The supposed "easier problems" of social reform are in no small part due to the lack of room for population expansion. Population pressures have really only one direction to be released towards these days - up.
You seem to be suggesting the "easy" problem is reprogramming all of human behavior and culture.
It's actually easier to explore space than the ocean.... Pressure differential is less steep. We're being scared away from it in no small part because the rich are all squishy inside about the cost being something that will eat away at their ability to buy caviar and hire gardening help.
Seriously... a lack of vision for the future is a big part of why we cannot find unity. The same technologies that will allow us to live on this planet more efficiently will allow us to leave it. Stop using panic driven scare tactics to try to convince people they need to live in the stone age to save resources.
There is an entire universe out there full of resources, and we have done nothing BUT get closer and closer to being able to reach them over the years.
"Wright said. 'It is an absurd myth. We live on this planet. We can’t leave it and go somewhere else.'"
And this is just a bald faced lie. Barring the return of Jesus or some other equally magnificent supernatural event, the clear march of progress is towards people leaving this planet. I think folks need to get used to this idea and start working on it as part of the mainstream of economic endeavor rather than constantly talking about it as if it were some sort of waste of time and effort.
We may be looking at the same sets of things and complaining, but your presentation suggests you have an entirely different solution in mind.
I am about at my wits end in dealing with the anti European, anti White people spin doctoring of these issues. Firstly, places like China in particular are lagging, not because their indigenous population was less corrupt, but rather because it was more so, and still is. If the Chinese would stop fighting the west, and instead replace their leadership with people who would not sell them out to the west, they would be done already, and be set to more or less take over the cultural leadership of the planet due to nothing more fancy than the fact they make up a huge portion of the total human population.
All you have to do is watch how well Chinese people do when they leave China to see that the problem is not Europe, or America. The problem for Chinese people is China.
Europe, and to a lesser degree America, are the places where progressive thought and action find their most avid supporters. You demonize the very people who are going to have to lead the way. There are no huge moves towards civil rights coming from China's current government....
I personally could care less if global warning exists or not, or whether or not it is man made. The problem is obvious - too much waste of everything because too many resources are being poured into making a handful of people monstrously prosperous at other people's expense. Most people LIKE the wilderness, the lovely sorts of architecture being developed to be greener, the idea of living in ways that are still tied to the land while still allowing for progress and technology to continue helping us to solve ever more complex problems.
The issue is that the people at the apex of our current social constructs responsible for organizing projects and doling out the products produced by such projects are mismanaging them for their own, private benefit.
The supposedly "complex" modern issues can really be boiled down to ancient, well known and understood problems - greed, waste, fraud, apathy.
These things were not absent in America or Africa before the arrival of the horrible white Europeans.... The solutions are not to be found exclusively there, nor in primitivism.
If I'm misunderstanding the thrust of your argument, please set me straight, but your focus on resources at the expense of focusing on values and organization just seems to me to point people in a self defeating direction.
This is almost completely nonsense. Even basic health care is exceedingly expensive, and the expense is because health care services combine all the worst parts of our economic system into a perfect storm of negative consequences.
The central monetary system creates a limited amount of fiat money. This money has no intrinsic value. It finds its value in bringing things of lasting value into the hands of investors. Health care IP has a high intrinsic value because of IP abuse and the fact people will pay any amount of money to save themselves pain or risk death.
Finally, limited liability means that despite the high stakes of the health care game, the people BEHIND the corporations that provide health care never are at risk. The lawsuits pile up, but the people driving the poor decisions never pay, therefore despite the legal cost contribution to health care, nothing is ever achieved that changes the behavior of the providers because the people in control are not affected.
What is the health care crisis? It is centrally controlled money, IP laws, and limited liability all working together to destroy your life. =)
This is the direct result of having a legally mandated privately controlled money supply.
If we used commodities of various sorts as money, people could physically increase the amount of given commodities through work. If we had a publicly controlled fiat currency, a sufficiently transparent and democratic method for controlling how much new currency is created and how it is injected into the economy would mitigate this issue.
As it is, worldwide, a handful of very privileged people control the money supplies of various nations, and they don't tend to be very forward looking and community oriented in the way the use this power.
Plus, frankly, emotional states are not zero sum games. Everyone can all be happy all at the same time theoretically. There is no objective pile of happiness somewhere that you are robbing whenever you are happy that is depriving someone else of being happy.
