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It's amazing how society manages to advance at all in the face of the immortal, immoral ignorance of conservatives.
Society is irrelevant.
I'm not here on this Earth to be a slave to another.
I have no moral or ethical duty to "Society" (cough)(snicker).
Your first duty is to your children, followed by your spouse, then yourself, then your parents and siblings, your extended family, your communities, which includes your circles of friends, your colleagues and your neighborhood.
Why?
Because that is what provides you with a stable environment and support network to learn and grow and progress.
If "Society" (snicker) (cough) just happens to coincidentally benefit from the progression and growth of an individual, then that's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
If "Society" doesn't benefit? Well, then that's just a damn shame.
And if Liberals would do that, then there's no possible way any Liberal would ever have the time to stick their nose in other people's business and start meddling and obsessing with how much this one has, and how much this one doesn't have and how much this one makes and how much this one doesn't make.
Face it: you're all possessed of Penis Envy and Breast-Butt Implant Envy and obsessed with the 3% of US businesses that are publicly traded corporations.
The Truth is clear: Conservatives are the only reason you're all lucky enough to have made this far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by s1alker
I have always believed a lot of humanity would go back to a simpler agrarian existence. That is a lot more sustainable than this high-tech world which requires insane amounts of resources to support.
It possible -- however unlikely -- that many of the 1st World States will have to devolve their economies and start over.
A more likely scenario for the US (and perhaps Canada and Australia) is more Americans are going to need to engage in agriculture.
No central bank on this Earth is responsible for Demand-pull Inflation.
The sole cause of Demand-pull Inflation is Supply & Demand issues.
Everyone can see how Demand-pull Inflation is affecting food and clothing prices.
The Laws of Economics do many things, but primarily they govern the scarcity of items on the Market. Items become scarce due to over-consumption. There are only two known methods to offset over-consumption, and that is to increase the Supply, or to decrease the Demand.
Knowing that Reality™, how absurd is it to argue for a minimum wage?
The argument is, prices are rising -- Demand-pull Inflation -- and wages are not keeping pace with Demand-pull Inflation.
Well, duh, no kidding.
Demand-pull Inflation is caused by over-consumption, so how stupid is it to increase wages to continue and encourage over-consumption?
To make matters worse, by increasing the minimum wage, you shift Capital away from production, with the result being continual rising prices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricius Maximus
Indeed. More jobs with higher salaries need to be created; how to do that is the question.
The Laws of Economics have already answered that question.
You're supposed to be in your 5th Level Economy.
And you were supposed to start that in the mid-1990s.
The 5th Level Economy is simply this: Joe-Bob trades in his steel-toed boots for comfy shoes to work in a laboratory, research facility, testing facility or out in the field doing experimentation, research or testing.
Thanks to the destruction of your public education system, you don't have the Labor Capital to do that.
To fix the education system, effectively you need to go back to 1925 or 1930 with no Department of Education, no massive federal bureaucracy with thousands of useless regulations, no teacher's union, no 2:1 ratio of Administrators to Teachers, and no 14:1 ratio of Administrators to Students, and no huge mega-school districts.
20 years from the day you complete that task, you'll be graduating students who can enter university and be trained for the 5th Level Economy.
Of course, by that time, the Chinese, Indians and Eastern Europeans will be completely entrenched in the 5th Level Economy, and the US won't be able to compete.
Might as well head back to the farms....now....while you all still have a chance....
I'm not here on this Earth to be a slave to another.
I have no moral or ethical duty to "Society" (cough)(snicker).
Your first duty is to your children, followed by your spouse, then yourself, then your parents and siblings, your extended family, your communities, which includes your circles of friends, your colleagues and your neighborhood.
Why?
Because that is what provides you with a stable environment and support network to learn and grow and progress.
If "Society" (snicker) (cough) just happens to coincidentally benefit from the progression and growth of an individual, then that's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
If "Society" doesn't benefit? Well, then that's just a damn shame.
And if Liberals would do that, then there's no possible way any Liberal would ever have the time to stick their nose in other people's business and start meddling and obsessing with how much this one has, and how much this one doesn't have and how much this one makes and how much this one doesn't make.
Face it: you're all possessed of Penis Envy and Breast-Butt Implant Envy and obsessed with the 3% of US businesses that are publicly traded corporations.
