Greevar: so this utopia of yours comes to fruition, the US game industry dries up when all the major employers move to Canada. Now what do I do?
I don't think you get what I'm saying. You're still thinking within the confines of a monetary economy. A resource based economy doesn't need money because money would be obsolete due to abundance. Technology would take care of the necessities of living. It would create abundance (i.e. food, shelter, medicine, education, etc.) for everyone. Artists would create art without economic restriction (i.e. create the art you and your fellow artists want to create rather than what you're hired to make), engineers create better technology, health care researches better medicines, and schools provide the higher quality education merely so that everyone is educated. The whole point to this is to give people the freedom to contribute to the advancement of the human race rather than just slaving away to cover the cost of living. In a monetary economy, we work to live. In a resource economy we work to better ourselves and each other.
You wouldn't have to worry about your "job" moving to another country because honestly, this needs to be a world economy, but more specifically to your concern, it doesn't make you stop being a game artist. It just makes it unnecessary for you to do it to live.
Yeah, I know. It sounds like a fantasy, but it's already starting to happen. How much of manufacturing is already automated? It's happening because it's cheaper than hiring people. But what happens when all jobs are occupied by machines? Then money becomes meaningless. When manufacturing and agriculture are fully automated, the only "jobs" that will be left are those that keep the technology running, but even that will be automated some day as well. Then there will only be people developing new technology, new art, new medicines, new science, and new philosophy. Why? People will do these things because it makes the world a better place for themselves and everyone else. It expands what it is to be human and what is possible as a human.
Seriously, think about it. What would you spend your time doing if you didn't have to worry about food, shelter, health care, and education? I know what I would do, I'd make a lot of fucking art and give it to everybody. I'd also spend some of that time learning new skills. Everybody has a passion and when you give them the autonomy to just do stuff, great things happen.
This is a great presentation about how autonomy improves productivity.
Greevar: I don't think discarding money altogether would be a good solution, but your motivation video and a sci fi book i read a while ago (For us, the living - Robert Heinlein) give rise to an idea where everyone is granted a basic income that is enough to be able to live in a reasonable situation. So you don't have to work to be able to sustain yourself. However, if you decide to work (which most people will do) you will be rewarded in both monetary and an emotional way. This would result in nobody wanting to do stupid work anymore, but i can imagine a lot of people who'd like to create robots to do this work. People's response to such a (hypothetical) system is usually: but won't everybody just sit on their ass al day, so nothing happens? I think not, most people (over 90%) said they'd work in some form or other even if it is not necessary (survey in the Netherlands, no proper link/source, sorry).
This system would allow you to still gain something more in the physical world if you work, or create something that other people value (like art), that could be a cause for you to live in a higher standard.
I know this is a very Utopian idea, and that it isn't very likely to happen, but it does provide good discussion material about its implications, and if a completely different system is proposed it allows you to take a step back and look at the current system.
I don't agree with your notion that we can't or shouldn't do away with money. It's not surprising you say that at all. What is surprising is that you agree that money isn't necessary to provide incentive, yet feel that it's needed. That, I don't understand. The driving force for productivity in an advanced society without money is achievement. People will not sit idle without money driving them to be productive because healthy human beings don't like to be idle. We need purpose, so we create challenges for ourselves to surpass and push the limits of what we are capable of. That's why there are athletes, artists, philosophers, and academics. We all want to see if there is more to what it is to be human.
Money only exists so long as there is a lack of abundance and resources that satisfy your physical needs are in the control of a few. When resources are not controlled, but available to all, your physical needs can be met and you have no need for money.
I can't watch videos at work but the "robots do all the work" future has been predicted as 20 years in the future for the last 60 years. I'm being optimistic when I say this might be true for the 22nd century.
We need to get out of the "flying car future" mindset - my prediction for the future: computers will be as ubiquitous as the cell phone. When I say computers will be everywhere I mean those save the children commercials will say "every month, you'll get an email from a poor boy or girl who needs your help"
You can't just throw money out and expect the world to still function. The only way for your utopia to come true would be slowly ween people off of it so it became obsolete. That would take an incredibly amount of effort over several generations. Which is unrealistic and pretty much what China, Cuba and the USSR tried to do, which didn't work out so well but not for the reasons everyone suspects. "communism failed!" well no not really, look at China and Cuba, doing a lot better now and still working on the same system. The part that didn't work out so well was violent change and massive social upheaval that caused a lot of the problems they had difficulty recovering from.
What you're suggesting is little more than massive social and personal re engineering, which shares the same stage as a lot of crazy cults that went down in flames. They fail mostly because they require a strict code of conduct for the system to work. Everyone must opt in and behave certain ways for it to function. It turns very dystopian very quickly because social behavior needs to be controlled for the system to function.
If everyone just filled their hearts with love and gave up anger... or if they made their own cloths and grew their own food the world would be a happy place (until someone wanted to steal a shirt or was starving and stole food, or created a system where certain people wouldn't starve at the expense of others).
Switching systems just causes a power vacuum for chaos and greed to prosper until they can be wrestled under control. Getting rid of money, would mean peoples behavior manifests in the form of hording goods and services instead of money.
The only way to keep things fair and flowing would be to so tightly balance things that everything zeros out. Just enough goods are produced to meet the needs of the many, no more no less. Which means that things would be very rigid and susceptible tiny changes in need. With something so tenuous it wouldn't take much for someone or something to upset things in an attempt to grab power or stability for themselves.
We don't need to throw everything out and start over, that would be disastrous and more dangerous than doing nothing at all.
By throwing everything out, all you do is create a new frontier for ass hats to run wild, then you spend the next 100 years trying to set up all the systems you already had and fight all the problems and exploits that where already taken care of. By the time you're done you have a nearly identical system only you went through 100 years of crap, your society already dealt with once before.
Maybe instead of putting your fingers in your ears and loudly yelling "I don't care what you old people say I can do it better!" You should listen to them and take their advice...
I get that the system you're being handed isn't your own and you have trouble understanding it, that's probably because you're not asking enough questions and you spend your time trying to reinvent the wheel. This is some of the same backwards logic that pixologic uses:
"we can't have spheres, we need Z-spheres"
"we can't have bones and deformation we need some crazy trans-pose system!"
"We can't use standard navigation that is in every other 3D app, we need some BS way that is harder for people to use, well its easy for us because we made it!"
If you want tribal feudalism there are some prime places in Africa that operate that way. Money doesn't have much of a role, but strength, guns and access to food/water are what drive the "economy" in those areas. Well its not so much of an economy as those with guns and food do pretty well for themselves while those without just die... Huh greed and barbarism without mortgage backed securities, suits or even a single stock broker to be seen... weird.
I suspect it would be much easier and much more realistic to rebalanced the power structure we have instead of dream up new ones. I understand how fun it is to dream up new shit and imagine a perfect society but many people have tried it and a lot of people fight them on it and it normally ends badly...
What does seem to work is sticking to whatever system you have, and making sure it stays fair and open. It doesn't matter if you pick a libertarian floating city, or a European socialist government, or a Asian communist government what is important is that the people actively participate and everyone works to maintain the balance of power.
If every time a problem popped up everyone tossed out their current form of government we wouldn't get very far as a society.
Citizen01: "ZEEK! A squirrel died in the water tower again, our entire water supply is contaminated! What do we do!?"
Zeek: "We destroy our government and build a new one!"
Citizen02: "wouldn't it be easier to fish the squirrel out and treat the water?"
Zeek: Someone take care of Critizen02...
Citzen01: Bang!
Zeek: "Now to celebrate the refounding of our great nation... again!"
Citizen01: "ugghh... can we do it tomorrow I'll still hung over from last night's celebration"
TL:DR Sticking with what you have and make it work, negates the horrific problems created by a massive upheaval and a reset of all functions of government.
Greevar: I don't think discarding money altogether would be a good solution, but your motivation video and a sci fi book i read a while ago (For us, the living - Robert Heinlein) give rise to an idea where everyone is granted a basic income that is enough to be able to live in a reasonable situation. So you don't have to work to be able to sustain yourself. However, if you decide to work (which most people will do) you will be rewarded in both monetary and an emotional way.
This just sounds like the standard welfare system - already happening in countries like the UK, Australia, Sweden, norway, france, etc.
Even if campus grouds is considered private property to students who attend the school in the middle of the day, you can't just start hitting people with batons for linking arms Peaceful protesters are getting beaten left and right these days...
I didn't say throw it all out today and start over. It's going to have to be a gradual change. People have to learn to think differently in order to function in such a society. It's like boiling a frog alive scenario. If you heat it up too fast, he'll jump out because it's noticeably uncomfortable. But if you turn it up slowly enough, he won't notice he's cooking until he's already boiled.
Furthermore, you didn't read what I said. Technology can create abundance. Abundance removes the incentive to be greedy ass-hats. You don't need to steal or hoard if you and everyone else has what they need. You're just taking they way people behave in the current system and applying it to an entirely different economy that it couldn't exist in. It doesn't work that way. A radically new economic system means radically new incentives and behavior.
