the undervalued and unappreciated philosophers, critical thinkers and logic officers that study reason and logic but who do not have a place in society. — Myttenar

If philosophers, critical thinkers and "logic officers" are so smart, how come they haven't figured out how to become more influential in society?

Those who have the skills and mental training to solve complex problems are never even consulted in times of crisis. — Myttenar

So, here we are with North Korea having launched another ballistic missile, this one capable of reaching the central US, and maybe Washington, D. C. What's your advice?

In allowing this, as members of the society with intelligence quotients in the top percentiles of the population, we are allowing those without the critical thinking training, those with closed minds and prejudiced attitudes to make decisions that any society other than ours would designate to those of great knowledge. — Myttenar

If you want to be involved in making big decisions, you have to have knowledge in the relevant area. How's your knowledge about Public health? Strategic arms deployment? Supply chain management? Monetary policy? Molecular engineering? Marketing? Production Management?

I got the impression that Agustino lived in the US — andrewk

Ask Agustino, but I am also pretty sure he lives in Eastern Europe--whether an EU country, don't know. He really should live in the US, since so many of his values would stand him in good stead here.

The simple fact that you are tempted to use "white" as a racial category just undermine everything else. — Akanthinos

And why does it undermine everything else for you? What is your problem?

And what is the matter with using "white"? The last time I checked, "white" was a racial group, like American Indians. You didn't object to black, asian, or aboriginal. I think of myself as white. I grew up in a Minnesota county that is still 98% white--German, Scandinavian, a few Brits, and some Hmong,

Granted, race and culture don't always match. A volunteer in the local Finnish school is Somalian but grew up in Finland. She knows continental Finnish first hand in the way the blond Finns don't (for the most part).

At the not inconsiderable risk of being warned and being banned, I would like to say a word on behalf of "race".

"Race" is genetic. I do not "happen to be white"; I am white because both my parents, and most (at least) of their ancestors were white. Xi Jinping doesn't happen to be asian. He is asian because both of his parents were asian. Jesse Jackson or Oprah don't "happen to be black". I happen to live in Minnesota, however. That was a choice. Sort of, anyway.

Race is generally (not always) recognizable at a glance. Blacks, whites, Asians, and aboriginals tend to have certain common visual features: skin color; hair shape (flat, oval, or round hair); a higher, narrower, flatter, or broader nose structure; thinner or fuller lips, a slight difference in eye lid That said, there isn't any inherent advantage of one nose shape over another, though. Depending on where you live, there are advantages to differences in skin color. (Darker skin reduces the incidence of skin cancer for people who live nearer the equator. Light skin enables Scandinavians living closer to the arctic circle to make enough vitamin D.)

There appear to be some subtle biological differences. Blacks, asians, whites, and aboriginals sometimes have varying reactions to specific medications, which though not extreme, can have an effect on treatment outcomes.

Race (and ethnicity) has been sufficiently obvious to various people at various times that they could consistently either favor or disfavor specific groups of people belonging to racial or ethnic groups. Europeans were quite consistent in enslaving black people. They didn't mistake Norwegians for Nigerians.

The word "race" seems to be OK in discourses about racial prejudices, racial discrimination, racial conflict, race-baiting, and racism. Discourses about racial accomplishments, racial pride, racial characteristics (when and where co-incident with culture) ... probably verboten. White pride bad, black pride good. White lives matter bad, black lives matter good.

The appropriate attempt to eliminate "racism" by restricting and policing the use of the word "race" is mistaken, because the word "race" and the basic reality behind the existences of "races" isn't the cause of racism. "Racism" as the British and Americans practiced it, was first a cover for ruthless and total economic exploitation in the form of enslavement of Africans. Enslavement needed the cover of inferiority and otherness--both. Subhumans could be mistreated as readily as beasts. "Humans" deserved protections and rights.

The English treated their poor fellow Brits (exported as often as possible to the colonies as detailed in White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America‎ by Nancy Isenberg) pretty much like vermin. No surprise that the Lords of the Manor didn't have much regard for the humanity of slaves. At least some English Protestant religious traditions held Native Indians to be unsouled savages, along with Africans. The Catholic Portuguese, French, and Spanish practiced slavery too, with the difference that they at least usually thought their slaves were fully human (but were enslaved, none the less).

So, yes: I think we can talk about race and culture. Excluded racial groups, excluded ethnic groups--hell, excluded sexual deviants--are going to develop cultural features unique to their excluded racial/ethnic/sexual group. After all, INCLUDED racial groups, like White Anglo-Saxon Protestants developed unique cultural practices. The imprint of WASPish/up-market white culture is pretty deep. So are other people's up-market or down-market race/culture combos, like black culture for instance.

So, if I get banned... so long; it's been good to know you.

