need to live!

Interesting. Still at least 2000 calories per day, I hope? Where do you think this idea came from if it is such a generational trend, as you claim? I like a reasonably large breakfast, no lunch, and a reasonably large afternoon meal, personally.

In the same way, people "need" things which are merely convenient, and not necessary. I see little harm in that, if one is aware of that fact, and not driven by it. The culture however, begins with very young people, and those habits often last a lifetime. Perceptions are even harder to change, be it beuaty, how much to eat, who "deserves" to live or die... etc. What is "rich"? Is it a million dollars? 10 million? A billion? At what point do people say "enough!"?

When you say that certain conveniences are "necessary," and there's no harm in it, it makes me suspect that there is some harm in it that you can't bear to consider because it would break your heart to think it was harming anyone. Gandhi wrote about "himsa," which is the inevitable violence done by all life and acts of living. The classical example is how we kill microbes just by breathing. The philosophical point is that harm can be reduced but never avoided completely. Christians actually regard the denial of sin as itself a sin. You don't have to subscribe to any of these religious views to comprehend the logic that when people are driven to define themselves and/or their actions as harmless, it's because they don't want to take responsibility for their actions.

The only way for anyone to be able to totally stop harming anyone or anything else would be to die. But by dying, the person would be harming themselves and others as well. So the tricky thing is to become mindful of all the ways that harm occurs and attempt to reduce those for everyone involved as much as possible, including yourself. What makes it so tricky is that it's not possible to achieve complete peace and harmony, ever. In fact, often times I think that people who overemphasize peace and harmony are actually assaulting others by displacing blame for the inherent violence that everyone commits and should take responsibility for.

Finally, I said it before I think, but I'll say it again. Wealth and poverty are relative and go beyond the individual's personal possessions. Some people are wealthy because they have a secure job with a lifetime of benefits and salary before them. Others have no job but they have a government that guarantees them basic necessities and healthcare so they never have to lose peace-of-mind. Most of the damage done by money is caused by people doing things to try and get it. Giving it to them is only a temporary fix, because they or others will figure out new damage to do to get more as soon as they feel unsatisfied again.

The thing that I believe creates the most economic peace and widespread well-being is when prices are going down relative to real wages. This occurs when economic abundance is growing and there is more to sell at a lower price to fund the same salaries or even increase jobs.

When people work efficiently, more can be produced with the same amount of labor and equipment. This means that more people can consume for the same total production cost, which translates into a lower cost per unit consumption. If people would better share the small amount of work needed to sustain everyone, each person would need to work relatively little to enjoy the same level of consumption, plus they would theoretically be able to afford it while working less because the price of consumption would decrease to match the amount of labor needed to produce it.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Interesting. Still at least 2000 calories per day, I hope? Where do you think this idea came from if it is such a generational trend, as you claim? I like a reasonably large breakfast, no lunch, and a reasonably large afternoon meal, personally.

Sadly no, in fact portion size as displayed on television, and in restaurants... and subsequent perception of a proper meal has RADICALLY increased. Where the idea "came from" is probably a complex mixture of basic human desires, and a the notion that people who believe a standard must be X+n (where n= needless waste leading to obesity) are likely to BUY more.

When you say that certain conveniences are "necessary," and there's no harm in it, it makes me suspect that there is some harm in it that you can't bear to consider because it would break your heart to think it was harming anyone. Gandhi wrote about "himsa," which is the inevitable violence done by all life and acts of living. The classical example is how we kill microbes just by breathing. The philosophical point is that harm can be reduced but never avoided completely. Christians actually regard the denial of sin as itself a sin. You don't have to subscribe to any of these religious views to comprehend the logic that when people are driven to define themselves and/or their actions as harmless, it's because they don't want to take responsibility for their actions.

It is difficult to avoid an infinitely reductionist approach to doing harm, but what I mean is that people will ALWAYS aspire to comfort, and for most that means having some a measure of luxury. That might be defined as the one chair in a village, which is used by a tribal leader, or it could be access to libraries and the internet. Certainly these are not necessary, but they generally provide social structures and means of education. The thornier end of this might be... how long do we keep X person on life support for the sake of the family "saying goodbye" after brain death has occurred? We're beyond apex predators... we're viral apex predators, and as such responsibility is about mitigating damage, not eliminating it. Only the dead feel no pain, and only the dead give back 100%... so to speak, as you say.

The only way for anyone to be able to totally stop harming anyone or anything else would be to die. But by dying, the person would be harming themselves and others as well. So the tricky thing is to become mindful of all the ways that harm occurs and attempt to reduce those for everyone involved as much as possible, including yourself. What makes it so tricky is that it's not possible to achieve complete peace and harmony, ever. In fact, often times I think that people who overemphasize peace and harmony are actually assaulting others by displacing blame for the inherent violence that everyone commits and should take responsibility for.

In practice, I'm a bit of a military hawk, in that I believe in following the lessons of history and human nature. If we're going to wage war, it should be swift, overwhelming, and brutal. Anything less invites these modern wars which linger and quietly smother whole nations. To me, this goes back to distribution of responsibility. "If I protest, I'm not culpable"... right. There is the question however, of what harm is acceptable? I don't particularly care that I kill microbes, but I do care that I kill ants. I don't claim that this is reasonable, but I'm bound by the scale I experience, and I'm not Gandhi, or anything like him. I simply work with what I have, which is empathy, and strong desires for comfort and safety for myself and those I love. I don't pretend to care about others as much as myself, and I can be VERY "old testament" sometimes in my reactions and views. I make no excuses, beyond that I'm not a saint, nor ever likely to be.

Granted, for me that doesn't mean I need to own a ton of crap, or eat absurd amounts. However, the impact of my daily life is not inconsiderable. That said, I already attempt to work at the limits of my self-control, and seek to improve that, and thereby my impact. I ASPIRE to do no harm, I don't expect to do no harm. I use HVAC, and I eat meat... I love animals, but I eat them and thereby kill them by proxy. Perhaps this is why I'm informed, but not happy. Perhaps I will be able to live my convictions someday, but inevitably I'll make my subterranean contribution, as we all will.

Finally, I said it before I think, but I'll say it again. Wealth and poverty are relative and go beyond the individual's personal possessions. Some people are wealthy because they have a secure job with a lifetime of benefits and salary before them. Others have no job but they have a government that guarantees them basic necessities and healthcare so they never have to lose peace-of-mind. Most of the damage done by money is caused by people doing things to try and get it. Giving it to them is only a temporary fix, because they or others will figure out new damage to do to get more as soon as they feel unsatisfied again.

You have a point, but many people are in no position to earn money, never mind seek peace of mind. Where there isn't peace, people cannot BEGIN to live their lives, which in civil unrest... what's the quote, are... ""solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Thomas Hobbes). We're NEVER returning to a "natural state", whatever that is, short of a cataclysmic event(s). Given the relativity of morality, and the state of mind found in people who are (or believe they are) desperate, we all exist in a kind of slowly escalating Mutually Assured Destruction as a species. We have little capacity to set limits without resorting to totalitarianism, and so, responsibility IS individual... and most individuals are not capable or willing to understand the full impact of their lives.

The thing that I believe creates the most economic peace and widespread well-being is when prices are going down relative to real wages. This occurs when economic abundance is growing and there is more to sell at a lower price to fund the same salaries or even increase jobs.

When people work efficiently, more can be produced with the same amount of labor and equipment. This means that more people can consume for the same total production cost, which translates into a lower cost per unit consumption. If people would better share the small amount of work needed to sustain everyone, each person would need to work relatively little to enjoy the same level of consumption, plus they would theoretically be able to afford it while working less because the price of consumption would decrease to match the amount of labor needed to produce it.

I agree, but for me this brings me back to... overpopulation. You seem to believe that people are capable of large-scale change that lasts for generations... in the absence of strict rule. Of course, the moment you institute that strict rule, you've already created an impossible asymmetry. If the total human population was... 2 billion... while our nature would not change, our impact would. This, I believe, is our inevitable fate. We live out of all balance with our environment, and we'll either master it by destroying it, or our perception of what is needful will propel us to wars that may be fought with weapons we cannot survive.

 

[brainstorm]

I agreed with most of your post until this point:

I agree, but for me this brings me back to... overpopulation. You seem to believe that people are capable of large-scale change that lasts for generations... in the absence of strict rule. Of course, the moment you institute that strict rule, you've already created an impossible asymmetry. If the total human population was... 2 billion... while our nature would not change, our impact would. This, I believe, is our inevitable fate. We live out of all balance with our environment, and we'll either master it by destroying it, or our perception of what is needful will propel us to wars that may be fought with weapons we cannot survive.

What you're basically saying in a fluffed-up way is that people don't change their culture without strict rule. I think that you ignore the fact that people only resist cultural innovation as long as they are insulated from doing so by having access to privileges that emotionally oblige to construe and protect an imagined status quo. You say no one will return to a state of nature, but it may be happening against people's will. Certainly many people would prefer any form of domination that benefits them to freedom that exposes them to the necessity of adaptation, but who says such domination is ever sustainable. Maybe the people with the greatest privileges are the ones at the front of the line for extinction.