The reason being that we haven't seen that type of world yet (although, the flying car has been outmoded considering the technology we have now through communications) is because the people making the technology are still operating in a profit structure. Technology that would facilitate this drastic change isn't that profitable because it would create abundance and remove any reason to pay for it. Just like pharma could be sitting on cures for deadly diseases because the treatment drugs ensure an endless profit stream. It's people and the profit motive that keep the fully automated infrastructure from being fully realized, not the technology itself.
Even if campus grouds is considered private property to students who attend the school in the middle of the day, you can't just start hitting people with batons for linking arms Peaceful protesters are getting beaten left and right these days...
Cripes, you would think that they would have learned from the passive protesting model of Ghandi and MLK that beating on peaceful and unarmed protestors will only turn public opinion against you. Then the protestors will win anyway. They should just realize that they've lost and give in to our demands for a removal of corporate/private meddling in our government. They aren't going away until they get what they want and they are growing in support every day.
In Retrospect, Gahndi was a little bit of an asshole.
When a journalist asked him what he thought about Western Civilization, he said "It would be a great idea". Note the word 'Would be'.
I mean what happened to sarcasm being the lowest form of humor? Oh noes, Ghandi say's it, so it must be the highest form of humor, but a normal person like me says it, people find it offensive.
In Retrospect, Gahndi was a little bit of an asshole.
Lol, nicely done sir
@greevar - Yes, beating the snot out of people isn't going to work. I could understand how that was a "logical" tactic for them in the beginning, but they have to realize it aint working. Each occupation is getting stronger after police conflict. There ARE other options, like compromising and working to attain an achievable goal for instance (hell, its worth a shot!).
Side note, this trainwreck happened on last night's repub debate:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUA2rDVrmNg"]Watch Rick Perry's Campaign End Before Your Eyes - YouTube[/ame]
You can almost here the incoming mortar sound effect.
geez, that's a rather creepy methaphor that you used Greevar.
and greed is a quite primal thing. it's been with us for thousands of years, so why would that change in a new system? there will never be a system where everyone has everything that they want anyway.
In Retrospect, Gahndi was a little bit of an asshole.
When a journalist asked him what he thought about Western Civilization, he said "It would be a great idea". Note the word 'Would be'.
I mean what happened to sarcasm being the lowest form of humor? Oh noes, Ghandi say's it, so it must be the highest form of humor, but a normal person like me says it, people find it offensive.
So yeah, Ghandi...a troll if you ask me.
A troll he may be, but he did free India with passive resistance and MLK used that example to win the civil rights movement. OWS is smart to do the same.
The reason being that we haven't seen that type of world yet (although, the flying car has been outmoded considering the technology we have now through communications) is because the people making the technology are still operating in a profit structure. Technology that would facilitate this drastic change isn't that profitable because it would create abundance and remove any reason to pay for it. Just like pharma could be sitting on cures for deadly diseases because the treatment drugs ensure an endless profit stream. It's people and the profit motive that keep the fully automated infrastructure from being fully realized, not the technology itself.
Even as a casual follower of robotics I don't see this - there is no "man" keeping robotic advancement down. Go down to your local hacker space and talk to the robotics guy, there's always at least one of them.
Even as a casual follower of robotics I don't see this - there is no "man" keeping robotic advancement down. Go down to your local hacker space and talk to the robotics guy, there's always at least one of them.
You're not getting the point (maybe I'm not being clear?), but I'm really not in the mood to keep explaining it so I'll just forget about it for now.
@Mark Dygert
I didn't say throw it all out today and start over. It's going to have to be a gradual change.
That would be a multi-generational effort. Probably 100+ years even if the majority of people sign onto the idea. There would probably be people that fight it dragging it out. I guess you could try to fight back and force the change on those that oppose it, possibly by trying to make the current system look bad... humm...
People have to learn to think differently in order to function in such a society.
Again this will take an incredibly long time, the more people you have to convince the longer it will take. With the globalization and democratization taking place, you're better off going L Ron Hubard, Joesph Smith, David Coresh and hope no one notices...
It's like boiling a frog alive scenario. If you heat it up too fast, he'll jump out because it's noticeably uncomfortable. But if you turn it up slowly enough, he won't notice he's cooking until he's already boiled.
Seriously man... it is a horrifically bad example if you equate killing something so slowly it doesn't object to being killed, with trying to save something. Everything would be fine if they just realized that people are the problem and committed suicide. Since no one will do that on their own, I'll have to trick them slowly by turning up the temp... OOOOooOooo global warming... you bastard! =P
Ok back on track:
Look at the resistance you're getting on this message board, and these are people who regularly embrace crazy shit and are probably the most likely people to sign up for some kind of alternate society. If they aren't buying then how can you expect to win over anyone else?
Bottom line, I like that you're dreaming big, but you need to be practical too.
Look at the resistance you're getting on this message board, and these are people who regularly embrace crazy shit and are probably the most likely people to sign up for some kind of alternate society. If they aren't buying then how can you expect to win over anyone else?
Bottom line, I like that you're dreaming big, but you need to be practical too.
Just to point something out quickly - getting resistance on this message board means nothing to the overall ideas being discussed. Greevar is putting ideas out, but he's hardly campaigning the public at large for immediate change and is not a trained and seasoned debater.
If you want to have a fair and interesting discussion try to debate the ideas, not the way they are delivered or who by. Greevar has made many interesting and good points, as have you and most people in the discussion. Dismissing any of them outright because you think someone used a silly metaphor or the like is quite absurd.
Also, the point that because an idea will take a while to become popular, or that society will take a while to change is hardly a good argument, and does not mean that the change isn't happening or won't happen. Taking a very brief look at modern history will show you just how much change can happen in just a hundred years. Both to the mindset of society and to its actual workings. I'd say that the idea that a gradual change in mindset will bring us to a far different culture and society in a hundred years is very likely. I just hope it'll be a cool one and not some road warrior deal.
You should probably read the 3 page reply at the top of this page then. I probably should have left up the 8 page reply where I picked his idea apart, but I didn't think anyone would bother reading it, including him. So I distilled it down to one line, at the bottom.
What I was drawing his attention to is how long it will take to convince people the idea is correct. If people who are generally open to ideas are closed to the ideas being put forth, it might not fly all that well with the people who are more closed minded... which he needs to reform their thinking and get them on board if the plan is to work.
That kind of change takes generations to enact, or its done with force. "Boil the frog slowly"...
He's dreaming bigger than he could ever fully realize in his lifetime, its a noble goal to the extent that he wants to see positive change happen, I don't think he is actually thinking through past "a city, in the clouds, its going to be great!"
We have much more immediate problems to solve. I personally think putting a new transmission and some new tires will get us back on the road and provide a stable platform for people like greaver to dream up better societies. But I don't think we can do that with the car sitting in the garage.
You also have to realize that people given the limitations of time and our inability to predict the future to say that any one system will forever work we just need to implement it and all of our problems will be solved yippie! You need a system in place that allows you to slowly replace the pieces that don't work with parts that work better. You need very smart, thoughtful, deliberate people in charge of picking those pieces. People who are open, accountable to the public and working in the interest of the greater public at large. With a few tweaks you can get that out of our current system. Not that long ago that's how it worked.
Greaver is taking an incredibly long view to a short term problem. While OWS and the current set of problems does create some space to talk about long view ideas, it also gets people excited thinking that it will happen today and its not. You're not going to get that out of OWS. If you play your cards right you might get that 100 years from now...
What he's talking about isn't going to fix our society or solve our problems right now. It's a lot of fun to debate the long view and that is mostly how we get there, but we shouldn't neglect the problems that demand our attention and are easier to solve than converting to a new style of government overnight.
I will also add that you can only get to some kind of approximation of Greavers long view solution through open and honest debate. No fist pounding, no "my way or the highway" attitudes, just simple, open minded debate that leads to the equal exchange of ideas and the best possible solution being had. America had that... and it lost it in favor of ratings and wealth. We can return to that easily.
For anyone wondering what OWS has accomplished so far...
Big Banks Lose / Credit Unions Gain = 40,000 accounts w/ $80 Million on "Bank Transfer Day" http://cuna.org/newsnow/11/system110911-10.html
$4.5 Billion transferred since beginning of October :poly121:
While some things may be only indirectly affected by the OWS movement, I find it hard to believe that all this progressive and social support would've sprung up without it. This is only a quick search collection of stuff and a vast majority of "success" can be measured with many aspects.
People now feel a RESPONSIBILITY to stand up and be heard. Myself especially, I would never have found the drive to better educate myself on issues such as the ones being discussed here in this thread. I know there are many others out there doing the same, and that is HUGE!
This just sounds like the standard welfare system - already happening in countries like the UK, Australia, Sweden, norway, france, etc.
I disagree with that. Since when do you always get a standard income in the UK? You only get that money if you are out of a job. In the Netherlands the money they turn out for jobless people is sometimes even more than you'd make at minimum wage, which causes people to prefer being jobless over having a job...
What i was talking about was a universal wage, that would allow you to live rather good even if you have no job, but that you also get when you do have one. (damn my english sentences are making no sense, i'm sorry i'm tired ).