The dictionary from which Google defines words (it's not attested--but it appears to be the Oxford-UK version) says:

race - second noun meaning
noun
noun: race; plural noun: races
each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.
"people of all races, colors, and creeds"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color
"students of many different races"
a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group.
"we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color More
the fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
"people of mixed race"
synonyms: ethnic group, racial type, origin, ethnic origin, color
"students of many different races"
a group or set of people or things with a common feature or features.
"some male firefighters still regarded women as a race apart"
BIOLOGY
a population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies.
"people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct"
(in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures.
"a member of the human race"
literary
a group of people descended from a common ancestor.
"a prince of the race of Solomon"
archaic
ancestry.
"two coursers of ethereal race"
Origin

early 16th century (denoting a group with common features): via French from Italian razza, of unknown ultimate origin.

The Merriam Webster on-line version that I checked is close to the one you read:

: a breeding stock of animals
2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock
b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (such as a subspecies) representing such a group
b : breed
c : a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits
4 obsolete : inherited temperament or disposition
5 : distinctive flavor, taste, or strength

The Oxford US version has several inclusions:

race2
NOUN

1Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.

Although ideas of race are centuries old, it was not until the 19th century that attempts to systematize racial divisions were made. Ideas of supposed racial superiority and social Darwinism reached their culmination in Nazi ideology of the 1930s and gave pseudoscientific justification to policies and attitudes of discrimination, exploitation, slavery, and extermination. Theories of race asserting a link between racial type and intelligence are now discredited. Scientifically it is accepted as obvious that there are subdivisions of the human species, but it is also clear that genetic variation between individuals of the same race can be as great as that between members of different races
— Oxford Dictionary US

‘people of all races, colors, and creeds’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1 The fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
‘people of mixed race’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.2 A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group.
‘we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.3 A group or set of people or things with a common feature or features.
‘the upper classes thought of themselves as a race apart’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.4Biology A population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies.
‘people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct’
More example sentences
1.5 (in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures.
‘a member of the human race’
‘the race of birds’
More example sentences
1.6literary A group of people descended from a common ancestor.
‘a prince of the race of Solomon’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.7archaic Ancestry.
‘two coursers of ethereal race’

Usage
In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts (race relations, racial equality), it is now often replaced by other words that are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community

Origin
Early 16th century (denoting a group with common features): via French from Italian razza, of unknown ultimate origin.

Hard Talk — Sapientia

"Hard Talk" is one of my favorite BBC [radio] World Service features. It comes on about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. in the central time zone, but thanks to insomnia I am often enough awake for it. Yes, Agu should listen to or watch it.

So why should the government invest that money, instead of me the individual? :s Why can't the responsibility for the well-being of society rest on the individual, why must it rest on (often corrupt) government bureaucrats, who actually have very little idea of what is going on, economically, in society? — Agustino

There are several assumptions that can be challenged.

a. That individual's decisions will be honest, the government bureaucrat is often corrupt.

Individuals who have no connection to government are as likely to be dishonest and corrupt as the government official. They may even be more corrupt because, as individuals, they have more opportunity to shield their activities from the prying public eye than government officials do. (Except in countries where corruption is institutionalized in public and private, where the question becomes, "Is this corruption, or is it just the way business and government operate?").

b. Individuals are more likely than government bureaucrats to understand what society at large needs.

In even a moderately well run state, the government has a broader overview of society than the individual, and has the remit to serve common interests of the many, rather than the narrow interests of the individual. Individuals naturally tend to serve their own interests.

c. Government bureaucrats have very little knowledge about what is going on in society.

In even a moderately competent state, there are likely to be officials who not only have a good overview of the society, but also have a good overview of the nation's economy, and a good knowledge of who the major players in the private economy are. Granted, incompetent states will not have a good grasp of economic activity. But then, incompetent states generally don't do very much well.

Many countries have active philanthropic, non-profit, public service NGOs which privately meet many of society's needs. This is so even in countries that have very competent honest states. Government officials are generally directly involved in focussing the efforts of NGOs.

People will claim that individual identities are socially constructed, thus any point about the individual born at the behest of institutions (and therefore being used by them) is a moot point. The individual wouldn't exist without institutions, according to this reasoning, thus there is no dichotomy.

I think this is overlooking the fact that even if humans are socially constructed, they still act as if they are autonomous, and operate accordingly. — schopenhauer1

People will claim that individual identities are socially constructed, true enough, but their claim doesn't make it a fact. I think that in the long run (and in shorter time than that) genetic evidence will show that much of an individual's personality is pre-loaded before a child is born. That isn't to say our preference for Mozart over Bach is genetic, but that we like music, and our capacity to enjoy it (to understand it) probably is. Likewise, the capacity to produce music--Palestrina, Mozart, Django Reinhart, Duke Ellington, or the latest hip hopper--is likely inborn, genetic.

Humans are autonomous because they have evolved to be autonomous. Autonomy wasn't invented a couple of decades ago. Children need years of nurture, but nature has set the table. It is the nature of our species to employ culture to perpetuate ourselves. Language, story telling, writing, drama, music, fiction, factual material -- all sorts of narratives are composed to perpetuate ANY culture.

It is clear that by procreating, we are assenting to the perpetuation of economic and cultural institutions. — schopenhauer1

Procreation happens because nature is running that particular show. People do not breed to make political statements (well, almost never), but people do avoid breeding to make political statements. One has to go way out of one's way to avoid procreation; if one isn't paying attention, reproduction will happen. Nature makes sure it does.

And stupid me didn't notice that this thread was a month old. Just dove in, Didn't remember I had been here before, either.

I should probably go to bed.

I think the most I would ever seek to do is help create an online movement that encourages mass murder, and murder-suicide, and addresses its true effects on the rest of the population. — XanderTheGrey

I gather you have some mental health problems. You also have some moral problems. Encouraging mass murder and/or mass murder-suicide, is likely to lead to your receiving mental health services either behind bars (in prison) or in a high security mental hospital.

It is one thing to fantasize about people dropping dead--along the lines of "I've never killed anybody but I have very much enjoyed reading certain obituaries." Lots of people read apocalyptic fiction about plagues wiping out most of humanity. The thing about these stories, though, is that there is usually no actor in charge, no mad scientists scheme. The mass die-off is a plot device to get to the point where a few people can start over.

If I were you, I would pay close attention to the kinds of ideas that flit through your mind, and try very hard to not entertain the ones about mass murder. Think about something else. If they seem to be taking up more space in your head, you should give your psychiatrist a call and let him know what is happening.

Those of us in the 1st world suffer from a terrible delusion that our everyday lifestyle choices are not responsible for the vast amount of suffering on the otherside of the globe; that its "someone else's fualt" that there are "bad guys" to blame. — XanderTheGrey

Yes, and... why, Mr. Amoral, do you care?

Should we really place any moral value on individual human life? — XanderTheGrey

Yes, we should. We should because individual human beings are the only creatures that have sufficient moral reasoning capacity to do good, and not coincidentally, to do evil.

Personally I can see no value. — XanderTheGrey

That is literally your problem. I don't take you altogether seriously, however, but some of your posts are skirting the reportable.

... mass murder/suicide... screams the truth, that our lives mean nothing to the universe — XanderTheGrey

Of course our lives mean nothing to the universe. The universe is not a meaning granting institution. You are, I am, everyone here is, that's what humans do. They give meaning.

... and that their is no innocence, just as their is no guilt. There is no right or wrong, there is only whats desired, and whats not desired. — XanderTheGrey

Bullshit.

Some people are guilty, everyone is responsible. Yes, there is right or wrong -- because we meaning-granting humans have defined some things as as right (like being kind to people), and some things as wrong -- like mass murder, for example.

With 372,000 births each day, I find vasectomies are the best method of birth and population control. I want to make that clear now. — XanderTheGrey

Vasectomies, IUDs, long term birth control implants, diaphragms, abortion, and ordinary pills and condoms all help reduce the population growth rate. It's still growing, but not as fast.

Reducing the world's population is probably a good idea in the abstract. In concrete terms, not so much. Besides, the world's human population will be reduced in the fullness of time (which means on nature's schedule, not yours). When there are too many humans, not enough food to go around, given disease and environmental stresses (global warming) the human population will crash. If you are wise, you will hope not to be around when it happens. It won't be pleasant.

Relax. Xander doesn't have the means. The several nuclear powers, however, do have the means and periodically threaten to use those means, which would accomplish Xander's goals at least handily. More likely, abundantly.

American Banks (at least the ones around here) all seem to have introduced a new policy of "light conversation" during any banking transaction. Not just "How are you today" but "Do you have any big plans for the weekend?" -- this while maintaining face to face contact, seeming to expect a verbal description of one's plans. Well, sure, big party, wild sex, but they don't happen to involve you, so why do you want to know?

Salesmanship I get. At this same bank I wanted to open an extra savings account. No big deal. The next step should have been to open the account. Instead, I was diverted to a "personal banker" who wanted to go into the saving account in excruciating detail. "We have several different kinds of saving accounts, blah blah blah." I said that opening a second account should be something that could happen at the teller counter "We want to make sure you get the best product... blah blah blah." Finally I said this was taking too long and left.

I want my barber to chat with me. Barbers can cut hair and talk at the same time. I don't want to chat with a bank teller who stops the transaction to chat. Why are they doing this? To give the overhead cameras more time to zero in on the suspects?

I associate these bullshit conversations with American salesmanship. Shallow lubricant. — Banno

Odd. I associate these bullshit conversations with Australian salesmanship, such as it is. Shallow lubrication seems to be sufficient for Australians.

Welcome to Philosophy Forum. "Bullshit" and "Asshole" are gradually entering formal English, so feel free.