The whole thing is nonsense, and part of the reason why I answered "no" to the question from the get go. Happiness is a political, not economic, indicator. It is tied to moral and ethical values in a way that cannot be objectively measured.
The purpose of advanced degrees is to limit, not multiply, the number of people "qualified" for certain jobs. This is another part of the problem of listening to the wealthy when they tell you what we all "need".
Again, if they really NEEDED advanced degree holders, they would pay for them. If education was too expensive, they would train in house.
What they NEED is cheap labor. There is nothing that can be done in this country that cannot be done cheaper in India or China. The reason is not because their people are willing to work harder for less money, although that is a true statement. They are. But the reason there are these labor hell holes is because of the exchange rates.
The only people they really need or want here are people to make their beds, wash their little toosheys, and install their media room electronics. Everything else can be done cheaper in terms of dollars elsewhere.
In reality, it costs as much or more in resources and man hours to do thins in China, and then you get to use a ton of fuel oil to get the stuff shipped here.
There's no such thing as "job creation". Think about what you're saying. The place where there's not enough work to do is called "paradise".
People with corporate interests have managed to use the government to put pretty much everything on the face of this earth under "ownership". IP being owned is more or less the main topic of this blog, but land is also increasingly once again under the ownership of a tiny minority of people, and specifically any and all land that is useful for industry.
This oligopoly on the means of production (not to sound too overtly communist, because I am not, but...) is then used to shut people out of the economy unless they work for those who own it all. Yes, I am aware it is not ALL owned. I am also aware of the strategic advantage a small minority have though having come to own much of the most important things.
These people do not create jobs. They limit access and then drive down wages by refusing to ALLOW people to work.
We've had unemployment now in excess of 8% for how many years?
I sure wish folks would open their eyes and get mad at the right people. A good solid kick in the tooshey and these folks would fire up the old economy in a heartbeat. I'm not even talking about the kind of sustained pressure it would take for real reform. I'm just talking about taking the piss from the idiots STILL whining that the rich people who killed the economy to begin with need tax relief, and here the corporations are sitting on record levels of liquid cash, and the Fed has pumped so many bonds into the system that banks could loan money to bums for collecting bottle caps and still have money left over to lend to legitimate businesses.
That last was a touch of hyperbole, but only a touch.
Maybe a bit of a stretch, but this all reminds me of the ongoing medicalization of behavior - kids at school all of a sudden are all "ADD". The problem is with the kids, not the fact that school is designed in inappropriate ways to deal with six year olds...
You can't "measure" subjective things. You can only measure objective outcomes and then poll people to see if they are happy with those objective outcomes, and perhaps also try to systematically determine why they are or are not.
Perhaps I am just objecting to the tagline name, but even then I think it is important to be meticulous about what call things where public policy is concerned.
I get so tired of the pretense that we are short on people who are smart enough to do anything. We do not need to be encouraging people to COME here, and we really don't NEED to do a lot of encouragement to keep people from leaving. What we NEED is for people to be allowed to learn to do things on the job. We need businesses that are not structured specifically to benefit only those at the top at the expense of all of the employees.
"We can't find anyone to do this job!"
Train someone. d'uh? They're not going to all up and leave the country. That's nonsense.
It tends to make me giggle when folks pretend that corporations have any interest at all in providing for customers. It has been the practice of corporations almost from their inception to work hand in glove with government, and the ultimate aim is to force people by law to use the services of large corporations. For this benefit, they are always more than willing to sacrifice the interests of their customers, since they are only pawns to begin with.
They are, without a doubt, taking the long term view. The problem is that far too few people realize that this game is fixed the way it is on purpose.
Corporate agents move to government, and government officials move to corporate positions. This is not a secret. Why do folks keep acting shocked that they work hand in glove together for the same purposes. Do you imagine it is a major bummer being wealthy beyond all reason?
Of course they agree to terms they themselves are in on creating.
One of the reasons I watch less and less tv and even have fallen away from football, basically my favorite sport, is the obvious role IP plays in the ridiculous salaries for sports stars and other glaring errors of judgement that arise in our society.
Not having to worry about being threatened by the NFL if I create a fansite is a nice fringe benefit of the failure of my give-a-damn about pop culture.
With the number of comments here being as high as it is, I have to imagine someone has brought this up already, but the revolving door between corporate interests of various types and government is pervasive in this country and most others.
Just one more sign of the loss of self sufficiency and self government brought on by massive corporate influence.
And yet how few suggest the obvious solution - reform or end limited liability.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
You seem to be suggesting the "easy" problem is reprogramming all of human behavior and culture.
It's actually easier to explore space than the ocean.... Pressure differential is less steep. We're being scared away from it in no small part because the rich are all squishy inside about the cost being something that will eat away at their ability to buy caviar and hire gardening help.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
Seriously... a lack of vision for the future is a big part of why we cannot find unity. The same technologies that will allow us to live on this planet more efficiently will allow us to leave it. Stop using panic driven scare tactics to try to convince people they need to live in the stone age to save resources.
There is an entire universe out there full of resources, and we have done nothing BUT get closer and closer to being able to reach them over the years.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
Even if it were true (and I don't think it is), it is beside the point if the goal is to change policy.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
And this is just a bald faced lie. Barring the return of Jesus or some other equally magnificent supernatural event, the clear march of progress is towards people leaving this planet. I think folks need to get used to this idea and start working on it as part of the mainstream of economic endeavor rather than constantly talking about it as if it were some sort of waste of time and effort.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
I am about at my wits end in dealing with the anti European, anti White people spin doctoring of these issues. Firstly, places like China in particular are lagging, not because their indigenous population was less corrupt, but rather because it was more so, and still is. If the Chinese would stop fighting the west, and instead replace their leadership with people who would not sell them out to the west, they would be done already, and be set to more or less take over the cultural leadership of the planet due to nothing more fancy than the fact they make up a huge portion of the total human population.
All you have to do is watch how well Chinese people do when they leave China to see that the problem is not Europe, or America. The problem for Chinese people is China.
Europe, and to a lesser degree America, are the places where progressive thought and action find their most avid supporters. You demonize the very people who are going to have to lead the way. There are no huge moves towards civil rights coming from China's current government....
I personally could care less if global warning exists or not, or whether or not it is man made. The problem is obvious - too much waste of everything because too many resources are being poured into making a handful of people monstrously prosperous at other people's expense. Most people LIKE the wilderness, the lovely sorts of architecture being developed to be greener, the idea of living in ways that are still tied to the land while still allowing for progress and technology to continue helping us to solve ever more complex problems.
The issue is that the people at the apex of our current social constructs responsible for organizing projects and doling out the products produced by such projects are mismanaging them for their own, private benefit.
The supposedly "complex" modern issues can really be boiled down to ancient, well known and understood problems - greed, waste, fraud, apathy.
These things were not absent in America or Africa before the arrival of the horrible white Europeans.... The solutions are not to be found exclusively there, nor in primitivism.
If I'm misunderstanding the thrust of your argument, please set me straight, but your focus on resources at the expense of focusing on values and organization just seems to me to point people in a self defeating direction.
On the post: Microsoft Makes Retail Versions Of Office Single Install
DIE Microsoft DIE!!!
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re:
The central monetary system creates a limited amount of fiat money. This money has no intrinsic value. It finds its value in bringing things of lasting value into the hands of investors. Health care IP has a high intrinsic value because of IP abuse and the fact people will pay any amount of money to save themselves pain or risk death.
Finally, limited liability means that despite the high stakes of the health care game, the people BEHIND the corporations that provide health care never are at risk. The lawsuits pile up, but the people driving the poor decisions never pay, therefore despite the legal cost contribution to health care, nothing is ever achieved that changes the behavior of the providers because the people in control are not affected.
What is the health care crisis? It is centrally controlled money, IP laws, and limited liability all working together to destroy your life. =)
Have a nice day.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re:
If we used commodities of various sorts as money, people could physically increase the amount of given commodities through work. If we had a publicly controlled fiat currency, a sufficiently transparent and democratic method for controlling how much new currency is created and how it is injected into the economy would mitigate this issue.
As it is, worldwide, a handful of very privileged people control the money supplies of various nations, and they don't tend to be very forward looking and community oriented in the way the use this power.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Plus, frankly, emotional states are not zero sum games. Everyone can all be happy all at the same time theoretically. There is no objective pile of happiness somewhere that you are robbing whenever you are happy that is depriving someone else of being happy.
