It's easy to if your country is a few small towns of people living over a hotbed of readymade natural resources.

Well that's the goal. But from where things are going, it seems unlikely. If anything, inequality and unfettered capitalism is only headed to be even more stronger and even more destructive.

Agreed.

"A question for which I do not have an answer: Is it possible for a few billion people to live well (per your aspirations) without a substantial number (a few billion, give or take) being forced to provide cheap goods and services? Like, I have numerous pieces of clothing, utensils, and so forth that are affordable because somebody else lives a meager existence."


I believe it is certainly possible. We have great machines now. But the reason this isn't already the case is, profits. Corporations care about nothing but profits. So if labour is cheap, they'll ditch the machine and use labor, its all the same for them. So instead of drastically increased income we should've seen as our technological progress suggests, we're observing increased work hours, stagnated income levels, and even lower quality goods and services. This is because that is the best way for corporations to maximize profits. The well-being of the workers and the utility of the products is redundant as long as it doesn't directly interfere with profitability. That is why mobile phone technology advanced in the manner it did, so it might seem that every component in your device is kept there because if might somehow help you, but in reality it's kept there because it sold more that way. It's a sort of economic evolution. Whatever sells, survives, regardless of it's importance or usefulness. And that is why clothes and housing are so expensive while huge corporations run the world by making fancy and intrusive gadgetry. If they cared about the people at all, everyone could live comfortably without many having to suffer for it. We are certainly technologically advanced enough for this. But like this it won't work, where managers and shareholders not only take away all the money but always demand for more, and use various dubious ways to quench their hunger. With the current technology, almost every nation in the world is capable of being self-sufficient. But you don't even have to do that. If trade and globalization was anything close to being fair, all countries could specialize and everyone would be better off. But inequality and unfettered capitalism has seized most of the world, and this only means that some people will always gluttonize on the expense of others.

Depends on what you mean "giving". Most of the wealth is not liquid. It would take many years (in the hypothetical situation that such redistribution is actually initiated). What that would do to growth is a matter of speculation, but growth isn't everything, it's quality over quantity. More people would live more comfortable lives. In the end that's all that really counts. The stock market can go hang!

Oh, the pitiable rich people! How hard it must be for them! And imagine if someone (needy) takes away some of their money! They wouldn't even need the gulags to be such miserable!

" It is the name we give to sensual and mental processes."
Not just that.

The problem aren't the millionaires perse, but the multimillionaires. I mean, it's hard not to be a millionaire household when your house alone costs three quarter of that, and with the inflation a million isn't as much money as it used to be. But there are just way too many multimillionaires and hundred millionaires and billionaires and multibillionaires. The top 0.1% have as much money as the majority of the population. This is a very sobering fact, and one that is definitely very very bad. Redistributing their wealth for a much more equal society is absolutely necessary, whether it be through reformed taxation or something else.

Stealing is a harsh term. More like taking what's really yours.

Yes, we'd all like that. But the current system seem to be failing miserably in this regard.

Also, "Worthwhile work with decent pay. Affordable, safe, clean housing. Affordable medical care. Affordable education. Protection from emergencies. A decent life in old age. " These are all subjective things. What do you mean safe and clean housing? How safe and how clean? Affordable education? How much is affordable education? Decent life in old age? What does that mean? And how much is it going to cost? If life were as simple as that, this world would've been a whole new ball game. But sadly, it isn't. You'll have to be a very rich to have anything close to what you aspire to here. Most people don't have one or more of those things, and that often is in direct co-relation with their income level.
So we'd all just LOVE to have the simple "Worthwhile work with decent pay. Affordable, safe, clean housing. Affordable medical care. Affordable education. Protection from emergencies. A decent life in old age. ", but our current system has assured that, as can be observed, almost nobody gets them. Not before you hit 60 anyway, mate. Not get your ass back to work! :rofl:

That is a very sobering thought, and what you recommended will probably never happen as well, not for a very long time at least. Or perhaps some unforeseen factor in the coming decades will change things, who knows.

Is there anything to read on this matter that you guys know of?

(especially on the question of whether nature uses binary)

"Can we use the concept 'information' to describe the behavior of non-living matter?"

The information that non-living matter have is hard to explain. For example, do you say a planet has information on how to orbit its star? Is the planet the possessor of that information? Which then uses that information to do the orbiting? So, a star knows how to form and how to die? Water knows how to stay liquid and at level? Nitrogen knows how to react with Hydrogen? This type of knowing seems to be much different than the much elaborate information in living things, like a seed knowing how to become a flower, or a cell with DNA knowing how to grow (what size, what cell organelles, how many mitochondria, and so forth). Then there's human information, like knowing where your keys are or the digits of your numberplate. Then the computer information, all the data and instructions and so on. All these information are different. It seems to me the information in/of/with non-living matter isn't the same as these others.

