Capitalists, Please Read
Silent
Cybernetics before robotics,
-Ian
mike1937
We did kind of hijack the list.
But, for the record, socialism and communism are in the opposite
direction of capitalism from what we are talking about. I haven't seen
anyone argueing socialist or commie ideas here, though we have
certainly argued against many of them.
If you want to talk about space stuff minus the philosophy, a better
choice than a new list might be to just use the system we've already
set up that is largely devoid of it:
http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/OpenVirgle
Here's my last futile attempt to stay on topic:
http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/Fire_Clay
-Mike Harris
http://www.williamabaris.net78.net/index.html
Bryan Bishop
> Cybernetics before robotics,
I wonder which cybernetics you mean. There's usually two definitions,
the most common is cyborg, and refers to the human interface and the
construction of such cybernetic systems (feedback, information
processing, etc.). The second one is the original definition that
didn't include humans. Wouldn't the one that includes humans be,
naturally, a human-centric concept, and naturally, wouldn't that mean
that any concept built from it would be social in nature? By social, it
would look like, say, humans running around with brain implants. As
soon as you start talking about more than one person, it's social. Not
communism, not socialism, but simply that the considerations begin to
involve more than just yourself, like in any other system, including
capitalism. Anyway, I think I remember rebelrouser somewhere else on
this mailing list before, is that right?
Suppose that the systems had been designed and developed, and you wanted
a capitalist system. Whatever the hell that means -- I'll let you play
with the semantics. You could just as easily reconfigure the space
habitats to your specifications, you could just as easily get some
people onboard that you find to be "brotheren" or however capitalists
say it (investor?) (I'm joking), and get going immediately. This has
been discussed on the openvirgle mailing list extensively, including
implementation details, though nothing has launched yet. It's based on
the recognition of the pre-existing architecture for society that
humans have, something that computer technology has been known to
exploit fairly well (see people with their thumbs and faces burried in
cell phones these days), whereas the original 'governmental'
and 'economic' concerns don't rely on the facts of human existence, and
how could that possibly be useful or productive when we're trying to
make sure people don't die on a Martian colony? No, you need to have a
technological basis, and anything else is potentially suicidal.
However, there is some good news -- that 'technological basis' gets to
be hidden under a few layers of abstraction and interfaces, so anyone
could start using the software, the manufacturing equipment, whatever.
- Bryan
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/
Rob Van Dyk
to the discussion. Why are so many posts related to post-scarcity
idealogy and constructing a social order? These are not the top
concerns towards establishing a Martian colony.
I joined the list with the expectation that it would be somewhat
related to the mission of the April fool's joke (http://www.google.com/
press/pressrel/20080401_virgle.html):
> The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle
> Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to
> Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize
> on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of
> the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050),
> and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian
> civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).
While the merits of discussing funding from a Communism based
perspective (begging for donations) or a Capitalist perspective
(finding investors and ripping them off) is applicable to a Martian
mission... debating the best economy for a new colony is skipping way
ahead of yourselves.
And in terms of government, Paine summarized it best. "Here then is
the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary
by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the
design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security." (from
http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/commonsense/singlehtml.htm).
A small Martian settlement would have significantly different needs
for "security" than a sovereign nation on Earth... so any debate about
governments need to be primarily concerned with how best to provide
the colony with security against the largest threat... the
environment.
I would suggest that better topics to focus on would be (a) how would
people prevent themselves from freezing to death on Mars, and (b)
where would food, water, and oxygen that are necessary for human
habitation come from? As far as I can see... these crucial resources
are not available in "post-scarcity" quantities in the Mars
environment.
Rob
On Jul 8, 4:57 am, mike1937 <arid_sha...@comcast.net> wrote:
> A good idea, our idealist philosophies are seperate from openvirgle.
> We did kind of hijack the list.
>
> But, for the record, socialism and communism are in the opposite
> direction of capitalism from what we are talking about. I haven't seen
> anyone argueing socialist or commie ideas here, though we have
> certainly argued against many of them.
>
> If you want to talk about space stuff minus the philosophy, a better
> choice than a new list might be to just use the system we've already
> set up that is largely devoid of it:http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/OpenVirgle
>
> Here's my last futile attempt to stay on topic:http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/Fire_Clay
>
mike1937
> to the discussion. Why are so many posts related to post-scarcity
> idealogy and constructing a social order?
scarcity economy unless it's from scratch. So space habitation is the
ideal "testing ground".
> I would suggest that better topics to focus on would be (a) how would
> people prevent themselves from freezing to death on Mars, and (b)
> where would food, water, and oxygen that are necessary for human
> habitation come from? As far as I can see... these crucial resources
> are not available in "post-scarcity" quantities in the Mars
> environment.
on these issues. But to answer you,
a) Electric heaters from a crap load of solar panels
b) Greenhouses, mines/the surface, and zirconia electrolysis.
If the technology works well enough, all raw materials are very
abundant and very automatable.
On Jul 8, 10:17 am, Rob Van Dyk <robert.van...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > We did kind of hijack the list.
>
> As I briefly skimmed the recent posts, I kept wondering what happened
> to the discussion. Why are so many posts related to post-scarcity
> idealogy and constructing a social order? These are not the top
> concerns towards establishing a Martian colony.
>
> I joined the list with the expectation that it would be somewhat
> related to the mission of the April fool's joke (http://www.google.com/
> press/pressrel/20080401_virgle.html):
>
> > The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle
> > Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to
> > Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize
> > on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of
> > the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050),
> > and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian
> > civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).
>
> While the merits of discussing funding from a Communism based
> perspective (begging for donations) or a Capitalist perspective
> (finding investors and ripping them off) is applicable to a Martian
> mission... debating the best economy for a new colony is skipping way
> ahead of yourselves.
>
> And in terms of government, Paine summarized it best. "Here then is
> the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary
> by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the
>
> - Show quoted text -
Paul D. Fernhout
>> We did kind of hijack the list.
>
> As I briefly skimmed the recent posts, I kept wondering what happened
> to the discussion. Why are so many posts related to post-scarcity
> idealogy and constructing a social order? These are not the top
> concerns towards establishing a Martian colony.
>
> I joined the list with the expectation that it would be somewhat
> related to the mission of the April fool's joke (http://www.google.com/
> press/pressrel/20080401_virgle.html):
Capitalism is often it seems all about cost cutting. Why do people have such
a hard time thinking about what happens as costs approach zero?
And why do economists have a hard time understanding that many conventional
economic equations may produce infinities as costs trend towards zero? You
know all those "divide by zero" errors in economics simulators? Maybe they
were telling us something? :-)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22divide+by+zero%22+economics
Results 1 - 10 of about 18,000 for "divide by zero" economics.
Anyway, I think the "divide by zero" problem is the major reason you cannot
discuss a society based around advanced technology without seeing how
obsolete conventional economics is. See for example:
"The Long Tail: The Tragically Neglected Economics of Abundance"
http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/03/the_tragically_.html
"I'm preparing for my talk on Long Tail economics at O'Reilly's Emerging
Technology conference in ten days, and I've run into a slight problem. The
Long Tail is all about abundance: the economic effects of infinite shelf
space. Unfortunately, neoclassical economics has virtually nothing to say
about abundance. Indeed, the economics of abundance is almost exclusively
the domain of extropians, a few other transhumanists, and science fiction
writers. How can this be? Well, for starters the classic definition of
economics is "the science of choice under scarcity". That's a warning sign
right there. From Adam Smith on, economics has focused almost exclusively on
behavior within constraints. My college textbook, Gregory Mankiw's otherwise
excellent Principles of Economics, doesn't mention the word abundance. And
for good reason: if you let the scarcity term in most economic equations go
to nothing, you get all sorts of divide-by-zero problems. They basically
blow up."
For decades people have already worked out designs on how to live off the
land even on the Moon, Mars, or the Asteroids using self-replicating technology.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=self-replicating+technology
We have not pursued those because as a society we have chosen to direct our
surplus in other ways (mainly on the military fighting over oil and land,
providing intrusive and often unwanted medical care in the last year of
life, and running institutions designed to produce "dumbed down" people).
Anyway, that is all why I think "capitalism" is at odds with the future.
I've seen several space societies (especially SSI) flounder for decades
pushing the capitalism in space vision. Google got some things right in
their proposal ("open source planet") but missed the boat (spacecraft? :-)
on some other things IMHO.
Consider three levels of nested perspectives on the same economic reality --
physical items, decision makers, and emergent properties of decision maker
interactions. (Three levels of being or consciousness is a common theme in
philosophical writings, usually rock, plant, and animal, or plant, animal,
and human.)