Also, do you realize when you advocate a global population of 2 billion when current estimates are something like 6 billion implicitly prescribe the elimination of 4 billion people? That is 2/3. Can you imagine 2 out of every three people in your family dying or being killed? That's horrendous, especially when it is the alternative for cultural adaptation. Given the choice between giving up meat and sending 2 out of every 3 people of your family and friends to an elimination camp, you would choose the elimination camp? That's crazy. I enjoy luxuries too, but I would at least like to see people working in the direction of saving resources and lives by curbing cultural excesses. I don't think people should torture themselves or others, but if people would love each other more, I think it would be a lot easier to go without a lot of comfort consumption.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I agreed with most of your post until this point:



What you're basically saying in a fluffed-up way is that people don't change their culture without strict rule. I think that you ignore the fact that people only resist cultural innovation as long as they are insulated from doing so by having access to privileges that emotionally oblige to construe and protect an imagined status quo. You say no one will return to a state of nature, but it may be happening against people's will. Certainly many people would prefer any form of domination that benefits them to freedom that exposes them to the necessity of adaptation, but who says such domination is ever sustainable. Maybe the people with the greatest privileges are the ones at the front of the line for extinction.

I believe you have too much faith in humanity as a whole. History simply does not bear out your notion that this many people could make a conscious and conscientious choice. People could give up everything they have... here's a thought experiment: Everyone who works at middle-management and below in Pfizer, quits. Does Pfizer die, or do they hire different people? A large population = many options. As for people preferring domination to barbarism, history also would seem to indicate that people are willing to fight perceived tyranny at any cost, and that such fights take on lives of their own.

People with privilege may be first in line, but probably not. EVENTUALLY, someone ends on the guillotine, but it's not EVERY powerful generation, just the last one holding the reigns. Keep in mind why these things are "Revolutions", and how they tend to finally end. Right now, privilege = access to the best food, medicine, security, and ability to travel. Forgive me if I fail to see the inherent weakness in that position. Barring a cataclysms, the very-wealthy and well connected are going to be first in line for custom organs, novel treatments, etc. For now, in the absence of those treatments, we have people such as Michael Jackson, who clearly did NOT benefit from his privilege, but in fact partially died as a result. You or I would find it difficult to hire on our own anesthesia clinic...

That said, in a future of gene therapy, nanomedicine, and custom organs/prosthetics means that the rich, the talented, and the very valuable will have best access to a restricted resource. The same is true of Education. Some people have schools... others get missionaries with their own agendas. I challenge you to find historical examples of humans VOLUNTARILY "pulling back" from a pattern of irresponsible birth-rates, and conflict over real and perceived resources and ideals. There is a REASON why people such as Gandhi are so revered... they are exceptions to a rule. Then there is Nelson Mandela, who is doubtless a very great man, but what happens when he dies? We'll see.

Also, do you realize when you advocate a global population of 2 billion when current estimates are something like 6 billion implicitly prescribe the elimination of 4 billion people? That is 2/3. Can you imagine 2 out of every three people in your family dying or being killed? That's horrendous, especially when it is the alternative for cultural adaptation. Given the choice between giving up meat and sending 2 out of every 3 people of your family and friends to an elimination camp, you would choose the elimination camp? That's crazy. I enjoy luxuries too, but I would at least like to see people working in the direction of saving resources and lives by curbing cultural excesses. I don't think people should torture themselves or others, but if people would love each other more, I think it would be a lot easier to go without a lot of comfort consumption.

I don't advocate that, I simply recognize that we're going to do that to ourselves one way or another. We can reduce our population without KILLING people... right? Unless... we can't control people, or educate them to a point of individual responsibility such that they will not have 2+ kids? As for imagining 2 out of every three in my family dying or being killed, I don't need to IMAGINE, nor do most people who have been alive for any significant period of time. The majority of my family is dead, and died within my lifetime (which is not so long thus far).

You believe it is within the reach of CULTURE to change human nature... I believe that to be an optimistic absurdity. For every Gandhi there are uncounted others who will exploit and undermine that legacy. India is free of Imperial rule yes?... and free to pursue MAD with Pakistan. How did the Chinese "cultural revolution" go? From what I can see, it's led to a heartless gerontocracy, and for all of their attempt at control... their population continues to soar.

I'm not going so far as the hated, "Wenn ich Kultur höre, entsichere ich meinen Browning!", but I am saying that believing a cultural shift is possible for billions of people with vastly differing beliefs and desires is to engage in a pleasant delusion. People are limited by scale, and their access to information. The former has exceeded the human capacity to truly grasp, and the latter has been a tool of war and politics since Sumer and Akkad. I am arguing that humans are ANIMALS, like any other, not to demean us, but to understand that we are limited. We are viral in our expansion, and much of the damage we do is not a result of culture, but our nature.

Where we seem to agree, is the inevitable end of that path, which is destruction of the self, and of others. In the end, I truly BELIEVE that the only person who does no harm, is dead. You don't. I think you believe that there is value in human life... I don't. I simply respect others as I wish to be respected, because I also see no value in pretending that we're NOT social animals, and I know I can have a LOCAL impact. I don't pretend that anything short of main force can change 6 (soon to 9) billion people so profoundly that we would be immunized, even against sociopaths and truly heartless people.

I want to give up meat because I don't want to kill animals (by proxy or otherwise). I don't believe that such a choice represents the salvation of humanity. 6 billion Gandhis would still take an unsustainable toll on our ecosystem if we continued to expand our population. Do you believe that we're not subject to war, or more likely a plague or plagues? Do you REALLY think that if India decides to launch a land-war, that Pakistan won't respond immediately with a nuclear strike? Do you believe that any choice you or I make, will change the reality that Israel is likely to react to Iranian aggression with overwhelming force?

Do you believe, now that corporations in the USA have been given the rights of individuals, but are not held to a meaningful standard of responsibility, that we are anything but absolutely ****ing DEAD? It might not be now, it might not be in a 100 years, but eventually we'll go to war, a pathogen will get to us, a comet or asteroid will strike, our magnetic poles will flip, our climate will change, a super-volcano may erupt... and none of that matters for a damn if you live your life the best you can. If you live with the expectation that our fate as animals bound to a single planet is likely to be overcome, and if it, that it would be a sea-change of culture and awareness that causes it... you're going to be terribly disappointed. We are what we are, and the limits of our ability to change is profound as a group. We can take responsibility for ourselves, and should... no one should live as though the inevitable frees them from moral obligations. That doesn't change the end result however, and it doesn't change the fact that most people can't, or are not in a position to effect the kind of change you espouse.

"Alea iacta est."

 

[brainstorm]

6 billion Gandhis would still take an unsustainable toll on our ecosystem if we continued to expand our population.

If everyone would think as you do in this post, we would all be doomed by fate of self-fulfilling prophecy. If no comes up with a realistic solution that is win-win on both the macro-economic and micro-individual levels, harm at both levels will be inevitable.

I am a strong believer in idealism. Marx ridiculed idealists for believing that idealism could overcome materiality. Yet he failed to recognize that materialism becomes its own idealism that binds its own hands with faith in human powerlessness.

Materialists claim that idealists are people who think they can overcome gravity by believing that it doesn't exist. Well, guess what, it took science a long time but eventually they came up with a way to neutralize gravity by engaging in prolonged free fall, and eventually discovered that free fall could be sustained indefinitely by orbiting the planet.

Prior to the emergence of practical solutions, idealistic theories seem like dreams to people whose minds are hopelessly locked in the realism of the day. People who have faith in the unlimited creativity of human innovation are able to persevere through the semblance of impossibility into a future of new possibilities. Those who don't can't, and they drag themselves and others down as a result by expecting the worst and bearing witness to it as a result.

 

[SixNein]

If I own a shop then I need to make a profit or the shop will not last. I do not however need to make increasingly larger profits to have my shop and to make enough money to live on. The average business owner attempts primarily to maintain a steady profit to live on. In contrast a corporation must continue to increase profits just to maintain itself because it needs its investors.

Too many people seem to think that corporatist mentality is the core of capitalism. It is not. I often see people defining capitalism as if it were corporatism. It seems that people are brainwashed into believing that they are one and the same.

Every business owner is trying to expand his or her business. There may be a few odd balls that are happy with no raises, but most want more.

 

[SixNein]

I agreed with most of your post until this point:
What you're basically saying in a fluffed-up way is that people don't change their culture without strict rule. I think that you ignore the fact that people only resist cultural innovation as long as they are insulated from doing so by having access to privileges that emotionally oblige to construe and protect an imagined status quo. You say no one will return to a state of nature, but it may be happening against people's will. Certainly many people would prefer any form of domination that benefits them to freedom that exposes them to the necessity of adaptation, but who says such domination is ever sustainable. Maybe the people with the greatest privileges are the ones at the front of the line for extinction.

Also, do you realize when you advocate a global population of 2 billion when current estimates are something like 6 billion implicitly prescribe the elimination of 4 billion people? That is 2/3. Can you imagine 2 out of every three people in your family dying or being killed? That's horrendous, especially when it is the alternative for cultural adaptation. Given the choice between giving up meat and sending 2 out of every 3 people of your family and friends to an elimination camp, you would choose the elimination camp? That's crazy. I enjoy luxuries too, but I would at least like to see people working in the direction of saving resources and lives by curbing cultural excesses. I don't think people should torture themselves or others, but if people would love each other more, I think it would be a lot easier to go without a lot of comfort consumption.