To mark: I know this system would require a total overhaul of society, but i'm not really posing it as an actual solution, more of a possibility that allows us to look at the monetary system in a different way. I know that it isn't feasible to work towards this system within one or even two generations, but it might be something to strive for. (or not! but it does allow you to analyze it critically!)
What i was talking about was a universal wage, that would allow you to live rather good even if you have no job, but that you also get when you do have one. (damn my english sentences are making no sense, i'm sorry i'm tired ).
Well that's the point of the minimum wage/welfare combination. It allows you to live even if you don't have a job. And you're getting it if you do have a job. I don't think it would require any big changes at all. Maybe in some countries it could be done better.
So I've been lurking for a long period of time and decided to activate my profile here. Funny that I'm doing it via Occupy Wall Street.
But you know what? That basically just proves greevar is correct in talking it out through forums.
It got me to come on here to talk about this movement and continue to read everyone's ideas. Plus I do need to figure out if my friends on Facebook even know of what's going on.
Plus I'd like to share a link I discovered tonight that doesn't look good for our future in taxes for the 99%.
Why Your Tax Bill Might Surge Next Year
by Bob Jennings
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
In a recent tax planning meeting with one of our clients, we shocked them with what their income tax future looked like for 2013 if -- on the off-chance -- Congress continues to do nothing to provide a long-term permanent set of tax laws.
They had no idea what tax breaks were expiring this year and next year, and how much it would cost them personally in extra income tax. But they aren't alone, many Americans and even tax professionals aren't aware that their tax bill could rise dramatically next year.
These clients are your average American family and their situation is a good example of the law changes that will affect all of us. Here's their tax situation with a table summarizing the expiring tax laws that are scheduled to occur in 2011 and 2012.
Meet the Smiths: 26-year-olds Bill and Joan have been married for five years and have two young children. Bill earns about $65,000 a year in sales and Joan has gone back to work and earns about $35,000 annually. Bill owes quite a bit on his college student loans and will pay about $3,000 in interest on them in 2013. With Joan working again, they are paying $3,000 for year-round child care. Joan inherited some AT&T stock from her grandmother, which pays her $1,000 in dividends every year. Finally, counting home mortgage interest, they have about $20,000 in itemized deductions.
The first big change affecting the Smiths will be a combined increase in income tax rates, and a tightening of tax brackets as a result of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We estimate this will cost them $960 in 2013.
Bill will lose the complete deduction of his student loan interest in 2013, costing about $840. The pair's allowable deduction for child care will drop to $2,400 from $3,000, and they will also see their credit for children drop in half, costing another $1,000.
The marriage tax penalty will come roaring back to hit the Smiths in 2013, costing an estimated $500. The tax on their dividend income will go increase to $280 from $150, adding another $130. Finally, although we did not calculate the effect, without Congressional action to once again "fix" the alternative minimum tax, the Smiths could owe this ugly tax as well!
Luckily for the Smiths — but not for many Americans — other major changes for 2013, which do not personally affect them, include a phase out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions if their income starts to climb.
In summary, because of tax laws expiring this year and next, we estimate that the Smiths will owe $3,598 more in income tax in 2013 than in 2011 with no change in their income.
Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2011:
• Personal tax credits applied against income tax no longer apply
• Higher alternative minimum tax exemptions revert back to extraordinarily-low thresholds
• $250 school teacher expense deduction ends
• Mortgage insurance premium deduction expires
• State and local sales tax deductions expire
• Tuition and related fees deduction end
• IRA to charity tax-free transfers stop
• 2% Social Security tax reduction ends
Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2012:
• Marriage penalty equalization ends
• Dividends taxed at capital gains rates removed, taxed at regular rates now
• Capital gains low tax rates expires
• Removal of itemized deduction phase out for higher income Americans
• Removal of personal exemption phase out for higher income Americans
• Child care deduction limit of $3,000 reverts to $2,400
• Child credit reduces from $1,000 per child to $500 per child
• Low 10% tax bracket for low income Americans is eliminated
• Lower income tax rates and smaller brackets expires
• Refundable adoption credit and reduced deduction
• American Opportunity college education credit expires
• Major reduction in earned income credits and refunds
• Income tax exemption for debt forgiven on home foreclosures and repossessions
• Deduction for student loan interest ends
• Education IRA limit drops from $2,000 to $500
Bob Jennings is a CPA, EA and CFP and author of "Understanding Social Security & Medicare."
@arshlevon
Interesting. Haven't seen that video. I'm glad they started chanting, "Stop beating students."
Pretty much everywhere I've been in the United States (mostly Southeast) my encounter with cops have all had chips on their shoulders or something to prove.
Like the cop who gave me a "speeding" ticket for going one (1) mile an hour faster than him.
It might be a matter of time before YouTube shuts down videos of the protests.
Like how Egypt shut down access to Facebook (and all WiFi I believe?) when they had their organization.
You should probably read the 3 page reply at the top of this page then. I probably should have left up the 8 page reply where I picked his idea apart, but I didn't think anyone would bother reading it, including him. So I distilled it down to one line, at the bottom.
What I was drawing his attention to is how long it will take to convince people the idea is correct. If people who are generally open to ideas are closed to the ideas being put forth, it might not fly all that well with the people who are more closed minded... which he needs to reform their thinking and get them on board if the plan is to work.
That kind of change takes generations to enact, or its done with force. "Boil the frog slowly"...
He's dreaming bigger than he could ever fully realize in his lifetime, its a noble goal to the extent that he wants to see positive change happen, I don't think he is actually thinking through past "a city, in the clouds, its going to be great!"
We have much more immediate problems to solve. I personally think putting a new transmission and some new tires will get us back on the road and provide a stable platform for people like greaver to dream up better societies. But I don't think we can do that with the car sitting in the garage.
You also have to realize that people given the limitations of time and our inability to predict the future to say that any one system will forever work we just need to implement it and all of our problems will be solved yippie! You need a system in place that allows you to slowly replace the pieces that don't work with parts that work better. You need very smart, thoughtful, deliberate people in charge of picking those pieces. People who are open, accountable to the public and working in the interest of the greater public at large. With a few tweaks you can get that out of our current system. Not that long ago that's how it worked.
Greaver is taking an incredibly long view to a short term problem. While OWS and the current set of problems does create some space to talk about long view ideas, it also gets people excited thinking that it will happen today and its not. You're not going to get that out of OWS. If you play your cards right you might get that 100 years from now...
What he's talking about isn't going to fix our society or solve our problems right now. It's a lot of fun to debate the long view and that is mostly how we get there, but we shouldn't neglect the problems that demand our attention and are easier to solve than converting to a new style of government overnight.
I will also add that you can only get to some kind of approximation of Greavers long view solution through open and honest debate. No fist pounding, no "my way or the highway" attitudes, just simple, open minded debate that leads to the equal exchange of ideas and the best possible solution being had. America had that... and it lost it in favor of ratings and wealth. We can return to that easily.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't at least take some steps in that direction while we're fixing the problem. If we have the tranny out, why don't we align the steering, clean the air filters, and replace the alternator? We don't have to toss out the whole drive train today and replace it, but we can put a few things in there that will bring us a little closer to that goal.
-Universal health care
-Mandating real progress for getting off non-renewable energy
-Better public transportation nationwide
-Free (or very affordable) post-secondary education
-Nationalize the banks
-Get rid of the Fed
-Make it harder to profit from outsourcing to nations that have weak labor laws and nearly non-existent pollution laws; apply severe consequences to those that do
-Restructure public education to align with the needs of the students and explore new teaching styles rather than the cookie-cutter model
These are all doable in the next ten years (maybe less) if people stop fighting about it and crying "socialism is evil!", having their pissing contests instead of getting something really useful done. I'd rather have socialism than the government we have right now, which is for sale to the highest bidder.
In the Netherlands the money they turn out for jobless people is sometimes even more than you'd make at minimum wage, which causes people to prefer being jobless over having a job...
Just to comment on this, the moral of the story is that minimum wage is too low, not that welfare is too high. We had this debate here in Iceland. The governments determine what a base line living wage is, to afford food, housing, communication, etc. That's welfare. Not a government on earth has made a welfare state that is paying enough for even a minor fraction of it's recipients to live high on the hog, they are all pegged closer to the poverty level than middle class. The corollary is that a company will pay the lowest amount they can get away with, that's why it's called "minimum wage". In the words of David Cross, "Oh they'd like to pay you less, but they can't".
If you as a company can't lure people off welfare to work for your company because they would see a reversal in their income, that means your wages are far too shitty. If you can't make a profit and function with paying them more, than your business model is shitty. No one "deserves" to run a successful business, especially at the expense of paying the people who do the actual work a poverty level wage. Because contrary to the narrative in some countries, the vast majority of people want to work. Very few want to lay about at home all day for years at a time. This is born out by psychological studies, but decades of Reagan's "welfare queen" boogeyman stories have convinced a lot of people otherwise.
(not saying you were making this point Japhir, but just wanted to elaborate on it)
If you can't make a profit and function with paying them more, than your business model is shitty. No one "deserves" to run a successful business, especially at the expense of paying the people who do the actual work a poverty level wage.
You can use this example for our DoD (Department of Defense), which will take different bids from different companies.
The lowest bid will always win.