At a first level of perspective, the world we live in at any point in time
can be considered to have physical content like land or tools or fusion
reactors like the sun, energy flows like photons from the sun or electrons
from lightning or in circuits, informational patterns like web page content
or distributed language knowledge, and active regulating processes
(including triggers, amplifiers, and feedback loops) built on the previous
three types of things (physicality, energy flow, and informational patterns)
embodied in living creatures, bi-metallic strip thermostats, or computer
programs running on computer hardware.
One can think of a second perspective on the first comprehensive one by
picking out only the decision makers like bi-metallic strips in thermostats,
computer programs running on computers, and personalities embodied in people
and maybe someday robots or supercomputers, and looking at their
characteristics as individual decision makers.
One can then think of a third level of perspective on the second where
decision makers may invent theories about how to control each other using
various approaches like internet communication standards, ration unit tokens
like fiat dollars, physical kanban tokens, narratives in emails, and so on.
What the most useful theories are for controlling groups of decision makers
is an interesting question, but I will not explore it in depth. But I will
pointing out that complex system dynamics at this third level of perspective
can emerge whether control involves fiat dollars, "kanban" tokens,
centralized or distributed optimization based on perceived or predicted
demand patterns, human-to-human discussions, something else entirely, or a
diverse collection of all these things. And I will also point out that one
should never confuse the reality of the physical system being controlled for
the control signals (money, spoken words, kanban cards, internet packet
contents, etc.) being passed around in the control system.
The above is somewhat inspired by "cybernetics".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
--Paul Fernhout
(Derived from: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html )
Bryan Bishop
> > We did kind of hijack the list.
>
> As I briefly skimmed the recent posts, I kept wondering what happened
> to the discussion. Why are so many posts related to post-scarcity
> idealogy and constructing a social order? These are not the top
> concerns towards establishing a Martian colony.
You're not reading into it enough. Remember, we started to mention
post-scarcity as a group because it's an example of where these
technologies are coming from, such as the charitable contributions of
open source hardware developers, see OpenFarmTech, OpenWetWare, SKDB,
OSCOMAK, OpenVirgle, and so on. Separating these signals from the noise
of what others interpret these to be can make it seem like it's
about 'social order' when in fact it's about the machinery and
automation and so on -- which, people complain is impossible, or
unlikely, or people would become psychologically ill, and so everything
you see that isn't engineering is more like trying to patch the
knowledge gaps of everyone else who needs to be brought up to speed.
Sort of.
> > The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle
> > Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to
> > Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize
> > on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of
> > the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050),
> > and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian
> > civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).
>
> While the merits of discussing funding from a Communism based
> perspective (begging for donations) or a Capitalist perspective
> (finding investors and ripping them off) is applicable to a Martian
> mission... debating the best economy for a new colony is skipping way
> ahead of yourselves.
Yep, people keep on complaining that "people can't live like that"
(basically), so that's jumping ahead of it, yes, but it's kind of like
telling them why we're discussing the engineering in the first place.
> And in terms of government, Paine summarized it best.
Who the hell says he gets to be the authority on government? I'm not
going to let some guy in a history book dictate my design choices for
colonies on other planets. (But yes, I have read Paine, IIRC.)
> A small Martian settlement would have significantly different needs
> for "security" than a sovereign nation on Earth... so any debate
> about governments need to be primarily concerned with how best to
> provide the colony with security against the largest threat... the
> environment.
Arguably that type of security could be automated.
> I would suggest that better topics to focus on would be (a) how would
> people prevent themselves from freezing to death on Mars, and (b)
> where would food, water, and oxygen that are necessary for human
> habitation come from? As far as I can see... these crucial resources
> are not available in "post-scarcity" quantities in the Mars
> environment.
Rob, if you would check the archives you would note that we realized
that the proposals you make for discussion topics there are a general
subset of a broader project infrastructure called OSCOMAK or SKDB.
http://oscomak.net/
Engineering: http://heybryan.org/exp.html
http://heybryan.org/new_exp.html
Could you familiarize yourself with those pages and then get back with
me? Maybe you could even start writing an SKDB file/module for in vitro
meat technologies.
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Meat_on_a_stick
mike1937
of where we are on topic:
~~~~~~READ THIS, even though it's long, it's not philisophical in
nature~~~~~~~~~~
Only so much discussion can be done about the technicalities of things
like zirconia electrolysis until you arrive upon the need for
something more advanced than a mailing list. What we wanted was a
repository for information so detailed it would be of use to
engineers. We decided to implement two solutions:
-A mediawiki where you can write articles and store semantic variables
(for example you can store something like weight=50 and later
computers can read that) which is here: http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/Special:Allpages
- A git repository, which is basically a repository where you can
throw anything you want. Have a simulation written in VERML or C?
Check it in. Same with CADs, possibly the most important file.
Here's an example of how doing some research and making a project
should go IMO.
The first project I attempted was the logical question of how to make
oxygen:
http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/ISRU_Oxygen_Production
You can make it from CO2 with nothing but energy and the right
equipment. So where do you get energy? Solar Panels. How do you make
silicon for solar panels? As it turns out, through a process similiar
to the one that gets you O2; the only input you need is energy (there
are articles on all of this stuff in the wiki already). The science is
there, assuming you have a lot of energy, so there are two components
that come to mind for research, how to conserve energy and how to
generate more. Because the process that gets you energy (making more
solar panels) also takes a lot of energy, conservation seems like a
good place to start.
All of the electrolysis processes (which cut the extra oxygens of of
things, giving you silicon from the SO2 thats lying around and O2 from
the CO2 lying around) would need to take place in some sort thermal
insulation chamber:
http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/Thermal_Insulation_Chamber
How do you make one of those? You need a refractory (heat reflecting)
material. One is mullite, which is made from alumina and silica, which
are lying around on Mars.
I would say I've made a pretty good outline of how to get oxygen.
There is a lot (ok, a massive amount) that still needs to be added in
before it is "engineering grade" information. Luckily, the vast
majority of that information can be found out through hours cursing
and google and google scholar. After we have a pretty outline for
everything that needs doing, we work on building a community full of
real engineers who can tell us how naive we are, and in doing so give
us the next problems we need to fix.
There, that wasn't philosophical at all. Anyone can start working on
this right after they finish reading this. I think I might, haven't
done it in a while and it genuinely sounds fun. Here's some ideas to
get started, don't be shy, add to the wiki:
-Recycling (there are thousands of things you can research here)
-Plant requirements/hydroponics (anything biological in nature has a
thousand things you can research) and are those requirements found on
Mars?
- Which buildings should go where? What techniques are used on earth
for building underground?
Most ideas are drawn from this stub: http://www.oscomak.net/wiki/Martian_Colony_Overview
You can start another way as well: look at the resources on Mars and
see what they are used for.
So you see, the reason we won't shut up about economic theory on this
thread is that if you want to do technilogical research a better place
is the wiki or the git repository. Even if you just write a stub it
helps organizationaly. If you want to help, you can do it right now.
The only thing stopping you is motivation, ironically.
-Mike Harris
http://www.williamabaris.net78.net/
mike1937
want to discuss virgle and the technical stuff, each page has a talk
page you can start, that would be the best place for it.
Silent
Also, the longer your posts get, all of you open virgle people, the less you incidentally end up saying, as far as I can tell. I don't want to use the word "pretentious" but none other comes to mind at the moment. Wait, no, pretentious is exactly what I want to say.
I think you're asinine for immediately discounting the idea of capitalism as abstract and probably obsolete anyway, and I refuse to participate in any kind of discussion until you pull your heads out of your asses.
I don't intend to be rude, but I am offended by the way you speak.
Suppose that the systems had been designed and developed, and you wanted
a capitalist system. Whatever the hell that means -- I'll let you play
with the semantics. You could just as easily reconfigure the space
habitats to your specifications, you could just as easily get some
people onboard that you find to be "brotheren" or however capitalists
say it (investor?) (I'm joking), and get going immediately
I won't respond to any more replies, sorry. I only posted because I'm looking for other capitalists, and I don't think there are any on this list.
-Ian
Bryan Bishop
> What do I mean by cybernetics before robotics? I mean we should seek
> to enhance human labor, not replace it.
"Work harder, work faster, or else"? But I'm all for cybernetics:
http://heybryan.org/recursion.html
http://heybryan.org/exp.html
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Brain_implants
http://heybryan.org/docs/neuro/
etc.
