[QUOTE=Mattk50;32387512]Its time for something completely new, something with real physical referent and scientific basis. Our social, economic, and government systems are overdue for a major overhaul, it feels like those systems are the only things scientific thought hasn't touched yet.[/QUOTE] I agree. Politics is nothing but battling philosophy and hypothesis. Sure scientific data is used to support political claims but it never is a full science. Rarely are tests and data used to think up political ideas. Imagine if we actually tested hypothetical government systems. The way we rule are selves would evolve at the speed of are technology.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32407938]Yes, really, a resource based economy is fucking retarded and you should feel bad.[/QUOTE] Why? Just look at how good technology is getting. Are you really saying that the economy will and has to stay the same forever? What will happen when 3D printers and machines can do most labor and build most products? What do you think will happen when Ai can manage most production processes? You really think are current system would fit in a world like that? In the next 50 years scientists think we can get to the point where we can artificially create most of natures products on a subatomic level with the help of nanotechnology. Theres no way anything like are current system would fit inside that type of world unless we restrict technology for current economic growth.
Even given those predictions, they do not eliminate scarcity.
[QUOTE=Pepin;32417150]Even given those predictions, they do not eliminate scarcity.[/QUOTE] Being able to create products and compounds (and even possibly change elements) would definitely take the scarcity away from rare materials. Imagine if with just a pile of carbon nanomachines would be able to create diamond. Even without technology that advanced things like production and recycle advancements would be enough to completely change the market and shrink scarcity.
It really wouldn't because though you make one thing less scarce, you make another more scarce. The biggest in this type of an example is energy.
[QUOTE=Pepin;32418723]It really wouldn't because though you make one thing less scarce, you make another more scarce. The biggest in this type of an example is energy.[/QUOTE] Nanotechnology technology (and plane technological advancement) would also allow getting energy to be easier and more officiant. Nano technology would greatly help solar, geothermal (geothermal practically means infinite energy if done right) and nuclear power. Not to mention having the gas companies grip on are balls released should also help. Basically as are technology grows are way to get energy also does.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32407938]Yes, really, a resource based economy is fucking retarded and you should feel bad.[/QUOTE]
MASTER DEBATER HERE
Right, just continue to hold onto your econimic ideas like religious ideology. THERE IS NO CHANCE that stems from being brought up in the system and having these wrong concepts simply hammered into you over decades. Forget what you learn in other areas of education, economics is this totally separate and influid thing, dont worry, the magical hand of the market will always guide you to the perfect economy. That perfect economy where 7 fucking million children die every fucking year and poverty is factually and economically impossible for you not to have.
Lets not forget how incredibly wastefull this economy has. Let me guess, you dont recognize the whole light-bulb conspiracy? thats like saying 9/11 didnt happen.
Didn't you once tell me that the fact that i don't agree with these concepts is proof that growing up in a system doesn't influence your opinion of it? Hah, right. And god works in mysterious ways.
/intellectual dishonesty.
Now. s0biet, thats how i can argue if i want to be a disgusting intellectually dishonest scumbag. Instead i prefer real debate to your shit flinging. Please, lets actually debate and NOT act like children. i assume we are both adults, so how about you do your part and act like it.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32416930]I agree. Politics is nothing but battling philosophy and hypothesis. Sure scientific data is used to support political claims but it never is a full science. Rarely are tests and data used to think up political ideas. Imagine if we actually tested hypothetical government systems. The way we rule are selves would evolve at the speed of are technology.[/quote]
Sure, but political systems designed to cure the evils of the world are hardly ever thought of as being tested or tried, most of those people want the entire globe under their ideology.
If you want to make a master machine and live on an island away from me, be my guest, externalize the massive damage you will cause. Thanks.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32416930]Why? Just look at how good technology is getting. Are you really saying that the economy will and has to stay the same forever? What will happen when 3D printers and machines can do most labor and build most products? What do you think will happen when Ai can manage most production processes? You really think are current system would fit in a world like that? In the next 50 years scientists think we can get to the point where we can artificially create most of natures products on a subatomic level with the help of nanotechnology. Theres no way anything like are current system would fit inside that type of world unless we restrict technology for current economic growth.[/QUOTE]
Capitalist systems would work just fine, better, even.
