That's a wealth of knowledge right there...TimeTraveler said:
Does capitalism work?
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Ever heard of global warming?Mr. G said:This is where we're supposed to pretend that the largest economies on the planet are not operating on the capitalism model.
Right?
You call that "sustainable"?
TruthSeeker said:Oh. So rich people are great and poor people are scum?
Get a life!
No, rich people are human, poor people are aliens, but scum works too. And I'm not rich so don't insult me.
Yes! Oil is king! Let's completely ignore solar power!Clockwood said:
I was talking to Mr. G.... :bugeye:TimeTraveler said:
TruthSeeker said:Yes! Oil is king! Let's completely ignore solar power!
Think like a capitalist, oil is where the money is. Buy your stock in Exxon. Vice is profitable, as is oil, but hedge your bets on alternative energy.
That will never happen. With automation and the pursuit of greater and greater leverage, the number of jobs will continue to decrease until it's completely gone.TimeTraveler said:
You calim we need a new form of capitalism. I agree with you. How about a capitalist system that is not based on wasteful consumption, so that we have less garbage in the planet and more flowers? How about a different lifestyle, in which we enjoy our lives in this planet, rather then staying in an office for the rest of our lives? If jobs are going to disappear someday, we need to adapt to that and create a system that is not based on jobs. That's our challenge today. It didn't start today too. It started in the Industrial Revolution in England, centuries ago. A lot of people lost their jobs to the machines. We adapted. Then came Fordism, and once again, jobs decreased. We adapted. And each time that happened, we have less and less hours of work. Now we have information technologies, and that's where the future are leading us to. The new system wil be based on that. It has to, there are no options with the way things are going now. We need to shift our focus from production and consumption to something else.
America, specially, is going through a huge crisis right now because they are insisting in not adapting to the changes. People are working much more then they need. They are working more then 40 hours per week to maintain tehir jobs when they could be working less then 30 hours. And that is causing unemployment, which is making the situation even worse. Stress is one of the greatest problem in North America. That's because of the way the system is working today. We are working too much. There is too much competition because there are too few jobs. People are constanly being laid off. Every time companies merge and/or increase their leverage, thousands of people lose their jobs. And then they try to use unions to aoid that, but that only makes a messy situation messier.
Anywways... I could go on and on about this. I've been reading a book called "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin. There are lots of stats in it and I will post some if you wish to discuss about it.
I don't wanna invest my money in people's deaths...TimeTraveler said:
I personally think that the problem with local economies is that it is too divisive. If you go somewhere else, you cannot trade, or you cannot trade very easily. I think information technology is our best bet. See how it is making the world a much "smaller" place?
Umm, without humans, there is no capitalism.TimeTraveler said:
Look. Capitalism works best when it operates in a free market. Free, as in no preconceived notions.
Any organizational idea you have to overlay the free market robs the market of freedom.
Suggest a negotiable product or service. Your rules are not a free market negotiation -- by definition; no more than mine would be.
TruthSeeker said:That will never happen. With automation and the pursuit of greater and greater leverage, the number of jobs will continue to decrease until it's completely gone.
So we as a species are already dead, as we build our robot masters to replace us. Unless we decide to build to live.
You calim we need a new form of capitalism. I agree with you. How about a capitalist system that is not based on wasteful consumption, so that we have less garbage in the planet and more flowers? How about a different lifestyle, in which we enjoy our lives in this planet, rather then staying in an office for the rest of our lives? If jobs are going to disappear someday, we need to adapt to that and create a system that is not based on jobs.
Jobs arent going to disapear, if you know anything about capitalism, jobs are created and destroyed all the time. People wanted to sit in front of a computer and work from home, so we geeks invented the personal computer, we invented the internet, we invented all this software, and we created our jobs for ourselves.
That's our challenge today. It didn't start today too. It started in the Industrial Revolution in England, centuries ago. A lot of people lost their jobs to the machines. We adapted. Then came Fordism, and once again, jobs decreased. We adapted. And each time that happened, we have less and less hours of work. Now we have information technologies, and that's where the future are leading us to.
As our technology becomes more advanced, we need more global security, so there will be plenty of security jobs. As the earth becomes more polluted, we will need to fix the ecology and habitat, so there will be plenty of environmental jobs. As energy demands increase, we will need to develop new sources, so there will be plenty of alternative energy jobs. Finally, as the worlds technology on the nano scale becomes more advanced, it will create plenty of scientific jobs.