Well... the question is, can people be "authentic" (whatever that actually means) in a setting they select themselves which is supposed to be "pleasant" and conducive to openness. Some people seem to have great difficulty dropping the socially expected stage role for the role they want to perform.

One expects this at work; many workplaces strongly discourage "authentic" behavior. They'd much prefer people stick to plastic masks and fake acts.

There are some people, very tightly wrapped types, who don't seem to be able to relax their defenses, take off their masks, and just be themselves. I think it must be a really very unhappy condition to live with.

There is also the fact that for some people "authentic" isn't also "nice". The "real person" can be unpleasant.

Many hospitals in the US have walk-in urgent care clinics. "Urgent care" is a couple of steps below emergency room care; however, since it is in the hospital a patient can be diverted from urgent to ER care easily. Urgent care can diagnose and treat infections, x-ray and cast simple fractures, stitch up moderate cuts, that sort of thing. Some drug stores also have sort of urgent care, which is good for finding out if one has strep throat or merely a sore throat -- a chest cold or possibly pneumonia, and that sort of thing. Nurse practitioners are on duty. Pharmacists can now administer vaccinations. All that helps avoid the higher charge and maybe longer wait to see a doctor in clinic. But the U of Minnesota medical service offers same day clinic appointments with a doctor -- probably not the doctor you want to see, but... can't have everything.

ER rooms are prepared to do everything from cancer diagnosis to bone surgery, but their real function is handling emergencies like auto accident, gun shot wounds (big in the inner city), and heart attacks -- assuming the patient isn't DOA. The public interprets "emergency" to mean everything from accidental amputation of right hand to a bad cold or itchy scalp. (One of Adam Kay's ER stories was "patient presented with lumps on her tongue. Diagnosis: taste buds." Some patients are diverted to specialist wards like mental health and obstetric gynecology clinics.

Why is most human behavior/interaction choreographed ? — Aurora

Because we are creatures of culture, and culture provides the steps of the social minuet. There are many settings where candid confessions of current circumstances are just not welcome--you provide one, the check out line. Convention provides standardized trivial conversation because neither the customer nor the clerk is really free to engage in a heartfelt conversation. For one thing, the people waiting in line behind the first customer might decide to riot if the line doesn't move forward quickly.

On the other hand, if strangers on a long bus ride decide to open up about their lives, and both are willing to engage, fine.

Why have we relinquished our authenticity and our sincerity ? And, by doing so, is what we have achieved worth it ? — Aurora

Again, we are creatures of culture as well as authentic individuals, and performing culturally devised roles is not inherently inauthentic. It CAN be inauthentic when someone can't get beyond those roles when interpersonal conversation calls for openness.

Speaking of inauthentic, "F&$king" and "a$$ho!e" strike me as inauthentic spellings for fucking and asshole. All of us are adults and our virgin ears have been pierced, so spell it out.

Your lesbian whose girlfriend cheated on her and whose female boss is an asshole will find other, better, opportunities to ventilate. When she arrives at the dyke bar that afternoon, she will find numerous women who will happily hear her complaints, buy her gin and tonics to help elicit lengthier confessions, and then gossip them about--which is also a cultural convention.

I don't expect that my design for a utopian economy in a utopian society will ever exist, not even remotely, because the conditions required to establish a de novo utopian economy will never exist.

I don't like regimentation either, whether it is within a large corporation or small group. Utopian systems have hidden regimentation built in -- everyone would have to conform, whatever the shape of the utopia. Universal peace and contentment has the same problem: the only way to keep it going is for everyone to be in a strait-jacket of peace and contentment regimentation.

So why bother talking about utopian schemes in the first place? It's a way of highlighting the dystopian features of reality.

I'm not very familiar with distributism; I don't know whether Tolkien was familiar with Chesterton and Belloc -- two of the English Catholic promoters of distributivism. I suppose you could call the Shire economy distributist. Oddly, it's about the only place in the Middle Earth where any economic activity exists. Like, from whom did the Dwarves in Moria import food -- they are in the middle of a mountain range. We know Dwarves eat, because their first appearance finds them emptying Bilbo's larder.

I doubt that you are ruthless. If you were, you wouldn't take time off from your cottage computer consulting firm to discuss philosophy and theology. Plus, you are a young man and young people tend to be militant-whatever-they-are.

There is a lot about advanced capitalism to dislike though, especially as it has been manifested in its post World War II form--huge, regimented, military-industrial multinational complexity, and managed by a plutocracy. Its form in the gilded age -- post-Civil War until the Progressive Era when its wings were clipped was quite similar. The robber barons of the Gilded Age, the saints of present day capitalists, like Frick, Mellon, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, et al were about as ruthless as the current crop. What they lacked was the modern Public Relations industry to perfume their deeds.