But isn't the only way for information to exist is in binary form? Or am I mistaken here? What number system does nature use? Does it even use numbers? Where is the information for the wall of a beehive to always have six sides or lilies to always have three petals? Is that in the DNA? What is the form of that information? Then again where is the information for the chemicals to have their characteristics? Are both of those really information? Are they both in binary form?

Not just the validity but the very meaning of your view seems dubious to me, regardless what you are or aren't smoking.

So the question is, is that involuntary part of your body "you"?
If no, then that begs the question are your vital organs you? You don't have direct control over them and they just do their complex set of tasks without you even knowing about it most of the time.
If yes, then are you a combination of your body, the part of your mind that you're unconscious about but has important jobs (like the part which instructs your heart to beat or liver to work), and the part of your mind that is conscious of the world through its senses and memory? What about your natural instincts and your habits? Are they you or not?
Or are they "part of you"?
Something being you and something being part of you are different things.
The cat tore the newspaper, not the paws of the cat tore the newspaper.
Ron knocked the door, not Ron's knuckles knocked the door.
But your heart started beating faster, not you started beating your heart faster.
Your hair grows fast, not you grow your hair fast.

I too doubt that the brain controls all the cells of the body. I think many cells must work independently and not everything is controlled by the central nervous system, no?. Perhaps many organs. But every individual cell? I'm guessing there are many cells (if not most?) that function through genetic information only and not rely on signals from the brain to do their job.

But that is true with all living beings and all of them have cells. Isn't there more than just that? (interesting as that physical dimension view is). Are you also not your conscious experience or your mind?

I suspect you are much more than that. (Or much little? :halo: )

I, a stranger and afraid. In a world I never made.

:sweat:

lol
are you stoned right now?

But if we're talking about just the United States, higher and fairer taxes seem to be the only immediate solution. The inequality there is unbelievable, probably the most compared to any other country, and the public sector is nowhere as good as many in Europe and even Asia. Even essential sectors like education and health are in a sorry state in many places, if we are to believe the newspapers. The low growth rates into the future also seems imminent, although unemployment does seem to be in a good state. But next time they will have to elect a Democrat if they're not going to face various serious problems, economic, environmental, social and geopolitical. Trump hasn't really delivered his promises by a long run, and his entire regime has been a sort of joke, propagated by the brash, angry, narrow-minded and careless media run by the rich corporations for profit. The state of the internet and the social media hasn't at all been much help in this regard, and the internet now is probably worse than it ever was. A more progressive candidate for the Democrat party seems imminent to me, but such a powerful force has not been noticed yet and the election is creeping ever so close. The richest need to be taxed away more and more in the coming years if there is to be much hope for the United States in the future.

Just taxation won't solve the problem. There are areas where revolutoinary reforms are required rather than just pumping money into the government bureaucracy, leaving things in such a sorry state as now.

It would certainly help

i suppose im going for quality over quantity

hey that'd be cool!

Don't drink too much.

its the organic universe that is even more whacky

Information doesn't exist in non-material things, you always need a memory of a dna or a tape or sth, and energy doesn't do anything by itself without some information for it to behave, for example information about it's intensity, frequency and the form is is in, i.e. matter. Of course we all believe the total energy has always been there since creation, and it really just gets transferred from one form to another, and also to and from matter.

But one needs the other to exist. !!

Obviously there are differences, but there is the analogy also and it's a nice one.

war is a great example

humanism is an optimistic theory

agree

read the whole comment

It varies in degree though. Human morals and magic are hardly the same thing.

What is determinism?

It's a bit of both really. Firstly language was used to describe the world, but then education, the printing press, television, phones and the internet made language so built into our daily lives that we started to percept the world according to the information we got from those sources.
Nobody knew mountains were beautiful before the painters, and nobody knew comtemplating was interesting before the philosophers. Now when we look at a mountain, we immediately look at it in terms of aesthetics, and when we think we claim that we're doing philosophy.

The hieroglyphs can only be interpreted and not pronounced, but thats alright because nobody uses it as common language now anyway. So they need to be translated by experts to have any use. Pronounciation is redundant.

Yes Please

Maybe because they're so small they need very little resources, and are built to be incredibly adaptive to many different environments (organic or otherwise). Just look at bacteria. Basically half your body is bacteria.