I advocate a 2 billion population because we are over carrying capacity at the present time. The human population is not divine, and it will collapse just like rabbits when they overpopulate. A nazi style method is not the only way to decrease the population size. If we simply tax child production progressively, people will have less children, and population growth rates will go negative. In my opinion, we are either going to take responsibility for our technology and reproduction, or our population will collapse.

In addition, absolute poverty will certainly increase until we get our population under control.

 

[Frame Dragger]

If everyone would think as you do in this post, we would all be doomed by fate of self-fulfilling prophecy. If no comes up with a realistic solution that is win-win on both the macro-economic and micro-individual levels, harm at both levels will be inevitable.

I am a strong believer in idealism. Marx ridiculed idealists for believing that idealism could overcome materiality. Yet he failed to recognize that materialism becomes its own idealism that binds its own hands with faith in human powerlessness.

Materialists claim that idealists are people who think they can overcome gravity by believing that it doesn't exist. Well, guess what, it took science a long time but eventually they came up with a way to neutralize gravity by engaging in prolonged free fall, and eventually discovered that free fall could be sustained indefinitely by orbiting the planet.

Prior to the emergence of practical solutions, idealistic theories seem like dreams to people whose minds are hopelessly locked in the realism of the day. People who have faith in the unlimited creativity of human innovation are able to persevere through the semblance of impossibility into a future of new possibilities. Those who don't can't, and they drag themselves and others down as a result by expecting the worst and bearing witness to it as a result.

You assume that I think this way because it reflects an ideology, when in fact I think this way based on experience. The history of science leads me to believe that the unexplained is not necessarily inexplicable. The history of humanity leads me to believe that the solutions to fundamental problems such as overpopulation, does not come from people, but is served by nature. Have faith if you wish, but it won't stop an asteroid, a comet, a super-volcano, or a novel pathogen. My distress leads me to constantly re-examine my views in hope of a better outlook. Faith in "the unlimited creativity of human innovation" is a cop-out, much as any faith is. You have faith that "people" will suddenly change in the meaningful ways you hope for, rather than the predictable ways we have for recorded history. In essence, you can be comfortable with yourself, because you believe that you, or others have the capacity to apply sociology, philosophy, and technology to problems that truly require more drastic solutions.

I would say that idealists and ideologues are dangerous, whereas people such as myself, while no fun at all to talk to about these matters, are willing to accept the trajectory of our species, and don't take it on faith that we'll magically find a solution. I don't assume that people will change, but that doesn't mean I simply give up. Your thinking is extremely black&white, as SixNein has illustrated. You assume that a reduction of 4 billion people = 4 billion unnatural deaths... I certainly am not advocating mass slaughter. I don't believe that SixNein's solution is workable until we reach a genuine crisis point, but then I suspect that something like it will be implemented... assuming nature doesn't beat us to the punch.

You should rely less on your faith, and more on your brain, storm. That doesn't mean the future is doomed, it just means that you have to take responsibility for procreating, and frankly, the "pass" you're giving to people because you choose to believe that overpopulation is merely a media-induced hysteria. OverCROWDING is hysteria... overpopulation is not.

 

[brainstorm]

You assume that I think this way because it reflects an ideology, when in fact I think this way based on experience. The history of science leads me to believe that the unexplained is not necessarily inexplicable. The history of humanity leads me to believe that the solutions to fundamental problems such as overpopulation, does not come from people, but is served by nature. Have faith if you wish, but it won't stop an asteroid, a comet, a super-volcano, or a novel pathogen. My distress leads me to constantly re-examine my views in hope of a better outlook. Faith in "the unlimited creativity of human innovation" is a cop-out, much as any faith is. You have faith that "people" will suddenly change in the meaningful ways you hope for, rather than the predictable ways we have for recorded history. In essence, you can be comfortable with yourself, because you believe that you, or others have the capacity to apply sociology, philosophy, and technology to problems that truly require more drastic solutions.

I don't suppose you have any way of seeing that the knowledge and beliefs you hold about the "problems" you see through your macro-social crystal ball are driven by a subconscious desire for destructive action, probably because your daily life is relatively uneventful and boring? I do have faith that people can and will change, because I have experienced it myself, and it will also happen to you. You will reach a point where you become painfully aware of how this death-driven cynicism in your head poisons your heart and sets you will to the task of seeking and generating negativity instead of positive/constructive paths forward. When you realize that you are one person among many contributing to the destructiveness of the world you fear, you are going to wish that you had regarded others with love and hope and you wish to be regarded.

I would say that idealists and ideologues are dangerous, whereas people such as myself, while no fun at all to talk to about these matters, are willing to accept the trajectory of our species, and don't take it on faith that we'll magically find a solution. I don't assume that people will change, but that doesn't mean I simply give up. Your thinking is extremely black&white, as SixNein has illustrated. You assume that a reduction of 4 billion people = 4 billion unnatural deaths... I certainly am not advocating mass slaughter. I don't believe that SixNein's solution is workable until we reach a genuine crisis point, but then I suspect that something like it will be implemented... assuming nature doesn't beat us to the punch.

It doesn't really matter what you advocate or not, because what it comes down to is that every time you look at other human beings you see them not as individuals but as specimens of a "species," of which you view most as superfluous. You ignore the fact that each has a life as meaningful as yours, because your control-reflex causes your mind to reduce people to a level of simplicity that you won't have to ignore everything you see in order to focus on one individual life at a time, including your own.

You are operating under the spell of faith in authoritarian power. By that I mean that you seriously believe that some individuals have the power to control others. Have you ever stopped to imagine what you would do in any position of authority if you received it? Would you sit in the white house and talk with people about policies and make suggestions? If you were a military general, would you create orders that do anything other than cater to the expectations of others you work with? No one has any controlling power over anyone else. They try to influence each other's thoughts and actions with various speech and reference to institutions, but ultimately the closest they can get to controlling others is to torture them, which is happening all the time and is the reason for most of the misery that occurs, probably.

The only real hope there is for any of the problems you associate with population is for individuals to choose actions that contribute to more positive pattern-forming. As long as they don't, they will just continue to be subject to the traumas the result from human negativity and destruction. That the way it has always been and the way it will always be. Nothing really changes about that because of the population size or density of a given area. People may have to work harder to focus on their own lives and not get distracted by others around them, but life is in principle the same as in more sparse population areas.

If you really dislike population so much, why don't you just move to an area with very little population and imagine it to be the whole world. If you rely solely on local products, there's really no difference between that life and a life with 2 billion or 2 million people on Earth.

You should rely less on your faith, and more on your brain, storm. That doesn't mean the future is doomed, it just means that you have to take responsibility for procreating, and frankly, the "pass" you're giving to people because you choose to believe that overpopulation is merely a media-induced hysteria. OverCROWDING is hysteria... overpopulation is not.

I'm not giving anyone any "passes." I believe that individuals are responsible for their own choices and they have to think for themselves. They should be aware of how their desires and interests affect their thinking, and also be aware that their desire to be objective can cause them to second-guess their own desires to the point of self-repression. Living and making decisions as a sentient being is complex. It can be easier if you blindly accept the veracity of your knowledge, such as you seem to regarding "overpopulation." In reality, even the greatest scientist is just a subjective being playing with information. I love to reason and provide grounds and arguments for claimsmaking, but I am also aware that knowledge is constructed out of complex patterns of language and synthetic reasoning that are prone to lead in multiple, divergent directions. This does not mean that reality and truth are unreachable; just that discourse continues evolving to approach them in new ways with new results and effects.

Trust me, if you don't embrace a more life-affirming ideology toward human creativity and procreation, you're going to destroy yourself emotionally and you'll be the first casualty of your own anti-humanism.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Every business owner is trying to expand his or her business. There may be a few odd balls that are happy with no raises, but most want more.

I have known, and worked for, several small business owners. While they certainly want to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible I have never know any of them to want a company much larger than the one they have. It would require a whole lot more time and effort and they would much rather be able to relax and retire early than spend most of their hours every day trying to get new divisions of their business off the ground.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I don't suppose you have any way of seeing that the knowledge and beliefs you hold about the "problems" you see through your macro-social crystal ball are driven by a subconscious desire for destructive action, probably because your daily life is relatively uneventful and boring? I do have faith that people can and will change, because I have experienced it myself, and it will also happen to you. You will reach a point where you become painfully aware of how this death-driven cynicism in your head poisons your heart and sets you will to the task of seeking and generating negativity instead of positive/constructive paths forward. When you realize that you are one person among many contributing to the destructiveness of the world you fear, you are going to wish that you had regarded others with love and hope and you wish to be regarded.

You're making more assumptions again, and it's starting to get in the way of your reason in this case. Again, you're thinking in purely black & white terms here... I must desire destruction on some level to believe as I do, but someday I'll see the light and I will change in a deep and fundamental way. Of course, your wording isn't that of compassion is it, but rather the classic, "woe be unto you foolish sinner" that tends to emerge when people with strong faith become upset. I'm sure you believe you're simply describing an inevitable truth, but there is hostility behind it, much as when someone says that they "will pray for you."