I have been reading a biography of Lenin: The Man, The Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen, and at least under the Tzars, Siberian exile wasn't always that bad. Lenin lived modestly with his wife in a small but adequate cabin, was free to go hiking and hunting (he never succeeding in bagging any game), could correspond -- as long as what he had to say got past the Okhrana censors, and so on. Lenin happened to land in one of the pleasant circles of hell. Jews, for instance, were sent to places far to the north, near the Arctic Circle, where exile tended to start at wretched and go downhill to fatal.

You lived in England... don't know whether you ever availed yourself of the National Health Service... I just read This Is Going To Hurt, an account of young doctor Kay's experience there. He praises the quality of care delivered, but working in the service was something of a nightmare. He's very sarcastic about the stupidity of both patients and institution, so it's quite enjoyable.

They are sick?

I say why make people go through the economic "realities" in the first place? — schopenhauer1

Relax. It's merely an exercise to annoy Agustino who still believes in natalism.

A worker-run socialist economy would not be a "command" economy like the USSR, or a "demand" economy like the typical capitalist economy. It would be a "coordinate" economy. Decisions about production and consumption would be coordinated by elected bodies. Workers on the need side, and workers on the production side, would--through councils or congresses, decide how much was needed, and by whom (more wool fabric for people living in cold climates, more linen fabric for people living in hot climates).

This really isn't a very radical idea. Information technology allows much better coordination between supply and need. Regular polling, data on\, agricultural production, mining output, production capacity, consumption, unsold goods, shortages, etc. can put together a fairly good idea of needs and production capacity.

Those worker councils dealing with transportation would decide what the need for automobiles was, who (not individuals so much as groups, places) needed them, and where they were needed. Production councils would determine how to get them made. Raw material supply, transportation, production, distribution, etc. would be again coordinated.

Advertising is a feature of for-profit demand economies, which depend on at least high overall demand and preferably growing demand. Advertising is the primary tool by which demand is whipped up.

... then those people who don't produce just for need will outgrow everyone else...

No, they won't grow at all because outside of Council Coordination, you will find no supplies, space, energy, markets, or anything else. Those who persist in trying to subvert council coordination will not be looked upon kindly.

Well right, no - of course not, because, to begin with, not every worker adds as much value as the next. — Agustino

Workers on an assembly line generally get paid without respect to the value of the part they are adding. They are all doing essentially the same task.

What about costs with marketing and advertising, probably the single most important aspect of business? — Agustino

I left out the post-production expenses to keep it simple. In a socialist economy, marketing and advertising are less important. but certainly, there are costs -- no matter what -- between the car leaving the factory and the car being driven away by a new owner. If nothing else, transportation and warehousing, and finally, displaying.

Where production for need, rather than production for profit prevails, whipping up enthusiasm for new cars, new can openers, new whatever, would not be practiced. Advertising is critical to consumer capitalism, because it takes effort to keep people on the consumption treadmill.

So the cars sell by themselves right? :s — Agustino

Products for which there is a clear need do not require a lot of sales efforts. Medicine doesn't need advertising. Information about efficacy and deficiencies are the main thing. Similarly, where cars are manufactured for need, (limited because was transit should replace individual autos in dense population areas) sales don't need to be whipped up.

How much should this person get paid?

I would imagine distribution would be handled by a work group much like the one that made the cars in the first place. Distribution and sale completion are important, but in a socialist economy, maximizing sales isn't the point, so the rewards for this work group would be determined by the work group themselves.

There would not be people much more highly paid than anyone else.

All of the research that I read about says that that consumption doesn't make us happier. It does make our lives extremely stressful, I think it is safe to say. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I totally agree that consumption, per se, does not -- can not -- make us happier, or make life more meaningful. Adding stuff to one's collection of stuff doesn't pack that big a punch. Consumption certainly doesn't compensate for the wretchedness of the workplace.

Altogether, capitalism does not -- can not -- enrich people's lives. Stuff doesn't make people happy. What makes people happy is having good relationships with other people--neighbors, friends, children, co workers, all that. And -- despite capitalism -- many people have obtained those good relationships.

Having a rich intellectual and spiritual life is gravy. 2/3 of the American population hasn't been to college, didn't develop a strong and wide reading habit in high school and are not going to be deeply involved in intellectual pursuits. For a lot of people, intellectual pursuits just aren't that interesting.

It feels like the only thing they know how to do is be consumers, to be honest. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It could very well be that their role in life, per the needs of capitalists, is to be a low paid worker and be a consumer. To what extent any of us escape that role is in doubt. A lot of us smart educated culturally sophisticated people work in the "back offices" of capitalism, helping to maintain the system in various and sundry ways, like by doing education or social maintenance jobs.

"It's not the consumer's job to know what they want". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You probably should not take that literally. It's advertising talk; "WE advertisers know people better than they know themselves."

Advertisers are in the business of creating wants. They know, for sure, what they wish people would want, and they do their damnedest to get people to want what they are selling.

