Why do you stack?

I'm going dumpster diving. Anyone want to join?

 

no

 

There are always people who think they're too good for dumpster diving.

 

You are twisting the success into a failure. The success of capitalism is that we produce more food than we technically need. The unsuccessful movement of what looks like excess production is not a failure of capitalism. The failure of the parts of the world that don't enjoy such a situation is because they have not embraced the socio-economic system that works and they are still stuck in inferior subsistence-style living (for many reasons, not least of which are oppressive non-liberal Governments or a lack of effective enforcement of private property rights). Capitalism under liberal democracies has lifted more people out of abject poverty than any other socio-economic system is the history of the world. It has done more for human welfare than anything else.

I suggest you start by focussing on the successes. Dissect them to see what caused them and then create a socio-economic system that moves humanity forward. I've (almost) no doubt that you'll end up with something akin to one of the societal structures advocated by Libertarians or Classical Liberals. Communism is fine in the far distant future but (quoting the Communists) it can only work "when everyone's needs are met and there is no longer any reason to apportion sparse resources". Ironically, the only way toward that world is through Laissez-Faire capitalism.

Finally, it's a complete mincing of logic to say that "you have to make something scarce in order to make it valuable". Something is valuable because it's scarce. If it isn't scarce it has no market value. People don't "make" food, water, shelter, electricity, cars, internet, furniture, TV shows etc scarce, they are naturally scarce and therefore have value.

 

Ditto

 

yep & im one of them ......tar & feather me :lol:

 

No need for tar and feathers, mate! You just don't have to come along. Each to their own, and all good luck! hehe

 

Thanks ppss i thought it was gonna be revenge of the hippies for a minute there .

peace & love to all those who eat vegetables & smoke flowers :

 

God that would be the life.. I'm definitely a hippy at heart... just happy to relax and watch the clouds go by. Too bad I'v got darn tootin' bills to pay.

..and being a vegan, loves me veggies! hehe

PEACE!

 

Of course we're "animals", but we are still unique compared to them all in an extremely fundamental way. As said elsewhere. I am "speciesist" for valid reasons but I don't think humans as we naturally evolved are any sort of pinnacle (especially not while we have frail, bodies prone to any number of ailments, tears, breakages, etc).

Yes. Those two are the only built on a strong foundation of morality though. The context was private property rights.

Humans have actively guided evolution for centuries. This is why we have the varieties of wheat, cows, roses, dogs, cats, tomatoes, pigeons, horses etc etc that we have. Humans actively and deliberately guided their evolution through artificial selection. Since Darwin, Watson and Crick we are at the stage of understanding that enables us to significantly guide our own evolution. We alone among animals understand this. We alone among animals decide what is right and wrong. We alone among animals have the potential to actively leave the Earth and search, explore, colonise, develop, innovate, create and build a world to our choosing. It will take generations to do so, but creating a social system that enables us to do so is at the heart of what you are asking.

To the contrary, capitalism is founded on thrift, savings and investment (combined with innovation and risk). The ability to increase future consumption arises as a beneficial by-product.

Why would I just want to "survive"? What a cop out! I want to learn, explore, experience, create and a lot of other verbs.

 

Survival is first. Without survival all those other things you talk about won't happen. We have become far too accustomed to this mode of consumption that everyone is believing the hype. It's not sustainable. It is pretty self-evident what that means. It all goes back to survival when all the icing falls off the cake. All the creme is gone. You better hope we still have those survival skills, because we'll need them.

 

Next time, I'm not going to be as messy when replying with quotes. My sincerest apologies for the mess!

 

I could talk about this all day. Please read Ishmael then argue with me. It will be easier. All of my arguments are coming from there. I'm not saying that to patronise you, it would just make it easier for you to have your blinkers removed in a more subtle way that I'm obviously not doing.

I'm not saying capitalism is all bad. There are plenty of things I like about it. As a survival mechanism it was great up to a point. We've now reached that point and now other paths have to be forged.

 

Of course they are scarce! Anything is scarce that has a lock on it that people want that otherwise do not have the skills to acquire for themselves! I can't legally waltz onto someones farm and start picking the food I want, can I? Why? A societal 'lock' prevents me or else I face the consequences. Did indigenous people pay for food? No. It had value as far as it could feed them, but no 'market value' as you put it. People took what they needed and left the rest. They did not cordon off all areas where food was found and deprive the population of the skills needed to even IDENTIFY food did they? Do you have any idea how many children think peas come from the fridge? We have lost these skills. We are DEPENDENT on corporations and others for basic needs that we can't even provide for ourselves. THIS is why it has monetary value. Lock the food up, make people work to earn money just to give them back food they already once knew how to get for themselves before that knowledge was stripped from them.