The new system wil be based on that. It has to, there are no options with the way things are going now. We need to shift our focus from production and consumption to something else.
We need to simply create new industries. We need a new economic eco-system of industries. This will not be difficult as long as we can maintain the energy supply and support system so focus on energy and you'll have the ability to create as many jobs as you need. I think we could end up with an over supply of jobs if we want to be efficient, and then our robots will have a purpose, I just think we are building robots a bit too soon.
America, specially, is going through a huge crisis right now because they are insisting in not adapting to the changes. People are working much more then they need. They are working more then 40 hours per week to maintain tehir jobs when they could be working less then 30 hours. And that is causing unemployment, which is making the situation even worse. Stress is one of the greatest problem in North America. That's because of the way the system is working today. We are working too much. There is too much competition because there are too few jobs. People are constanly being laid off. Every time companies merge and/or increase their leverage, thousands of people lose their jobs. And then they try to use unions to aoid that, but that only makes a messy situation messier.
And it's all your fault. Why don't you get a degree in economics? Why don't you actually write a book and tell us what sorts of industries of the future would solve the crisis? You are correct, we have more jobs than people, so we need more industries, but we cannot have more industries if we don't have enough energy. The energy will be the cause of the job growth crisis. We cannot have full employement unless we have fuel to transfer goods and services.
Anywways... I could go on and on about this. I've been reading a book called "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin. There are lots of stats in it and I will post some if you wish to discuss about it.
The end of work is utopia. While some of us may be evolved to the level where we can get along with each other without being kept busy, the masses are still mostly wild animals, and even the domesticated masses require a job to give them a sense of purpose. Jobs are good, we arent in a position as a species where we can party forever, we still have to make it into space, we have to improve quality and quantity of life, we have to protect the environment, increase global security, educate the youth, trust me, there are still more jobs than people, we just don't have the organization to make use of 6 billion people and this is why I say capitalism isnt working as efficiently as it should/could.
No. Rich people have wealth. Poor people don't.TruthSeeker said:Oh. So rich people are great and poor people are scum?
Get a life!
If poor people want wealth -- you, for instance -- then you should work for it. Otherwise, be happy with the few dollars you can generate with your cardboard sign in the median. Or risk lead poisoning by breaking into my house to take from me what only I can offer you because you're too stupid to possess the practiced ability to earn it honestly, like the rest of us.
Comprende?
Equal opportunity, dude. Not equal result.
If the fact of my existence automatically obligates me to give you everything you need to comfortably continue your existence, than the fact of your own existence automatically obligates you to give me everything I need to comfortably continue my own existence.
Precisely where in that equation will you ever appear to see to your obligation to me, based on whatever natural ability you imagine you possess, if you need me to support you?
That's what I thought.
Let me take care of me, and I'll let you take care of yourself.
May the best aim win.
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In the largest possible sense, no it is not. Worlds die. They do it all the time.TimeTraveler said:
The first possibility is that something big enough will smack into us and we won't have to worry about anything ever again. I suppose that is one of the little pluses to being dead. The other possibility is that nothing too horrible happens to the planet and it simply runs out of steam. The molten core of the world cools and begins to clot like drying blood, volitile elements cease being released to the surface, and complex life becomes... difficult. Some undefined period of time later the sun goes red giant and we turn into a cinder. But thats all long term crap that is moot on the short term.
Perhaps we could maintain ourselves at some level that we could continue into the indefinite future. The questions here that need to be answered are at what level do you want human living conditions to be and how many people do you wish to support. You could have five hundred million men live as kings or ten billion as paupers without more than a proverbial loaf of bread to their names.
Read what I said.Mr. G said:
Economics has three basic resources: capital, land and labour. Capital and land are interconnected. Labour is only there so that we can create a system to survive. When it disappears, we will need to change.
Clockwood said:
What I mean is sustainable for us. We can all live as kings simply by having unlimited energy. 500 million people will live exactly as they did in the past when there were 500 million people. Slavery will be brought back, and perhaps 1 million will rule over the 500 million. If you have 10 billion, perhaps 500 million will rule over the 10 billion. If you have 20 billion, perhaps a billion will rule over the 20 billion.