Meaning one company will probably post what it actually costs them while adding some sort of profit they'd like to make, then a second one will undercut the first company, then a third will do the same, then a fourth, etc.
So you'll end up with a company that underbid themselves and they will be the ones building the product. You might have them ask for more money later, but sometimes they don't receive extra money to finish.
Thus the reason for several of my co-workers getting laid off due to lack of funds. Horrible.
It basically comes down to some douchebag wanting to make a name for himself by landing a contract, but little did he know he made a name for himself by being stupid.
Steve Buscemi - 'Armageddon' - "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
Greevar I totally agree on a lot of the points and think most of them could use a little tweaking. My problem came from when people toss around unrealistic goals like "get rid of money". That's just not going to happen in anyone's lifetime, if you're lucky you might lay a good argument that can be used as a foundation to begin winning people over. But honestly money isn't the problem its a system that needs to be ballanced. Money is pretty much just like alcohol, guns and video games. When used properly they have benefits, unfortunately people who have problems balancing themselves tend to use them to excess. The solution isn't to get rid of the items they have trouble using correctly, its to make sure they use them in a balanced way.
Money makes our lives easier. I'd rather carry a plastic card than 4 chickens and sack of wheat. There is enough money on the planet already to keep the system moving and well lucubrated. We don't need technology to provide us with an over abundance of resources, we have enough. We need systems in place to make sure that people don't horde the resources and starve the machine.
Agreed, if Obama wasn't concerned with getting the GOP to like him, we would have had this already. Costs would be dropping, red tape lifting and sick people getting better.
-Mandating real progress for getting off non-renewable energy
Thankfully there is a lot of Fusion research being done, sadly not a lot of it is being done by the US. While we get our asses handed to us by Chinese solar companies the rest of the world is working on actual clean solutions.
I'm split on this, it eats up a lot of cash and ultimately doesn't provide the kind of flexibility that people need. I think education should come before public transit. Once the next generation is actually employable we can worry about getting them to and from work. Maybe that could be their generational project...
-Free (or very affordable) post-secondary education
Completely agree. State schools should be free and provide a basic education. If private or specialty institutions want to go offer paid for programs above that I'm fine with it. They wouldn't be competing with each other, but they would be filling two different roles. Although I wouldn't mind seeing private colleges try to compete with state schools... Just like I wouldn't mind keeping private insurance along side a single payer option.
That's going a bit far. We just need to separate risky investment firms from Saving and Loan banks, very simple, we had this for 50+ years and it worked great. Congress could fix this if it wasn't drunk on Tea. Hopefully after the 2012 elections they can get back to work.
-Make it harder to profit from outsourcing to nations that have weak labor laws and nearly non-existent pollution laws; apply severe consequences to those that do
Agreed, if you want to sell goods in the US (I would argue globally) countries should be required to uphold basic human rights and wages. There could be a tiered system where based on the working conditions, prices are set.
No doubt this would cause a trade war and possibly even a millitary conflict. I think the US is ill-prepared to fight such a war, mean while china has already hacked and lifted all of the US's battle plans and knows how to win. The pentagon is full of old befuddled octopi that can't seem to find their land legs in this century.
-Restructure public education to align with the needs of the students and explore new teaching styles rather than the cookie-cutter model
You have be careful with this, if you let the kids choose how they are educated and let the kids rate their teachers it puts a lot of power in the hands of people who aren't ready to weld it. "Oh crack down on me and tell me to do homework huh... well then I'll get you fired!" They tend to grow up to be self important pricks who think things should always be done their way and that the world was created to cater to them...
Is the current system teaching to get good numbers on a test a good system? Oh fuck no. But in America we tend to over indulge our youth and raise little twat monsters. We need to make sure any kind of education reform isn't tainted by those people who think its fine that kids act that way.
The system already tilts heavily that way and mostly because society has pushed it that way.
Kids are told they're rockstars and princesses, they're special and deserve to be treated like royalty. While I think its good to boost self-esteem but there is a fine line between helping a kid have a good image of themselves and raising a monster.
Having a kid in preschool and having helped out quite often in the classroom, there are some tots that can be pretty nuts and need to be dropped down a few pegs... Other kids might be crippled by insecurity so if you're talking about tailoring an education so both become well balanced students then I agree.
I think this can be achieved by doing 3 things:
1) Lowering class sizes under 15, below 10 if we can.
Easy it just takes a bit more money or a bit less kids. With birth rates dropping we might not need to worry about having more teachers and more classrooms... Even if it reverses we could switch our spending from the military to the classroom and have no problem keeping this goal.
2) Getting parents good stable jobs so they can help their kids.
This is damn near impossible...
Parental involvement is the single biggest factor that can drive a child's success. But holy hell is it a problem if you start to tell parents how to do the job they aren't bothering to do. School can only do so much and they are severely limited in the support they can offer a kid, mostly because society mandates that schools hands be tied though funding and through policy. School can't ever make up for absentee parents. Sadly our society doesn't see it as the parents job to help educate their kids.
This is going to take a long time to turn around. As a society we've gotten really good at telling people not to have kids and no one really prepares them for having them. On average parents spend the most attention to their kids for the first 5 years, after that its off to school and lord of the flies. As the kids grow the parents don't.
3) We can't continue to tell kids "education is your top priority" if we don't believe it and spend like it is. Flip the military budget with the education budget and we'll see a much better return on our investment.
I'm all for teaching young kids through play and hands on learning, but they also need to be taught work ethic and that great things come out of working hard for something. So much of the alternate approaches to teaching aims to put smiles on kids faces and focuses on instant gratification and catering to their ADHD needs which looks good and gets them engaged but ultimately undercuts their future self, there needs to be balance.
These are all doable in the next ten years (maybe less) if people stop fighting about it and crying "socialism is evil!", having their pissing contests instead of getting something really useful done. I'd rather have socialism than the government we have right now, which is for sale to the highest bidder.
I think you're overly optimistic on the time table. Double your estimate and add half and you might be closer. You assume that people will wake up to logic and start think for themselves when they've never been taught any of that. You assume that there aren't people who would directly oppose those ideas because it would hurt their interests.
At best we end up having to wait until someone smothers the boomers in their sleep before logic and reason can take over. Until then, they are only going to cling to power and get more entrenched and senile. Anyone who has spent any time around old people in their twilight years knows they typically aren't happy well adjusted people. As their bodies start to break down they have trouble processing complex problems, things start to become a lot more black and white and the last 20 years are pretty much a regression through the first 15.
We're dealing with a ruling class that is only going to get more juvenile as time goes on until enough of them can be replaced where the harm they do will only be to themselves. They have only just begun to fight for relevance and they're going to cause a lot of collateral damage as they try to fix the problems they caused.
This factor alone extends the time table for rational debate out 15-20 years. Hopefully with more young people getting up off their asses and questioning the current system it can hasten that debate, but I wouldn't count on it, I don't think you can win over the old crowd, you can only hope to someday outnumber them.
Im totally wasted but your point makes no sense.. who gives a shite about your point about minimum wage .. theres always someone else that is willing to accept less than your minimum wage and work.
this is what Ive been talking about .. theres so many ideas that float around this thread that are completely disconnected with the real world
Im totally wasted but your point makes no sense.. who gives a shite about your point about minimum wage .. theres always someone else that is willing to accept less than your minimum wage and work.
Oh, well in that case we should clearly engage in a race to the bottom where all money and jobs is divided into the top 1% living on floating golden zeppelins, while all labor is done by slave chattel that earns only enough to eat until they fall sick, at which point they are discarded in the gutter for someone new.
I mean, that is a tactic, and it is the one the US is currently pursuing, but is that really the system you think is worth keeping and want to be a part of?
Ideas thought outside the box are what helps us as a society to change and adapt as time moves on, as history has shown us.
People who thought electricity could be harnessed were considered crazy a couple hundred years ago. Science wasn't really accepted by society at large until the 1940's; otherwise all scientific advancements that were announced ended up being denounced and called fake until things started actually hitting the market.
Close your mind, you close your learning. Instead of posting when you're wasted, you could wait until you are sober to give a more thought out response... :P
economies are now global, what is considered minimum wage in one place is now payday heaven in another, you may wish to hang on to whatever principles and ideals but as a global situation its not going to hold water, campaign and shout as hard as you like but the living standards in some far flug place on the earth are not going to get better, and they are willing to do it for less.. what the western world sees as oppression another part of the world sees as opportunity.. they are still willing to do waht it takes..
Well, here in the States, it seems to me you can't run a "successful" business if you can't outsource your workers.
Almost like ILM moving their VFX work to Singapore, yet it's still expensive to live out there. (From what I hear anyway, from an old teacher of mine.)
Greevar I totally agree on a lot of the points and think most of them could use a little tweaking. My problem came from when people toss around unrealistic goals like "get rid of money". That's just not going to happen in anyone's lifetime, if you're lucky you might lay a good argument that can be used as a foundation to begin winning people over. But honestly money isn't the problem its a system that needs to be ballanced. Money is pretty much just like alcohol, guns and video games. When used properly they have benefits, unfortunately people who have problems balancing themselves tend to use them to excess. The solution isn't to get rid of the items they have trouble using correctly, its to make sure they use them in a balanced way.