For all of your hope and faith, you're willing to believe that I'm heartless and hopeless, because I'm capable of clinical detachment in an online discussion. How is it that you think people keep from clinging to faith, cynicism or optimism or other blinders? How does someone such as myself maintain Skepticism, sans Cynicism? I don't ACT or treat people as though "the end" were right around the corner, but rather I try to treat them as I've described: as I wish to be treated. Note also, that I am uncertain, whereas you are quite certain what I have experienced, and what I will experience. Forgive me, but you don't strike me as old or wise enough to see quite that far ahead in my life, when you leaped to the assumptions that I:
1.) Meant that 4 billion people should be KILLED, rather than a generational approach
2.) That I hadn't experienced loss on the scale of "2/3rds of my family".

Those are very VERY limited reactions, which reveal fundamental bias, and youth in #2.

It doesn't really matter what you advocate or not, because what it comes down to is that every time you look at other human beings you see them not as individuals but as specimens of a "species," of which you view most as superfluous. You ignore the fact that each has a life as meaningful as yours, because your control-reflex causes your mind to reduce people to a level of simplicity that you won't have to ignore everything you see in order to focus on one individual life at a time, including your own.

Wow... where are you getting this? In no way is this remotely how I perceive others. You're reducing people who don't share your ideology and idealism to borderline sociopaths.

You are operating under the spell of faith in authoritarian power. By that I mean that you seriously believe that some individuals have the power to control others.

I don't, but I believe that I can be made to choose between my life and those of others, and "obedience". See: Tienanmen Square, and countless other object lessons throughout history. This doesn't absolve one of the fundamental choice, or free-will, but it puts practical constraints on them. You have to be willing to risk more than your own life in service of your ideals to achieve that degree of freedom in more than your own head. Are you willing to make those choices FOR OTHERS?

Have you ever stopped to imagine what you would do in any position of authority if you received it? Would you sit in the white house and talk with people about policies and make suggestions? If you were a military general, would you create orders that do anything other than cater to the expectations of others you work with?

I have, and then I didn't need to. It turns out that I don't enjoy making the kinds of practical compromises inherent in such a position, and in fact, I don't. As for sitting in the white house, that, I haven't done, and hope to never do. As for what suggestions I would make in a military context, it would be dependant on the situation. Above all however, I would sue for peace at every opportunity, understanding that the only real alternative is conflict, over which control is a fleeting illusion. I've had the dubious privilege of being at both Fort Drum, and WRAMC, with a friend and mentor, as a civilian (he's a colonel). Given that he works specifically on TBI's, I've had the chance to see far nastier wounds than missing limbs, and ones that are less prone to effective treatment.

Given that, and given my beliefs (which I suspect have been tested more than yours, the more you type) I would far rather resign or be fired than give advice I didn't believe was the best I could. Of course, this is one reason why I'm unsuited for a career in politics.

No one has any controlling power over anyone else. They try to influence each other's thoughts and actions with various speech and reference to institutions, but ultimately the closest they can get to controlling others is to torture them, which is happening all the time and is the reason for most of the misery that occurs, probably.[/qupte]

Influence is more effective, insidious, and intractable than torture. Someone you torture is likely to either break utterly, or harden even further against you (although you may get the information you want), even as you lose some of yourself in the process. Your assumption that "control" is necessary is another reflection of B&W thinking, as is your conclusion that torture is a source of "most" misery. Poverty, in fact, is the cause of that, and reaches far more people than torture has through history. As for the rest... have you considered what a powerful tool influencing information + ideology is? You overestimate the capacity of some people to access information to counter MISinformation, an that is also a form of control.

The only real hope there is for any of the problems you associate with population is for individuals to choose actions that contribute to more positive pattern-forming. As long as they don't, they will just continue to be subject to the traumas the result from human negativity and destruction. That the way it has always been and the way it will always be. Nothing really changes about that because of the population size or density of a given area. People may have to work harder to focus on their own lives and not get distracted by others around them, but life is in principle the same as in more sparse population areas.

Now you've conflated "Overpopulation" with "Overcrowding" once again. The former is the notion that as a group, IDEALS aside, we ARE in fact wiping species off the face of the Earth at an alarming rate. The latter is a hysteria that we're running out of space. For example: We are producing too much trash, but not because we can't find space to bury it. Your stalwart certainty that human ills are within the control of humans, and that they are primarily caused by THOUGHTS, is a way of being free from the consequences of reality and your ACTIONS. If you truly believe that 6 going-on 9 billion people competing the way they ALWAYS have, is sustainable... *shrug*. It's your security blanket, and I don't see that it's based on anything but a desire to avoid the despair you seem to think is the only alternative.

Guess what, you can live in a world of greys, and not give up personal responsibility. By accepting that many people don't have your opportunities and capabilities places EXTRA responsiblity on you, and me, not less. Perhaps that is the truth of what you're trying to avoid?

If you really dislike population so much, why don't you just move to an area with very little population and imagine it to be the whole world. If you rely solely on local products, there's really no difference between that life and a life with 2 billion or 2 million people on Earth.

See above. This is sophistry, not a reflection of anything I've actually said. Unlike you, I don't want to see what a NATURAL population correction will look like. I prefer that people be educated, and "influenced" if need be, to avoid that. Better that we have 1 child per family than we DO see billions KILLED. That said, you've departed from this discussion it seems, and are now tilting at windmills.

I'm not giving anyone any "passes." I believe that individuals are responsible for their own choices and they have to think for themselves.

...Which is YOUR pass. After all, if people cannot be controlled, and influence from authority and torture are the only alternatives, we all must "save" ourselves... where does your obligation as an intelligent, and apparently well-educated individual fit in? I believe that people are social, and not fit to live in a vacuum... we need to learn somewhere. Your views give you latitude to write people off in ways your vision of me as a dehumanizing *** never could. You know things... fundamental truths about how my, and other's lives have and will play out (or you act as if you do), and again, this frees you from having to intervene or act.

They should be aware of how their desires and interests affect their thinking, and also be aware that their desire to be objective can cause them to second-guess their own desires to the point of self-repression. Living and making decisions as a sentient being is complex. It can be easier if you blindly accept the veracity of your knowledge, such as you seem to regarding "overpopulation."

Your arguments seem to come from a far more unyielding position than mine, and one based on faith in novel behaviour emerging from people. You are making assumptions about how I think, but you're actually demonstrating your own rigidity in this... an optimistic rigidity, but still monocular. Believing that human nature is unchanged doesn't free me from anything, but rather causes me to feel responsible for some of the people you would leave to their own devices.

In reality, even the greatest scientist is just a subjective being playing with information. I love to reason and provide grounds and arguments for claimsmaking, but I am also aware that knowledge is constructed out of complex patterns of language and synthetic reasoning that are prone to lead in multiple, divergent directions. This does not mean that reality and truth are unreachable; just that discourse continues evolving to approach them in new ways with new results and effects.

Another cop-out. 'It's all lost in translation, so why bother trying? People are all the masters of their fate anyway...' Very seductive, but deeply irresponsible, like living for an afterlife.

Trust me, if you don't embrace a more life-affirming ideology toward human creativity and procreation, you're going to destroy yourself emotionally and you'll be the first casualty of your own anti-humanism.

Nothing makes you treasure life, and those who share it like a keen appreciation of just how fleeting it is. You again, are making terrible and unfounded assumptions that are deeply clouded by your underlying ideology.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I have known, and worked for, several small business owners. While they certainly want to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible I have never know any of them to want a company much larger than the one they have. It would require a whole lot more time and effort and they would much rather be able to relax and retire early than spend most of their hours every day trying to get new divisions of their business off the ground.

I was, much to my chagrin watching CNN, and they were interviewing a Kansan who makes automatic hay-balers. He never even FELT the recession, because he followed precisely the model you describe. He said he could "double" his output and business, but it's more than he wants. He's incredibly successful (3 million per year in sales), and he doesn't even need to advertise.

HOWEVER, that is Capitalism, and we tend to be ruled by Corporatism, which DOES demand constant expansion for shareholders.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

HOWEVER, that is Capitalism, and we tend to be ruled by Corporatism, which DOES demand constant expansion for shareholders.

That was really my point originally.

 

[brainstorm]

I must desire destruction on some level to believe as I do, but someday I'll see the light and I will change in a deep and fundamental way. Of course, your wording isn't that of compassion is it, but rather the classic, "woe be unto you foolish sinner" that tends to emerge when people with strong faith become upset. I'm sure you believe you're simply describing an inevitable truth, but there is hostility behind it, much as when someone says that they "will pray for you."

If you see someone playing with a loaded gun, and the thought of the consequences make you nervous, doesn't your compassion for that person's life start to evolve into frustration and irritation that they won't be more careful with the gun? "Woe" indeed "be unto you foolish sinner." You don't have to judge the mindset of the person saying it; you just have to understand what it means. Then you can agree or disagree of your own reasoning. What you are decrying as "hostility" is just the emotion that someone is trying to overcome by offering to pray for you. Granted they may be praying for you about something that they've misassessed as a danger, and that's where you get into the problem of different interpretations of theology, which isn't ultimately a problem - but it does result in some confusion in communication.