Assume the the ratio of kings to paupers always stays the same percentage no matter how many people you add or take away, and then you see it does not matter if there is more or less people because with less people the people who are left will suffer even more. The people left will be complete puppet slaves if there are only 500 million, and if there were 1 million it simply means even greater control as the number of people drops.
The problem is this, how exactly do you go into space if you limit the amount of people to 500 million? That's just not enough people to go and popular the universe. In the end it does not matter how many people you have if there is no order and no goal. The job situation is easy to fix, you can create a billion jobs by building houses on mars and starting the space tourism industry. You could create a billion jobs easily, so the job issue isnt the problem, and how people live isnt the problem because how people live is not really changing based on the numbers. In the past people lived even worse and there were far less people back then, so if we went back down to that you'd likely have a new dark ages, just a high tech dark ages.
So here is a question for you, how many are too many, and how many people too few, and how do you decide how many people you need to populate say, Mars, or to start the space tourism industry, or to start any of the many industries not yet invented?
Finally, why must anyone live like a pauper? As if that's natural and people have to live like paupers.
Will everyone be a king? Perhaps not, does everyone want to be a king? No of course not. Most people just want to survive and enjoy life.
Mr. G said:No. Rich people have wealth. Poor people don't.
If poor people want wealth -- you, for instance -- then you should work for it. Otherwise, be happy with the few dollars you can generate with your cardboard sign in the median. Or risk lead poisoning by breaking into my house to take from me what only I can offer you because you're too stupid to possess the practiced ability to earn it honestly, like the rest of us.
Comprende?
Equal opportunity, dude. Not equal result.
If the fact of my existence automatically obligates me to give you everything you need to comfortably continue your existence, than the fact of your own existence automatically obligates you to give me everything I need to comfortably continue my own existence.
Precisely where in that equation will you ever appear to see to your obligation to me, based on whatever natural ability you imagine you possess, if you need me to support you?
That's what I thought.
Let me take care of me, and I'll let you take care of yourself.
May the best aim win.
There is no such thing as equal opportunity. If you want equal opportunity, you have to take it, because it's not free.
I do think we could have a more efficient capitalism. People who want more, well let them earn it by creating better jobs.
Anyway, while you two boys compete with each other in the game of monopoly, who is going to take care of the earth?
No, that's not true at all. Who said we need to work to survive?TimeTraveler said:
Look at the trends. With feudalism, people used to work pretty much non-stop. More then 80 hours per week. With the industrial revolution, the average went down to about 60 hours per week. Then came Fordism and the average went down to 40. Now, in Europe, where the trend is still going, the average is in between 20 and 30 hours a week. We didn;t use to have weekends, you know? Study some history. Weekends were invented only a few decades ago. Now in Europe, many people have 3 day or even 4 day weekends. In America, by contrast, everyone is going nuts because they don;t want to lose their jobs. Jobs are disappearing all the time. Whenever a company creates more leverage, thousands of people are laid off. Why do you think the service industry is booming? But still, the service industry cannot provide enough job for every american. You got some research to do, pal. Start by googling "outsourcing", "leverage", "re-engineering" and "automation"...
Oh and of course, the problem with that is the wages.
Yes. And the trend is more and more jobs like that. Companies love computers. Why? Because they can speed up all their processes with them, cutting costs and increasing efficiency and quality.
So we are going to spend all our resources and our lives fixing the mess we did?
No. New industries mean new products, more overconsumption, more pollution, more waste of energy, more environmental damage... You see... the main problems with the world today are rooted in american overconsumption of goods.
What kind of energy jobs? What do you propose aside from oil?
Industries won't solve the crisis. We cannot create goods without hurting the environment. You cannot reconcile sustainability with consumption- specially overconsumption.
True, that's the leading problem today. Hence the Middle East mess.
I have a 6 month old child. I can tell you very easily- this is more then enough purpose!
And he keeps me pretty busy too...!Who talked about partying? I'm talking about thinking!
True. If you look at the economic equation you will see 3 components- capital, land and labour. We are dealing with labour right now. When we eliminate labour, we will be able to concentrate on eliminating the "scarcity" of land by expanding into space. The computers will do that thinking for us...
Quantity? I have the impression we have enough. Quality? How about less jobs and more time for our familes, decreased stress, more trees, better air quality, less garbage...
Again- we cannot overconsume!
Security smurity! There's no need for security if everyone is happy!
We don't do that, eh?
Yes. So shouldn't the system revolve around that?TimeTraveler said: