Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 86. (Read 288375 times)

Sorry to say, but this is incorrect.
It should be:"eliminating the weak from the gene pool will result in a healthier population under current circumstances".
The difference is incredibly important to evolution and genetic variation (even the seemingly weak ones) is a big part of the survival mechanism of a species.
It is, as we have found out in biology over the past decennia, the core flaw with the eugenic line of thought.

The Zeitgeist Movement and Venus Project are getting some interesting media attention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELEwjVRxxGE

Look like Lincoln issued money or Kennedy wanted to ( but was shot ) , to grasp how it could be done. There is no collecting only issuing debt and interest free money in enough quantity ( depending on GDP growth ) to not to screw up economy.

But getting rid of banks , government can issue its own money instead of lending from banks ( the same inflation but reduced side effects ) , and can reduce taxes at the same time since there is no interest or debt to pay back.

The key it to get rid of private banks as we know it.

Look stalinism was actually.

Dictatorship
"State capitalism"

Nothing to do with RBE ...

We actually do automate , you can see it if you actually looked at numbers.
Obama spent trillions of $ to increase jobs but companies spend 36% more on equipment and only 2% more of actually employing people.
And yes i am sure survey also included companies that create and service equipment . Funny thing some people ignore that and tell me someone have to do just that.

That would mean companies that create and service equipment spend more money on ... equipment.

This is a trend , obviously we cant automate everything right now , but this is general trend that wont stop.

I dont assume , assumption is a mother of all fuckups.

You said government sponsored. Projects that big will have to be. Do you have a system for the government to collect thet billions that will be required to start this project voluntarily?

Anything is possible if you know how to achieve it.


You are falling to the same trap again. It looks as if you are rephrasing Stalin. (I don't like USSR analogies but this one was worth mentioning.) I've been thinking the same thing since I was a kid, but thinking it is nothing. Stalin screwed up big time trying to achieve that very same goal, because of the very same mistake.

Cynicism aside, you are making three leaps at once. You assume that we know how to automate and we don't do it. You assume it is economically feasible to automate but we don't do it. And finally you assume it will be socially feasible to automate. I think all of these are partially true. But I don't have anything substantial to back it up, do you? Again, looks as if your assumptions follow your conclusion, and not the other way around.

Automation by definition means as low labor as possible and application of technology.
Inflation is a different tax then "money collected through taxation".
Inflation is here right now anyway.

The change would those money would be actually spend to provide for needs so people dont have to pay for basic stuff ( poor and rich alike )

Beside i opted it as only one of the possibilities , the question of transition period is open. The point i was trying to make is it is not impossible task.

So, he should have been content with the answer that says nothing more than "mankind using science to end problems of the world". Ah, and yes, government could print money, but not like Zimbabwe. No sir. Unlike them, when we print money, it's not taxing the poor, we can import labor from outer space you know...

Before i answer anything more , where did you read in my post "with money collected through taxation".
It looks like you read what you want to read ( or what is filtered with your perception unconsciously ) without actually thinking.

I think you answered the "who" below, which seems to be volunteers and government workers, with money collected through taxation, with "for the greater good/motherland (motherplanet?)" I still don't see how this differs from early 20th century USSR. They also used science and technology to support their agricultural projects, and also simply printed money to pay for it, which on worked because no one was allowed to trade that currency for other currencies.

Entire thread dedicated too that but i summarize it for you.


Who raises the standard of living?
* Mankind

How?
* Via application of technology and scientific methods for social concern.

With what labor
* This is open question , it can be dealt with various means depending how we arrive at the transition period. End game if full automation but before that there is a way how i could see it done. Notice : we probably wont experience full fledged RBE in our lifetime , but we can and should start moving towards it now.
     - Voluntarily , via open source projects
     - Government sponsored. We have fiat money , instead of borrowing them from private banks with interest attached , governments could print it ( but not like in Zimbabwe ) and use it for RBE implementation purposes.

what incentives?
So we dont die as a species or fall back into medieval like society via
* Globar war / depletion of resources / overpopulation
* environmental distater/pollution
So we are free from mindless jobs .
* many many others.