> I think you're asinine for immediately discounting the idea of
> capitalism as abstract and probably obsolete anyway, and I refuse to
> participate in any kind of discussion until you pull your heads out
> of your asses.
I don't know why you think I immediately discounted it -- but it's clear
that we're probably on two different playing fields here, I'm
interested in implementation details that doesn't leave us in another
situation like the one that I find myself in now, while you might want
just capitalism (etc.) which is fine of course, but a general
implementation that allows for whatever configuration the programmer or
engineer wants to specify, how would this be bad?
> I don't intend to be rude, but I am offended by the way you speak.
?
> > Suppose that the systems had been designed and developed, and you
> > wanted
> > a capitalist system. Whatever the hell that means -- I'll let you
> > play with the semantics. You could just as easily reconfigure the
> > space habitats to your specifications, you could just as easily get
> > some people onboard that you find to be "brotheren" or however
> > capitalists say it (investor?) (I'm joking), and get going
> > immediately
>
> What does a "capitalist system" mean? It means my government has to
> play the same game I do with no immediate advantages. It means I get
> to live in a better house than the guy down the street I went to high
> school with that liked to carve swastikas into the desks and
> terrorize effeminate boys. It means I can be a shareholder of GOOG.
> It means that every decision my society makes is voted on with labor.
> It means that if something gets done, something of equal value was
> exchanged for it. Capitalism equals freedom. And there is no such
No, no, you misunderstand, I wasn't saying "whatever the hell that
means" to insult the idea of capitalism itself, but rather to refer to
it as a *variable* that can be accounted for in system designs.
> thing as post-scarcity. There will always be a new frontier. There
"Post-scarcity" just means realizing that we can use these materials to
go get more materials. In truth there's very likely this finite basis
to the galaxies, so yes it does seem finite, but to argue that there's
not enough material to just do one Martian colony? Clearly that's not
right.
> will always be something to desire that robots can't produce. There
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/von_Neumann_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator
Arguably, biological machines are robotic, although not designed by man
(although that's quickly becoming false thanks to synthetic biology).
So if one type of robot (biology) can do it, why not another?
> fortunately, there will always be men like me ready to keep men like
> you at bay when the time comes.
At bay from launching to Mars? Why would you stop me? :-)
> I won't respond to any more replies, sorry. I only posted because I'm
> looking for other capitalists, and I don't think there are any on
> this list.
I bet you there are people who share your values. I'm sorry to hear that
you will not be participating.
Silent
"Work harder, work faster, or else"? But I'm all for cybernetics:
http://heybryan.org/recursion.html
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Brain_implants
http://heybryan.org/docs/neuro/
etc.
I think you're taking what I'm saying too literally. We're on the brink of amazing technological advancements to the human biological legacy, whereas experiments in robotics are still coming up really short. Aside from the robots coming up short vs. the broad spectrum of possibilities with enhancing the human biological legacy, I suppose it's a philosophical issue.
I don't know why you think I immediately discounted it -- but it's clear
that we're probably on two different playing fields here, I'm
interested in implementation details that doesn't leave us in another
situation like the one that I find myself in now, while you might want
just capitalism (etc.) which is fine of course, but a general
implementation that allows for whatever configuration the programmer or
engineer wants to specify, how would this be bad?
That's what I meant that I was offended by. You speak as if capitalism can work within another system. Well, that's sort of what we have now. We have no standard for our money, here in America at least, and therefore no backing. The Federal Reserve (a private institution) prints money whenever it needs it, without having to answer to Congress, which is scary. But at least we do still have money and an economy where things like Google (which I have the utmost faith in) can still happen. Corporations like Google are voted on by consumers based on their production. If you have a catalog where you get everything you need from, you lose competition. Markets make decisions that collectives often wouldn't dare to make. Collectives are bogged down by politics and are constantly vulnerable to corruption and collapse. Markets, however, have failsafes. Good people have to actively participate in these markets for these failsafes to work, but they generally do.
(although that's quickly becoming false thanks to synthetic biology).
So if one type of robot (biology) can do it, why not another?
When I go to a local supermarket and purchase some groceries, there are lines to the left run by robots and lines to the right run by humans. The robot line gives me a discount on my groceries just for choosing it, and there's no one in line. The human lines have many people in line, particularly line 13, where there's Lisa. I fantasize about Lisa regularly, and she knows it, judging by the winks we exchange. I would walk through burning coals to go through line 13, whereas if there were no human lines, I would likely go to another supermarket. the society you're describing has no Lisas, and no line 13's.
Don't take that literally. It's just an analogy. My ex-wife used to make me tea, and I could do the exact same mixture of that cheap Lipton's powder mix and the exact amount of sugar she used, stir it in the same way with the same number of ice cubes in the glass and pour it at the same angle, and it tastes like shit if she doesn't make it. Before we separated, back when we were all mushy with each other, we would say that she put the key ingredient in it: Love. Robots can't put love into my tea.
Robots can free up human labor for other tasks, sure, in a free market. Like car manufacturers. But in a government controlled economy, all robots do is replace human labor, not free it.
At bay from launching to Mars? Why would you stop me? :-)
At bay from forming a communist collective on Mars. I have dreams and expectations for the New World.
We are WAY off topic though. :-p
-Ian
Silent
Human Biological Legacy!
See? It's fun! XD
Oh and yes I was on this list before, complaining about the whiners that spammed the list with "Guys, it's just a joke!"
Bryan Bishop
> > clear that we're probably on two different playing fields here, I'm
> > interested in implementation details that doesn't leave us in
> > another situation like the one that I find myself in now, while you
> > might want just capitalism (etc.) which is fine of course, but a
> > general implementation that allows for whatever configuration the
> > programmer or engineer wants to specify, how would this be bad?
>
> That's what I meant that I was offended by. You speak as if
> capitalism can work within another system. Well, that's sort of what
Hrm, but I think this is just semantics. I'm not talking
about "capitalism within socialism" (a system within a system) in that
sense. Let me see if I can't clear this up. Suppose that the space
habitat and Biosphere Project-like pods are available, and somehow you
have acquired ten thousand square meters of space up in orbit, or maybe
on Mars. Because you've just deployed a mostly sustainable environment,
and whatever inputs/outputs you require (perhaps there are hydrogen
collectors built in?), you're able to do in it whatever you can figure
out how to do. Suppose that this was enough space for a small society.
Admittedly this would be a very small society, so let's say it's a few
square kilometers of living space, that might be better. A small group
of maybe 100 to 5000 people living together. You can organize that
however you'd like. And if somebody wants to leave, the technology can
be quantified [by our work now] so that they can go either acquire or
build or do whatever they need to do to go get a space habitat of their
own if they don't like the way things are working out on that original
space habitat. The basis of the distribution of information, models,
programs and techknowhow that allows that -- that's the "system" that
I'm talking about. I wonder if your comments still apply?
> we have now. We have no standard for our money, here in America at
> least, and therefore no backing. The Federal Reserve (a private
> institution) prints money whenever it needs it, without having to
> answer to Congress, which is scary. But at least we do still have
> money and an economy where things like Google (which I have the
> utmost faith in) can still happen. Corporations like Google are voted
> on by consumers based on their production. If you have a catalog
> where you get everything you need from, you lose competition. Markets
Hm. I don't know if that's true. There's this very common example in the
world of free software between all of the text editors. There's vi,
vim, emacs, nano, pico, and so many others that compete with each
other, and there's a catalog (apt-cache, for instance) that lists a
large majority of them. And they don't suffer. Well. This entirely
depends on whether or not you like these text editors. I find that vim
is useful, and kwrite too, sometimes gedit, etc. etc.
> > (although that's quickly becoming false thanks to synthetic
> > biology). So if one type of robot (biology) can do it, why not
> > another?
>
> When I go to a local supermarket and purchase some groceries, there
> are lines to the left run by robots and lines to the right run by
> humans. The robot line gives me a discount on my groceries just for
> choosing it, and there's no one in line. The human lines have many
> people in line, particularly line 13, where there's Lisa. I fantasize
> about Lisa regularly, and she knows it, judging by the winks we
> exchange. I would walk through burning coals to go through line 13,
> whereas if there were no human lines, I would likely go to another
> supermarket. the society you're describing has no Lisas, and no line
> 13's.
That's not true at all. You could just as easily pull down some
technology via apt-get to deploy the robotic line; or you could just as
easily apt-get the stuff you need to keep a human living (the basic
necessities; everything else can be provided by the social structure
that the people choose to implement, hopefully). And then you have
line-13. But the point is that this is reconfigurable, and by saying
that capitalism is the only way, just ignores all of this
reconfigurability and the general infrastructure that has been
proposed.
