Zeitgeist

[Tsuyu]

Re: Zeitgeist

What the hell? You call this an internet debate? For the love of god, someone throw a chair or something!

This is probably the cleanest "argument" in the history of projectego!

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

I don't think I've ever been able to sustain a good argument for this long. It's amazing.

 

[Tsuyu]

Re: Zeitgeist

His face looks like an WHAT? Now you're outta line, John! I'ma gonna have to give you a two week ban!

*I'm just sitting at work, watching the 1.5 hours I have left tick by dreadfully slowly. I'm sorry for this derailment of the thread.*

 

[Firis]

Re: Zeitgeist

Hey John I resent that you don't know what I would do if I ran a country, even though it is unlikely they would vote in someone like me.

 

[Firis]

Re: Zeitgeist

I know none of the others did, I didn't read the rest of the post I just saw that and jumped to the punchline so too speak, and I wouldn't use a dirty bomb if I could make one, but I sure would have one in the garage for emergencies.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

Oh, so people clean the crap out of the septic tanks because they want to, hookers come to my place because they want to, chefs cook my steak to perfection because they want to, the government would wipe my ass because they want to, and none of them would be getting paid. I must say, that sounds awesome.

People don't do any of the boring, tedious, or otherwise unpleasant tasks that must be performed under a monetary system. Machines will clean the sewers, you'll have flexible, robot girls, you'll have your steak cooked by a robot version of Elzar. Who builds these machines? People, but that's merely an initial investment. We can make things so efficient that they never need to be maintained. Once we get out technology up to scratch, we can make machines that make themselves (and despite what you Terminator nuts might think, it would be surprisingly easy to prevent the kind of thing you're afraid of). Hopefully it will get to a stage where everyone has a computer (or some kind of gene) in their brains that allows instant communication. Once that happens, we don't need a government, as everyone can vote instantaneously, thus making the decision-making process genuinely democratic, rather than your corupt system.

Our interrogation techniques were supposed to be a secret, the infamous waterboarding scandal. This was kept secret because a.) it would cause a political fiasco to take place that would only slow everything down (and it did... it's not like we were dismembering people like some other nations, we were just pouring water over their faces....) and b.) it was thought that "waterboarding tolerance" would be implemented in the terrorist training handbook so that they feel they could operate as usual without fear of people spilling the beans under interrogation, which I think is the smaller of the two reasons. These are legitimate reasons for such a secret. If the U.S. admitted to sending forces into China, that would be pretty bad too.

You've forgotten to make a point. Actually, you're proving my theory that keeping secrets is brought on by fear, which would be irrelevant in my society. Humans all come from the same place, and they will all end up in the same place. We have nothing to fear from each other.

You'll find it common occurrence that governments (all governments) do things of the sort, cutting enough corners to turn their operations into perfect spheres to maintain their budgets instead. And I'm talking way before Bush, before Clinton even, in the times of Reagan and daddy Bush. Are you suggesting that this was an elaborate plot conceived over a decade* ahead of time?

*It's actually more than that, I'm rounding down.

And you're ok with this? This is a clear sympton of the monetary system. It rewards corruption and punishes ethics.

Not silent beheading, but the taped beheading of Americans, sent to our media and aired on our television. When that sort of thing happens and no one does anything about it, public support falls to rock bottom. No one, no one would sit on their hands and do nothing, politics would demand something be done because of public outrage. We have contractors out there, they could be picked up for suspected espionage like those two reporters in China. If the N. Koreans were to hold on to them, put them on trial, find them guilty, execute them publicly and we were to see it in our living rooms, that armistice would be over with and we'd be over there fighting short people. It wouldn't take 500 people, we'd probably do it after ten, twenty tops. We could arrange it as a test to see exactly how many it would take, but I don't think that would be prudent.

Day by day we are bombarded with images of people in horrible situations. We've become so desensitized to seeing them that we are no longer affected by truly horrific acts. Those Americans we're not killed on American soil, (which they left of their own accord), and there we're presumable less than 3% the deaths that 9/11 caused, which when you take into account the personally devestating effect it has on the loved ones of the victims, inflates by a percentage anyway. For example: 50 deaths only affects about 1000 other people (if we assume that each person had 20 close friends/family, which is probably liberal). the roughly 3500 deaths caused by 9/11, using the same formula, would effect 70000 people. That's also not including all the people, particularly New Yorkers, who feel personally violated at having an attack occur in their city, despite not knowing anyone who died in the towers. 100 people is enough to justify "anti terror" legislation and make the government look like it's doing something. 9/11 was (supposedly) an act of war, on American soil. That is enough to justify a counter war. Do you ever notice how politicians are always saying things like "terrorism", "security", "believed to be linked to al Quada" to justify anything they want to do? It's the exact same strategy Hitler used. And don't forget, everything he did was completely legal.

It is part of *a* plan, but it doesn't help the oil companies as you had said. It helps current special interests in politics that are happening now, not eight years ago.

You don't think the men behind the curtain can't plan more than eight years in advance? They realise that oil is a limited resource, and that they can't keep using it indefinitely. They need to invest in alternatives, but keep them as scarce and as inefficient as they can.

No, it belongs to government. Ask a socialist.

Applying the practice of previous, failed attempts at this is a lost cause, because in applying it in this form we have eliminated the cons of past attepmts, ie, that there is no ability to be corrupt.

Please tell me you're not talking about climate change. In the past ten years, carbon emissions have gone up and temperatures are going down. I think you might be too young to have heard about this, but in the 70s, Obama's current "Science Czar" went raving made about "global cooling", talking about how the ice caps were going to freeze all the surrounding waters, how vast glaciers were going to fall of the sides of the caps and we'd all be wiped out by tidal waves, yet Australia is still here... to think that that guy is our leader's science adviser, heh, it's so crazy it might just be crazy. Now, the world is so hot that it's cold. Someone explain that to me.