How can you ever assume that capitalism would have to end because there's more machines laboring, that doesn't make any sense. When machines take over one sector of the market, human labor gets shifted into another sector. Machines build cars, humans don't build cars anymore. They build them more efficiently so that means vehicles are cheaper, because vehicles are cheaper it spawns thousands of other sectors and boosts other existing markets.
It does not matter what jobs machines take over, [i]it does not matter[/i]. Forget 75% or 100% of the market, even if they did take over ALL of the existing market (which isn't really possible, but roll with it), the market would be 1000% larger than it was before. Markets are not static, they are fluid.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32417467]Being able to create products and compounds (and even possibly change elements) would definitely take the scarcity away from rare materials. Imagine if with just a pile of carbon nanomachines would be able to create diamond. Even without technology that advanced things like production and recycle advancements would be enough to completely change the market and shrink scarcity.[/QUOTE]
Abundance doesn't mean things aren't scarce in the economic sense. Everything is scarce, that is, they must be used in the most efficient way.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32421023]MASTER DEBATER HERE
Right, just continue to hold onto your econimic ideas like religious ideology.[/quote]
"Right, just continue to masturbate to your robots like a sexual fantasy"
Seriously that's the most hilarious thing I've ever heard a venus project nerd say.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32421023]THERE IS NO CHANCE that stems from being brought up in the system and having these wrong concepts simply hammered into you over decades. Forget what you learn in other areas of education, economics is this totally separate and influid thing, dont worry, the magical hand of the market will always guide you to the perfect economy. That perfect economy where 7 fucking million children die every fucking year and poverty is factually and economically impossible for you not to have.[/quote]
Yes, and technology does fix those things. However, a central authority no matter how smart it is can never direct an economy successfully. I don't hate technology, I just hate your stupid idea.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32421023]Lets not forget how incredibly wastefull this economy has. Let me guess, you dont recognize the whole light-bulb conspiracy? thats like saying 9/11 didnt happen.[/quote]
The light-bulb conspiracy that failed miserably. Cabals don't work in a market environment for the same reasons you expect that they can, people are greedy, the cabal always consumes itself or is destroyed by an external greedy competitor. Tell me, how successfully did those people raise the price of bulbs in real terms.
[quote]In the late 1920s a Swedish-Danish-Norwegian union of companies (the North European Luma Co-op Society) began planning an independent manufacturing center. Economic and legal threats by Phoebus did not achieve the desired effect, and in 1931 the Scandinavians produced and sold lamps at a considerably lower price than Phoebus.[/quote]
This in economic speak is what you call "time preference". It basically means in this specific instance that there were elements outside of the cartel's control, like other competitors. Not only that, but often times a cabal will destroy itself from the inside because one of the conspirators lowers prices himself, or manufacturing cost (which isn't visible to the rest), or will output more than the others.
Eventually, without government help, it comes crumbling down. It's a fantasy.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32421023]Didn't you once tell me that the fact that i don't agree with these concepts is proof that growing up in a system doesn't influence your opinion of it? Hah, right. And god works in mysterious ways.
/intellectual dishonesty.[/quote]
/ignore
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32421023]Now. s0biet, thats how i can argue if i want to be a disgusting intellectually dishonest scumbag. Instead i prefer real debate to your shit flinging. Please, lets actually debate and NOT act like children. i assume we are both adults, so how about you do your part and act like it.[/QUOTE]
Alright, let me tell you, a cultist, why you're wrong. Your venus project masters have been told these same things, they consequently ignored it, I don't really expect a better result here.
So yeah, I guess I'm wasting my time, what can I say.
First, the calculation problem. Despite its coined name this is not a problem related [i]in any way[/i] to the difficulty of the calculation. It is about variables which can not possibly exist in any central economy calculation, especially one without money. (although money in a centrally planned economy is always phony anyway, doesn't matter)
Most people interpret the argument as "Well there's so much complex information in the economy that nobody can calculate where things should go", and yes, keeping track of things in the economy is difficult enough for a person let alone a computer, but that isn't the argument. If that [i]was[/i] the argument, the solution would just be to build a super smart computer. That isn't the argument.