> Don't take that literally. It's just an analogy. My ex-wife used to
Oops. I think I might have taken it literally. In general it could be
described as user preferences, yes? Configuration options. Some people
put stickers on their monitors, others drive Mustangs with leather
interiors.
> make me tea, and I could do the exact same mixture of that cheap
> Lipton's powder mix and the exact amount of sugar she used, stir it
> in the same way with the same number of ice cubes in the glass and
> pour it at the same angle, and it tastes like shit if she doesn't
> make it. Before we separated, back when we were all mushy with each
> other, we would say that she put the key ingredient in it: Love.
Why wouldn't she be able to make a cup of tea on Mars? It's just not on
Earth.
> Robots can't put love into my tea.
Are we talking theoretically? As in, whatever 'love' is, it's not
accessible to machinery? Because there's a basis to humans --
biology -- and there's nothing _impossible_ about it, but just because
it's not impossible doesn't mean it's not magical/mysterious/love and
other aspects of emergence.
Silent
Hrm, but I think this is just semantics. I'm not talking
about "capitalism within socialism" (a system within a system) in that
sense. Let me see if I can't clear this up. Suppose that the space
habitat and Biosphere Project-like pods are available, and somehow you
have acquired ten thousand square meters of space up in orbit, or maybe
on Mars. Because you've just deployed a mostly sustainable environment,
and whatever inputs/outputs you require (perhaps there are hydrogen
collectors built in?), you're able to do in it whatever you can figure
out how to do. Suppose that this was enough space for a small society.
Admittedly this would be a very small society, so let's say it's a few
square kilometers of living space, that might be better. A small group
of maybe 100 to 5000 people living together. You can organize that
however you'd like. And if somebody wants to leave, the technology can
be quantified [by our work now] so that they can go either acquire or
build or do whatever they need to do to go get a space habitat of their
own if they don't like the way things are working out on that original
space habitat. The basis of the distribution of information, models,
programs and techknowhow that allows that -- that's the "system" that
I'm talking about. I wonder if your comments still apply?
So... a commune? We have those now, self-reliant and in about the numbers you described. But they still function within a free society at large, they just make their own bubble.
> we have now. We have no standard for our money, here in America at
> least, and therefore no backing. The Federal Reserve (a private
> institution) prints money whenever it needs it, without having to
> answer to Congress, which is scary. But at least we do still have
> money and an economy where things like Google (which I have the
> utmost faith in) can still happen. Corporations like Google are voted
> on by consumers based on their production. If you have a catalog
> where you get everything you need from, you lose competition. Markets
Hm. I don't know if that's true.
Which part? I assure you the Federal Reserve is a private institution established against the will of the American people. The IRS is completely illegal, constitutionally speaking, and was actively voted against during this time by the states at large. And this was all accomplished by an elite group of bankers, whose descendants (and followers) later pushed to outlaw drugs drugs that directly competed with their markets, subsidize those that they could control (and distribute), subsidize corn, and now the same ilk run the Project for a New American Century. They are currently going global in a big way. There is currently no gold standard, or any standard for that matter, and when a government institution needs money, the Federal Reserve often simply prints it, and credits the money to it's unlimited revolving account with China, a communist nation to whom we are now gravely in debt.
Google has pushed the internet to progress by lightyears, by doing what others should have done long ago and setting new standards, while fighting for internet freedom in Congress and the courts. Without Google and YouTube, the internet could very possibly have gone the way of the newspaper, the radio, and the television by now. It is a competitive market which has made these efforts possible, and Google has done a remarkable job of, well, "not being evil." Which is really all it takes to be good in a capitalist market.
There's this very common example in the
world of free software between all of the text editors. There's vi,
vim, emacs, nano, pico, and so many others that compete with each
other, and there's a catalog (apt-cache, for instance) that lists a
large majority of them. And they don't suffer. Well. This entirely
depends on whether or not you like these text editors. I find that vim
is useful, and kwrite too, sometimes gedit, etc. etc.
I'm missing the relevance here.
That's not true at all. You could just as easily pull down some
technology via apt-get to deploy the robotic line; or you could just as
easily apt-get the stuff you need to keep a human living (the basic
necessities; everything else can be provided by the social structure
that the people choose to implement, hopefully). And then you have
line-13. But the point is that this is reconfigurable, and by saying
that capitalism is the only way, just ignores all of this
reconfigurability and the general infrastructure that has been
proposed.
No damn it, you can not replace Lisa! First of all, let's say I wanted you to duplicate Lisa. Our technology is no where near where it needs to be not by a long shot. What we are on the brink of, should we focus our efforts on it, is we could give Lisa implants that would regulate her medication so she never misses a dose. We can give her a shot with a virus carrying new DNA segments that would replicate themselves and effectively splice out her cancer gene in a matter of months, with little to no negative side effects. We can use stem cells to regenerate the skin on her left tit from a burn she got when she was in high school that she's always been so embarrassed about.
Come on we're going to have 36 hour days and you want robots? Hell, I'm looking forward to a Martian day! More work, more play, more sleep. Hell, with a day like that, I might get up the nerve to ask Lisa out for tea.
Oops. I think I might have taken it literally. In general it could be
described as user preferences, yes? Configuration options. Some people
put stickers on their monitors, others drive Mustangs with leather
interiors.
No no no. You cannot reconfigure property rights. You have them or you don't. And there are no rights if there are no property rights.
Let's say I opt to live in one of these 1000cr/day system. Can I pay others for services? Can I hire a prostitute? Can I prostitute myself out for that matter? Can I horde my credits? Can I pass my horded credits on to my young? At this point, how is this system still functioning anyway?
The robots charge 6 credits for a shirt? What if I invent a way to make shirts cheaper and faster? What if I charge 3 credits for my shirts? Now your shirt making robots are useless. Do you demand the knowledge that I possess? Do you take the work from me?
And what if I work my ass off and save and horde and make myself the biggest baddest most luxurious house on the block? What if other people want a house like mine? What do they do?
Why wouldn't she be able to make a cup of tea on Mars? It's just not on
Earth.
Mars has nothing to do with it. I'm saying a robot can't put love in the tea.
Are we talking theoretically? As in, whatever 'love' is, it's not
> Robots can't put love into my tea.
accessible to machinery? Because there's a basis to humans --
biology -- and there's nothing _impossible_ about it, but just because
it's not impossible doesn't mean it's not magical/mysterious/love and
other aspects of emergence.
Robots can't wink like Lisa. Robots can't make love. And what you can't make, you can't put into tea. And I hope robots never can make love. It's not that I think it's morally wrong to bring a sentient machine into existence, because I'm all for it. But at that point, who's going to make your shirts? If they're sentient, shouldn't they have every right to freeload in your hippie bubble with the rest of us? :-p
The point is, we should be focusing on making work easier for us to complete, and finding new avenues of work as our machines start to take over the details of our work, while enhancing the capacity and functionality of the human being.
I keep seeing the words "forced labor." Anyone who uses that phrase is probably part of the reason why they themselves have to work a shitty job they hate. I'm 22. I work desk at a big hotel in a major hotel chain. I get to talk to all sorts of people. I get to meet all sorts of Lisas. My job consists of absolutely no stress, which is how I like it right now, as I'm piecing myself together from a very strange start in life. Left the house at 15. Saw different parts of the world. Liked some, hated others. Had no help from family.
I like working where I work now. I've liked all my jobs. And when I find myself in a job I don't like, I quit. It's simple. Just like if I don't like a product, I don't buy it. And soon I will be going to college to refine myself and learn some new specialties. And when I get out, I will start down the road to working my dream job: a vanguard company like Google that quite simply isn't evil. Because it's where I can do the most good for myself.
Not society. Me. I will get a job where I will make money, I will excel, and I will be happy. And hopefully as an added side-bonus I will assist in enhancing the wealth and quality of society. Worst case scenario, in my life: I fail at everything and I wind up managing a hotel. And I can think of worse fates. That's freedom. That's capitalism. If you "reconfigure" it, it's no longer free.
-Ian
PS: We should start up a Virgle Pioneer scholarship fund! ;-p
Bryan Bishop
You are using 'free society' to refer to capitalism instead of free as
in post-scarcity, so could we use different terminology so that we
don't mix up the differences that we are describing?
