Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 46. (Read 288348 times)

You're absolutely right - the Malthusian model fits terribly with current demographic and behavioural patterns.
But that's only because we're not defining 'population' and 'resources' properly.
In an interconnected world, countries are just local population pockets, not distinct populations. The same goes for resources. Economics has proven time and again that rich people can't be rich unless there are lots of poorer people working for them, and rich countries can't exist without exploiting poorer countries.
The Japanese have a negative population growth rate and a very high standard of living (two things which are highly correlated). But they wouldn't be able to live this way without using the services of people in other countries with a lower standard of living and a higher population growth rate. So the only way to look at this properly is the global way. And globally, Malthus still works - population is ultimately limited by resources.
Some people in the world are rich, some are poor. Some have more children and some have less. A certain percentage is always on the brink of starvation. As the global economy grows, as more resources become available, as improved agriculture feeds more people, population continues to grow. But the differences between rich and poor remain. The percentage that's on the brink of starvation remains.
If you try to make everyone rich, I have no idea what will happen in the short run, but in the long run things will return to equilibrium with a bigger population and the same old income gaps.

Demographs do study all this, and their conclusions differ from yours.   It's not just fear that prevents people from having large family.  To some extend, it might even be inverse.   Fortunately it is not necessary to try to guess why people chose to have many or few children.   You can do statistics, and infer demographic projections.   And several of those tend to predict a stagnation of human population during this century, followed by a possible decline.

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-world-populations.html

There is no doubt that richer and more educated people have less children. That's a well-known sociological fact, and so it is not surprising that richer countries have lower population growth rates.
But global population growth isn't stopping. People figured out ways to profit from war thousands of years ago, and Earth's population isn't running up against any hard limits quite yet. A certain percentage of the world's population is always near starvation, then agricultural technology advances, allowing more people to be fed, and then the population grows accordingly so that roughly the same percentage is near starvation.

Are you saying that if resources were over-abundant (essentially, if everyone was arbitrarily rich), people would have less children? Perhaps, but I doubt it. A considerable percentage of the world's population would have even more children. You yourself said that the main reason people have less children in developed market economies is fear that they will not be able to afford a family. If resources were abundant, there would be no such fears and anyone could have an arbitrarily large family.
I would add another piece of anecdotal evidence: highly educated people in rich countries tend to be more focused on career rather than family. They delay having children to an older age, so as not to interfere with career development, and then end up with few or no children. This will also disappear in a utopian technological over-abundant society - people would essentially have nothing better to do than start a family.

Either way, in the long run, there are only two possibilities: either people choose not to have children and the human race will eventually go extinct, or (much more plausibly, as I said above) population will grow to the point where resources are no longer over-abundant.
The third possibility, that population size will remain constant, seems impossible in the long run. It requires that the global average number of children per couple will remain exactly 2 forever, and there is absolutely no reason for this to be exactly so (unless central planning is involved).


As for exposing critical services to market forces, that's a completely different debate...

Go tell this to German, Russian and Japanese people.   The lack of resources is not the only way a population can stop growing.  As a matter of fact, populations in developed countries tend to decline not because of a lack of resources, but because of a tendency women have not to have more than 2 children, thus being unable to renew generations (in order to renew the population, women must have statistically at least one daughter, which means at least two children).

The Malthusian model of population dynamics is overly simplified, and does not fit well in current demographics and reproductive behavior.

The US is the ultimate expression of a free market. The dominant market participants have created and empowered a government to protect it's profits and interests against the population's desire for peace and mutual prosperity. If you don't understand how this is the case, then you don't understand your own dogma.

I don't agree with any of this, particularly the underlying assumption that the US is a free market, but I won't even go into it because it's besides the point. None of what you're saying contradicts what I said. The Malthusian principle is not an "idea" or an "assumption" but a recognised and widely applied scientific principle. Populations always grow right up to the point when they can't grow anymore. Therefore, resources can never be over-abundant unless the population size is artificially reduced.

Your link does not provide any evidence for machines coming to life.

Interesting ideas, but also lots of assumptions and some of the anecdotal evidence seems to go against what you're saying.

E.g.: childbearing seems to be the lowest per person in areas with a well developed market system, like European countries or the English-speaking West. Why? More anecdotal evidence suggests fear: people are simply afraid that they can't afford a family, and the solo child is usually an accident.

Free market dogma also promotes costly private education that can only afforded by a minority of successful business savvy couples. And the same applies to private health-care. Meanwhile, the system is gamed by bankers, brokers, and other profit-seeking middlemen who profit by putting themselves in between the resources and the consumers of those resources, and artificially restricting access. If the ongoing feedback from the population isn't strong enough, such a system can trend towards Fascism, as seems to be happening in the US. How is that not "tyranny of the free market"?

Here's some bulls* http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/12/tech/human-brain-computer/index.html

(Basic rat level bulls* was accomplished a couple of years ago, apparently)

Yes. I am free to trade with whomever I want, to get whatever I want, and if I don't,t have the resources to trade, am (somewhat) free to accumulate said resources (albeit with some regulatory restrictions, which are still nowhere near as restrictive as yours will be).

He chose to use bitcoin, didn't he?

Please feel free to go live in a cave, a desert or an island if you're not happy with economic reality.

You are the one who want to coerce people.   You think machines could do all the work, but right now they don't.  Whether you like it or not, there are still humans required for a lot of production in the world.   And those humans are not your slaves.  They don't work to please you.