Is the person so wanting to get a big flat screen TV really unaware of what they want? I don't think so. People have been wanting TVs as sort of pleasure boxes and status symbols for a long time--like, back when color TV was a new thing, then better color TVs, and bigger ones.

My guess is that watching TV on a really nice big screen is a pleasure. If they can buy that pleasure on sale on Black Friday, well... that doesn't mean they are consumer zombies.

Sure, a big TV is a luxury item, and it can not give deep and abiding happiness. Does anybody expect that? No, I think they just like watching bigger screens. Do $50,000 or $70,000 cars give a nicer, more pleasant ride than the cheapest car you can get? Yes, they do. If first class nicer than economy class? Yes, it is. Is fine cotton cloth better than burlap for a shirt? Yes, it is.

Most people (living lives of quiet desperation as we do) don't have a whole lot of choices in our lives. Getting the big TV or not might be one of the few choices we get to make. Most of our choices are already made. Will I get up to go to work? If I want an income, I will get up. I don't like my job but I will put up with it because we need the money. I'd like a really nice car and a nice home but I don't have enough money for those things. And so on and on.

Yah, but you keep talking as if you were in the stone ages of business when you put the whip on workers and forced them to work while starving in your factory... T — Agustino

You have apparently not heard of the working poor in the United States. A "living wage" is reckoned to be... around $16 per hour. $16 was cited 17 years ago, it would certainly need to be higher now. Many workers earn less than the "living wage" (from which one can support children adequately, supply food, clothing, housing, and perhaps medical care). It probably isn't quite enough to support a spouse too, so $20 would be closer to the living wage for a married family of 4 people. 16 an hour about $33,600 a year. The average income is $48,000. The MEDIAN income about $44,000. So, a lot of people--50%--are below the median wage. Quite a few are below the "living wage" (which is somewhat higher than the poverty level).

16 per hour is less than it seems, because it doesn't include the cost of dentistry, transportation for two adults, various school costs (above and beyond free tuition for K-12), or any kind of disaster recovery costs (like when the furnace breaks down) and various other costs. Obviously both parents will have to work. If they both work, their very young children will need day care and pre-school, which for 2 children in a good program (not elite, just solid) can cost nearly as much as one parent makes.

American workers are either poor, or they are working hard for wages too low to support a family reasonably well.

So, FYI, the stone ages aren't over.

How much would workers get if they owned the factory and profit wasn't an issue. It might work out something like this:

A factory employing 500 workers turns out 100 cars a day. The cars market value is $8,000 each, or $800,000. How much should each factory worker be paid, per day? $1,600? No.

Costs must be deducted from the expected income from the 100 cars.

- the cost of obtaining the daily supply of raw materials and parts (steel, aluminum, rubber, plastic, copper, upholstery, engines, glass, motors, fans, pumps, fasteners, etc. or 20% of retail) approximately $160,000

- the cost of daily operating the factory (electricity, water, gas, etc.) approximately $5,000 (a guess)

- preparing for the cost of replacing worn out tools and plant (approximately 1%) $8,000

- contributions to the cost of operating society (roads, railroads, schools, hospitals, services, etc. 20% of expected income) $160,000

- cash reserve to pay for supplies, unexpected or unbudgeted costs (accidents, supply price spikes, income shortfalls, cash purchases; 5%) $40,000

Without having to earn a profit for stockholders or highly paid executives, workers in this factory would earn $106.76 per hour. $427,000 after expenses / (500 workers x 8 hours) = $106.75 per hour. This is substantially less than many lawyers, consultants, and certainly highly paid executives get now, but it is also substantially more than many workers now get paid. Further, 20% of the factory income goes to what would normally be covered by taxes.

Over the course of 250 days, the workers would have produced $200,000,000 worth of goods (at retail) and contributed about $40,000,000 to social needs. Two million would have been set aside at the end of the year for repair and maintenance of plant and equipment. $10,000,000 would have been set aside for unexpected expenses (like storm damage, increase in raw materials, decrease in income, etc.

These figures can be adjusted, of course. The factory can make more cars, raise the price, cut their own wages, or find and use cheaper materials. The point is, without profit and the overhead of parasite classes, the workers would be taking home over 1/2 of the income the plant produced, and there would be no parasites getting money for nothing.

The workers deserve this because they are bearing the risk of failure. Maybe too few of their cars are sold, or aluminum and rubber become much more expensive.

Of course, in a rational, ecologically sensitive economy, personal autos would be obsolete--replaced by other kinds of transportation. But some kind of transportation would still be needed (unless we had to walk everywhere, then shoes would be the thing).

Thank you.

Many times it is the worst personalities that get these managerial positions. Why do you think that is? — schopenhauer1

Because aggressive narcissism is one of the things that makes people both unpleasant and successful in hierarchies. The A-type personality. Excessive self-esteem. All that.

the suggestion that jokes are harmless; they are not. — unenlightened

Can a good joke not be at least somewhat harmful to someone?