> > we have now. We have no standard for our money, here in America at
> >
> > > least, and therefore no backing. The Federal Reserve (a private
> > > institution) prints money whenever it needs it, without having to
> > > answer to Congress, which is scary. But at least we do still have
> > > money and an economy where things like Google (which I have the
> > > utmost faith in) can still happen. Corporations like Google are
> > > voted on by consumers based on their production. If you have a
> > > catalog where you get everything you need from, you lose
> > > competition. Markets
>
> Hm. I don't know if that's true.
>
>
> Which part? I assure you the Federal Reserve is a private institution
The losing competition because of catalogs. I mentioned apt-cache as
that sort of catalog, which is where you questioned its relevance.
> Google has pushed the internet to progress by lightyears, by doing
Are you a programmer? Google is standing on the shoulders of giants,
most of the original progress behind backrub was mostly using stuff
like wget, curl, perl, redhat, and everyday, average pidgeons.
> Without Google and YouTube, the internet could very possibly have
> gone the way of the newspaper, the radio, and the television by now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
Google _has_ gone the way of the newspaper, radio and television. "The
internet routes around censorship as damage."
> It is a competitive market which has made these efforts possible, and
> Google has done a remarkable job of, well, "not being evil." Which is
> really all it takes to be good in a capitalist market.
Not being evil? Look at the link above.
> > There's this very common example in the
> > world of free software between all of the text editors. There's vi,
> > vim, emacs, nano, pico, and so many others that compete with each
> > other, and there's a catalog (apt-cache, for instance) that lists a
> > large majority of them. And they don't suffer. Well. This entirely
> > depends on whether or not you like these text editors. I find that
> > vim is useful, and kwrite too, sometimes gedit, etc. etc.
>
> I'm missing the relevance here.
See above please.
> That's not true at all. You could just as easily pull down some
> > technology via apt-get to deploy the robotic line; or you could
> > just as easily apt-get the stuff you need to keep a human living
> > (the basic necessities; everything else can be provided by the
> > social structure that the people choose to implement, hopefully).
> > And then you have line-13. But the point is that this is
> > reconfigurable, and by saying that capitalism is the only way, just
> > ignores all of this
> > reconfigurability and the general infrastructure that has been
> > proposed.
>
> No damn it, you can not replace Lisa! First of all, let's say I
I'm not telling you to replace Lisa.
> wanted you to duplicate Lisa. Our technology is no where near where
> it needs to be not by a long shot. What we are on the brink of,
Nope, we can clone her genome. But you're right: it will not preserve
the precious information that we consider to be LIsa.
> should we focus our efforts on it, is we could give Lisa implants
> that would regulate her medication so she never misses a dose. We can
Yeah, I'm not opposed to that at all, and the overall infrastructure for
project management and social distribution allows for that. :-)
http://heybryan.org/docs/neuro/
http://heybryan.org/recursion.html
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Brain_implants
http://heybryan.org/transhumanism_def.html
> give her a shot with a virus carrying new DNA segments that would
> replicate themselves and effectively splice out her cancer gene in a
> matter of months, with little to no negative side effects. We can use
There's some other interesting cancer treatments that have been in the
works, like Kazirius' radio plus encapsulated nanoparticles for the
dispensel of toxins to specific locations in the body.
> stem cells to regenerate the skin on her left tit from a burn she got
> when she was in high school that she's always been so embarrassed
> about.
Sure. Tissue engineering and the like. That's completely possible,
especially with the gene repositories.
http://heybryan.org/new_exp.html
http://biohack.sf.net/
http://diybio.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_engineering
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/
> Come on we're going to have 36 hour days and you want robots? Hell,
> I'm looking forward to a Martian day! More work, more play, more
> sleep. Hell, with a day like that, I might get up the nerve to ask
> Lisa out for tea.
I want as much as possible.
> Oops. I think I might have taken it literally. In general it could be
> > described as user preferences, yes? Configuration options. Some
> > people put stickers on their monitors, others drive Mustangs with
> > leather interiors.
>
> No no no. You cannot reconfigure property rights. You have them or
> you don't. And there are no rights if there are no property rights.
Humans invented property rights. Thus they are manipulatable.
> Let's say I opt to live in one of these 1000cr/day system. Can I pay
> others for services? Can I hire a prostitute? Can I prostitute myself
> out for that matter? Can I horde my credits? Can I pass my horded
> credits on to my young? At this point, how is this system still
> functioning anyway?
What? I do not understand. Suppose you opted to live in a system where
there were no credits whatsoever, what then are you asking? I'm
confused.
> The robots charge 6 credits for a shirt? What if I invent a way to
> make shirts cheaper and faster? What if I charge 3 credits for my
> shirts? Now your shirt making robots are useless. Do you demand the
> knowledge that I possess? Do you take the work from me?
I would very much hope you would share your innovations with me. I'd
like that.
> And what if I work my ass off and save and horde and make myself the
> biggest baddest most luxurious house on the block? What if other
> people want a house like mine? What do they do?
What if they do want a house like that? Why can't they build it? The
knowledge is certainly available, and the materials aren't dwindling --
there's plenty carbon, chloride, hydrogen, whatever else the house is
built from.
> > Why wouldn't she be able to make a cup of tea on Mars? It's just
> > not on Earth.
>
> Mars has nothing to do with it. I'm saying a robot can't put love in
> the tea.
And I'm telling you that humans aren't magic. Have you ever seen a cell?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology)
It's a machine. A robot is a machine (a different one, yes).
> > > Robots can't put love into my tea.
> >
> > Are we talking theoretically? As in, whatever 'love' is, it's not
> > accessible to machinery? Because there's a basis to humans --
> > biology -- and there's nothing _impossible_ about it, but just
> > because it's not impossible doesn't mean it's not
> > magical/mysterious/love and other aspects of emergence.
>
> Robots can't wink like Lisa. Robots can't make love. And what you
I think you've ignored what I was actually saying. Lisa is a machine. A
human, yes, but that's just a type of organism, and an organism is a
system, a process, a machine.
> The point is, we should be focusing on making work easier for us to
> complete, and finding new avenues of work as our machines start to
> take over the details of our work, while enhancing the capacity and
> functionality of the human being.
How is what I am saying any different from that?
> Not society. Me. I will get a job where I will make money, I will
> excel, and I will be happy. And hopefully as an added side-bonus I
> will assist in enhancing the wealth and quality of society. Worst
> case scenario, in my life: I fail at everything and I wind up
> managing a hotel. And I can think of worse fates. That's freedom.
> That's capitalism. If you "reconfigure" it, it's no longer free.
Woah, what? If you can change, you're not free?
> PS: We should start up a Virgle Pioneer scholarship fund! ;-p
I'd be willing to put some work into that.
Paul D. Fernhout
> We have
> no standard for our money, here in America at least, and therefore no
> backing. The Federal Reserve (a private institution) prints money whenever
> it needs it, without having to answer to Congress, which is scary.
Agreed. But that is a capitalist plutocracy at work. :-) See:
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
> Collectives are
> bogged down by politics and are constantly vulnerable to corruption and
> collapse.
As are some market makers like Enron.
Besides, the world of free software, as an example, is not a "collective" in
the sense you mean. It is a society sharing affluence more than anything.
> Markets, however, have failsafes. Good people have to actively
> participate in these markets for these failsafes to work, but they generally
> do.
Capitalist markets depend on laws to function. Laws are set by politics.
Politics in a capitalist society are swayable by money. Thus, the rich can
set up the playing field to make them richer.
Which is exactly what happened in the USA. Standard Oil. Nuclear Weapons.
Invasions. Schooling. The Federal Reserve as above. Access to health care.
Empire.
Other systems have their own problems, of course.
> I would walk through
> burning coals to go through line 13, whereas if there were no human lines, I
> would likely go to another supermarket. the society you're describing has no
> Lisas, and no line 13's.
Maybe Lisa would rather be at the beach with you instead of working in a
supermarket checkout line? :-)
Or maybe she'd also like to be taking care of her sister's infant daughter
or her homebound mother instead of having to do meaningless work for pay?
Years ago, I worked as a part-time cashier in a health food store -- it's
hard work in some ways, standing all day, dealing with irate customers, etc.