Note also, that I am uncertain, whereas you are quite certain what I have experienced, and what I will experience. Forgive me, but you don't strike me as old or wise enough to see quite that far ahead in my life, when you leaped to the assumptions that I:
1.) Meant that 4 billion people should be KILLED, rather than a generational approach
2.) That I hadn't experienced loss on the scale of "2/3rds of my family".

Your taking both of those slightly out of context to make your point. The only reason I am certain is because I have experienced anguish thinking the way you do, and I realized at that time I was the one most hurt by my own thought-patterns - but I realized at the same time that negativity and fear are the emotions at the root of all violence, both as a response to other violence and as the initial emotional motivation that ultimately translates into violent actions or just a will to violence without acting on it personally.

Wow... where are you getting this? In no way is this remotely how I perceive others. You're reducing people who don't share your ideology and idealism to borderline sociopaths.

It's built into the concept "species" to view individual organisms according to traits attributed to group-identity instead of focusing on the individual's individuality first and any comparisons with other individuals second if at all. It's not an acute or uncommon form of sociopathy, but I think it is a conceptual framework that lends itself to social harm if mitigated irresponsibly, which you may or may not do - I don't know you that well. I just mention it because I think it's important to note.

I don't, but I believe that I can be made to choose between my life and those of others, and "obedience". See: Tienanmen Square, and countless other object lessons throughout history. This doesn't absolve one of the fundamental choice, or free-will, but it puts practical constraints on them. You have to be willing to risk more than your own life in service of your ideals to achieve that degree of freedom in more than your own head. Are you willing to make those choices FOR OTHERS?

One way of seducing people into a killer's mindset is to get them to accept the logic of "kill or be killed" as a necessity. Once people are in this mode, they can feel compelled to will death to others because they implicitly assume that if they don't it will mean their own death. In reality, killing and death of each individual is an isolated event that can only be logically related to other killings/deaths by association. The free will to choose not to will death is never lost, I think. Unfortunately, the death-drive does sometimes because strong enough that people become indifferent to life and will death for that reason, hopefully not acting on their will.

Given that, and given my beliefs (which I suspect have been tested more than yours, the more you type) I would far rather resign or be fired than give advice I didn't believe was the best I could. Of course, this is one reason why I'm unsuited for a career in politics.

Tested cynicism doesn't make a good foundation for politics. I share yours but I see politics as an instrument to affect hope out of cynicism. It's creating lift to counter descent.

Influence is more effective, insidious, and intractable than torture. Someone you torture is likely to either break utterly, or harden even further against you (although you may get the information you want), even as you lose some of yourself in the process. Your assumption that "control" is necessary is another reflection of B&W thinking, as is your conclusion that torture is a source of "most" misery. Poverty, in fact, is the cause of that, and reaches far more people than torture has through history. As for the rest... have you considered what a powerful tool influencing information + ideology is? You overestimate the capacity of some people to access information to counter MISinformation, an that is also a form of control.

Influence can also be experienced as torture, as you seem to. But I think that's because some people's will to domination/submission is so strong that they refuse to see influence as something they can resist. More so, I think they don't want to have to live a life where there are things they have to or should resist. They want a perfectly flowing system of power where resistance isn't necessary because the dictator is benevolent. That's scary if you realize that there are conflicting interests in any individual or society.

Now you've conflated "Overpopulation" with "Overcrowding" once again. The former is the notion that as a group, IDEALS aside, we ARE in fact wiping species off the face of the Earth at an alarming rate.

See, here's the ideology of species again? Why is biodiversity more important than the lives of individual organisms. In this logic of species-extinction is the implicit assumption that killing of individual organisms that doesn't destroy the species, or even promotes the collective good of a species is ok. I am an individualist. I don't believe that the point of individuals is to preserve species; I think the point is to reduce violence toward other individuals as much as possible, regardless of their species.

. If you truly believe that 6 going-on 9 billion people competing the way they ALWAYS have, is sustainable... *shrug*. It's your security blanket, and I don't see that it's based on anything but a desire to avoid the despair you seem to think is the only alternative.

I don't even believe that thinking about humans in multiplicity is a sustainable thought because once you apply a framework other than individuality of personhood, they become something other than individuals. This is why I advocate distinguishing between your mental images and concepts at the macro level and the empiricism of how individuals exist in their everyday life. This can be difficult, because macro-level thought is a factor that influences interactions at the individual level.

Guess what, you can live in a world of greys, and not give up personal responsibility. By accepting that many people don't have your opportunities and capabilities places EXTRA responsiblity on you, and me, not less. Perhaps that is the truth of what you're trying to avoid?

I dislike it when people use "responsibility" as some kind of abstract duty. Being responsible for actions means that the actions you commit have effects. The effects of actions are the consequences that the acting agent is responsible for. If more privileged people are responsible for more consequences, it is because the actions they are able to commit have more complex patterns of effects - mainly because the spheres of independency of each product they use are more intensive.

When you buy a car, for example, you are responsible for stimulating many more labor hours than when you buy a bike, which requires fewer to produce. When you say or write something, you are responsible for your intentions and will, but not what someone else chooses to believe or do in reacting to your speech. There are no involuntary chains of command, the same as there are no actions completely isolated from social influence in any form. All actions are the product of multiple powers and resistances.

See above. This is sophistry, not a reflection of anything I've actually said. Unlike you, I don't want to see what a NATURAL population correction will look like. I prefer that people be educated, and "influenced" if need be, to avoid that. Better that we have 1 child per family than we DO see billions KILLED. That said, you've departed from this discussion it seems, and are now tilting at windmills.

I don't like seeing destruction and suffering by any cause. I just think it's important for people to think for themselves as individuals and make their own choices instead of reacting to the impression that there are inevitable patterns that will result if mitigating action is not taken. Ironically, you were admonishing me for say, "woe be unto the foolish sinner," yet you are basically saying, "woe be unto the foolish sinner who fails to incorporate population fears into their reproductive planning."

...Which is YOUR pass. After all, if people cannot be controlled, and influence from authority and torture are the only alternatives, we all must "save" ourselves... where does your obligation as an intelligent, and apparently well-educated individual fit in?

No such thing as immunity from influence of authority and torture exists. There only only differing degrees of power and suffering. My obligation, and that of others, is imo to resist violence to the extent they are able and reduce the suffering of torture and terror of authority-submission as much as possible at any given moment. I don't think more than that is possible in the scope of human limitations/fallibility.

I believe that people are social, and not fit to live in a vacuum... we need to learn somewhere. Your views give you latitude to write people off in ways your vision of me as a dehumanizing *** never could. You know things... fundamental truths about how my, and other's lives have and will play out (or you act as if you do), and again, this frees you from having to intervene or act.

People are social, and individuals are ultimately responsible for themselves. Does that mean people don't and won't attempt to manipulate each other and escape blame? No, but does that legitimate that they do? Also no. Nothing "frees" anyone from having to intervene or act except the inalienable ability not to. Does that mean that people aren't helping something bad along when they choose not to intervene? No, inaction is a vote cast for the consequences of inaction.

Your arguments seem to come from a far more unyielding position than mine, and one based on faith in novel behaviour emerging from people. You are making assumptions about how I think, but you're actually demonstrating your own rigidity in this... an optimistic rigidity, but still monocular. Believing that human nature is unchanged doesn't free me from anything, but rather causes me to feel responsible for some of the people you would leave to their own devices.

I don't like to frame views in terms of positions that either "yield" or refuse to budge. I believe in reason and, imo, reason need not fear interaction. I wouldn't, nor would I expect anyone else to, simply "yield" for the sake of avoiding being called, "unyielding." These are the domination-submission games of social-docility and conformity and they are contrary to reason and individual free will.

What gives you the right to take responsiblity for anyone else's actions?

Nothing makes you treasure life, and those who share it like a keen appreciation of just how fleeting it is. You again, are making terrible and unfounded assumptions that are deeply clouded by your underlying ideology.

Some people treat life as abundance instead of scarce. You're tossing language around, like "treasuring" and "fleeting" that contains a specific ideology that you're not discussing.

 

[Frame Dragger]

If you see someone playing with a loaded gun, and the thought of the consequences make you nervous, doesn't your compassion for that person's life start to evolve into frustration and irritation that they won't be more careful with the gun? "Woe" indeed "be unto you foolish sinner." You don't have to judge the mindset of the person saying it; you just have to understand what it means. Then you can agree or disagree of your own reasoning. What you are decrying as "hostility" is just the emotion that someone is trying to overcome by offering to pray for you. Granted they may be praying for you about something that they've misassessed as a danger, and that's where you get into the problem of different interpretations of theology, which isn't ultimately a problem - but it does result in some confusion in communication.

Your taking both of those slightly out of context to make your point. The only reason I am certain is because I have experienced anguish thinking the way you do, and I realized at that time I was the one most hurt by my own thought-patterns - but I realized at the same time that negativity and fear are the emotions at the root of all violence, both as a response to other violence and as the initial emotional motivation that ultimately translates into violent actions or just a will to violence without acting on it personally.


It's built into the concept "species" to view individual organisms according to traits attributed to group-identity instead of focusing on the individual's individuality first and any comparisons with other individuals second if at all. It's not an acute or uncommon form of sociopathy, but I think it is a conceptual framework that lends itself to social harm if mitigated irresponsibly, which you may or may not do - I don't know you that well. I just mention it because I think it's important to note.