The majority of jokes have a little kernel of honest cruelty in them. Jokes about the English, for instance, are generally a mite insulting. The English butt of the joke is depicted as critically inadequate in some way -- culinarily, sexually, linguistically, politically... something.

A joke has to hit home in some small way to be funny. A joke about how gays are style blind (meaning that they couldn't tell a polka dot from a plaid if their lives depended on it) isn't funny, because it doesn't resonate. A joke about gays and promiscuous oral sex has a better chance of success--it has a bit of cruel truthfulness to it. (Can a gay man safely laugh at a joke about gays and oral sex? Probably not.)

Maybe we should not even be telling jokes.

What sort of jokes do you tell, or laugh at? Silly limericks? Safe puns? Cockney rhymes?

What seems to make a utopia is convergence by everyone on what is good for people.

Take Star Trek for example. Particularly in The Second Generation, the world seems pretty utopian. Never mind what Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew are doing, buzzing around the galaxy solving interstellar problems left and right. It's in the occasional glimpses of life back on earth that seem pretty much perfected. No poverty, no war, lots of contentment, blah, blah, blah.

I liked Ursula Le Guin's utopian society in The Dispossessed. There it was a radically anarchist society where (as described separately in a short story) even possessive pronouns had been eliminated. It wasn't a huge society, it's economic circumstances were straitened, but people all worked together fairly happily.

Then the anarchist society's prize physicist came up with a radical theory which won fame in the nearby world which wasn't anarchist, and this upset the anarchists, and there was some unraveling among the utopians.

I like the Shakers' utopian communities. Unfortunately for the shakers, or maybe not -- hard to tell - they believed in celibacy, so... they aren't around anymore. Monastic orders are sort of utopian, if they can make it work. The Benedictines, for instance, have been reasonably successful at that -- 1500 years worth of experience. (Of course, those who can't hack monastic life leave, so... it doesn't work for many.)

A real utopia, one that had a chance of actually existing, would probably be a rather messy, contradictory affair -- sort of like life itself.

I figured someone would start a thanks giving thread today.

The number one way that we show thankfulness though is through giving back to the ones who have given. We need to remember those whom we are indebted to. — MountainDwarf

Yes, that's the heart of it.

As for the organizations that look after the poor in the world... They try. That's something. NGOs do good work in many cases, but they are grossly insufficient. Their efforts are garden hoses where an Amazon River is needed. Even governments like the US, Europe, or China can't solve the problems of the world's poor, because there are, for one thing, too many people and there isn't enough to go around. There is less to go around because North America, Europe, and China/Japan (the industrialized G20 countries) get most of what there is, and we aren't going to give it up. I don't want to give up my share, you probably don't either, so there we are.

But still, gratitude is a good thing and a lot of us have a great deal to be grateful, thankful, for.

Pretty much agree.

One "alternative" to violent revolution is devolution and/or collapse. I don't have any idea about what the timeline might be for either one. Of the two, collapse is the more likely and the least pleasant of the two. Devolution might not be a picnic for us commoners either.

Either way, the present situation can not go on forever. So much of the world's economy is predicated on inexpensive hydrocarbons. We have probably passed "peak oil"--the point after which easily, abundantly, petroleum is available. Fracking is evidence of this. At the end of this petroleum era there will still be oil in the ground, but it will take more energy to extract it than the oil itself contains. That's what will bring oil to an end.

It isn't just oil for fuel. It's oil for petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, heating, lubrication, paint, etc.

The other thing, aside from peak oil, is global warming. I am fairly confident that we are not going to succeed in avoiding catastrophe. We didn't, and maybe we can't, act quickly enough, resolutely enough, and thorough-going enough to avoid it.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that the world's plutocracy will suffer very much. I wish suffering on them, but I don't think it will happen. It's the rest of us that will do the suffering (us and succeeding generations). But one way or another, the present world economy is going to be busted up. It's in that event that there might be significant hope for devolution/revolution to occur which might put us on a more humane path. Unfortunately it won't happen, probably, until the catastrophe has played itself out.

And, of course, we boundlessly stupid homo sapiens may miss the opportunity altogether.

Alright, I basically just threw this one together because I thought I had thought it through. I didn't write it at all to be political or to try and force it upon anyone, I just wrote it cause I thought it would be a nice place to live.

I'm sorry if I have crossed the line in any way, I kind of thought that was what Philosophy was about.
2 hours ago ReplyShare — MountainDwarf

No, you didn't cross the line in any way. As you said, this was kind of thrown together. The thing is, designing Utopia is tricky business. For instance, one might say "Everyone will be content and there will be no conflict." Well, that sounds OK at first, until one realizes what it means: the world would have to be static, people could not change, and nothing new could come alone which might upset the apple cart of conflict-free contentment.