Money makes our lives easier. I'd rather carry a plastic card than 4 chickens and sack of wheat. There is enough money on the planet already to keep the system moving and well lucubrated. We don't need technology to provide us with an over abundance of resources, we have enough. We need systems in place to make sure that people don't horde the resources and starve the machine.
The problem with what you're saying is, that you're stuck on this concept that there would be a need for trade in a moneyless society. The goal of a moneyless society is to make sure nobody has to trade to get anything through abundant goods and services. If you can get all your physical needs met for free, what do you need money and trade for?
The problem with money is the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Money is power, pure and simple. Since money can be consolidated (even with regulation), it creates inequality of power. The only way to balance that power is to provide everyone a set income that is completely equal for everyone. At that point, why bother with money at all?
Nationalizing the banks is one of the most effective ways to prevent the kind of mess we're in right now. Selling money for more money is insane. Nothing of real value is traded, it just moves the money from the hands of the many to the hands of the few without producing anything of value. There's a saying that bankers have that exemplifies the problem, "I don't earn money, I make it". Using money for profit should be illegal.
What I said about education was that the model of teaching needs to match what they way the child learns best. Not every student can sit still in a room full of thirty other kids and listen to the teacher drone on with their lectures. A great many kids don't learn well that way. So you use the methods that are the most engaging for the children. It has nothing to do with acquiescing to the willful desires of children and has everything to do with teaching them in a way that doesn't bore them while helping them attain mastery of a skill.
Public transportation can be exactly what people need it to be if it's done right. What I mean by that is getting rid of airports and replacing them with Mag Lev and light rail trains that get people to their destinations and then automated personal vehicles to transport them within the city. Actually, San Francisco is a stellar example of a successful public transportation system. Street cars run from end to end on every street and MUNI buses can take you where the street cars can't go. They're very good a getting you within walking distance of where you want to go.
The Fed is a private bank that controls our public currency. Our entire monetary system is in the control of private banks with the power to create and destroy money that are in business for themselves. The Fed was a plan to take control of the country's money from the word go. The act was written on Jekyll Island on JP Morgan's estate in secret. The 1907 panic was created to make the people desperate for a solution they designed, to a problem they created. It should die and the US treasury should be filling the role, as only the government has the power to create money.
The problem with what you're saying is, that you're stuck on this concept that there would be a need for trade in a moneyless society. The goal of a moneyless society is to make sure nobody has to trade to get anything through abundant goods and services. If you can get all your physical needs met for free, what do you need money and trade for?
You've implied more than once now that if everyone's physical needs were met that there would be no need for any form of trade. But people don't only trade for things that they need, they trade for things that they want as well.
Unless you're talking about a society where absolutely anything and everything that any person could conceivably want is in perfect abundance then some form of trade would need to exist.
Even in such a society some form of trade would be useful because people might want a resource that is necessarily finite. For example, they might want another person to spend some of their time singing a song for them.
The goal of a moneyless society is to make sure nobody has to trade to get anything through abundant goods and services.
uhh... what about shitload of things that aren't being produced anymore (and one-of-the-kind things) that people are still buying/selling via sites like ebay?
Also, you want to replace AIRPORTS, that allow people to go from one continent to another, with magnetic trams? how does that work?
The problem with what you're saying is, that you're stuck on this concept that there would be a need for trade in a moneyless society. The goal of a moneyless society is to make sure nobody has to trade to get anything through abundant goods and services. If you can get all your physical needs met for free, what do you need money and trade for?
you're forgetting though:
people covet.
at what point do you draw the line at "you get all your physical needs met for free"? are you talking about just what's needed to live? or are you talking about meeting peoples individual perceptions of need? who gets to live in the mansion and who gets to live in the suburbs?
people will always want more, and if one person happens to have something someone else wants, then trade will happen regardless of money or not, and then eventually money will become reinvented as a "new" form of generic trade.
I dont know if anyone in Southflorida has seen it but I saw a big group today of the 99% protestors in Ft lauderdale...I got a txt from a friend who showed me they occupied portland not to long ago as well...Its scary to come home and see people begging for money on street corners that werent there 4 years ago..in nice neighborhoods..I didnt realize the world changed so much while I was gone
"“Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America."
Yea....harm. Bringing knowledge to the front of the political debate that the biggest issue with our country is Financial inequality and the attack on the middle/lower class.
edit:
I fucking love this quote. "In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft."
Orly? You mother fucker you write comic books! Don't go lumping a group of people as nerdy losers when you are in the same boat.
it is true, conditions in china changed because the availability of skilled labour is getting stretched, and as a results employers have to pay better to retain their workforce
conditions didnt improve from campaigning.. that was my point.
im totally sober now, and have to apologise to poop for replying in that manner.. jet lag and drunkeness = 4am ramblings :P
Replies
You come here?
I can't handle the cold winters - it is such a huge quality life hit to me that I can't find a good reason to live in the northern latitudes.
I don't think you get what I'm saying. You're still thinking within the confines of a monetary economy. A resource based economy doesn't need money because money would be obsolete due to abundance. Technology would take care of the necessities of living. It would create abundance (i.e. food, shelter, medicine, education, etc.) for everyone. Artists would create art without economic restriction (i.e. create the art you and your fellow artists want to create rather than what you're hired to make), engineers create better technology, health care researches better medicines, and schools provide the higher quality education merely so that everyone is educated. The whole point to this is to give people the freedom to contribute to the advancement of the human race rather than just slaving away to cover the cost of living. In a monetary economy, we work to live. In a resource economy we work to better ourselves and each other.
You wouldn't have to worry about your "job" moving to another country because honestly, this needs to be a world economy, but more specifically to your concern, it doesn't make you stop being a game artist. It just makes it unnecessary for you to do it to live.
Yeah, I know. It sounds like a fantasy, but it's already starting to happen. How much of manufacturing is already automated? It's happening because it's cheaper than hiring people. But what happens when all jobs are occupied by machines? Then money becomes meaningless. When manufacturing and agriculture are fully automated, the only "jobs" that will be left are those that keep the technology running, but even that will be automated some day as well. Then there will only be people developing new technology, new art, new medicines, new science, and new philosophy. Why? People will do these things because it makes the world a better place for themselves and everyone else. It expands what it is to be human and what is possible as a human.
Seriously, think about it. What would you spend your time doing if you didn't have to worry about food, shelter, health care, and education? I know what I would do, I'd make a lot of fucking art and give it to everybody. I'd also spend some of that time learning new skills. Everybody has a passion and when you give them the autonomy to just do stuff, great things happen.
This is a great presentation about how autonomy improves productivity.
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Here's a couple videos on RBE.
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This system would allow you to still gain something more in the physical world if you work, or create something that other people value (like art), that could be a cause for you to live in a higher standard.
I know this is a very Utopian idea, and that it isn't very likely to happen, but it does provide good discussion material about its implications, and if a completely different system is proposed it allows you to take a step back and look at the current system.
I don't agree with your notion that we can't or shouldn't do away with money. It's not surprising you say that at all. What is surprising is that you agree that money isn't necessary to provide incentive, yet feel that it's needed. That, I don't understand. The driving force for productivity in an advanced society without money is achievement. People will not sit idle without money driving them to be productive because healthy human beings don't like to be idle. We need purpose, so we create challenges for ourselves to surpass and push the limits of what we are capable of. That's why there are athletes, artists, philosophers, and academics. We all want to see if there is more to what it is to be human.
Money only exists so long as there is a lack of abundance and resources that satisfy your physical needs are in the control of a few. When resources are not controlled, but available to all, your physical needs can be met and you have no need for money.
We need to get out of the "flying car future" mindset - my prediction for the future: computers will be as ubiquitous as the cell phone. When I say computers will be everywhere I mean those save the children commercials will say "every month, you'll get an email from a poor boy or girl who needs your help"
What you're suggesting is little more than massive social and personal re engineering, which shares the same stage as a lot of crazy cults that went down in flames. They fail mostly because they require a strict code of conduct for the system to work. Everyone must opt in and behave certain ways for it to function. It turns very dystopian very quickly because social behavior needs to be controlled for the system to function.
If everyone just filled their hearts with love and gave up anger... or if they made their own cloths and grew their own food the world would be a happy place (until someone wanted to steal a shirt or was starving and stole food, or created a system where certain people wouldn't starve at the expense of others).
Switching systems just causes a power vacuum for chaos and greed to prosper until they can be wrestled under control. Getting rid of money, would mean peoples behavior manifests in the form of hording goods and services instead of money.
The only way to keep things fair and flowing would be to so tightly balance things that everything zeros out. Just enough goods are produced to meet the needs of the many, no more no less. Which means that things would be very rigid and susceptible tiny changes in need. With something so tenuous it wouldn't take much for someone or something to upset things in an attempt to grab power or stability for themselves.
We don't need to throw everything out and start over, that would be disastrous and more dangerous than doing nothing at all.
By throwing everything out, all you do is create a new frontier for ass hats to run wild, then you spend the next 100 years trying to set up all the systems you already had and fight all the problems and exploits that where already taken care of. By the time you're done you have a nearly identical system only you went through 100 years of crap, your society already dealt with once before.
