Topic: Common ground - page 2. (Read 643 times)

nope because people will always desire the rare things

Could scarcity be eliminated in the future? With genetic bio-technology I see no reason why it couldn't be solved.

Cool thread hehe, Merry Xmas P&S!  

On a Macro level I personally find it difficult to disagree with the above statements.  

Not 100% sure about the last one but since I consider it a statistically 0% chance of us engaging alien life at this point in our evolutionary path, I can gladly say fuck yeah HUMANS RULE!  BUILD A DOME!

When I was younger and much more conservative I had an almost hard line stance that things were just black or white, end of story.  I've come to think very differently than I did as a young man and I understand that the world is rarely black or white and that in fact we do everything in scales.

In terms of the differences it clearly comes down to implementation.  It may or may not come as a surprise but to be honest the freedom of individuals is extremely important to me.  My philosophy in terms of my property, my family, my lifestyle is you WILL leave the me the fuck alone and I WILL leave you the fuck alone.  Of course assuming you're not crossing some socially accepted "monster" red line like but not limited to murder etc etc etc.

If this is an acceptable broadview of both sides the difference clearly creeps in when we say well how do we make sure you WILL leave me alone in private.  One argument if obviously I must personally have "weapons" designed to protect me if a rouge actor emerges (and we all know they will).  Another argument is we don't need to arm ourselves but instead create a society where it is just more beneficial to leave me alone. And of course all the scales in between those 2.

Fear is a primal instinct in animals, part of the reason humans have evolved beyond any other species is our ability to understand and rationalize fear, to adapt at ways to minimize life being boiled down to a single decision of fight or flight for everything.

Rule by fear can only ever work for so long, history is full of it, the next level after the cleptocracy's should be interesting, I wonder if I will see it or not but I do wonder sometimes what it will look like.

Alright there's my Xmas message, peace and love!

I am of the opinion consensus is overvalued. Everyone standing around agreeing with each other never accomplishes anything. However the slaughterhouse that is the marketplace of ideas is a perpetual source of bringing the most valuable ideas to the forefront, while cutting free those that are not. While it may seem brutal at times, it is easy to forget that it is through debate we focus this energy and disagreement on words, as opposed to trying to silence it, inevitably resulting these issues boiling over into violence.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

P.S. I have it on record Flying Hellfish has actually agreed with me before.

agreements dont work because reality is complex, magnitudes, are supposed to be agreed upon on every and that changes over time.

1. Bitcoin and associated technologies have evoked many changes in finance and this spills over into traditional areas of politics.

2. Some issues which have been thought of as fodder for political views become a moot point with the existence of crypto currency.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

You know how save money on Christmas presents?

Bring up politics at Thanks Giving dinner.

The Politics & Society board is a dumpster fire of a sub-forum. While having different opinions is great, discussion (as well any hope for consensus) usually quickly breaks down: due to one or both sides refusing to consider / acknowledge facts, having a completely different view of self and the world around them (hence a different interpretation of what the majority of society considers facts, proper methods to evaluate information and come to conclusions, etc.) or due to being entrenched too deeply within their (often extreme) ideology, unwilling to change their mind even when proven wrong.

Don't get me wrong: this issue is more or less prevalent in pretty much every online medium. Obviously, all of this stems from the fact that people's environment, upbringing, life experience and character traits determine their political preferences (and once you're sure how something should be handled, it's hard to accept a different way that you simply find immoral / stupid / impractical / etc.). However, considering that Bitcointalk is already comprised of people who were willing to embrace something new, go-against-the-man non-mainstream (all of which is often wrapped up in layers and layers of politics), it's not much of a stretch to assume that the political Bitcointalk crowd would very much continue on that ideological path, sometimes to the extremes. So if, on a consistent basis, you're willing to spend tons of time discussing politics on Bitcointalk, you probably have relatively strong (if not extreme) opinions on issues you have at least a mild interest in. And it's difficult, if not impossible, for such people who are constantly at each other's throats to agree on anything they care about.

As for the points outlined in the OP, I can guarantee you that someone will find something wrong with them (especially points 1 and 2). People think differently and at this point of cryptocurrency adoption, we can already see quite a few people joining the community for other reasons than those that joined in the initial wave (2009-2010).


All of that said, maybe (and it's a very strong maybe) a Christmas miracle will happen and everyone (or at least most people) on Bitcointalk will get along for this short week of winter holidays. Merry Christmas everyone.

I don't know what the politics of bitcoin talk is but I would say I agree with all your points but the last two.

Is technology really good?  Think about the level of effort and sophistication it takes to use the internet or technology now without your privacy being intruded on.  You might need special emails, rarely use your real name, use special plug-ins, config firefox, use a vpn and even all that you may miss some detail.  Tech companies have you agree to user agreements, can change them at any time, are vague, major companies like facebook/google outright spy on users and then lie about it whereas the user assumed their privacy was protected(i.e android location), profiles are built on people who don't even have accounts.  Technology also makes it easy to look up anyone and find out private and personal details that maybe is best kept private.  

I would say in many ways technology degrades, google search and technology in other ways used to be a means of education, learning and it was focused on high quality search results. Now google is crap and what are you going to do about it? It has 90 percent of the market share and search results of competitors aren't that good. Instead of watching a two hour film that requires some focus and concentration you watch a two minute youtube video, youtube is even considered a 'culture'.  The interconnectivity and great data monitoring capability of technology allows virtually every aspect of your life from what you learn to what you watch to your friends to health records to bank information to be known by those outside of those areas and shared easily.   Also the automation of things dumbs people down and removes them from having control.  

Also at a certain point excessive consumption in technology, computers, smart phones is excessive and people confuse what they see on the internet or their smart phones as reality and they don't engage in the real world.  

On one hand a strong element of technology relates to those who control/use it; alot of the problems we have today is because major corporations with little competition and oversight control technology and can abuse it without the users doing much about it.  At the same time in itself generally I would not say technology is good exactly. i would say it's useful, interesting but it has it's limits.  

Humanity should dominate the universe:..   What do you mean exactly? Do you mean all the solar systems, galaxies or that humanity should just dominate existence in itself?  Humanity dominates the earth, don't we already dominate the universe?  It depends I guess what you mean by universe.

I would say that that is probably not a good thing. Humanity dominates the earth and what has it brought the earth? Massive pollution, environmental degradation, overpopulation, wars, genocide.  Compare human beings to an animal, (although some say humans are animals), regardless we are the most advance being in the universe and  the only sentient one.  People compare humanity to nature, the laws of the jungle, to the state of nature and hold ourselves above the fighting and violence of animal and pointlessness of an instinct based life.  

Animals may kill one another for food but no animal has ever wrought the bloodshed and destruction human beings have and not only consciously for no point or reason murder one another but throughout history have done so on a massive scale(war) and also animals don'tcommit crimes, rape one another and so on.  The human being is smarter and more sophisticated than an animal, but he hardly has the morals or composure to be above one.

If humanity dominated the universe like it has earth; it would be a continuation and spread of all it has done here.

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS

In the spirit of Christmas, can we on bitcointalk.org try to find some political consensus? Can Flying Hellfish and TECSHARE agree on anything?

Some points which might find general agreement:
 - The freedom of individuals is important.
 - The prevailing banking/fiat system is on the whole bad.
 - In most places, the people would be far better off if major changes were made to their respective governments.
 - As long as scarcity exists, the existence of some form of trade is good.
 - Technology is good.
 - Humanity should dominate the universe.

Any others? Do you disagree with even those broad statements?