The problem isn't the complexity of information, the problem is that without market prices you no longer have the ability to calculate profit and loss effectively, without this you can not allocate resources in any way considered to be even remotely efficient.
Because you don't have this necessary information, all a central planner or computer could do is roll the dice. You'd have to guess, you have no alternative.
It doesn't matter how smart your supercomputer is, if you input the incorrect information which you undoubtedly will, the computer will spit out the incorrect answer.
Goods, services and resources are all heterogeneous, they can't be stuck into some kind of equation. That'd be like me saying what is "facepunch - fork", it doesn't make any sense. So, you must convert them into something that is homogeneous, you need to convert them into an objective numerical value, it's only at that point that you can begin to plug them into some kind of computer.
In economics we would call this objective numerical value a "price" in the form of money.
Now, to be fair, objective values don't exist in the economy. Everything in the economy is valued subjectively and only through the inter-subjective evaluations of everyone in the economy can we reach anything called a "price". Market prices are simply a reflection of the subjective values of buyers and sellers on the market.
Without this function, without producers communicating in real terms their production cost to the consumer, and without the consumer communicating in real terms their desire to buy that product at the prices available to them can you ever begin to see some sort of "equilibrium". Prices tell the consumer indirectly how much it costs to produce a product and/or availability of said product. Consumers don't [i]know[/i] they're being told this information, that information is only transmitted in the form of a price to the consumer.
The consumer will then choose to buy the product or not. If they do buy the product at the set price that means all is well and good, but if they don't, that means a few things, depending on the circumstances:
The first thing, If it is "jacked up" then it means they will have to lower their prices, obviously.
The second thing, If the price is a reflection of the true cost of the existing product, and it isn't "jacked up", that means the business will have to find a way to lower the cost of production or find alternate forms of revenue because that product is not meant to be bought and sold yet. It is too "expensive".
You have to begin to understand that prices are not some arbitrary number set by a capitalist to line his pockets.
You have to understand that "prices":
1) Communicate the cost of production
2) Communicate the scarcity of a resource, good or labor
You have to understand that when people buy products, or, that "costs":
1) Communicate to the producer the demand for their product
2) Communicate to the producer the profit they will make as a result of demand
Without these very important processes, we have a very gigantic problem.
Let's say, for example, you have 2000 units of steel.
2000 units of steel can build a bridge over a river, or 2000 units of steel can build 100 vehicles.
How would your computer evaluate the subjective needs of the people? Who or what decides which holds more importance at any given time? In economy talk, this is called "Marginal Utility".
In our market economy, consumer demand [b]as well as the amount of money they hold[/b] (selling their labor follows the same process of supply and demand) makes this process viable. A lot of venus project people claimed to have solved this by making an internet-based or paper based system of demand, wherein each person demands what they want at any given time and it will be provided to them.
This, however, ignores the [b]entire[/b] point.
We can only create a list of things we truly value the most by taking the cost of production into account, otherwise we would all just be making a wishlist based off of the assumption that resources are infinite and that the cost of capital and labor required to turn those resources into a particular good are the exact same as turning those resources into something more efficient.
If you were to proceed with this wishlist system resources and labor could not be properly allocated to their most efficient uses.
[editline]e[/editline]
Also, not only do I masturbate to the economy but I'm also a computer programmer, don't tell me what can and can't be plugged into a computer.
Thanks.
I... i dont think you actually understood the entire point of that... it wasnt a...
well, to onlookers, the TLDR is sobeit thinks im a cultist and didnt notice the satire. What a bloody genius.
[editline]22nd September 2011[/editline]
dont forget to enjoy the 7 million people who starve to death yearly, i hear their corpses are tasty.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423578]I... i dont think you actually understood the entire point of that... it wasnt a...[/quote]
serious response? Lord I hope not.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423578]dont forget to enjoy the 7 million people who starve to death yearly, i hear their corpses are tasty.[/QUOTE]
As you said before, it's factually impossible to not have poverty in a capitalist system. I agree.