Maybe you could ask Lisa if there is something she would rather be doing
before assuming she wants to be working at a job which could be easily
automated?
http://www.research.ibm.com/ecvg/jhc_proj/veggie.html
Or eliminated by RFID:
"IBM RFID Checkout in Supermarkets"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US-GcgHL2HM
(RFID has other issues, but that is a funny commercial on this point. :-)
Maybe she just doesn't think she has a better choice? At least if she lived
and worked as a cashier in say, the Netherlands (Holland) she'd be
guaranteed good health and dental care, about six weeks of vacation
annually, paid family leave, a livable wage, and an affordable apartment
downtown in a major city. See:
"Why Dutch women don't get depressed"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/06/news/happy.php
And that is even *before* the next thirty years of technological advancement
which we can assume would happen before any likely space habitation gets
going. So, clearly, we can do better for the Lisas of the word even just
with what we have now. And we can do a lot better in a few decades if we
don't blow ourselves up first fighting over oil and land. But, we need to
consider how the benefits of automation get shared:
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
But in the USA, this is more typical for supermarket cashiers:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/supe-m02.shtml
"The United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) surrendered to all of the
major demands of the supermarket chains after a 19-week strike/lockout of
59,000 workers in Southern California. This betrayal of the longest work
stoppage in the history of the US supermarket industry sets the stage for
devastating rollbacks in the working conditions and living standards for
hundreds of thousands of workers who already face low wages and brutal
exploitation. ...A 25-year-old cashier at a Ralph’s supermarket in the Los
Angeles area who voted to ratify the pact spoke for many of the workers
when, interviewed at a polling place in Hollywood, he told the Los Angeles
Times, “It was take it, or there’s the door. They are all thieves, the
companies and the unions. They’re just sticking it to us.” The contract
includes unprecedented concessions to the supermarket chains involved in the
dispute—Vons and Pavilions, which are owned by the national Safeway chain,
Ralph’s, owned by Kroger, Inc., and Albertson’s. The three-year pact imposes
a two-tier wage system, slashing starting wages and benefits for new-hires,
and caps the employers’ contributions to the workers’ medical insurance
program for all workers. This provision will result in growing cuts in
employee health benefits over time."
That is capitalism at work when you are on the other side of capital, like
Lisa probably is. Some theory:
http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=3407&forum_id=5
"... Maybe they’ve been sold a bogus “American dream” that never existed.
Maybe “the rules” they play by were written by the people who have “made it”
- not by the people who haven’t. And maybe - just maybe - the people who
have “made it” wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that’s
a mirage. ..."
(I do think the USA is a better place to live than many other poor and war
torn countries, but some of that is about being in "the eye of the storm".)
There was a time when all food in the planet was not kept under lock and
key. I hope that time will come again, if not on Earth, then Mars or
elsewhere. But if we stick with capitalism, at least consider this:
"12 Myths About Hunger"
http://rehydrate.org/facts/hunger.htm
"Myth 7:
The Free Market Can End Hunger
Reality: Unfortunately, such a "market-is-good, government-is-bad" formula
can never help address the causes of hunger. Such a dogmatic stance misleads
us that a society can opt for one or the other, when in fact every economy
on earth combines the market and government in allocating resources and
distributing goods. The market's marvelous efficiencies can only work to
eliminate hunger, however, when purchasing power is widely dispersed.
So all those who believe in the usefulness of the market and the necessity
of ending hunger must concentrate on promoting not the market, but the
consumers! In this task, government has a vital role to play in countering
the tendency toward economic concentration, through genuine tax, credit, and
land reforms to disperse buying power toward the poor. Recent trends toward
privatization and de-regulation are most definitely not the answer."
Consider as another example of decades of "market failure":
"Phage Therapy: Where Communism Succeeded"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm
"While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial
diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a
western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s
represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, there
could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major
problem in (if not before) the twentyfirst century. Yet, we just didn't want
to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical
breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist
Georgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union. ... It's not too late for western
medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren
will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated
conservatism. The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were
wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that
we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in
the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?"
People dying of antibiotic resistant bacteria is just an "external cost" of,
among other things, the US Beef industry who give antibiotics to cattle.
Maybe Lisa has to work in the supermarket selling ground-up cattle to people
instead of furthering her education to become an aerospace engineer (or
developer of artificial meat :-) because an antibiotic-resistant staph
infection killed her father when he went into the hospital last year for
appendicitis and her family was plunged into poverty? Maybe she is the one
person this generation who could have solved some really difficult
Virgle-related problems but her technical career is one more "external cost"
of short-term policies? I knew a woman who used to be a waitress and is now
a physics professor.
To make progress even as "capitalists", one needs to define more clearly
what "capitalism" means and what it doesn't. There is simply no pure
"capitalism" anywhere. The limited "free market" capitalism we do have in
the USA (probably the most libertarian country in the world) in practice has
some serious problems (external costs being just one). Why should Lisa
bother leaving her sister and Mother and go to Mars just to be a checkout
clerk there too, and watch family members die of preventable and treatable
illnesses (or other things) as more "external costs"?
--Paul Fernhout
Paul D. Fernhout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_capitalism
Silent wrote:
> What does a "capitalist system" mean?
> It means my government has to play the
> same game I do with no immediate advantages.
Individual initiative is wonderful. The freedoms we have in the USA like
freedom of speech are something to be thankful for. The USA does a better
job of just about any other country of mixing nationalities. But that does
not mean it is perfect or that other countries don't do some things much
better. Capitalism is only part of the story of the USA. It is not the best
part, especially in the last 100 years now that corporations have been
granted personhood but have none of the social obligations or ethical
constrains real people do.
http://www.adbusters.org/
"Birth of the Corporate "I""
http://www.nancho.net/corperson/adbcorpI.html
In practice, when anyone talks about "capitalism", what goes unsaid is big
corporations and excessive concentration of wealth and immense power over
our industrial base used for private purposes. How can individual humans
compete directly against huge immortal amoral beings with lots of capital?
Isn't a big reason why many people are interested in Mars or any other
frontier to get away from the problem of unethical use of capital?
The biggest thing standing between anyone in the USA and an "external cost"
of capital is ... government. Want to avoid polluted air? Want water without
MBTE? No less lead in toys? Want a decent wage? Want safe machinery? Want at
least limited protection against "desk rage" that some experience?
"Desk rage spoils workplace for many Americans"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080710/us_nm/workplace_usa_deskrage_dc
All these protections came from government (as an extension of community,
which can also protect without laws by cultural norms); these protections
are not provided by capital. Capital sees people as disposable robots. See,
for example what life would be like without government regulation of capital:
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Thank_a_liberal
"... If you are not a land-owning white male, but have voted, thank a
liberal. If you have not died from tainted meat, been prescribed something
useless or poisonous by a quack doctor, have not given your children cough
syrup which turned out to have heroin as its secret ingredient, thank a
liberal. (and Nixon). If your workplace is safe and you are paid a living
wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to
join a union to protect your rights without being lynched, thank a liberal. ..."
I'll grant you could ask what our life would be like without individual and
community initiative too, and the results would not be pretty either.
It is a balance of these things which makes a society work.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_14/article1.html
"This is no surprise, as libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the
Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on
altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion
that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact
requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism,
to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual
security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the
effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or
covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its
historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect
unbound by the moral rules of their society."
But, in any case, post-scarcity is about transcending liberal/conservative
and socialist/capitalist to something much better for most. There would be
less absolute power, so those who get their jollies out of ordering people
around day to day through fear and intimidation would be worse off, it's
true. But almost everyone else might be better off.
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy
up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to
power as such and all of them want to keep us working."
Anyway, here is a "Tour of the US Income Distribution", "The L-Curve":
http://www.lcurve.org/
"The red line represents a graph of family income across the population. The
height of the curve at any point is the height of a stack of $100 bills
equalling that income. Unless you have a very old browser you will be able
to zoom. Be sure to zoom both in and out."
Ask yourself where you are on it and whether your goal should be to get your
economic football to the 99 yard line or instead to change the nature of the
game? Sure, people on the 99 yard line or beyond would all recommend
capitalism. But then why do so many other countries have people reporting
more "happiness" than in the USA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness
Related:
http://www.alternet.org/story/57180/
"An analysis by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez gives us the
best perspective of what's going on for everyone else. They found that
despite several periods of healthy growth between 1973 and 2005, the average
income of all but the top 10 percent of the income ladder -- nine out of ten
American families -- fell by 11 percent when adjusted for inflation. For
three decades, economic growth in the United States has gone first and
foremost to building today's modern Gilded Age. The recipients of those
gains don't care about a fully funded Social Security system or a healthy
Medicare program -- they don't need them."
All that happened when industrial productivity has doubled or tripled in
that time. Who got the benefit? Mostly, the less than one percent of the
population with significant ... capital. That's what "capitalism" means.