Who raises the standard of living? How? With what labor and what incentives?

There is no need to. As all empirical data shows us population in developed countries tends to stabilize by its-self.

The best course of action is self-evident. We raise the standard of living of poor countries , the population stops exploding due to increase of education and awareness of people.

Now, we don't need the biopsychosocial model to know that people need to drink water, do we? As for the "nurturing environment", it's close to what I'm talking about.


You repeat almost exactly what I said about why eugenics program is wrong, and then tell me I have a very limited understanding of what science is. Disappointing indeed.

The fact that a theory is wrong doesn't make it unscientific. Plus, I explicitly told that "eliminating the weak from the gene pool will result in a healthier population" is a scientific fact, their premise, not the eugenics movement itself! I explained why defining "weak" objectively is impossible. It was a perfect example of how demagogy can take a scientific fact, contaminate it to fit certain goals of policy makers. You need to attack the analogy, not me.

Also, arbitrary feelings doesn't make or destroy science. That's why I asked the second question. I've been asked several times what I would do if I knew my baby would be born disabled. There isn't a clear answer to that. You feel remorse either way. I hope you are getting a hint about why I use the word "arrogance" here.

I think my rebuttal of the eugenics movement was actually better than yours.


The question of whether an aeroplane is better or not doesn't have an answer. If you are asking if it can fly to a longer distance, or carry more people, then yes. You can't decide that a person is unhealthy if she is in her desired state. You can't label a relationship unhealthy if the people involved are not complaining. You could say they are unfit for the population though, if for instance their mental state is causing problems to the population at large. And that doesn't make it fine, it's just a necessary evil.


Why are you so unwilling to participate in a simple mind experiment? You claim that we can know desirable traits in humans and what a desirable environment is for humans. I said, let's suppose you do know that... Even if not perfect, you could statistically know that letting people arbitrarily reproduce will cause much more suffering.

And how on earth can you assert that cloning humans is scientifically or morally bad? Are you sure you didn't make that up on the fly just to avoid participating in my dilemma? Again, assuming you can perfectly clone someone... How is it scientifically unsound? I'm guessing you would probably assert that someone could feel bad about this. If you are basing everything on current conventions, how on earth are you even suggesting to "change our ways"? And morally? Come on, you are eliminating sickness from the world. Please respond within bounds of the mental experiment, or don't respond at all.

Look, you made me act rude, but you are giving me a heartache. If verbal violence is as bad as physical violence, I'd like to add mental violence as the worst to that list.


Well, I spend most of my time with FOSS, hospitality networks, open standards, Esperanto movement and such and barely make any money. I really don't understand how classical theories predict that they wouldn't exist? For starters, unrestricted free markets (I wouldn't call it "classical") would be compatible with any of these.

Don't think I don't get your point though. I think we should all do what we want to do, and want to do things that would take us somewhere together. And no monetary transactions would be needed, everyone would have what they need to accomplish their goal. And this is actually possible with current technology and resources within this world. I also understand toying with this idea by using a model of the human.

What I can't accept is, undermining of major philosophical questions in order to make some solution feel real, hiding cynicism behind political correctness to feel confident. We must accept how hopeless it is, and why it is hopeless, to even begin thinking about it honestly.

We are experiencing miscommunication. I am stating precisely what you are saying: things are complex, and the only way to make sense of them is to use science.

I did read your links, and I know perfectly what you mean. We are talking past each other. My understanding of what you said was that since there is no clear distinction, it's not a scientific discussion.

if you, on the other hand are saying that because there is no clear distinction, we have to use science, then we are in agreement.

The same applies for well being. And, among all the shades of grey, if you take the extremes, there will be a clear distinction, as there is with food and poison. There is no doubt that 1 liter of arsenic if poisonous for humans (it's actually lethal). 10 liters of water can be pretty bad for you, might even kill you, but 20 cl are pretty good for you. It's a degree, a range of values.


I think I wrote this at least 10 times, but apparently you care more to write than to read.