Maybe instead of putting your fingers in your ears and loudly yelling "I don't care what you old people say I can do it better!" You should listen to them and take their advice...
I get that the system you're being handed isn't your own and you have trouble understanding it, that's probably because you're not asking enough questions and you spend your time trying to reinvent the wheel. This is some of the same backwards logic that pixologic uses:
"we can't have spheres, we need Z-spheres"
"we can't have bones and deformation we need some crazy trans-pose system!"
"We can't use standard navigation that is in every other 3D app, we need some BS way that is harder for people to use, well its easy for us because we made it!"
If you want tribal feudalism there are some prime places in Africa that operate that way. Money doesn't have much of a role, but strength, guns and access to food/water are what drive the "economy" in those areas. Well its not so much of an economy as those with guns and food do pretty well for themselves while those without just die... Huh greed and barbarism without mortgage backed securities, suits or even a single stock broker to be seen... weird.
I suspect it would be much easier and much more realistic to rebalanced the power structure we have instead of dream up new ones. I understand how fun it is to dream up new shit and imagine a perfect society but many people have tried it and a lot of people fight them on it and it normally ends badly...
What does seem to work is sticking to whatever system you have, and making sure it stays fair and open. It doesn't matter if you pick a libertarian floating city, or a European socialist government, or a Asian communist government what is important is that the people actively participate and everyone works to maintain the balance of power.
If every time a problem popped up everyone tossed out their current form of government we wouldn't get very far as a society.
Citizen01: "ZEEK! A squirrel died in the water tower again, our entire water supply is contaminated! What do we do!?"
Zeek: "We destroy our government and build a new one!"
Citizen02: "wouldn't it be easier to fish the squirrel out and treat the water?"
Zeek: Someone take care of Critizen02...
Citzen01: Bang!
Zeek: "Now to celebrate the refounding of our great nation... again!"
Citizen01: "ugghh... can we do it tomorrow I'll still hung over from last night's celebration"
TL:DR Sticking with what you have and make it work, negates the horrific problems created by a massive upheaval and a reset of all functions of government.
This just sounds like the standard welfare system - already happening in countries like the UK, Australia, Sweden, norway, france, etc.
Turns out, that is on the University of California grounds (on-campus). The students here supposedly tried to establish an occupation right there and authorities wern't having it.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-11-10/occupy-berkeley/51150628/1
Even if campus grouds is considered private property to students who attend the school in the middle of the day, you can't just start hitting people with batons for linking arms
I didn't say throw it all out today and start over. It's going to have to be a gradual change. People have to learn to think differently in order to function in such a society. It's like boiling a frog alive scenario. If you heat it up too fast, he'll jump out because it's noticeably uncomfortable. But if you turn it up slowly enough, he won't notice he's cooking until he's already boiled.
Furthermore, you didn't read what I said. Technology can create abundance. Abundance removes the incentive to be greedy ass-hats. You don't need to steal or hoard if you and everyone else has what they need. You're just taking they way people behave in the current system and applying it to an entirely different economy that it couldn't exist in. It doesn't work that way. A radically new economic system means radically new incentives and behavior.
@Justin_Meisse
The reason being that we haven't seen that type of world yet (although, the flying car has been outmoded considering the technology we have now through communications) is because the people making the technology are still operating in a profit structure. Technology that would facilitate this drastic change isn't that profitable because it would create abundance and remove any reason to pay for it. Just like pharma could be sitting on cures for deadly diseases because the treatment drugs ensure an endless profit stream. It's people and the profit motive that keep the fully automated infrastructure from being fully realized, not the technology itself.
Cripes, you would think that they would have learned from the passive protesting model of Ghandi and MLK that beating on peaceful and unarmed protestors will only turn public opinion against you. Then the protestors will win anyway. They should just realize that they've lost and give in to our demands for a removal of corporate/private meddling in our government. They aren't going away until they get what they want and they are growing in support every day.
When a journalist asked him what he thought about Western Civilization, he said "It would be a great idea". Note the word 'Would be'.
I mean what happened to sarcasm being the lowest form of humor? Oh noes, Ghandi say's it, so it must be the highest form of humor, but a normal person like me says it, people find it offensive.
So yeah, Ghandi...a troll if you ask me.
Lol, nicely done sir
@greevar - Yes, beating the snot out of people isn't going to work. I could understand how that was a "logical" tactic for them in the beginning, but they have to realize it aint working. Each occupation is getting stronger after police conflict. There ARE other options, like compromising and working to attain an achievable goal for instance (hell, its worth a shot!).
Side note, this trainwreck happened on last night's repub debate:
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You can almost here the incoming mortar sound effect.
and greed is a quite primal thing. it's been with us for thousands of years, so why would that change in a new system? there will never be a system where everyone has everything that they want anyway.
A troll he may be, but he did free India with passive resistance and MLK used that example to win the civil rights movement. OWS is smart to do the same.
Even as a casual follower of robotics I don't see this - there is no "man" keeping robotic advancement down. Go down to your local hacker space and talk to the robotics guy, there's always at least one of them.
You're not getting the point (maybe I'm not being clear?), but I'm really not in the mood to keep explaining it so I'll just forget about it for now.
Again this will take an incredibly long time, the more people you have to convince the longer it will take. With the globalization and democratization taking place, you're better off going L Ron Hubard, Joesph Smith, David Coresh and hope no one notices...
Seriously man... it is a horrifically bad example if you equate killing something so slowly it doesn't object to being killed, with trying to save something. Everything would be fine if they just realized that people are the problem and committed suicide. Since no one will do that on their own, I'll have to trick them slowly by turning up the temp... OOOOooOooo global warming... you bastard! =P
Ok back on track:
Look at the resistance you're getting on this message board, and these are people who regularly embrace crazy shit and are probably the most likely people to sign up for some kind of alternate society. If they aren't buying then how can you expect to win over anyone else?
Bottom line, I like that you're dreaming big, but you need to be practical too.
Just to point something out quickly - getting resistance on this message board means nothing to the overall ideas being discussed. Greevar is putting ideas out, but he's hardly campaigning the public at large for immediate change and is not a trained and seasoned debater.
If you want to have a fair and interesting discussion try to debate the ideas, not the way they are delivered or who by. Greevar has made many interesting and good points, as have you and most people in the discussion. Dismissing any of them outright because you think someone used a silly metaphor or the like is quite absurd.
Also, the point that because an idea will take a while to become popular, or that society will take a while to change is hardly a good argument, and does not mean that the change isn't happening or won't happen. Taking a very brief look at modern history will show you just how much change can happen in just a hundred years. Both to the mindset of society and to its actual workings. I'd say that the idea that a gradual change in mindset will bring us to a far different culture and society in a hundred years is very likely. I just hope it'll be a cool one and not some road warrior deal.
What I was drawing his attention to is how long it will take to convince people the idea is correct. If people who are generally open to ideas are closed to the ideas being put forth, it might not fly all that well with the people who are more closed minded... which he needs to reform their thinking and get them on board if the plan is to work.
That kind of change takes generations to enact, or its done with force. "Boil the frog slowly"...
He's dreaming bigger than he could ever fully realize in his lifetime, its a noble goal to the extent that he wants to see positive change happen, I don't think he is actually thinking through past "a city, in the clouds, its going to be great!"
We have much more immediate problems to solve. I personally think putting a new transmission and some new tires will get us back on the road and provide a stable platform for people like greaver to dream up better societies. But I don't think we can do that with the car sitting in the garage.
You also have to realize that people given the limitations of time and our inability to predict the future to say that any one system will forever work we just need to implement it and all of our problems will be solved yippie! You need a system in place that allows you to slowly replace the pieces that don't work with parts that work better. You need very smart, thoughtful, deliberate people in charge of picking those pieces. People who are open, accountable to the public and working in the interest of the greater public at large. With a few tweaks you can get that out of our current system. Not that long ago that's how it worked.
Greaver is taking an incredibly long view to a short term problem. While OWS and the current set of problems does create some space to talk about long view ideas, it also gets people excited thinking that it will happen today and its not. You're not going to get that out of OWS. If you play your cards right you might get that 100 years from now...
What he's talking about isn't going to fix our society or solve our problems right now. It's a lot of fun to debate the long view and that is mostly how we get there, but we shouldn't neglect the problems that demand our attention and are easier to solve than converting to a new style of government overnight.
I will also add that you can only get to some kind of approximation of Greavers long view solution through open and honest debate. No fist pounding, no "my way or the highway" attitudes, just simple, open minded debate that leads to the equal exchange of ideas and the best possible solution being had. America had that... and it lost it in favor of ratings and wealth. We can return to that easily.
