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Old 12-24-2009, 06:09 PM
 
4,010 posts, read 10,212,299 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by avant-garde View Post
When you walk into a Wal Mart you see tons of food, clothes, and bunches of other accessories which are the pinnacle of how "easy" it is to produce goods in the modern era.

Can poverty become eradicated? Should poverty become eradicated?
You assume that because you see this in your local Wal Mart it is easy and inexpensive to produce the stuff found in there. This conclusion is incorrect. We are consuming the equivalent of 5-7 earth's worth of resources to produce this bounty of materialism and yet, only a small portion of the world's population can actually afford these items. The rest of the planet can't afford this stuff and/or are caught up working a slave wages in the actual production.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/6093/newcapitalistpyramidnt1.jpg (broken link)
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Old 12-24-2009, 06:56 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,397,025 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lumbollo View Post
. We are consuming the equivalent of 5-7 earth's worth of resources to produce this bounty of materialism
Huh????
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Old 12-24-2009, 07:43 PM
 
297 posts, read 899,357 times
Reputation: 166
Yeah, where'd you get the facts?
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Old 12-24-2009, 08:16 PM
 
Location: A Nation Possessed
25,725 posts, read 18,797,332 times
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Were did we find the other six earths to rape and plunder? I thought we only had one.

Since we haven't been able to find another planet in the universe like ours yet, I'm assuming you are referring to inter-dimensional travel? Has the government been sending troops to parallel worlds to sack them and bring the spoils back to us while we sit on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching the soaps?
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Old 12-24-2009, 08:39 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,397,025 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisC View Post
Were did we find the other six earths to rape and plunder? I thought we only had one.

Since we haven't been able to find another planet in the universe like ours yet, I'm assuming you are referring to inter-dimensional travel? Has the government been sending troops to parallel worlds to sack them and bring the spoils back to us while we sit on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching the soaps?
I don't watch soaps--I'm into really trashy TV and trashy food.

I've been watching re-runs of Judge Judy. And one of my favorite "foods" is deep fried popcorn shrimp smuther'd in velveta cheese and chased with really cheap champagne.
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Old 01-09-2010, 11:20 PM
 
311 posts, read 694,098 times
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I agree with you chris and jrt88.The whole point in progress and tech advancment is to make our lives more easier and comfortable so we can persue more fullfiling endevors.What good is all this tech when we still have to be a wage slave for 60+ hour a week.How many einsteins and motzarts have we lost in the world because they where toiling all day to make a living?One technolagy that could end all this toiling is the matter replicator.It would be game over for most of the corparations out there and for the monitary system for that matter.We already have its great grand child in 3d fabricators.Look up the Reprap or the makerbot.Both are under $750 and the reprap can replicate most of the parts to build it.Its the first step to personal matter replicators and represents a huge danger to manufaturers because everyone will be able to make there own goods, you just need the raw materials.It already makes all manner of plastic items and even circut boards.
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Old 01-12-2010, 01:02 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge.
3,196 posts, read 5,397,025 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tired-of-mn View Post
I agree with you chris and jrt88.The whole point in progress and tech advancment is to make our lives more easier and comfortable so we can persue more fullfiling endevors.What good is all this tech when we still have to be a wage slave for 60+ hour a week.How many einsteins and motzarts have we lost in the world because they where toiling all day to make a living?One technolagy that could end all this toiling is the matter replicator.It would be game over for most of the corparations out there and for the monitary system for that matter.We already have its great grand child in 3d fabricators.Look up the Reprap or the makerbot.Both are under $750 and the reprap can replicate most of the parts to build it.Its the first step to personal matter replicators and represents a huge danger to manufaturers because everyone will be able to make there own goods, you just need the raw materials.It already makes all manner of plastic items and even circut boards.
Web link?
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Old 01-14-2010, 07:00 AM
 
78,405 posts, read 60,579,949 times
Reputation: 49687
Quote:
Originally Posted by avant-garde View Post
When you walk into a Wal Mart you see tons of food, clothes, and bunches of other accessories which are the pinnacle of how "easy" it is to produce goods in the modern era.

Can poverty become eradicated? Should poverty become eradicated?
See, your first problem is that you don't define "poverty". Here in the US you can have a color TV, apartment, cell phone, be 100lbs overweight and have a functional old car and be considered poor.

Even the definition of poverty keeps changing.

You can make 20k a year around my area working basic Mc-jobs...which is enough to keep you in an apartment with a beater car and food etc. You have unlimited free movies etc. from the local library, thrift shops with cheap quality 2nd hand stuff etc. Compared to many in the world you live like a king. (This is how I grew up.)
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Old 01-14-2010, 07:33 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,479 posts, read 59,778,277 times
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Poverty and the fear of poverty are necessary to provide the sense of privileged for the folks that are not in poverty. We almost had a working wage middle class in the 50's & 60's and it frightened the privileged that these “people" were showing up in the privilege’s watering holes like ski slopes, parks and fancy restaurants. This wealth has been effectively eliminated since then and the privileged class is again safe from the mob. After all what good is wealth if it does not buy exclusivity.

Utopia for the few requires crap for the many. It always has, it always will.
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Old 01-14-2010, 07:56 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,554 posts, read 86,968,624 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Poverty and the fear of poverty are necessary to provide the sense of privileged for the folks that are not in poverty. We almost had a working wage middle class in the 50's & 60's and it frightened the privileged that these “people" were showing up in the privilege’s watering holes like ski slopes, parks and fancy restaurants. This wealth has been effectively eliminated since then and the privileged class is again safe from the mob. After all what good is wealth if it does not buy exclusivity.

Utopia for the few requires crap for the many. It always has, it always will.
Orwell said exactly that in "1984":

For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.


This was Emmanuel Goldstein's explanation of why 1984 featured constant and gratuitous war. To squander the wealth and productivity of the world, so the wealth could not be distributed for the well-being of the masses. Any of that starting to ring familiar, like a military-industrial complex?
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