It's also factually impossible to not have poverty in all systems, but the point here is "poverty".
"poverty" today does indeed mean starvation, not likely in America, but in other places. If in 100 years the third world looks like Canada now, and the first world looks like a futuristic space colony, I will consider that a success. Starvation is only a function of today's poverty, tomorrow's poverty is another story.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32422878]Sure, but political systems designed to cure the evils of the world are hardly ever thought of as being tested or tried, most of those people want the entire globe under their ideology.
If you want to make a master machine and live on an island away from me, be my guest, externalize the massive damage you will cause. Thanks.[/quote]
Truth and agreed.
[quote]
Capitalist systems would work just fine, better, even.
[/quote]
In theory, yes, but no one has perfect market understanding, and people tend to overreact and under-react causing significant fluctuation in the short term.
[quote]
How can you ever assume that capitalism would have to end because there's more machines laboring, that doesn't make any sense. When machines take over one sector of the market, human labor gets shifted into another sector. Machines build cars, humans don't build cars anymore. They build them more efficiently so that means vehicles are cheaper, because vehicles are cheaper it spawns thousands of other sectors and boosts other existing markets.
It does not matter what jobs machines take over, [i]it does not matter[/i]. Forget 75% or 100% of the market, even if they did take over ALL of the existing market (which isn't really possible, but roll with it), the market would be 1000% larger than it was before. Markets are not static, they are fluid.[/quote]
This is quite true and insightful.
[quote]
Abundance doesn't mean things aren't scarce in the economic sense. Everything is scarce, that is, they must be used in the most efficient way.
[/quote]
Precisely, we live in a finite universe. The issue is less overarching when things are in extreme abundance, but that does not negate the ramifications.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32423719]As you said before, it's factually impossible to have poverty in a capitalist system. I agree.
It's also factually impossible to have poverty in all systems, but the point here is "poverty".
"poverty" today does indeed mean starvation, not likely in America, but in other places. If in 100 years the third world looks like Canada now, and the first world looks like a futuristic space colony, I will consider that a success. Starvation is only a function of today's poverty, tomorrow's poverty is another story.[/QUOTE]
its possible to not have poverty in a system that doesn't force poverty to exist. stating otherwise is silly. I would agree with you if you had said that no current system could exist without poverty.
edit: huh, did you mean what you said there? pretty sure i said factually impossible not to have poverty. if not, it was a typo.
However, your hypothesis that when you advance in technology enough, even the poorest of the poor will have more food is contradictory to what we have seen throughout history, in fact it seems to be that in capitalism, the smaller (technology) the world is the easier it is to exploit people on a global scale and cause massive poverty.
by the way, i cant really take someone who screams cultist and berates the person he is talking to more than actually saying anything coherent seriously. Its like talking to a 6th grader.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423969]its possible to not have poverty in a system that doesn't force poverty to exist. stating otherwise is silly. I would agree with you if you had said that no current system could exist without poverty.[/quote]
The point of all this is that no system can make poverty not exist. Poverty is a matter of scarcity. Reality makes poverty. Of course, there are disparities. If the entire world was one single capitalist economy we would have all of the poor be roughly equally poor, but because we live in colonies and do not have a shared market there are poorer people in other sectors of the world than here in the US.
That's not a market function though, that's a government function.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423969]edit: huh, did you mean what you said there? pretty sure i said factually impossible not to have poverty. if not, it was a typo.[/quote]
Typo fixed
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423969]However, your hypothesis that when you advance in technology enough, even the poorest of the poor will have more food is contradictory to what we have seen throughout history, in fact it seems to be that in capitalism, the smaller (technology) the world is the easier it is to exploit people on a global scale and cause massive poverty.[/quote]
Then you are blind to history, history says that is conclusively false.
There was a time where the entire planet lived in poverty, slowly we've crept up and eliminated "classical" poverty, and it has been fairly well proven that everyone's life on the entire planet has been increasing in quality.
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423969]by the way, i cant really take someone who screams cultist and berates the person he is talking to more than actually saying anything coherent seriously. Its like talking to a 6th grader.[/QUOTE]
I made a coherent rebuttal. I will continue doing so, so long as you don't bust out the name calling yourself, again.
I would have to go with communism,They freed our country from Nazis in late 40's
The idea of having economy completely unregulated and government completely powered by greed is not good
[QUOTE=Mattk50;32423969]what we have seen throughout history, in fact it seems to be that in capitalism, the smaller (technology) the world is the easier it is to exploit people on a global scale and cause massive poverty.[/QUOTE]
I'd like to go back to this, specifically, again.
It seems to me that you're holding on to a misconception. A distortion of reality.
To you, certain parts of the world are rich and use their richness to pay people low wages around the world to "keep them poor", this is not what is happening.
You're taking a snapshot of the current situation and building assumptions around it, that is in fact not what is happening.
You see companies exporting labor across the world and you say "See! Look! They're paying lower wages than Americans! They're [i]keeping them poor[/i]!"
That is not the case.
You're ignoring that without those new jobs being exported to their economy, it will grow more slowly, you're ignoring that all alternatives to those factories are often times less desirable than the alternatives. You might say "Yeah, just because one alternative is greater than the other when they're both shit alternatives, doesn't make it moral", while I disagree with that assertion.
First of all, you have to understand that people in third world countries have a weapon to fight poverty. That one and only weapon is their labor. The more they earn with their labor now, the more they'll be able to earn in the future. Removing all of the sweatshops from a third world country won't make their standard of life better, quite to the contrary, it would be far worse than if the sweatshops had stayed.
People would be poorer, instead of working in a sweatshop, they'd be working on a farm. (as bad as sweatshops are, pulling a plow isn't a cakewalk in comparison)
As higher quality jobs fall from our markets they will be exported there, such as call centers to certain parts of the world (which again, as shitty as it is to work in a call center and talk to ignorant Americans all day is, it's a lot better than working in a sweatshop) or low level programming jobs.
People in the third world don't have the options we have, but by removing the only options they do have you're not helping them.
The only way around this problem would be massive wealth redistribution programs, but, that's not a long term solution, wealth redistribution programs do not create prosperity. Dumping a lot of wealth on a nation doesn't help people that much, or can even be bad, as evidenced by foreign aid.
A long term solution would be moving factories from here, to over there so that they can extend their labor farther than they previously could. That's what we are doing and will continue doing. So in fact we are not exporting exploitation, we're exporting wealth.
The more work people can complete in an hour, the more they're paid, the better off their society will be.
Socialism has to be pursued as long as there is suffering amongst the proletariat. There are still people working under paid and abused out there.
Improving the "lower classes" lives was and is the original meaning of socialism. The whole deal became demonised after US and the USSR started their dick lenght contest called the cold war.
[QUOTE=znk666;32427449]I would have to go with communism,They freed our country from Nazis in late 40's
The idea of having economy completely unregulated and [B]government completely powered by greed[/B] is not good[/QUOTE]
I don't understand the gripe with greed. But more I take issue with the bold, mainly because I don't understand it. Though being more free-market doesn't exactly imply that you're anti-government, most people who are free-market would prefer for the government to have as minimal powers as possible, making whatever implication you're making a bit odd. Unless you mean corporations instead of government, but I don't see the problem with that. Corporations only being interested in money would be an ideal situation.
I can see the "they'll cut costs" refutation, and all I'll have to say is that if their cost cutting affects their productive negatively, they'll lose money, and since they are greedy, they would never cut anything that would lose them money.
[QUOTE=Falchion;32428439]Socialism has to be pursued as long as there is suffering amongst the proletariat. There are still people working under paid and abused out there.
[B]Improving the "lower classes" lives was and is the original meaning of socialism[/B]. The whole deal became demonised after US and the USSR started their dick lenght contest called the cold war.[/QUOTE]
Where you are confused is that you assume the intention of a particular mean will lead to that result. The other issue is that you have to make a large assumption you'll have the right people in at the right time during the transition. You never want to devise a system that allows for strong abuse when the the wrong person is in charge. There is actually a decent amount of writing on the improbability of there being a right person to lead such a movement because by nature it is prone to rot apples.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32422878]How can you ever assume that capitalism would have to end because there's more machines laboring, that doesn't make any sense.[/QUOTE] Capitalism works in a system where labor is needed in order to make products and services and where the products are scarce enough where they are worth that labor. A society with very low scarcity or need for human labor wouldn't work in capitalism (or at least not very officiantly) because it requires the need for scarcity and human labor.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32422878] They build them more efficiently so that means vehicles are cheaper, because vehicles are cheaper[/QUOTE] Thats exactly the point. If products can now be build so cheap that they are practically like air or water there would be no reason to keep capitalism around. Sure there isn't infinite resources but since the ability to use, create and recycle resources would be a lot easier it would practically be infinite.
[quote]Abundance doesn't mean things aren't scarce in the economic sense. Everything is scarce, that is, they must be used in the most efficient way.[/quote] and machines are the way to make things the most efficiently. Basically it would be like if we had slaves do most of are jobs except that they are emotionless. If labor can be taken by machines the only jobs left would be things like the arts and sciences but those things are already done willingly.
[QUOTE=melonmonkey;32380201]It's evil to help yourself? Why? Are you claiming that people have a responsibility to help eachother? I will argue against that forever. The whole reason being a social animal helps humans is because there is power in numbers and in community. It's so that each individual organism has a better chance of surviving or developing the species. There is no logical reason for one person to help another at their expense.[/QUOTE]
But in order for your point to work there needs to be an actual community. A CEO in an office who only sees 20 people every day, who are all employees, is not going to be responsible. These people are completely detached from their surroundings and make business choices who screw over hundreds or thousands at a time, and have no limit. They never see the people that are affecting, which means that he/she is certainly not developing the species in any way... You don't have to help others at your expense, but for a job to work you need to offer something to others without overdoing it.
Technology should be allowed to advance, but not in the direction the people choose. I know that sounds ridiculous and I feel weird saying it, but people don't know what is best for them. If we are to pursue greater technology at all, we can't let everyone just flock to whatever sounds best. After all, we are a lazy creature, if we can make technology do something for us, we will produce it en masse and never look back. Never realize how many resources we are pouring into something which is completely unsustainable. I would say that the car has come a long way, but like any free market development, it quickly turns into a money making scam. For instance, the things we give up to build something cheaper. It totally is an impulse decision, no one wants to spend more money than absolutely necessary and business feeds on this. Instead of maintaining high quality goods and selling them for their superiority, it becomes a race to sell borderline ineffective goods at the lowest price possible. Obviously it will be a huge success, and nothing good comes from it. We get all of our crap from Boxmarts and freely admit that we are cheap, when a local person could labor on a tool which lasts hundreds of years. We would rather take the easy way out.
[QUOTE=Pepin;32428564]
Where you are confused is that you assume the intention of a particular mean will lead to that result. The other issue is that you have to make a large assumption you'll have the right people in at the right time during the transition. You never want to devise a system that allows for strong abuse when the the wrong person is in charge. There is actually a decent amount of writing on the improbability of there being a right person to lead such a movement because by nature it is prone to rot apples.[/QUOTE]
That is why such system should be led with democracy. A term probably unknown to a person such as yourself living in a elect your despot every few years society.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32431585]Capitalism works in a system where labor is needed in order to make products and services and where the products are scarce enough where they are worth that labor. A society with very low scarcity or need for human labor wouldn't work in capitalism (or at least not very officiantly) because it requires the need for scarcity and human labor.[/quote]
There is no such thing as "low scarcity". Things are always scarce, even if there is great abundance.
If you assume things aren't scarce you are wasting materials. Just because you have 9 million widgets doesn't mean that using 13000 for project B is better than 1000 for project A, of course it isn't all about numbers. Some things just shouldn't be built at all depending on market conditions.
Anyway, your scenario simply doesn't hold water. Even if no humans on the planet had jobs they would have machines laboring for them and make profit that way. One might say there's no need for socialism in this world, as everyone's needs are met practically effortlessly.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32431585]Thats exactly the point. If products can now be build so cheap that they are practically like air or water there would be no reason to keep capitalism around. Sure there isn't infinite resources but since the ability to use, create and recycle resources would be a lot easier it would practically be infinite.[/quote]
There's also no such thing as "practically infinite". You can't just make things out of thin air, things need to be created. You could have the smartest AI robot on the planet commanding 400 times the population of earth laboring for humans, it wouldn't matter. Waste is waste.
You can never assume resources are infinite or nearly infinite, couple reasons why
1) Resources are always finite in a sense in that they're taken from their source to meet the needs of the day, not stockpiled hundreds of years in the future.
2) Resources are finite in an absolute sense because we're not going to survive on this planet if we just take what we please, we could mine other planets completely dry as well but right now we can only speculate as to what resources exist in certain places in the galaxy.
This conversation is getting truly silly.
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;32431585]and machines are the way to make things the most efficiently. Basically it would be like if we had slaves do most of are jobs except that they are emotionless. If labor can be taken by machines the only jobs left would be things like the arts and sciences but those things are already done willingly.[/QUOTE]
Machines can only make things, when I say "must be used in the most efficient way" I don't mean not using human labor, or quickly, what I mean is for example:
You have 9 tons of iron
What do you use it on? What will yield the greatest benefit to society? (profit)
Who's demanding it be made?
[QUOTE=Falchion;32440132]That is why such system should be led with democracy. A term probably unknown to a person such as yourself living in a elect your despot every few years society.[/QUOTE]
Nobody is demanding that and nobody has mentioned it but you.
Democracy however, is flawed. No arguments there. We have a Republic, it isn't the same thing, though we're drifting closer to Democracy every day.
Pure Majority rule is not a good thing.
[QUOTE=Falchion;32440132]That is why such system should be led with democracy. A term probably unknown to a person such as yourself living in a elect your despot every few years society.[/QUOTE]
Democracy is a terrible form of government as the very implication is that the majority has complete control over the minority. A Republic makes far more sense in that it protects the rights of its citizens from the government, yet there really isn't a point to a Republic when the interpretation of certain provisions are considered to be dependent upon interpretation. Anyone who think a constitution should be a living document is really saying that judges should be able to make up whatever interpretation they want, because they said so.
You have to be off your fucking pot to advocate laissez-faire capitalism. A society where there is no power or authority higher than the corporation, where businesses are completely unregulated, no taxes, no tariffs, no price fixing other than the market, no subsidies?
The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is that a "perfectly free market would lead to perfect liberty," that every man can bring his goods to the market and sell them for the best possible value and that every man is free to act in their own rational self interest.
There is, of course, only one problem with that. Reality.
I'm not going to go into the advocation of communism because I don't know enough about marxism to counter people's arguments to the contrary.
[QUOTE=Karlos;32441864]The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is that a "perfectly free market would lead to perfect liberty,"[/QUOTE]
That is a caricature of a straw man drawn by a man who happens to be closing his eyes. Why does the man close his eyes? Because once opening them, how knows he can't continue to draw such simple straw men.
[QUOTE=Karlos;32441864]You have to be off your fucking pot to advocate laissez-faire capitalism. A society where there is no power or authority higher than the corporation, where businesses are completely unregulated, no taxes, no tariffs, no price fixing other than the market, no subsidies?[/quote]
The power corporations do actually have, right now, are derived from controlling the government. Otherwise their power is extremely limited and extremely blown out of proportion.
We live in a society where the highest authority is the state, and it's run by sociopaths that have guns. The alternative isn't that scary.
"No tariffs" "No Subsidies"? Do you even know what that means? How can those ever be considered good things?
Price fixing doesn't work and depending on who you talk to, taxes are arguable, not all people advocate no taxes at all. Very few in fact.