Big Banks Lose / Credit Unions Gain = 40,000 accounts w/ $80 Million on "Bank Transfer Day"
http://cuna.org/newsnow/11/system110911-10.html
$4.5 Billion transferred since beginning of October :poly121:
Big Bank debit card fees are recalled
http://sundial.csun.edu/2011/11/bank-of-america-dumps-debit-card-fees/
Ohio repeals anti-union law / Mississippi rejects embryonic personhood amendment
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-09/politics/politics_election-results_1_anti-union-law-russell-pearce-controversial-immigration-law?_s=PM:POLITICS
Voters in Boulder, Colorado backed an anticorporate personhood referendum by a 3-1 margin
http://www.thenation.com/blog/164400/occupy-ballot-colorado-voters-reject-corporate-power
OWS is getting ad time on Fox News!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/occupy-wall-street-ad-fox-news-bloomberg-tv_n_1084796.html?ref=mostpopular
While some things may be only indirectly affected by the OWS movement, I find it hard to believe that all this progressive and social support would've sprung up without it. This is only a quick search collection of stuff and a vast majority of "success" can be measured with many aspects.
People now feel a RESPONSIBILITY to stand up and be heard. Myself especially, I would never have found the drive to better educate myself on issues such as the ones being discussed here in this thread. I know there are many others out there doing the same, and that is HUGE!
What i was talking about was a universal wage, that would allow you to live rather good even if you have no job, but that you also get when you do have one. (damn my english sentences are making no sense, i'm sorry i'm tired
To mark: I know this system would require a total overhaul of society, but i'm not really posing it as an actual solution, more of a possibility that allows us to look at the monetary system in a different way. I know that it isn't feasible to work towards this system within one or even two generations, but it might be something to strive for. (or not! but it does allow you to analyze it critically!)
Well that's the point of the minimum wage/welfare combination. It allows you to live even if you don't have a job. And you're getting it if you do have a job. I don't think it would require any big changes at all. Maybe in some countries it could be done better.
But you know what? That basically just proves greevar is correct in talking it out through forums.
It got me to come on here to talk about this movement and continue to read everyone's ideas. Plus I do need to figure out if my friends on Facebook even know of what's going on.
Plus I'd like to share a link I discovered tonight that doesn't look good for our future in taxes for the 99%.
Higher Taxes next year:
Why Your Tax Bill Might Surge Next Year
by Bob Jennings
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
In a recent tax planning meeting with one of our clients, we shocked them with what their income tax future looked like for 2013 if -- on the off-chance -- Congress continues to do nothing to provide a long-term permanent set of tax laws.
They had no idea what tax breaks were expiring this year and next year, and how much it would cost them personally in extra income tax. But they aren't alone, many Americans and even tax professionals aren't aware that their tax bill could rise dramatically next year.
These clients are your average American family and their situation is a good example of the law changes that will affect all of us. Here's their tax situation with a table summarizing the expiring tax laws that are scheduled to occur in 2011 and 2012.
Meet the Smiths: 26-year-olds Bill and Joan have been married for five years and have two young children. Bill earns about $65,000 a year in sales and Joan has gone back to work and earns about $35,000 annually. Bill owes quite a bit on his college student loans and will pay about $3,000 in interest on them in 2013. With Joan working again, they are paying $3,000 for year-round child care. Joan inherited some AT&T stock from her grandmother, which pays her $1,000 in dividends every year. Finally, counting home mortgage interest, they have about $20,000 in itemized deductions.
The first big change affecting the Smiths will be a combined increase in income tax rates, and a tightening of tax brackets as a result of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We estimate this will cost them $960 in 2013.
Bill will lose the complete deduction of his student loan interest in 2013, costing about $840. The pair's allowable deduction for child care will drop to $2,400 from $3,000, and they will also see their credit for children drop in half, costing another $1,000.
The marriage tax penalty will come roaring back to hit the Smiths in 2013, costing an estimated $500. The tax on their dividend income will go increase to $280 from $150, adding another $130. Finally, although we did not calculate the effect, without Congressional action to once again "fix" the alternative minimum tax, the Smiths could owe this ugly tax as well!
Luckily for the Smiths — but not for many Americans — other major changes for 2013, which do not personally affect them, include a phase out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions if their income starts to climb.
In summary, because of tax laws expiring this year and next, we estimate that the Smiths will owe $3,598 more in income tax in 2013 than in 2011 with no change in their income.
Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2011:
• Personal tax credits applied against income tax no longer apply
• Higher alternative minimum tax exemptions revert back to extraordinarily-low thresholds
• $250 school teacher expense deduction ends
• Mortgage insurance premium deduction expires
• State and local sales tax deductions expire
• Tuition and related fees deduction end
• IRA to charity tax-free transfers stop
• 2% Social Security tax reduction ends
Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2012:
• Marriage penalty equalization ends
• Dividends taxed at capital gains rates removed, taxed at regular rates now
• Capital gains low tax rates expires
• Removal of itemized deduction phase out for higher income Americans
• Removal of personal exemption phase out for higher income Americans
• Child care deduction limit of $3,000 reverts to $2,400
• Child credit reduces from $1,000 per child to $500 per child
• Low 10% tax bracket for low income Americans is eliminated
• Lower income tax rates and smaller brackets expires
• Refundable adoption credit and reduced deduction
• American Opportunity college education credit expires
• Major reduction in earned income credits and refunds
• Income tax exemption for debt forgiven on home foreclosures and repossessions
• Deduction for student loan interest ends
• Education IRA limit drops from $2,000 to $500
Bob Jennings is a CPA, EA and CFP and author of "Understanding Social Security & Medicare."
@arshlevon
Interesting. Haven't seen that video. I'm glad they started chanting, "Stop beating students."
Pretty much everywhere I've been in the United States (mostly Southeast) my encounter with cops have all had chips on their shoulders or something to prove.
Like the cop who gave me a "speeding" ticket for going one (1) mile an hour faster than him.
It might be a matter of time before YouTube shuts down videos of the protests.
Like how Egypt shut down access to Facebook (and all WiFi I believe?) when they had their organization.
Whomever hit the reporter in the back of the head did no favors as well.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't at least take some steps in that direction while we're fixing the problem. If we have the tranny out, why don't we align the steering, clean the air filters, and replace the alternator? We don't have to toss out the whole drive train today and replace it, but we can put a few things in there that will bring us a little closer to that goal.
-Universal health care
-Mandating real progress for getting off non-renewable energy
-Better public transportation nationwide
-Free (or very affordable) post-secondary education
-Nationalize the banks
-Get rid of the Fed
-Make it harder to profit from outsourcing to nations that have weak labor laws and nearly non-existent pollution laws; apply severe consequences to those that do
-Restructure public education to align with the needs of the students and explore new teaching styles rather than the cookie-cutter model
These are all doable in the next ten years (maybe less) if people stop fighting about it and crying "socialism is evil!", having their pissing contests instead of getting something really useful done. I'd rather have socialism than the government we have right now, which is for sale to the highest bidder.
Just to comment on this, the moral of the story is that minimum wage is too low, not that welfare is too high. We had this debate here in Iceland. The governments determine what a base line living wage is, to afford food, housing, communication, etc. That's welfare. Not a government on earth has made a welfare state that is paying enough for even a minor fraction of it's recipients to live high on the hog, they are all pegged closer to the poverty level than middle class. The corollary is that a company will pay the lowest amount they can get away with, that's why it's called "minimum wage". In the words of David Cross, "Oh they'd like to pay you less, but they can't".
If you as a company can't lure people off welfare to work for your company because they would see a reversal in their income, that means your wages are far too shitty. If you can't make a profit and function with paying them more, than your business model is shitty. No one "deserves" to run a successful business, especially at the expense of paying the people who do the actual work a poverty level wage. Because contrary to the narrative in some countries, the vast majority of people want to work. Very few want to lay about at home all day for years at a time. This is born out by psychological studies, but decades of Reagan's "welfare queen" boogeyman stories have convinced a lot of people otherwise.
(not saying you were making this point Japhir, but just wanted to elaborate on it)
You can use this example for our DoD (Department of Defense), which will take different bids from different companies.
The lowest bid will always win.
Meaning one company will probably post what it actually costs them while adding some sort of profit they'd like to make, then a second one will undercut the first company, then a third will do the same, then a fourth, etc.
So you'll end up with a company that underbid themselves and they will be the ones building the product. You might have them ask for more money later, but sometimes they don't receive extra money to finish.
Thus the reason for several of my co-workers getting laid off due to lack of funds. Horrible.
It basically comes down to some douchebag wanting to make a name for himself by landing a contract, but little did he know he made a name for himself by being stupid.
Steve Buscemi - 'Armageddon' - "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
Money makes our lives easier. I'd rather carry a plastic card than 4 chickens and sack of wheat. There is enough money on the planet already to keep the system moving and well lucubrated. We don't need technology to provide us with an over abundance of resources, we have enough. We need systems in place to make sure that people don't horde the resources and starve the machine.
Agreed, if Obama wasn't concerned with getting the GOP to like him, we would have had this already. Costs would be dropping, red tape lifting and sick people getting better.
Thankfully there is a lot of Fusion research being done, sadly not a lot of it is being done by the US. While we get our asses handed to us by Chinese solar companies the rest of the world is working on actual clean solutions.
I'm split on this, it eats up a lot of cash and ultimately doesn't provide the kind of flexibility that people need. I think education should come before public transit. Once the next generation is actually employable we can worry about getting them to and from work. Maybe that could be their generational project...