The Truth is clear: Conservatives are the only reason you're all lucky enough to have made this far.
It possible -- however unlikely -- that many of the 1st World States will have to devolve their economies and start over.
A more likely scenario for the US (and perhaps Canada and Australia) is more Americans are going to need to engage in agriculture.
No central bank on this Earth is responsible for Demand-pull Inflation.
The sole cause of Demand-pull Inflation is Supply & Demand issues.
Everyone can see how Demand-pull Inflation is affecting food and clothing prices.
The Laws of Economics do many things, but primarily they govern the scarcity of items on the Market. Items become scarce due to over-consumption. There are only two known methods to offset over-consumption, and that is to increase the Supply, or to decrease the Demand.
Knowing that Reality™, how absurd is it to argue for a minimum wage?
The argument is, prices are rising -- Demand-pull Inflation -- and wages are not keeping pace with Demand-pull Inflation.
Well, duh, no kidding.
Demand-pull Inflation is caused by over-consumption, so how stupid is it to increase wages to continue and encourage over-consumption?
To make matters worse, by increasing the minimum wage, you shift Capital away from production, with the result being continual rising prices.
The Laws of Economics have already answered that question.
You're supposed to be in your 5th Level Economy.
And you were supposed to start that in the mid-1990s.
The 5th Level Economy is simply this: Joe-Bob trades in his steel-toed boots for comfy shoes to work in a laboratory, research facility, testing facility or out in the field doing experimentation, research or testing.
Thanks to the destruction of your public education system, you don't have the Labor Capital to do that.
To fix the education system, effectively you need to go back to 1925 or 1930 with no Department of Education, no massive federal bureaucracy with thousands of useless regulations, no teacher's union, no 2:1 ratio of Administrators to Teachers, and no 14:1 ratio of Administrators to Students, and no huge mega-school districts.
20 years from the day you complete that task, you'll be graduating students who can enter university and be trained for the 5th Level Economy.
Of course, by that time, the Chinese, Indians and Eastern Europeans will be completely entrenched in the 5th Level Economy, and the US won't be able to compete.
Might as well head back to the farms....now....while you all still have a chance....
Mircea
Amen! "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
Something I've started to realize now that I'm in the adult world is that there's a great proportion of the population that is useless. Heck -- only about 2/3 of working-age people even have jobs. The economy doesn't need as many workers as it used to. Among the people who do have jobs, many of them are employed as charity, really. Most government jobs are useless from a productivity standpoint; are disguised ways of transferring wealth and keeping the population busy so that it doesn't resort to crime or feel useless and depressed.
Thoughts?
I've been looking through this thread for a couple of days now. There is a kernel of a good topic contained in this post. There also is some lack or rigor, IMHO.
There is more than one way to define "surplus" population.
In tribal society, there were those who sang songs and told stories around the campfire. Such people also had "day jobs" and worked in the fields sowing and reaping, hunting and gathering, and thus directly contributing to the support of the group.
When a society becomes wealthy enough, it can support a population in which not everyone directly contributes to the support of that society. For example, the Medici s of Renaissance Italy had enough wealth that they, as educated people, could afford to pay "surplus" people to provide entertainment and education to their families. Hence the almost permanent formulation of the patronage system.
Today, our society is wealthy enough that we have whole establishments of public and private patronage of the arts, sciences, and leisure activities.
Yes it is true that we have many unemployed and underemployed, mostly because of tremendous increases in productivity, and yes, also, the continued off shoring of our service and manufacturing industries.
What is lost in the discussion, and something I believe you have overlooked, is we are past the time where we as a society, and getting close to worldwide, where we can produce all the material necessities for all the population without the full participation of the eligible labor population.
When such a point is reached, do we need to make a decision about about whether or not there is a "surplus" in population. Hell, I'm retired and therefore by definition "surplus". Do I add value someplace in society? Or should I be euthanized? Perhaps that is the more interesting question.
I'm not here on this Earth to be a slave to another.
I have no moral or ethical duty to "Society" (cough)(snicker).
You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it
.
You've never studied anthropology, have you. The study of human society tells a very different story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
Your first duty is to your children, followed by your spouse, then yourself, then your parents and siblings, your extended family, your communities, which includes your circles of friends, your colleagues and your neighborhood.
Why?
Because that is what provides you with a stable environment and support network to learn and grow and progress.