Capital is the ability to extract rent from things you own when others want
to use them to do something productive. In the USA of 200 years ago where
most people lived on farms and were 90% self-reliant, the excessive
concentration of capital was more limited in its effects. But now, when most
people have no ability to sustain themselves except by participating in the
market, things are much more unstable.
You want to see where some of the pain in US families is coming from over
the past few decades that the "American Dream" has turned into a nightmare
for many? How about excessive concentration of ... capital?
Consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcohol
"The dawn of the eighteenth century saw the British Parliament pass
legislation designed to encourage the use of grain for distilling spirits.
In 1685, consumption of gin had been slightly over one-half million gallons
but by 1714 it stood at two million gallons. In 1727, official (declared and
taxed) production reached five million gallons; six years later the London
area alone produced eleven million gallons of gin. The English government
actively promoted gin production to utilize surplus grain and to raise
revenue. Encouraged by public policy, very cheap spirits flooded the market
at a time when there was little stigma attached to drunkenness and when the
growing urban poor in London sought relief from the newfound insecurities
and harsh realities of urban life. Thus developed the so-called Gin Epidemic."
TV was of course the new and improved "gin" -- combining both escapism and
advertising control as change and social fragmentation accelerated after the
1950s.
In the past, capital used to mean land. Now it means fiat dollars (and also
social networks related to those). But since fiat dollars are imaginary,
things are pretty unstable these days.
Anyway, I'm not for big government. But I think we at least need a balance
of systems that support individual initiative and ones that defend the
community against external costs of individual initiatives. As long as we
have big capital, we need big government to balance it, even though in the
end big government is easily taken over by big capital and we end up with
the worst of both worlds... Probably what we have now in the USA as far as
government. :-(
But I don't see the way out of that maze being either more concentrated
government or more concentrated capital. So, neither the conventionally
described liberal or conservative positions make much sense.
> It means I get to live in a
> better house than the guy down the street I went to high school with that
> liked to carve swastikas into the desks and terrorize effeminate boys.
Except the Nazi eugenic ideology was borrowed from the USA and all the Nazi
funding for building their war machine came from US ... capital.
See:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/11a.htm
"One of the hardest things for any present-day reader to grasp about this
era was the brazenness of the regimentation. Scientific management was in
its most enthusiastic public phase then, monumentally zealous, maddingly
smug. The state lay under effective control of a relatively small number of
powerful families freed by the Darwinian religion from ethical obligation to
a democratic national agenda, or even to its familiar republican/libertarian
antithesis. Yet those antagonists comprised the bedrock antinomies of our
once revolutionary public order, and without the eternal argument they
provoked, there was no recognizable America."
And:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm
"General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than
Switzerland," said Bradford Snell, who has spent two decades researching a
history of the world's largest automaker. "Switzerland was just a repository
of looted funds. GM was an integral part of the German war effort. The Nazis
could have invaded Poland and Russia without Switzerland. They could not
have done so without GM."
And that kid doing the carving and terrorizing is probably alienated from a
society in which he has no ... capital. Again from:
http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=3407&forum_id=5
"The right likes to think that every Leftist “hates” the “rich”. I suppose
there are those on the Left who hate the rich, but if they do, their anger
is misplaced. It’s the “wannabe’s” you have to watch out for.
... Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not
millionaires, they’re not making much progress toward that noble goal.
That’s when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable,
intelligent, hard working people - and they are for the most part - who
“have what it takes” to “make it”. They believe that the difference between
those who “make it” and those who don’t is being “capable, intelligent and
hardworking”. Things like “having rich parents”, “getting just plain lucky”
or “being a crook” don’t factor into the equation anywhere. No, American
society is a natural hierarchy where the most capable are “rich beyond their
wildest dreams”, and the non-rich are chumps that just don’t measure up.
Only they are capable - some of them actually are - and they’re not rich.
Clearly, something is broken, preventing these wannabes who “have what it
takes” from reaching materialist heaven. Now here’s where it gets
interesting. Since they “have what it takes”, there must be somebody else to
blame. This from the people who accuse the poor of “blaming everybody but
themselves”. The dittoheads do the very same thing... It's “tax and spend
liberals”. It’s “big government”. It's "all those illegal aliens" and those
"lazy minorities living off our taxes"."
What good is a "better" house when the community is messed up anyway and so
you can't go outside without fear? At best you end up creating a prison for
yourself:
"The Politics of Fear: Gated Communities"
http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/main.asp?intEBriefID=278
> It
> means I can be a shareholder of GOOG.
But realistically, most people are not or only have a couple of shares of
GOOG as they have no ... capital. See that L-Curve linked above. And if they
grab a share of GOOG now, it means going without something like food or
heat. What kind of choice is that?
And in time Google is the US government anyway (the meaning of fascism, or
binding together business and government):
"Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches…
What if it controlled your life?"
http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/09/google_fiction_evil_dangerous_surveillance_control_1.php
But it is also true that many people have built a "good life" part way up
the pyramid of power. But the people at the bottom get crushed.
> It means that every decision my
> society makes is voted on with labor.
Well, to a tiny extent. Most decision made about where to put factories or
what products to produce are made by ... capital.
Who controls what is on TV in the USA? Capital. Who controls the University
system? Capital.
"What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream"
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may
be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media
as well. And it's generally true of corporations. It's true of Fascist
states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It's
dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such
as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which
is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish
them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of.
People within them, who don't adjust to that structure, who don't accept it
and internalize it (you can't really work with it unless you internalize it,
and believe it); people who don't do that are likely to be weeded out along
the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of
filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think
independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the
educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and
obedience; if you don't do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a
filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren't
lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding
power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and
Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared
to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes
on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper
classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on."
Or in parody by the Simpsons: :-)
" We Do (The Stonecutter's Song) Lyrics"
http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=c8NDbdgmCLk%3D
> It means that if something gets done,
> something of equal value was exchanged for it.
Well, in theory, but in practice, monopolies, cartels, unequal playing
fields, and tight control of information means the advantage always goes to
those with ... capital. It's like walking into a casino. Sure, some
individuals do win sometimes, but overall, they lose.
> Capitalism equals freedom.
Freedom for those with ... capital.
"The Mythology of Wealth" by conceptualguerilla.com
http://kai-zen.livejournal.com/46079.html
"This is the difference between say, George W. Bush and you. Dubya went to
prep school. You went to the public high school. Dubya went to Yale – ahead
of someone with better credentials because he had family connections. Dubya
had wealthy friends, through family, “skull and bones”, etc, who bankrolled
his oil drilling business. Ask some of his friends to bankroll your oil
business. Let me know if they stop laughing before their bodyguards throw
you out. Even if you managed to persuade an investor to bankroll some
enterprise, you’re going to have exactly one shot. If you lose, you won’t be
getting a second chance. Dubya, on the other hand, went broke, and then his
friends bankrolled him again, before finally getting him a one percent share
of the Texas Rangers. See how it works? People with money help each other
out. They don’t help out people who don’t have any. Many cheap-labor
conservatives don’t want to help out the destitute at all. They say
government assistance to people will make them “dependent”. They say it
breeds “inefficiency” and “laziness”. They say that a harsh “got mine, get
yours” social environment breeds “market discipline” by rewarding the most
resourceful and competitive. Some extreme cheap-labor conservatives don’t
even believe in public education. They say it is the family’s
responsibility. If your family can’t afford to send you to school, well,
that’s not their problem. Of course, wealthy elites shower their own with
benefits – and enjoy a plethora of government benefits and services. They
know the value of education, that’s why they keep expensive private schools
like Andover in business. In fact, they do everything they can to give their
own children every advantage money can buy, because they absolutely
understand the value of a “head start” in the fiercely competitive social
jungle they have created. They talk about “competition”, but they actually
fear it, and do what they can to make the playing field as unequal as they
can. Then they tell the wage earner that his position is “his fault”, and
that he just needs to work harder – in their factory. He needs to more
“disciplined” and “thrifty” if we wants to “get ahead”."
Everyone else gets turned into a worker or soldier or consumer, in part by
schools designed by ... capital.
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/052800.htm
"Parents tend to think that schools exist to help their children reach their
highest intellectual ability. However, that is not the political goal of the
industrialists that fund compulsory education, which is to create a nation
of complacent, socialized workers, deep in debt because they have bought too
much of what the industries produce."
You know about the Fed. You could then know this issue of debt being
unplayable due to making dollars for principle on loans but not interest.
This is capitalism in action. The Fed shows how big capital and big
government are unfortunately intertwined.