The whole thing is nonsense, and part of the reason why I answered "no" to the question from the get go. Happiness is a political, not economic, indicator. It is tied to moral and ethical values in a way that cannot be objectively measured.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Quality of life
The issue is not our population. The issue is the wastefulness of the upper echelons of our population.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Re: Re:
On the post: Third Time's A Charm? Startup Act 3.0 Introduced... This Time With An Infographic
Re: Misleading info-graphic
Again, if they really NEEDED advanced degree holders, they would pay for them. If education was too expensive, they would train in house.
What they NEED is cheap labor. There is nothing that can be done in this country that cannot be done cheaper in India or China. The reason is not because their people are willing to work harder for less money, although that is a true statement. They are. But the reason there are these labor hell holes is because of the exchange rates.
The only people they really need or want here are people to make their beds, wash their little toosheys, and install their media room electronics. Everything else can be done cheaper in terms of dollars elsewhere.
In reality, it costs as much or more in resources and man hours to do thins in China, and then you get to use a ton of fuel oil to get the stuff shipped here.
Stupid.
On the post: Third Time's A Charm? Startup Act 3.0 Introduced... This Time With An Infographic
Re: Re: What About Promotion and Training?
People with corporate interests have managed to use the government to put pretty much everything on the face of this earth under "ownership". IP being owned is more or less the main topic of this blog, but land is also increasingly once again under the ownership of a tiny minority of people, and specifically any and all land that is useful for industry.
This oligopoly on the means of production (not to sound too overtly communist, because I am not, but...) is then used to shut people out of the economy unless they work for those who own it all. Yes, I am aware it is not ALL owned. I am also aware of the strategic advantage a small minority have though having come to own much of the most important things.
These people do not create jobs. They limit access and then drive down wages by refusing to ALLOW people to work.
We've had unemployment now in excess of 8% for how many years?
I sure wish folks would open their eyes and get mad at the right people. A good solid kick in the tooshey and these folks would fire up the old economy in a heartbeat. I'm not even talking about the kind of sustained pressure it would take for real reform. I'm just talking about taking the piss from the idiots STILL whining that the rich people who killed the economy to begin with need tax relief, and here the corporations are sitting on record levels of liquid cash, and the Fed has pumped so many bonds into the system that banks could loan money to bums for collecting bottle caps and still have money left over to lend to legitimate businesses.
That last was a touch of hyperbole, but only a touch.
On the post: Should We Be Measuring Happiness As An Economic Measure?
Medicalizing Behavior
You can't "measure" subjective things. You can only measure objective outcomes and then poll people to see if they are happy with those objective outcomes, and perhaps also try to systematically determine why they are or are not.
Perhaps I am just objecting to the tagline name, but even then I think it is important to be meticulous about what call things where public policy is concerned.
On the post: Third Time's A Charm? Startup Act 3.0 Introduced... This Time With An Infographic
What About Promotion and Training?
"We can't find anyone to do this job!"
Train someone. d'uh? They're not going to all up and leave the country. That's nonsense.
On the post: Despite Protests, Congress To Bring Back CISPA Exactly As It Was Last Year, While Obama Signs Exec Order
Hehe "Taking the short view, tragically"
They are, without a doubt, taking the long term view. The problem is that far too few people realize that this game is fixed the way it is on purpose.
Corporate agents move to government, and government officials move to corporate positions. This is not a secret. Why do folks keep acting shocked that they work hand in glove together for the same purposes. Do you imagine it is a major bummer being wealthy beyond all reason?
Of course they agree to terms they themselves are in on creating.
On the post: CEA Takes Away CNET's Role In Picking CES Best In Show; Awards Dish Hopper 'Best In Show'
Why All Our Junks Sucks
On the post: As Expected, ICE Seizes 313 Websites In Its Role As The NFL's Private Police Force
Pop Culture
Not having to worry about being threatened by the NFL if I create a fansite is a nice fringe benefit of the failure of my give-a-damn about pop culture.
On the post: Former RIAA VP Named 2nd In Command Of Copyright Office
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Former RIAA VP Named 2nd In Command Of Copyright Office
Revolving Door
Just one more sign of the loss of self sufficiency and self government brought on by massive corporate influence.
And yet how few suggest the obvious solution - reform or end limited liability.
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