Completely agree. State schools should be free and provide a basic education. If private or specialty institutions want to go offer paid for programs above that I'm fine with it. They wouldn't be competing with each other, but they would be filling two different roles. Although I wouldn't mind seeing private colleges try to compete with state schools... Just like I wouldn't mind keeping private insurance along side a single payer option.
That's going a bit far. We just need to separate risky investment firms from Saving and Loan banks, very simple, we had this for 50+ years and it worked great. Congress could fix this if it wasn't drunk on Tea. Hopefully after the 2012 elections they can get back to work.
I haven't read up on the repercussions of this much. I think a lot of people at the FED should be sacked.
Agreed, if you want to sell goods in the US (I would argue globally) countries should be required to uphold basic human rights and wages. There could be a tiered system where based on the working conditions, prices are set.
No doubt this would cause a trade war and possibly even a millitary conflict. I think the US is ill-prepared to fight such a war, mean while china has already hacked and lifted all of the US's battle plans and knows how to win. The pentagon is full of old befuddled octopi that can't seem to find their land legs in this century.
You have be careful with this, if you let the kids choose how they are educated and let the kids rate their teachers it puts a lot of power in the hands of people who aren't ready to weld it. "Oh crack down on me and tell me to do homework huh... well then I'll get you fired!" They tend to grow up to be self important pricks who think things should always be done their way and that the world was created to cater to them...
Is the current system teaching to get good numbers on a test a good system? Oh fuck no. But in America we tend to over indulge our youth and raise little twat monsters. We need to make sure any kind of education reform isn't tainted by those people who think its fine that kids act that way.
The system already tilts heavily that way and mostly because society has pushed it that way.
Kids are told they're rockstars and princesses, they're special and deserve to be treated like royalty. While I think its good to boost self-esteem but there is a fine line between helping a kid have a good image of themselves and raising a monster.
Having a kid in preschool and having helped out quite often in the classroom, there are some tots that can be pretty nuts and need to be dropped down a few pegs... Other kids might be crippled by insecurity so if you're talking about tailoring an education so both become well balanced students then I agree.
I think this can be achieved by doing 3 things:
1) Lowering class sizes under 15, below 10 if we can.
Easy it just takes a bit more money or a bit less kids. With birth rates dropping we might not need to worry about having more teachers and more classrooms... Even if it reverses we could switch our spending from the military to the classroom and have no problem keeping this goal.
2) Getting parents good stable jobs so they can help their kids.
This is damn near impossible...
Parental involvement is the single biggest factor that can drive a child's success. But holy hell is it a problem if you start to tell parents how to do the job they aren't bothering to do. School can only do so much and they are severely limited in the support they can offer a kid, mostly because society mandates that schools hands be tied though funding and through policy. School can't ever make up for absentee parents. Sadly our society doesn't see it as the parents job to help educate their kids.
This is going to take a long time to turn around. As a society we've gotten really good at telling people not to have kids and no one really prepares them for having them. On average parents spend the most attention to their kids for the first 5 years, after that its off to school and lord of the flies. As the kids grow the parents don't.
3) We can't continue to tell kids "education is your top priority" if we don't believe it and spend like it is. Flip the military budget with the education budget and we'll see a much better return on our investment.
I'm all for teaching young kids through play and hands on learning, but they also need to be taught work ethic and that great things come out of working hard for something. So much of the alternate approaches to teaching aims to put smiles on kids faces and focuses on instant gratification and catering to their ADHD needs which looks good and gets them engaged but ultimately undercuts their future self, there needs to be balance.
I think you're overly optimistic on the time table. Double your estimate and add half and you might be closer. You assume that people will wake up to logic and start think for themselves when they've never been taught any of that. You assume that there aren't people who would directly oppose those ideas because it would hurt their interests.
At best we end up having to wait until someone smothers the boomers in their sleep before logic and reason can take over. Until then, they are only going to cling to power and get more entrenched and senile. Anyone who has spent any time around old people in their twilight years knows they typically aren't happy well adjusted people. As their bodies start to break down they have trouble processing complex problems, things start to become a lot more black and white and the last 20 years are pretty much a regression through the first 15.
We're dealing with a ruling class that is only going to get more juvenile as time goes on until enough of them can be replaced where the harm they do will only be to themselves. They have only just begun to fight for relevance and they're going to cause a lot of collateral damage as they try to fix the problems they caused.
This factor alone extends the time table for rational debate out 15-20 years. Hopefully with more young people getting up off their asses and questioning the current system it can hasten that debate, but I wouldn't count on it, I don't think you can win over the old crowd, you can only hope to someday outnumber them.
Im totally wasted but your point makes no sense.. who gives a shite about your point about minimum wage .. theres always someone else that is willing to accept less than your minimum wage and work.
this is what Ive been talking about .. theres so many ideas that float around this thread that are completely disconnected with the real world
Oh, well in that case we should clearly engage in a race to the bottom where all money and jobs is divided into the top 1% living on floating golden zeppelins, while all labor is done by slave chattel that earns only enough to eat until they fall sick, at which point they are discarded in the gutter for someone new.
I mean, that is a tactic, and it is the one the US is currently pursuing, but is that really the system you think is worth keeping and want to be a part of?
People who thought electricity could be harnessed were considered crazy a couple hundred years ago. Science wasn't really accepted by society at large until the 1940's; otherwise all scientific advancements that were announced ended up being denounced and called fake until things started actually hitting the market.
Close your mind, you close your learning. Instead of posting when you're wasted, you could wait until you are sober to give a more thought out response... :P
Almost like ILM moving their VFX work to Singapore, yet it's still expensive to live out there. (From what I hear anyway, from an old teacher of mine.)
This statement is not true. For example:
"China's manufacturing sector has seen growing labor costs driven by a higher demand and rising salaries,"
http://english.caixin.cn/2011-08-10/100289644.html
The problem with what you're saying is, that you're stuck on this concept that there would be a need for trade in a moneyless society. The goal of a moneyless society is to make sure nobody has to trade to get anything through abundant goods and services. If you can get all your physical needs met for free, what do you need money and trade for?
The problem with money is the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Money is power, pure and simple. Since money can be consolidated (even with regulation), it creates inequality of power. The only way to balance that power is to provide everyone a set income that is completely equal for everyone. At that point, why bother with money at all?
Nationalizing the banks is one of the most effective ways to prevent the kind of mess we're in right now. Selling money for more money is insane. Nothing of real value is traded, it just moves the money from the hands of the many to the hands of the few without producing anything of value. There's a saying that bankers have that exemplifies the problem, "I don't earn money, I make it". Using money for profit should be illegal.
What I said about education was that the model of teaching needs to match what they way the child learns best. Not every student can sit still in a room full of thirty other kids and listen to the teacher drone on with their lectures. A great many kids don't learn well that way. So you use the methods that are the most engaging for the children. It has nothing to do with acquiescing to the willful desires of children and has everything to do with teaching them in a way that doesn't bore them while helping them attain mastery of a skill.
Public transportation can be exactly what people need it to be if it's done right. What I mean by that is getting rid of airports and replacing them with Mag Lev and light rail trains that get people to their destinations and then automated personal vehicles to transport them within the city. Actually, San Francisco is a stellar example of a successful public transportation system. Street cars run from end to end on every street and MUNI buses can take you where the street cars can't go. They're very good a getting you within walking distance of where you want to go.
The Fed is a private bank that controls our public currency. Our entire monetary system is in the control of private banks with the power to create and destroy money that are in business for themselves. The Fed was a plan to take control of the country's money from the word go. The act was written on Jekyll Island on JP Morgan's estate in secret. The 1907 panic was created to make the people desperate for a solution they designed, to a problem they created. It should die and the US treasury should be filling the role, as only the government has the power to create money.
You've implied more than once now that if everyone's physical needs were met that there would be no need for any form of trade. But people don't only trade for things that they need, they trade for things that they want as well.
Unless you're talking about a society where absolutely anything and everything that any person could conceivably want is in perfect abundance then some form of trade would need to exist.
Even in such a society some form of trade would be useful because people might want a resource that is necessarily finite. For example, they might want another person to spend some of their time singing a song for them.
Also, you want to replace AIRPORTS, that allow people to go from one continent to another, with magnetic trams? how does that work?
http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf
you're forgetting though:
people covet.
at what point do you draw the line at "you get all your physical needs met for free"? are you talking about just what's needed to live? or are you talking about meeting peoples individual perceptions of need? who gets to live in the mansion and who gets to live in the suburbs?
people will always want more, and if one person happens to have something someone else wants, then trade will happen regardless of money or not, and then eventually money will become reinvented as a "new" form of generic trade.
http://frankmillerink.com/
"“Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America."
Yea....harm. Bringing knowledge to the front of the political debate that the biggest issue with our country is Financial inequality and the attack on the middle/lower class.
edit:
I fucking love this quote. "In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft."
Orly? You mother fucker you write comic books! Don't go lumping a group of people as nerdy losers when you are in the same boat.
it is true, conditions in china changed because the availability of skilled labour is getting stretched, and as a results employers have to pay better to retain their workforce
conditions didnt improve from campaigning.. that was my point.
im totally sober now, and have to apologise to poop for replying in that manner.. jet lag and drunkeness = 4am ramblings :P