Yes, there is some freedom in economic choices. Except, why can't you buy a
diesel plug-in hybrid when it has been obvious for thirty years that global
climate change and dependency on foreign oil were big problems?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
Where were the dollars for R&D when so many people desperately wanted to
work on better batteries or solar panels for decades?
Sure, we have increased in prosperity in terms of the quality of some
manufactured good and their quantity (ignoring the costs of breakdowns in
face-to-face community, healthy childhoods, overfishing, and pollution).
But there is more to life than owning things or consuming things. Or even
being online:
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/77/facebook_suicide.html
"By turning members into consumers who involuntarily advertise to their
friends, Facebook hoped to extract profit from social interactions. However,
by commercializing friendships, Facebook has irrevocably destroyed its
image. Now a vanguard of the anti-Facebook movement is developing out of an
increasing disenchantment. No longer a fun, harmless place to hang out,
Facebook has become just another commercial enterprise."
> And there is no such thing as post-scarcity.
Except we are using it even now via the internet, which empowers a
discussion essentially done for ... free.
(It's no totally "free", but it is usually too cheap to matter.)
> There will always be a new
> frontier.
A frontier where we can recreate the old values of ... community.
Why just replicate the problems of excessive concentration of ... capital?
> There will always be something to desire that robots can't
> produce.
But if the basics are free, then so what? People would have lots of free
time to make things. You are assuming that getting what you want depends on
the good will of someone else with ... capital.
We're talking about stuff like 3D printers that essentially puts "China on
your desktop":
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome
Among other things.
What is the point of a "free market" or "capital" when you can print what
you need at home including more printers? What do we need it for?
Or how about where you can feed your trash into the system to make more raw
materials?
"Nanotech Recycling"
http://amodestopinion.com/2007/08/16/nanotech-recycling
And where you can print solar panels for your roof to make power to run the
whole thing?
"Print Solar Cells With an Inkjet Printer"
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/10/printable-solar-cells-demonstrated/
This is the future that the mainstream press doesn't talk about except in
jest. This is the future the US government tries to hold back by regressive
R&D polices on more coal and oil research. This is the future we could have
had sooner with three trillion spent on Nanotech and Solar and Batteries
instead of the Iraq War (the current projection).
A lot of the implications of this new technology are dangerous. But the
results will be even more dangerous if they are developed in a spirit of
greed, competition, and fear, which are the kind of things that underpin ...
capitalism.
If what I write has even the least shred of truth to it as what are trends
over the next thirty years, then can you see how almost everything the
mainstream media talks about the economy and capitalism as regards the
future is at best ... irrelevant?
We can read the news knowing that abundance for all is here, and has been
here for decades:
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
And ask ourselves, why is the press talking about such nonsense?
And the answer is ... capitalism.
> There will always be something that costs more than your 1000
> credit allowance on the apparently aptly called "*Red* Planet".
And so lots of people should suffer because a few people insist on being
unreasonable or greedy or financially obese amassing ... capital?
Well, that fits history, sadly:
"Indentured Servitude in Colonial America"
http://www.geocities.com/nai_cilh/servitude.html
Is that what we plan to bring to Mars?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant
"An indentured servant is a form of debt bondage worker. The laborer is
under contract of an employer for some period of time, usually three to
seven years, in exchange for their transportation, food, drink, clothing,
lodging and other necessities. Unlike a slave, an indentured servant was
required to work only for a limited term specified in a signed contract. A
major problem with the system of indentured servitude was that in many
cases, an indentured servant would become indebted to their employer, who
would forgive the debt in exchange for an extension to the period of their
indenture, which could thereby continue indefinitely. In other cases,
indentured servants were subject to violence at the hands of their employers
in the homes or fields in which they worked."
> And
> fortunately, there will always be men like me ready to keep men like you at
> bay when the time comes.
Exactly, you have been persuaded to defend ... capital. Like this guy, who
then likely got shot after he had second thoughts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman
"The September 25, 2005, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper
reported that Tillman held views which were critical of the Iraq war and did
not support President Bush's re-election. According to Tillman's mother, a
friend of Tillman had arranged a meeting with Noam Chomsky, to take place
after his return from Afghanistan. Chomsky has confirmed this. The article
also reported that Tillman urged a soldier in his platoon to vote for John
Kerry in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election."
Why have second thoughts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_the_United_States#Criticisms
"Critics of U.S. foreign policy suggest that U.S. foreign policy rhetoric
contradicts some of the U.S. government's actions abroad. Some of these
criticisms include: ... [A long list]."
Still ready to celebrate those who have capital and want to be one too?
Well, you want to be as rich as Bill Gates? Here is lesson one:
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
"""Lesson 1: Choose Your Grandparents Carefully
"There are three ways to make money. You can inherit it. You can marry
it. You can steal it." -- conventional wisdom in Italy
William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the
night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell
founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell
was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William
(Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged
to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that
at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998
dollars.
"""
And here is how a lot of people like that have thought in the past:
http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/aboutlucy/dawley_iwpa.html
"Meanwhile, unscrupulous industrialists like Jay Gould put down worker
discontent by giving their striking workers a "rifle diet" while bragging
they could "hire half the working class to shoot the other half.""
We could follow the last commands of the capitalists as the entire logic
behind capitalism collapses intellectually in the face of advanced
technology. But instead, maybe we can all figure a way out of this situation
together?
Unfortunately, Google itself is conflicted on this, so we can't expect too
much help there. In many ways, Google represents this conflict more than any
other company as it is at the interface of capitalism and post-scarcity.
Those people are going to have to make up their minds which side they are on
sooner or later. For me, I think that is what the April Fools joke was
really about -- trying to imagine a way forward for Google.
Sometimes life in the USA is so awful and so frustrating (even if we are
successful, if we think about the misfortune of so many others) that we want
to imagine fantasies it could get better. For me, that is post-scarcity. For
many others, it is getting rich in the current system. I'm sorry to be
taking your fantasy away of capitalism ever working for everyone (including
you) given how bad things have gotten for so many in the USA. But, at least
we've got a new collective delusion you could join. :-) And, I'd suggest,
the post-scarcity delusion is getting more and more real every day. Maybe
one day, capitalism based around competition will seem like just a bad dream
we awoke from:
"No Contest: The Case Against Competition"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm
And as delusions go, this one has been providing me with free software and
free content for years, so that is something going for it. :-) But I'll
admit it does not yet supply electricity or computers themselves. We're
making choices about how we want the future to be.
--Paul Fernhout
mike1937
it, I even still haven't finished it. But don't begrudge us our self-
evidently pedantic eloquence (nothing pretentious about that ;-)
As Paul said, the important thing in your scenario is that Lisa
herself probably doesn't want to be working but on the beach(with you)
or studying biology or whatever.
> I like working where I work now. I've liked all my jobs. And when I find
> myself in a job I don't like, I quit. It's simple.
actually enjoy certain things is the foundation of an agalmic society
(I'm using agalmic because "gift" seems to make you and others think
of socialism). You would keep on doin that sort of job in the proposed
system.
Also, how you pointed out the fact that on Mars the days will be
longer and technology will let people do their work better plays into
the agalmic actors hand. We don't care about automation except as a
means for excess. That is what we take issue with; not with getting
people out of working but what to do when there is a large amount of
excess. Our current system simply isn't built to handle it, so it gets
absorbed by corruption, inflation, wars, etc. etc.
When Lisa is spending the day at the beach with you while the self
check-out does her job, what is the fair way to distribute that
wealth? Should the owner of the patent (who made his money in some
unrelated industry) which was bought after the original owner died get
the money (obviously this is on the scale of millions of dollars in
reallity)?
Or, since the guy who first got the patent stood on the shoulder of
giants, and himself was a product of all the amenities and necessities
provided by society, should it go back to society?
We simply want to distribute the wealth correctly while maintaining
all of your freedoms (which should create a more moral system, at
least from an existential perspective).
> Not society. Me. I will get a job where I will make money, I will excel, and
> I will be happy. And hopefully as an added side-bonus I will assist in
> enhancing the wealth and quality of society
exclusively make more money at the cost of the employees, the
environment, and public health.
> Let's say I opt to live in one of these 1000cr/day system. Can I pay others
> for services? Can I hire a prostitute?
would expect a majority would find it immoral just as they do now
(myself included for future referance). But I believe the heart of the
issue is whether people will throw away their "credits". That's the
question, isn't it? It depends on your personal experiences and
knowledge of human nature. My experiences lead me to believe people
wouldn't, after the "educational" system has been dismantled.