I am setting the matter of morals aside for the moment, I am interested in discussing how to achieve the following goals, which I stated before: survival of the species, sustainability, nurturing and creative environment are all favourable conditions that can be evaluated, measured, studied and tested scientifically.

Facts, not opinions.

We have learned to keep them separated precisely because we cannot tell the difference easily.
People at some time had to sample a potato to see if they could use it as food and not get poisoned by it.
It's an obvious process but that does not make one simplistic considering it.
In fact, it is you who has a simplistic view becuase you put poison and foos as mutually exclusive.
But is you had cared to read what i wrote you would have realized that reality is more complex than that.
As i said, almost everything is poisonous at some level. That includes food.
Food, otoh, is valued for its nutrients.
A food can be valuable, even if it is somewhat poisonous, because it contains some substance that we cannot source from another food.

Exactly, so food is not white and poison is not black.
It's all shades of grey.
I'm amazed that you say this while you posed these as opposites, food is good, poison is bad.
As you now apparently have realised, things are more complex and you need to consider at least some of the detail to understand what is realy going on.
I never said such things.
You are oversimplifying it.
From a toxicological standpoint, if you want to drink 10 liters of water then indeed you may just as well drink some arsenicum and not go through the hell of death by water poisoning.
But water is needed by your body in some quantity so you need to consume it anyway.
But is it 'good'?
No, it's nessesary, a nessesity.

I know these things BECAUSE of science.
If you know it's bullshit then you should stop oversimplifying things.
Especially if you start hanging values like good and bad over your oversimplifications.

Science itself is (moral)value-less, it's moral-agnostic if you will.
It can be used for what some consider good and it can be used for what some consider evil.
Science cannot decide what is good or bad or evil, humans can.
And we certainly do use science to make up our opinion about good and bad and evil.
But you have to realise that the value comes om us, humans, not the science or the scientific method.
 

Fact:  Humans produce more food and water than they consume.

Fact: free access to education and equal rights between men and women stabilises population, without the need for depopulation or sterilisation practices.

As for resource scarcity, there will always be scarcity in this economic model, it's mathematical and physical inescapable fact. To achieve dynamic equilibrium you have to shift from the infinite-growth paradigm to a steady state economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_economy

In the current economic paradigm, even by reducing population (and doing something abhorrent while you are at it), you would just procrastinate it a little, but the issue is still there.

To sum up: to solve the inevitable problem I propose free access to information, education and the necessities of life (we'll talk later how to do this) and a shift to a steady state economy.

What do you propose, instead?

Fact: Overpopulation is a serious risk to all life on earth (because humans, like other animals, are mostly egoistical) and foor + water = more humans
The HUMANE thing to do for the future is reducing population, not increasing it.
But of course, that leads to inhumane things on the short term.
So, to do good you need to do some evil.
And now you have to form an opinion about what you consider good or evil.

That is only true becuase we have this impulse built in because it makes a lot of sense evolutionary speaking.
Then again, people have been abusing other people for ever and it seems we are still here.
So while it is better from the abused persons point of view, it does not make it better overall.
And it's only people that care about such things.
Ask a rabbit and he would propably be neutral on the issue.

Actually, all moral values and such are limited to the human species.

People have had energy for ever.
It is called the sun and it is captured in plants and then animals. Then, after milions of years sunlight is turned to oil and gass.
Our current need for energy comes largely from how we organized our societies.
But is it better?
For the short term it is certainly a view that most people have.
But how about the environment, for instance?
Will your children still think it was 'better' to use up so much fossil fuels?
And since most of our energy comes from fossil fuels, is using more of it better or not?
How about the fact that in 100 years we have used up most of the energy that has been stored in the earth for milions of years.
In 50 years we will have used up the rest.
Is it better to use up everything or is it better to leave some for future generations?

I would say that thinking it is better is very egoistical and certainly very short term.

So, now we have learned that the human moral evaluation changes even with the time-span that you look at.
There are no absolute values.
It all depends on how you look at it and then how you judge (form opinion, whatever).