Life as it is can be very unsatisfactory, so sure, we would like a better world. Better worlds are hard to come by.

the damage we have caused our planet over the 5000 years since civilization. — David Solman

It is myopic to view the planet's last 5k years as a disaster. Over the last 4 billion years, the planet has been made, and destructively made over several times--not just geologically, but biologically as well. The fact of our mammalian existence owes quite a bit to the meteorite hitting the Yucatan peninsula, churning up and igniting the shallow petrochemical layer, adding a smoke component to the dust of the impact, all thrown up high into the atmosphere. Had that not happened, dinosaurs might have remained dominant for a lot longer, and we might not have had the opportunity to evolve.

Remember, there were what, 5? near total extinction events before the present one.

Imagine for a moment an extremely intelligent alien species that has been alive for much longer than humans, a species that is able to interstellar travel, harness a stars energy completely and has colonized many worlds. — David Solman

Your scenario produces vastly superior science fiction. Were all the intelligent alien species to be wise, peaceful vegetables that didn't move around much, fiction would be the poorer.

On the other hand, our model -- ourselves -- haven't got very far towards fulfilling the dream of interstellar space travel. Given the facts you have mentioned about a population/food crunch, less accessible natural resources remaining... did you mention global warming?... and so forth, there is a very good chance that our space faring days may be very short lived -- a couple trips to a moon, maybe a trip or two to the next planet over, and that might very well be the end of it.

Some have speculated that maybe highly intelligent civilizations are self-limiting. Maybe they tend to follow our model. Maybe they run out of resources before they can get too far away from the home planet. Escaping earth, and escaping the solar system, is probably not in the cards for us (unless a superior species comes along and gives us a boost.

let's look at the idea that the whole universe is littered with intelligent life forms much like our own and the possible impact that could have on the surrounding universe — David Solman

You are quite correct that we are wrecking things: screwing up the atmosphere, spoiling a lot of beautiful places, using up mineral resources, overpopulating the planet, polluting, killing off the megafauna (and plants, and insects...) and so on. It's quite possible that every other smart alien in the universe is doing the same thing.

But... bear in mind, we evolved to become what we are, and we weren't in charge of our own evolution. Humans do what we do, just like barnacles, termites, scorpions, snakes, and lions do what they do. We are what we are.

Sure, we are an appalling species in many ways. I suspect we began being appalling a long time ago, more than 5, 10, or 20 thousand years ago.

We can hope that we might turn things around. Personally, I don't think we will. I think we've kind of fucked ourselves. Maybe intelligence just isn't that great a thing (but... I like it, none the less).

To pay dividends to investors, pay debts to creditors, etc. there has to be more economic growth. For there to be more economic growth more things have to be commodified. For more things to be commodified, the supply of resources for production has to increase. To increase the supply of resources for production, people have to be dispossessed, ecosystems have to be destroyed, etc.

We are not living within our ecological means. A supply of money in excess of the total value of existing goods has a lot to do with that. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

With this I agree whole heartedly.

I don't know how we can step off this merry-go-round of extraction, production, consumption, waste, and more extraction. It isn't that I can't imagine a rational, ecologically compatible way of life, I just don't know how we can make the transition from where we are now to a more sensible way of life.

We may not have much time left to carry out a transition before nature forces it with calamitous consequences (for us, at least; it's already calamitous for other species and people who are not riding the merry-go-round).

It is true that my reaction may be extreme and that companies are helping us develop a better world. — Madman

I lean pretty far left (as a socialist). I don't expect capitalists to play a leading role in developing a better world. What you have described is a utopian communism -- enough for everyone, no buying and selling, from each according to his abilities, to each according to their needs

You might like The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. In the book there is an anarchist utopian society. Goods are not abundant, and people need to contribute to the common good for there to be enough. But it is free of money, hierarchies, factories, and so on.

Le Guin is a science fiction writer. The story begins on the moon where the anarchists have accepted exile, and the main character is a physicist. It's a very good story. Came out quite a few years back -- some time in the 70s? Anyway, she describes a utopian society without money, without hierarchy, without rich or poor people, and so on.

These companies are doing everything they can to delay the implementation of solar panels since it would put them out of business. — Madman

I don't think that is actually the case--at least much less so than in the past. The major oil companies understand that there is an end to oil that can be pumped out of the ground with less energy than it contains. (At the end of the age of oil, there will still be oil in the ground, but it will cost more in energy to get it out than the oil itself contains.) The "dead" line isn't that far off, so the oil companies are getting involved in alternate energy. It's a tricky business, because they (of course) don't want to shoot themselves in the foot.

Whatever they say in public, the oil companies understand global warming. They know they are part of the problem (not that means they are going to do anything about it -- ditto for coal companies).

Wind, in particular, is moving forward in this part of the country. Granted, not every area of North America is ideally suited for wind. But then, solar is available too.