[QUOTE=Karlos;32441864]The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is that a "perfectly free market would lead to perfect liberty,"[/quote]
nope
[QUOTE=Karlos;32441864]that every man can bring his goods to the market and sell them for the best possible value and that every man is free to act in their own rational self interest.
There is, of course, only one problem with that. Reality.[/quote]
Explain
50% of people in the world are below average wealth.
A resource based economy is selfish (good thing) and promotes self-promotion (ie working to improve self eg amount of money you make, how many wives you have, how big your house is, etc...). This is why I think that it should be the premiere way for the world to run, in a sort of "evolution", aka "survival of the fittest" type thing.
Yearly euthanizations for people below a certain income / skill level anyone?
[QUOTE=Eltro102;32447469]50% of people in the world are below average wealth.
A resource based economy is selfish and promotes self-promotion (ie working to improve self eg amount of money you make, how many wives you have, how big your house is, etc...). This is why I think that it should be the premiere way for the world to run, in a sort of "evolution", aka "survival of the fittest" type thing.
Yearly euthanizations for people below a certain income / skill level anyone?[/QUOTE]
I can't tell if you're trolling or stupid.
If the former: you're making the assumption that selfishness is a bad thing. This does not make sense to me. It's one thing to repay those who help you get success and quite another to be expected to give what you earn to others.
If the latter: I don't even know what to say. Euthenization is of course an awful idea.
[QUOTE=melonmonkey;32447552]I can't tell if you're trolling or stupid.
If the former: you're making the assumption that selfishness is a bad thing. This does not make sense to me. It's one thing to repay those who help you get success and quite another to be expected to give what you earn to others.
If the latter: I don't even know what to say. Euthenization is of course an awful idea.[/QUOTE]
Im saying that selfishness is a good thing, as it promotes you to better yourself
The euthanization was a joke
[QUOTE=s0beit;32440639]Anyway, your scenario simply doesn't hold water. Even if no humans on the planet had jobs they would have machines laboring for them and make profit that way. One might say there's no need for socialism in this world, as everyone's needs are met practically effortlessly.[/QUOTE] Well thats pretty much the point. But if there is no effort in making money using money would practically be useless. There would simply be no reason to use money when we have machines doing jobs for us. Now yes there is no way for there to be infinite resource but if you look at things like air or water where they are recycled so fast and require so little human effort they are free. I'm talking about a world where everyone could either use there own machines or use public ones to create most items there would be no reason for a capitalist like system.
Three guys are in a jail cell. They start to talking and find out that they're all gas station owners.
The first one says, "I set my prices at a couple of cents higher than my competitors. I'm in here for price-gouging."
The second one says "I set my prices at a couple of cents lower than my competitors. I'm in here for predatory practices."
The third one says "I set my prices at the same price as my competitors. I'm in here for collusion!"
[editline]24th September 2011[/editline]
How many Libertarians does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. The Market will take care of it.
I like going into a communism thread and seeing how many people are stuck in the Cold War.
Wonder when that whole vein of 80's McCarthyism is going to die out.
I'm a Socialist, i believe Communism and Marxism to be great systems and ideologies. But they don't work unless you have a really high participation.
The problem with the world now is, no matter how much we want change from this system, something catastrophic would have to happen for the zeitgiest to change. The last hundred or so generations of people have grown into a world where money is king. Way back when we bartered, we still put a value on a goat, or a value to our time.
Somehow it got bent into us that our interests are worth more than others. Most humans are selfish beings because of the way society has shaped us.
I truly believe, that if you could take people to a place where there was no society, and allow them to live, you would see communism.
The Sum is greater than it's parts. Modern society seems to flip that to make the parts greater than the sum. People who "earn" £100,000 a week, (like premiership footballers) who avoid tax, and complain about having to redistribute some of their wealth.
I don't know how it is possible to advocate Laissez-faire economics, because it has no soul. It is devoid of any emotion; you can't pay your medical bills, fuck you. you can't buy food? fuck you. You've got a disability, fuck you.
I'd rather have a broken communist society than a broken "meritocratic" economy where the rich get richer.
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