Call it what you want, but it's a pretty sick little merry-go-round we're on.

 

Because I've already spent most of my $ on drugs & hookers
And I can't remember most of it

So now I'm trying to spend it on something I can remember about

 

oh spanner .. i love the random comment wedged between discussion posts lol.

 

:lol: Until you said this I didn't even notice you had responded except for the last line.

We're starting to diverge for no really good reason so briefly, (in order)

1. I am aware of the biological differences and similarities between humans and other species and I stand by what I said. The differences that led to our mind is very substantial. It is indisputable when you look at the world via Google maps (oh look a satellite with high quality lenses ground to a super high precision using a very large number of unnatural combinations of natural materials. The bonobos have those don't they? )

2. - n.a.

3. I think colonisation of the universe would be a massive achievement given that the universe doesn't give a flying frick about the accident of life and especially not about us. If the math could result in humans colonising even a percentage of the Milky Way, let alone anything outside of our galaxy or super cluster within a thousand years I'd be really, really, REALLY impressed. What a massive achievement that would be. If we could do such a thing then why hasn't another alien species from Virgo done it already? Is the successful evolution of a mind as advanced as the human mind - and more specifically the survival and spread - such a unique event that it is OUR descendants that will do it first? If it isn't so unique why aren't they here already?

4. Yes thrift. You need to save money before you can invest it which means not consuming everything you produce right now and devoting some of your time to building something new. The Hunter Valley holes in the ground are a bloody awesome achievement. Check out the engineering and knowledge embodied in making the hole in the picture below (La Trobe Valley - can you see the people at the foot?). And THEN think hard about the super-complex social structure and thousands of interpersonal relationships required to actually enable that to be built. And that is simply a machine to enable the coal to be extracted - a product that is actually an intermediate to making yet more complicated stuff. You can't centrally plan this sort of stuff or do anything remotely close to it by yourself - hence back to my original "division of labour" comment.



5. Yes survival is first. We are in total agreement on this point as per my earlier comment of being careful.

 

I am interested in Ishmael and am intrigued in what it actually has to offer. Is it similar to alpha strategy?

Edit: Actually more to the point - does the book discuss an alternative system that is actually workable? Particularly one that has a strong moral foundation about what is right and wrong and why?

 

The "lock on the gate" is actually the enforcement of private property rights not a locking up of YOUR food and resources. The farmer doesn't spend his time growing excess food so that people can waltz onto his farm and help themselves without putting any effort into it (that's communism).

The "dependency" arises simply because no man is an island. Every functioning society (including aborigines) recognised this in some way. The division of labour simply means that the person best suited to making food A can focus on doing that to the best of their ability, while the blacksmith focusses on building tool B and then the farmer trades some of A for some of the smith's B because the tools allow him to grow yet more food that allow a doctor to be fed as well (and so on and so forth until you have the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and David Letterman). The trade happens through the medium called "money". A large reason why most of us stack is because the medium has been corrupted by the fraudulent, Government enabled, banking system. Fix the medium and leave the benefits of bartering/trading alone, I say.

 

I have not read Alpha Strategy, so am unable to make comparisons. Ishmael unravels HOW we got to be where we are now. It is opening a door to a room that we have already been living in our whole life, but because we are so used to the whispered lies, we're CERTAIN they're all true. The key is not so much about the solution. Because people don't think there is a problem. You have already made it very clear to me that you applaud exponential population growth and the colonisation of the universe (if it were possible).

If there isn't a problem, you're not going to be asking about how to fix it. That's why it was important for Ishmael to open our eyes.

The alternative systems you're taking about that are 'actually workable' as you put it are already happening across the world. It's not a matter of one government or a set of smart people telling us all this is how it's going to be. It's simply a matter of choice as to what one will suit you. Aborigines had their way, Vikings had theirs, Chinese have theirs and the Western World have theirs. There will always be some cross over and some things that are a bit different. One of the problems of human nature is our arrogance and a misguided belief that we need to fix the world.

I would love you to read Ishmael. I really would. If you weren't at least interested in these issues you wouldn't have spent so much time contributing to the discussion. While you may not see a problem now, you might after you read the book. Have a look at some of the reviews to see if it's worth your time.

Regards,
Nick