If "Society" (snicker) (cough) just happens to coincidentally benefit from the progression and growth of an individual, then that's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
If "Society" doesn't benefit? Well, then that's just a damn shame.
With that attitude, you wouldn't last month in any human society of the last many thousands of years. Why? Let's take a look.
Among the hunter gatherer societies the dynamic is quite simple. Today you kill a deer. So why should you share your take with those lazy good for nothing unskilled hunters? Perhaps because you know you are not always successful, so you share because tomorrow, when you fail, and your family is hungry, someone else has had success and shares with you. Your modern day survival of the fittest philosophy does not work.
I suggest that we as humans evolved with this communal instinct hard wired into our DNA.
Now let's take a look into the more evolved societies - the tribal and the hereditary chieftainships.
These cultures allowed that some individuals were better at acquiring assets (most likely food assets such as cattle or farmland) and had no problem with such acquisition. However, when times were tough, those successful individuals were expected to share the wealth with the rest of the society. If not? Want to guess? Does the term regime change mean anything to you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
And if Liberals would do that, then there's no possible way any Liberal would ever have the time to stick their nose in other people's business and start meddling and obsessing with how much this one has, and how much this one doesn't have and how much this one makes and how much this one doesn't make.
Face it: you're all possessed of Penis Envy and Breast-Butt Implant Envy and obsessed with the 3% of US businesses that are publicly traded corporations.
The Truth is clear: Conservatives are the only reason you're all lucky enough to have made this far.
Mircea
I've snipped a lot of your 20th-21st century nonsense, because it is clear to me that you have no understating whatsoever as to how humans and human society evolved. You liberal versus conservatism ideology has no relevance whatsoever as to how society works. The only reason your philosophies make any sense whatsoever is because of the last 100 years of such amazing surplus that you (and most people) do not have to struggle with day to day existence, the way most people in the world had to deal merely 300 years ago.
We humans evolved under particular circumstances. Your experience through modern society through the magnificent benefits that society has provided have left you ignorant of who we are and why we are here. In other words, it is not about you and your family. It is about all of us and all of our families.
PS dont respond by calling me a liberal. I am not. I am, however, studied in this topic. Which it appears to me that you are not.
We are living in a Malthusian nightmare; but there seems little that the world can (or will) do about it. Charles Darwin held out hope that man would evolve into a more perfect species, but feared that he was already doomed to self-destruction before getting there. Certainly, we are no better for following the commandment to "Be fruitful and multiply. . . ." Genesis 1:28 (KJV). Ours has not been a history of good husbandry. Man may be master on this planet; but we are rapidly laying waste to the land and the sea on which we depend for life's subsistence; for when this goes, then, surely as the earth turns, so shall we go also.
Controversial: Is there a surplus of people in modern society?
Yes. But you can't tell people how many children they can have, at least not in the states. Nothing much we can do about it.
Yes, we can. We can discourage breeding without means to support their kids by themselves by removing all the government handouts. The limit should be two kids in a family that can get some government subsidies and only under the strictest criteria. If by society, one means our own country we should also put a stop to illegal immigration.
The Laws of Economics have already answered that question.
You're supposed to be in your 5th Level Economy.
And you were supposed to start that in the mid-1990s.
The 5th Level Economy is simply this: Joe-Bob trades in his steel-toed boots for comfy shoes to work in a laboratory, research facility, testing facility or out in the field doing experimentation, research or testing.
Thanks to the destruction of your public education system, you don't have the Labor Capital to do that.
To fix the education system, effectively you need to go back to 1925 or 1930 with no Department of Education, no massive federal bureaucracy with thousands of useless regulations, no teacher's union, no 2:1 ratio of Administrators to Teachers, and no 14:1 ratio of Administrators to Students, and no huge mega-school districts.
20 years from the day you complete that task, you'll be graduating students who can enter university and be trained for the 5th Level Economy.
Of course, by that time, the Chinese, Indians and Eastern Europeans will be completely entrenched in the 5th Level Economy, and the US won't be able to compete.
Might as well head back to the farms....now....while you all still have a chance....
My solution is to become less dependent on centralized government, learn to care for ourselves, get off the grid. Self sufficiency is a good way to just disappear.
Self sufficiency: That must mean that you own your own business. Certainly you aren't getting a paycheck from someone else - who could fire you.
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