You want machines to work for you?  Design, build or buy some.   What have you done to advance towards a fully automated society?  Probably nothing.   I mean, you keep advocating for technology, but are you even a scientist or engineer??   Do you have a PhD?  What are your recent technological accomplishment?  The corporations that you communist people dislike so much (because they are part of the "system" you are denouncing) have done much more:  they hire actual engineers and they did build these machines and thus offered products with lower and lower prices.

You did nothing and yet you keep whining about how you receive nothing.  You should be ashamed of yourself.



Again:  if you think we're going towards a society where everything is free, then just let the prices fall down towards zero.   No need for an abolition of the market.


I mean, you guys often mention free stuff that emerged from the open source community and stuff like that.  Like Wikipedia, linux and all.  Those are free stuff that somehow could be considered as a model of a future society where stuff are free and people don't work for money.   But these things (Wikipedia, linux...) do exist now and yet they did not require a political intervention, nor did they require the abolition of the current market system.  So what about we keep on like this, just letting things that can be free become free, in a natural way??

Hi everyone,

I'm a little new here and I haven't read the entire thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating things that have already been said, but has anyone mentioned the Malthusian imperative?
You just CAN'T have enough resources for everyone. It's the mathematical fact at the base of both ecology and economics. If technology provides sufficient resources for everyone, the population will grow until resources are limiting again. The only way a "resource based economy" could work is if childbearing is severely limited by a central authority.

So even if we ignore, for a minute, the obvious tyranny involved with centrally planned resource distribution policies, we still have to cope with the tyranny imposed by telling people how many children they're allowed to have. This is not just economic authoritarianism, but also authoritarianism at the most personal level.

I recommend watching:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems.html
20 minutes very well spent.

~~~

TZM seems to be drawing inspiration from China's transformation, and basically suggesting that instead of weak fallible people in the management hierarchy, why not a noble software system that won't fail us?

On the one hand, Peter Joseph seems to have a strong understanding of economics and an impressive ability to think abstractly. It was quite clear from the debate between PJ and Stefan Molyneux that PJ was able to think outside the 'square' of ideology, and therefore can't be a modern-day Marxist since that's just another popular story for people to rally behind.

On the other hand, this "software at the top" idea suggests the TZM has a weak understanding of software and computing. And the transhumanists who seem to believe (without any evidence) that computers will one day come to life, ARE NOT HELPING. All this 'singularity' bulls* is just sci-fan bulls*. Don't get me wrong, maybe some incredible breakthrough will allow computing systems to be alive like Number 5. But right now, the world as we know it doesn't work like that.

So you think you have freely chosen the economic system you live in? You were not coerced into it?

https://medium.com/p/340ad9fafd8f

I have used ad hominem attacks against you before, but thi post was not one. It was my observation, as how I believe things are. There was no logic or arguments, and no points to make. You are who you are, and that is all I was stating. If the idea of subjugating humans under the control of an all powerful AI disturbs you, perhaps you should rethink what it is you are advocating for.
I do not fear technology. I embrace it. I would gladly be the first to enhance myself with technology, whether it's cybernetics or biotech. And I likewise advocate the use of science and technology, but the difference is that I also advocate for people being free to explore that technology, and make their own choice as to which they believe will benefit them best. You, on the other hand, advocate for a rigid one-size-fits-all technological decision that will be made on behalf of everyone, and force everyone to comply. Money, bitcoin, is itself a technology, which, like all tools, is up to people to choose whether and how to use. I think Bitcoin, the technology, will change the world for the better in ways we can't yet even imagine. You believe it is "arbitrary and crippling. ... A system that, under closer examination, is no longer useful and is in fact detrimental to humanity and the environment that sustains us." You think all trade, mutual exchange, feeling greatful to someone for their deed or help, is an "unnatural brainwashing" that must be wiped away. Right now you are proposing it be done with education, teaching people that you shouldn't feel like you owe someone because they did something for you, that everyone should be free to take whatever they want. How long until your words falling on deaf ears makes you frustrated enough that you decide to do this not with education, but with coersion?

As I stated before, your desire to lash out at me is understandable, and I do not blame you for your efforts to try and attack me and whatever imagined character flaws I may or may not have. Ad hominem attacks are usually a sign of a lack of logical thought and consideration when confronted with larger and unfamiliar ideas. I advocate the use of science and technology for the benefit of all people. There are many who are scared of technology because they have consumed media that encourage them to fear a distorted view of what technology will do to humanity. They have been conditioned to be afraid. Many of you know that technology is not something to fear outright, but something to be understood and used for the benefit of society. I want the whole world to benefit from the technology we have today, without the arbitrary and crippling restrictions of a monetary system. A system that, under closer examination, is no longer useful and is in fact detrimental to humanity and the environment that sustains us.

Nah the whole cyborg thing isn't really transhumanism. I don't remember the term but I'm sure it's called something else. Some transumanists also want to become a cyborg, that is right but those are separate topics although loosely related.
Perhaps you have a different opinion of what transhumanism is. For me it is the believe or wish to have autonomously self-improving machines. When it comes down to it that is what the Venus project is about. They do want self-impoving machines and they are coming to the worst conclusion possible, and of course calling it techno-communism is kind of striking. Perhaps after a decade of being around the term might some day be used to accurately describe this subgroup of transhumanism.

He is not a transhumanist. Transhumanists don't go so far as to completely reject the basis of human needs and instincts. He is a techno-communist, aiming to transform and subjugate human society and politics. Transhumanists wish to incorporate technology into humans, and thus make humans use technology as a tool, or a stepping stone, to make ourselves better. He wants to subjugate humans under machines, and make humans the machine's tools or personal toys, toiling under the all-powerful control of some ai. As a transhumanist, I'm a bit offended you would compare us like that.

Lightrider isn't a communist, he's a transhumanist, which is actually much worse.