One way of seducing people into a killer's mindset is to get them to accept the logic of "kill or be killed" as a necessity. Once people are in this mode, they can feel compelled to will death to others because they implicitly assume that if they don't it will mean their own death. In reality, killing and death of each individual is an isolated event that can only be logically related to other killings/deaths by association. The free will to choose not to will death is never lost, I think. Unfortunately, the death-drive does sometimes because strong enough that people become indifferent to life and will death for that reason, hopefully not acting on their will.


Tested cynicism doesn't make a good foundation for politics. I share yours but I see politics as an instrument to affect hope out of cynicism. It's creating lift to counter descent.


Influence can also be experienced as torture, as you seem to. But I think that's because some people's will to domination/submission is so strong that they refuse to see influence as something they can resist. More so, I think they don't want to have to live a life where there are things they have to or should resist. They want a perfectly flowing system of power where resistance isn't necessary because the dictator is benevolent. That's scary if you realize that there are conflicting interests in any individual or society.


See, here's the ideology of species again? Why is biodiversity more important than the lives of individual organisms. In this logic of species-extinction is the implicit assumption that killing of individual organisms that doesn't destroy the species, or even promotes the collective good of a species is ok. I am an individualist. I don't believe that the point of individuals is to preserve species; I think the point is to reduce violence toward other individuals as much as possible, regardless of their species.


I don't even believe that thinking about humans in multiplicity is a sustainable thought because once you apply a framework other than individuality of personhood, they become something other than individuals. This is why I advocate distinguishing between your mental images and concepts at the macro level and the empiricism of how individuals exist in their everyday life. This can be difficult, because macro-level thought is a factor that influences interactions at the individual level.


I dislike it when people use "responsibility" as some kind of abstract duty. Being responsible for actions means that the actions you commit have effects. The effects of actions are the consequences that the acting agent is responsible for. If more privileged people are responsible for more consequences, it is because the actions they are able to commit have more complex patterns of effects - mainly because the spheres of independency of each product they use are more intensive.

When you buy a car, for example, you are responsible for stimulating many more labor hours than when you buy a bike, which requires fewer to produce. When you say or write something, you are responsible for your intentions and will, but not what someone else chooses to believe or do in reacting to your speech. There are no involuntary chains of command, the same as there are no actions completely isolated from social influence in any form. All actions are the product of multiple powers and resistances.


I don't like seeing destruction and suffering by any cause. I just think it's important for people to think for themselves as individuals and make their own choices instead of reacting to the impression that there are inevitable patterns that will result if mitigating action is not taken. Ironically, you were admonishing me for say, "woe be unto the foolish sinner," yet you are basically saying, "woe be unto the foolish sinner who fails to incorporate population fears into their reproductive planning."


No such thing as immunity from influence of authority and torture exists. There only only differing degrees of power and suffering. My obligation, and that of others, is imo to resist violence to the extent they are able and reduce the suffering of torture and terror of authority-submission as much as possible at any given moment. I don't think more than that is possible in the scope of human limitations/fallibility.


People are social, and individuals are ultimately responsible for themselves. Does that mean people don't and won't attempt to manipulate each other and escape blame? No, but does that legitimate that they do? Also no. Nothing "frees" anyone from having to intervene or act except the inalienable ability not to. Does that mean that people aren't helping something bad along when they choose not to intervene? No, inaction is a vote cast for the consequences of inaction.


I don't like to frame views in terms of positions that either "yield" or refuse to budge. I believe in reason and, imo, reason need not fear interaction. I wouldn't, nor would I expect anyone else to, simply "yield" for the sake of avoiding being called, "unyielding." These are the domination-submission games of social-docility and conformity and they are contrary to reason and individual free will.

What gives you the right to take responsiblity for anyone else's actions?


Some people treat life as abundance instead of scarce. You're tossing language around, like "treasuring" and "fleeting" that contains a specific ideology that you're not discussing.

When it comes down to it brainstorm, I simply reject the need for a single guiding ideology, beyond "big S" Skepticism. Your analogy of the loaded gun is a fine one, but we both know that I'm not talking about a sincere prayer or hope for one's safety... I'm talking about, "I will pray... for your SOUL [because as it stands now you're screwed]." I'm talking about the "I'll pray for you" that is bandied about as the *fundamentalist* Christian "**** you!". If you don't really know what I'm talking about, I can't help that. There is a difference between, "Pray for our miners" and "Pray for those who are blind to the truth we SEE." If you don't see THAT, it is a willful act of ignorance on your part.

As for the rest, I can only say that you sound like someone who has not been tested much in life, except by their own internal dialogue. I'm sorry that you suffered in that, and I'm glad that you've found a way to cope, but not everyone finds looking at reality as damaging as you seem to believe. For instance, your blase response to the destruction of biodiversity on this planet is a bit mad. We're not just talking about wiping out life, but also the damage to our ecosystem, which we are clearly not capable of accurately assessing. Talk about "playing" with loaded weapons!

I respect pacifists, but the problem is that there will always be those who do not. Therefore, I take a measured view of violence in human interaction, as something to be avoided at all costs, but not an absolute evil. That said, I believe you've begun to stray from the various "-isms" on offer here, and constructed an ideal of your own which requires near total participation by free-thinking individuals to work. At no point in history has such a policy led to a lasting peace, any more than wars have. You want people to NOT be in pain, but pain is part of life, and it doesn't have to be something which drives you to hate or fear.

You CAN rationally assess a threat, and determine a proper response without resorting to monstrosities. On the other hand, there are plenty of people in the world who would fundamentally disagree with what you consider a moral culture, and they would kill you for that. People desire freedom to act as they see fit, including acting on darker urges, in the absence of social constructs. As such constructs are fundamentally communal, and not individual, I see your view as lovely, but purely fantastic.

Finally, you may want to consider why people kill, because the reasons are VARIED. There is no one "killer's mindset", and I have the sense that you're talking about literally everyone who engages say, in a war. While many wars would have benefited from a voice of reason to prevent them, some were not helped by calls for peace. WWII springs to mind.

As for the right to make decision for others, there is no such right. That doesn't mitigate the necessity for that in a society however. You seem to believe that humans are capable of overcoming basic facts of life that apply to everything on this planet, except as you would have it, us. I am more of Six Nein's view, that we are no different from a rabbit population; it might be hawks, or a pathogen, or (less likely for us) starvation, but natural systems seek equilibrium. If we don't attempt to reach that on our own, we're going to be HIT with it at some point. It must be very liberating to eschew all sense of moral responsibility for others, but then, you can at least do so by setting an example you would have people follow. You believe that is an example of liberating the spirit and the mind... I believe it is through acceptance of reality, and working within those strictures.

Until we are no longer dependant on one planet, and one star for our continued existence as a species, our future HAS already been written in our history. The question of "when" is academic, and can free you to act abominably, or to act morally for the sake of doing so. My cynicism WAS tested, and it broke (as inevitably these things do) a long time ago. There is a reason I'm agnostic, and not an atheist... I don't subscribe to certainties anymore. I believe that our strength is adaptation, and mental adaptation comes first. I want to live in the real world, not an ideal I construct from hope and fantasy, but that doesn't mean I am willing to lay down and die.

There are functional views of the world that are not yours brainstorm, and some people can cope with more... dissonance, that others.

 

[skippy1729]

I find it difficult to separate socialism from Stalinism in the sense that socialism, which is a ideology and a vision of Utopia, has an internal pressure to become more authoritarian as its goal becomes more elusive. Stalin, Mao and Hitler are the most extreme examples, others may take much more time to get to self righteous State Terrorism. The flaw in all ideologies is that they truly believe that they exclusively have all the answers.

Skippy

PS Socialism = Trickle Up Poverty since you will always run out of rich people to steal from.

 

[brainstorm]

When it comes down to it brainstorm, I simply reject the need for a single guiding ideology, beyond "big S" Skepticism. Your analogy of the loaded gun is a fine one, but we both know that I'm not talking about a sincere prayer or hope for one's safety... I'm talking about, "I will pray... for your SOUL [because as it stands now you're screwed]." I'm talking about the "I'll pray for you" that is bandied about as the *fundamentalist* Christian "**** you!". If you don't really know what I'm talking about, I can't help that. There is a difference between, "Pray for our miners" and "Pray for those who are blind to the truth we SEE." If you don't see THAT, it is a willful act of ignorance on your part.

Unfortunately, I understand the feeling of seeing that people are blind to see how their "sins" are harming themselves and others, and even though I believe that the discovery of sin and redemption is unique according each individual's personal life experiences, I also see a general pattern of people who cultivate denial because they don't want to consider the possibility of truth that interferes with other interests. You may be right that some people are using prayer as a weapon, but from the quotes you use to illustrate, there's nothing inherent in the quotes that suggests that people are not just lamenting about the unwillingness of others to open their eyes, and feel they have no other way to help them than prayer. Talking with people doesn't always get through to them.

As for the rest, I can only say that you sound like someone who has not been tested much in life, except by their own internal dialogue. I'm sorry that you suffered in that, and I'm glad that you've found a way to cope, but not everyone finds looking at reality as damaging as you seem to believe.

I have been tested a lot unfortunately, and the only thing I've learned from it is that I have to work harder not to fall to my own cynicism, pessimism, or whatever other ideology would result from accepting negativity as an inevitable reality. I did that for a while, but I found it was unsustainable without some other practical level of consolation. In other words, I found that to avoid seeking solice in material comforts, it was necessary to work at pro-actively cultivating an ideology of hope.

For instance, your blase response to the destruction of biodiversity on this planet is a bit mad. We're not just talking about wiping out life, but also the damage to our ecosystem, which we are clearly not capable of accurately assessing. Talk about "playing" with loaded weapons!

The solution to destroying animals and their ecosystems is to support cultural ways of living that are less harmful. Like I've said in a previous post, I think about this every time I see roadkill on my bicycle.

I respect pacifists, but the problem is that there will always be those who do not. Therefore, I take a measured view of violence in human interaction, as something to be avoided at all costs, but not an absolute evil.

I'm not a pacifist and I don't respect it as much as I should possibly, because I discovered how being a pacifist myself was a violent reaction to the visibility of violence, which cannot ultimately be transcended but only reduced. Pacifism is an ideology of hate/violence toward hate/violence which reproduced violence by reacting to it.

That said, I believe you've begun to stray from the various "-isms" on offer here, and constructed an ideal of your own which requires near total participation by free-thinking individuals to work. At no point in history has such a policy led to a lasting peace, any more than wars have. You want people to NOT be in pain, but pain is part of life, and it doesn't have to be something which drives you to hate or fear.

The hard thing about individualism is that you have to come to accept that individuals are free to choose destructive paths, and that them doing so is what causes so much destruction. Lasting peace will never be achieved through attempts to control individuals, and ultimately such attempts promote other forms of destruction. Some Christians simply recognize that Satan dominates the world, and the only hope is for individuals to realize forgiveness and virtue in their own lives. I'm sorry if this sounds like preaching. I'm just giving an example of how one ideology deals with the realization that it's not possible to save the world through governance. Of course, I don't see anything wrong with expressing hope through politics and at least trying. It's just that I also realize that there's no such thing as a lasting solution to problems.

You CAN rationally assess a threat, and determine a proper response without resorting to monstrosities. On the other hand, there are plenty of people in the world who would fundamentally disagree with what you consider a moral culture, and they would kill you for that. People desire freedom to act as they see fit, including acting on darker urges, in the absence of social constructs. As such constructs are fundamentally communal, and not individual, I see your view as lovely, but purely fantastic.

You're assuming a lot. I don't think anything is fundamentally communal except the ideology of community, which is actually individual in practice. The "communal" dream is something I have experienced but I can no longer understand why people think anything positive comes out of communalism. Individuals can certainly live with an ethical interest in bettering others lives as they better their own - but this doesn't have to involve an ideology of community, and I think it actually works better when the community ideology is replaced with one of responsible individuality where individuals engage in cultural practices that are automatically beneficial to others than themselves. Vegetarianism is good for your health and leaves more land and water resources available for others to eat as well. The vegetarian individual is socially ethical without recognizing or participating in any defined "community."

Finally, you may want to consider why people kill, because the reasons are VARIED. There is no one "killer's mindset", and I have the sense that you're talking about literally everyone who engages say, in a war. While many wars would have benefited from a voice of reason to prevent them, some were not helped by calls for peace. WWII springs to mind.

Actually, if you understand the death-drive, according to Freudianism, it is a pretty general motivation for the spirit of killing and other destruction. It can occur relatively harmlessly, but it is never less than a potential spawn for escalation. It takes place constantly in the form of the desire for cessation of various things, whether those things are desired to cease because of their goodness or badness.

As for the right to make decision for others, there is no such right. That doesn't mitigate the necessity for that in a society however. You seem to believe that humans are capable of overcoming basic facts of life that apply to everything on this planet, except as you would have it, us. I am more of Six Nein's view, that we are no different from a rabbit population; it might be hawks, or a pathogen, or (less likely for us) starvation, but natural systems seek equilibrium. If we don't attempt to reach that on our own, we're going to be HIT with it at some point. It must be very liberating to eschew all sense of moral responsibility for others, but then, you can at least do so by setting an example you would have people follow. You believe that is an example of liberating the spirit and the mind... I believe it is through acceptance of reality, and working within those strictures.

"Acceptance of reality" is an ideology that relinquishes responsibility for reality. I do lead by example, in that I am my own leader and I expect others to be their own leaders as well. I do not hide by reasoning or beliefs of what is good for myself and others. I don't need any right to live well and share how I do it publicly, because I am not forcing anyone else to obey anything I suggest. Sometimes people call me a dictator because I simply state my opinion about how people should act. I have no desire for anyone's freedom to be curtailed unless there is a non-harmful way to do so that does not undermine their political right to argue their own position and reasons.

Until we are no longer dependant on one planet, and one star for our continued existence as a species, our future HAS already been written in our history.

Nonsense, history is a narrative image of patterns that can be explained in various ways. It is no easier to explain history than it is to explain social patterns in the present. When individuals' subjective field of possibilities is constrained by ideologies of historical patterns and trends, they are hindering their own freedom with their assumptions about the mechanics of historical procession.

The question of "when" is academic, and can free you to act abominably, or to act morally for the sake of doing so. My cynicism WAS tested, and it broke (as inevitably these things do) a long time ago. There is a reason I'm agnostic, and not an atheist... I don't subscribe to certainties anymore. I believe that our strength is adaptation, and mental adaptation comes first. I want to live in the real world, not an ideal I construct from hope and fantasy, but that doesn't mean I am willing to lay down and die.

If you are, in your mind, adapting to a reality you imagine to be beyond your control, you are in fact collaborating to create a social ideology of conformity instead of one in which social reality is the product of individual free will. If you see free will as a stumbling block for imperative realities, don't be surprised if your free will is treated by others as a stumbling block for their imperatives, such as procreation and population/economic growth, for example.

There are functional views of the world that are not yours brainstorm, and some people can cope with more... dissonance, that others.

I cope with the dissonance of individual free will and the fact that social realism is an ideology that conflicts with the realism of materiality beyond human consciousness. You seem to be the one that tries to reduce dissonance by "adapting" or conforming to social-ideologies of realism that impair your faith in individuals to freely vote on the future through the actions they choose. I view both history and the future as the product of a free market of individual actions, even when many individuals choose to exercise their free will for the purpose of accommodating or "adapting" to forces they imagine to be beyond their influence. I do not think that any individual has the power to control others, but I think that each has the power to exercise as much influence as they have at their disposal. If you waste your power on reacting to ideas of things you can't change, you are wasting the opportunity to channel those same energies into the things you can.

 

[Nusc]

Social inequality has been shown to be the cause of many social problems. A comprehensive study of major world economies revealed that homicide, infant mortality, obesity, teenage pregnancies, emotional depression and prison population all correlate with higher social inequality.[6]

Socialism.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Unfortunately, I understand the feeling of seeing that people are blind to see how their "sins" are harming themselves and others, and even though I believe that the discovery of sin and redemption is unique according each individual's personal life experiences, I also see a general pattern of people who cultivate denial because they don't want to consider the possibility of truth that interferes with other interests. You may be right that some people are using prayer as a weapon, but from the quotes you use to illustrate, there's nothing inherent in the quotes that suggests that people are not just lamenting about the unwillingness of others to open their eyes, and feel they have no other way to help them than prayer. Talking with people doesn't always get through to them.


I have been tested a lot unfortunately, and the only thing I've learned from it is that I have to work harder not to fall to my own cynicism, pessimism, or whatever other ideology would result from accepting negativity as an inevitable reality. I did that for a while, but I found it was unsustainable without some other practical level of consolation. In other words, I found that to avoid seeking solice in material comforts, it was necessary to work at pro-actively cultivating an ideology of hope.


The solution to destroying animals and their ecosystems is to support cultural ways of living that are less harmful. Like I've said in a previous post, I think about this every time I see roadkill on my bicycle.


I'm not a pacifist and I don't respect it as much as I should possibly, because I discovered how being a pacifist myself was a violent reaction to the visibility of violence, which cannot ultimately be transcended but only reduced. Pacifism is an ideology of hate/violence toward hate/violence which reproduced violence by reacting to it.


The hard thing about individualism is that you have to come to accept that individuals are free to choose destructive paths, and that them doing so is what causes so much destruction. Lasting peace will never be achieved through attempts to control individuals, and ultimately such attempts promote other forms of destruction. Some Christians simply recognize that Satan dominates the world, and the only hope is for individuals to realize forgiveness and virtue in their own lives. I'm sorry if this sounds like preaching. I'm just giving an example of how one ideology deals with the realization that it's not possible to save the world through governance. Of course, I don't see anything wrong with expressing hope through politics and at least trying. It's just that I also realize that there's no such thing as a lasting solution to problems.


You're assuming a lot. I don't think anything is fundamentally communal except the ideology of community, which is actually individual in practice. The "communal" dream is something I have experienced but I can no longer understand why people think anything positive comes out of communalism. Individuals can certainly live with an ethical interest in bettering others lives as they better their own - but this doesn't have to involve an ideology of community, and I think it actually works better when the community ideology is replaced with one of responsible individuality where individuals engage in cultural practices that are automatically beneficial to others than themselves. Vegetarianism is good for your health and leaves more land and water resources available for others to eat as well. The vegetarian individual is socially ethical without recognizing or participating in any defined "community."


Actually, if you understand the death-drive, according to Freudianism, it is a pretty general motivation for the spirit of killing and other destruction. It can occur relatively harmlessly, but it is never less than a potential spawn for escalation. It takes place constantly in the form of the desire for cessation of various things, whether those things are desired to cease because of their goodness or badness.


"Acceptance of reality" is an ideology that relinquishes responsibility for reality. I do lead by example, in that I am my own leader and I expect others to be their own leaders as well. I do not hide by reasoning or beliefs of what is good for myself and others. I don't need any right to live well and share how I do it publicly, because I am not forcing anyone else to obey anything I suggest. Sometimes people call me a dictator because I simply state my opinion about how people should act. I have no desire for anyone's freedom to be curtailed unless there is a non-harmful way to do so that does not undermine their political right to argue their own position and reasons.


Nonsense, history is a narrative image of patterns that can be explained in various ways. It is no easier to explain history than it is to explain social patterns in the present. When individuals' subjective field of possibilities is constrained by ideologies of historical patterns and trends, they are hindering their own freedom with their assumptions about the mechanics of historical procession.


If you are, in your mind, adapting to a reality you imagine to be beyond your control, you are in fact collaborating to create a social ideology of conformity instead of one in which social reality is the product of individual free will. If you see free will as a stumbling block for imperative realities, don't be surprised if your free will is treated by others as a stumbling block for their imperatives, such as procreation and population/economic growth, for example.


I cope with the dissonance of individual free will and the fact that social realism is an ideology that conflicts with the realism of materiality beyond human consciousness. You seem to be the one that tries to reduce dissonance by "adapting" or conforming to social-ideologies of realism that impair your faith in individuals to freely vote on the future through the actions they choose. I view both history and the future as the product of a free market of individual actions, even when many individuals choose to exercise their free will for the purpose of accommodating or "adapting" to forces they imagine to be beyond their influence. I do not think that any individual has the power to control others, but I think that each has the power to exercise as much influence as they have at their disposal. If you waste your power on reacting to ideas of things you can't change, you are wasting the opportunity to channel those same energies into the things you can.

Brainstorm, as much as this is, and probably could continue to be an interesting discussion, I don't think we're likely to agree on much beyond basic principles of how one should treat others (with love, kindness, and respect). I suspect that you're someone with deep faith (although I can't claim to peg you as particularly religious) and I am, above all, faithless. Frankly you WANT to be a better person that I even aspire to be, and you seem willing to sacrifice more in the pursuit of that than I am.

I do want to make one point clear: I take responsibility for my shortcomings, and I don't cheat. I don't cheat on people, I never cheated academically, and I won't cheat you in this by pretending to be more or better than I am. I know that I have the capacity to do far more good, but I simply do not care for others (who are not my immediate kith and kin) enough to extend myself in that fashion. You TRULY believe, as you said, in a hope that contradicts logic. I can respect that, and even understand it, but I don't share it.

I feel you've shared some personal aspects of who you are, so I'll do the same. I'm human, I'm not thanatophobic or thanatophilic beyond the average, and I try to takes Nietzsche's advice about monsters and the abyss. That said, we each react differently according to who we are. I can only say that I do not feel... tormented... in the way you described feeling in the past. I accept life on its own terms, and I have no ideology or religious conviction to elevate myself or others above other animals in my mind. I genuinely dislike a fair number of people, and my strategy for living is to cultivate a circle of people who not like-minded, but creative and adaptable.

Yes, one can adept in such a fashion as to become a metaphorical shark, and in doing harm to others you harm yourself. I believe that based on completely non-religious or spiritual grounds. People who hurt other people pay a price for that, but that isn't to say that such a price isn't worth paying sometimes. My hope, is that people, when pressed, will react to crises with more than fear and a desire to be dominated by a father-figure (see Bush+9/11). For every Bill O'Rielly there is a John Stewart, and just as it's inevitable that empires and civilizations rise and fall, that includes the people who bring them down, such as your example of Gandhi.

That said, history, which I believe to be an excellent predictor of future human interactions, teaches us lessons that cannot be ignored. Good people sometimes make a seemingly moral choice to withhold violence for their own sake, and the sake of others. Sometimes that is a terrible error. As the world we live in is morally grey in practice, we can choose to pursue a kind of unattainable self-perfection (which few people can, but some do), or we can pursue balance in ourselves. I try for the latter, not as a means of compromising principles I hold dear, but because I've learned from experience that people are hard to categorize. I may vent and say that "people are stupid", but I know that's just venting.

I try, very hard, to avoid ideology... I see it as a poison to individuality. One can have fluid views which adapt, alongside personal moral convictions which one will NOT break, and without submitting to an illusory authority or a false inevitability. My belief in, "doom" so to speak, does not result in a feeling of helplessness, or despair (usually). Rather, it makes me consider how one DOES move people at this scale. You look inward for a source of strength and conviction, whereas I turn outwards and prefer to exercise influence, often in a Machiavellian fashion. I'm not talking about accruing masses of power or money, but sometimes you need to manipulate people for their own good. It's not right, it simply IS. Have you ever scared someone so that they'll see a doctor, or a dentist? I don't mean that you lie to them, but that you confront them with the myriad consequences of their action or inaction. I have no right to do that, but then, rights are social constructs (in my view). Obviously if you believe in a divine mandate, that changes everything, and acting in accordance with that would be of utmost importance. I don't believe that however, and I think that basic difference... your belief in something more than us on a rock, and my complete lack of belief, is what is finally clashing.

In my experience, this is not something which can or should be solved. You have a life which seems to work for you, in which you strive to do the right thing, as you see it, and constantly re-examine your behaviour for inconsistencies with that ethic. I do the same, but our basic premise is different. The methodology still yields a more flexible and accepting individual however, and for that I respect you, even if our disagreements are profound and fundamental.

EDIT: btw, don't worry about the religion bit, I don't believe in them, but it doesn't mean I don't study them. Religion is a critical part history, and is too important to ignore. Judeo-Christian mythology is especially useful, given the sheer length of time it has persisted, and the number of people who ascribe to its basic ethics. Bhuddism, Hinduism, and others also match this I believe. I know some people who are scientifically inclined (such as myself) react badly to talk of religion, but I don't. I don't see it as a threat, and I can distinguish between you praying for me to see something you truly believe would make my life better, and some jackass launching a parting shot of "I'll pray for you!". People who don't care about others do not pursue these conversations with the conviction or vigor you have.

 

[brainstorm]

Social inequality has been shown to be the cause of many social problems. A comprehensive study of major world economies revealed that homicide, infant mortality, obesity, teenage pregnancies, emotional depression and prison population all correlate with higher social inequality.[6]

Socialism.

That's because redistributing money promotes spending and economic growth. The "reducing inequality" ideology is clever in that it takes criticism of capitalism, i.e. that it increases inequality, and utilizes it to motivate political policies to stimulate capitalism. Ultimately, the growth resulting from redistribution causes even greater inequalities, but socialists don't care because they just plan to keep redistributing and making more money until the infrastructure collapses and resources (natural and human) are used up.

Conservation is better than redistribution for dealing with lifestyle inequalities, but since it doesn't redistribute wealth and results in lower consumption standard for upper and middle classes, people prefer to advocate raising consumption standard for the poor and wasting even more resources and increasing long-term inequality.

 

[brainstorm]

EDIT: btw, don't worry about the religion bit, I don't believe in them, but it doesn't mean I don't study them. Religion is a critical part history, and is too important to ignore. Judeo-Christian mythology is especially useful, given the sheer length of time it has persisted, and the number of people who ascribe to its basic ethics. Bhuddism, Hinduism, and others also match this I believe. I know some people who are scientifically inclined (such as myself) react badly to talk of religion, but I don't. I don't see it as a threat, and I can distinguish between you praying for me to see something you truly believe would make my life better, and some jackass launching a parting shot of "I'll pray for you!". People who don't care about others do not pursue these conversations with the conviction or vigor you have.

The greatest insight I discovered when I began studying religion is that most of what I viewed as the evil of religion from a secular point of view turned out to be abuses of religious ideologies by those who fall just short of true faith. I am fascinated, for example, by the crusading "Christians" who felt the need to blame Jews for the crucifixion and take violent revenge despite Christ's beckoning to "forgive them they know not what they do." What's more, the same people absolve Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers even though Pilate "washed his hands," which means he denied his own sin, which is a big sin in Christianity if you understand it. Anyway, I'm not trying to spread religious dogma by giving these examples. I'm just pointing out how, like the people you say pray for you as a way of saying "F*** you," religion is always subject to misinterpretation and misapplication - not the least of which the cause is that the whole purpose of scripture is to interpret and apply it freely, according to "holy" sensibilities. It's a secular misinterpretation that the worst actions committed in the name of religion should be attributed to religion itself as the root cause. Secularism is simply unequipped to distinguish between uses and abuses of religion, because it it views all religion as monolithically in opposition to itself.