**** global warming. The world (the world is the environment I was talking about) is a horrible place, full of violence, which is precipitated by corruption. As we all know, the monetary system rewards corruption.

If you want to make the world a better place, start with your local government and work your way outwards. It's more realistic than what you're talking about. How can anyone make the world better if, at this very moment, no one seems to be able to take care of their own issues.

And who creates those issues to distract you?

But the government can't send the entirety of the resources to any one place, they have to decide how to break it up for distribution, so it starts out with them deciding what countries should have more. This gets done by population. Then they factor how much the individual person needs, multiply by population, and send that amount, and that's rationing. You'll of course have to be registered at your local pick up point so that the government can make sure you're getting your share and not someone else, because they can't send extra to Australia when there are billions of people in China who will be needing more.

But there are enough resources to go to everyone! We don't have to deprive anyone. Why can you not see that?

I understand that, I just find it fundamentally flawed in many ways. First, automated? By what, machines?

Yes

Who builds/operates/maintains the machines? More machines?

Preferably.

Are unmanned drones going to fly resources from continent to continent?[/qoute]

Not even close. Maglev trains are where it's at. We have the technology now to make them go thousands of kilometres per hour, and build tracks all over the world, and power them with clean, cheap, efficient energy.

Who is going to cook your steak? The government or a machine?

A machine, but if you want to do it yourself (say if you enjoy cooking), then you have that option.

If it's done by a machine, who maintains that machine?

No one. We can make the machines so efficient that they never need maintinence (at least not until we can built machines to maintain those machines).

What if I ask the government for a couple of hookers? Where will they find the hookers if everyone has this sweet deal?

You'll get sweet, robot hookers that look exactly like you're favourite supermodels.

Will the objective of this utopia be preservation of life? Then I'm not going to get my steak or my bourbon or my cigarettes because it's unhealthy.

You'll have whatever you want because medicine (particularly genetic engineering) will have advanced far enough to make your immune system so efficient that you will be effectively immortal.

Not to mention that it takes away all personal responsibility and motivation for innovation and learning.

What lead you to that conclusion? Without tedious jobs to distract you, humans will be able to concentrate their efforts cooperatively on further advancing human technology.

Look at a child. They are not held down by work, and basically have everything provided for them. Do they sit around all day eating? No. They're out running around, learning (whether they know it or not), experimenting. You're only lead to believe that humans are inherently lazy because that serves the men behind the curtain.

If we're to go to Mars in this perfect society, who would we be sending? Who would want to go when they have all the salad they want? Or are we sending machines?

We send people who want to go. Or we send machines. Or we send both. Whatever suits us at the time.

Then who builds the machines? Who does research on the bottom of the ocean, who does research for better energy supplies? Who would bother to learn anything?

It's not like they'd be getting paid in this moneyless society. And if it's not a human making my steak, then who builds, operates and maintains the automatic process that will cook my steak for me? Who will fix the septic system when it breaks down? And if it's not a human, who will repair the machines that do this when those break down?

The people who are able to uninhibitedly go about doing the research and building. Look at the greatest minds in human history. Einstein, Newton, Hawking, etc. Do you think for one second that what motivates them is money?

Why would I bother to wipe my own ass? Does a machine wipe my ass or does the government? Because if it's the government, I want Senator Reid to wipe my ass.

A machine probably would. Either that or we manage to advance the human body far enough that we no longer need food (thus no longer producing waste). We could get all our energy directly from the Sun (which is what we do anyway, it's just really inefficient).

If I want a steak cooked, spiced and dressed just the way I want it, I make it.

Just program the machine to do it how you like. Or if you don't want to, you could always do it yourself (because you enjoy cooking, presumably).

Who will be in charge of this utopia then? Because if it's a human, you can bet he's going to have a prostitute and we won't. That's corruption.

Not when everyone can have a sweet robotic Halle Berry.

Like I said, while I don't like the president, I like everyone else holding the positions that I can vote for. And like I said, these people are transparent to the point that they might as well walk around naked. I think you'd really have to have lived here for a while to understand my appreciation for them.

Maybe they just appear transparent? Maybe they're manipulating you (by manipulating the media, which is crazily easy to do).

We regulate everything. It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of control. Big government likes that it can tell people that they aren't allowed to own guns, because in this way they can feel safer at night without worrying about a rebellion that would overthrow their control. Ask the British about gun control. It has nothing to do with money.

They're not regulating money. They're regulating the flow of money. They're telling you that you can't spend your money on guns. They're saying you can't spend your money on cocaine. You're insurance money can't go interstate. They are using the regulation of the flow of money to control you.

I've been wanting to ask you the same. People covet the belongings of others. We do. It has nothing to do with how much we have or how great things our, if you've got it, I want it. Unless it's junk, but I doubt you would burn your steaks just to keep others from eating it.

Why do people covet other peoples things? Because they don't have them. If both of our steaks are exactly the same, the only reason that you could want mine is that you've finished yours. Get another one from the closet!

You mean he'd have a closet of prettier wives in his closet in your preferred utopian society? If that's the case, where do the wives come from? Maybe I should ask the government for Halle Barry. No, Angelina Jolie. No, both. I'm sure they'd both love to be my wives. Or will the government just create a clone of Angelina Jolie for me? So much for population control.

Maybe you'll just have a holodeck, where you can have foursomes with every actress you can think of. The point is, that there is no need to deprive anyone of anything.

Demand is never satisfied. If I have twenty cars and could just as easily own twenty more, I will want twenty more, for the sole purpose of getting to drive a different car each day of the month. I want a plane too. And an island with an airstrip. That way I can take my steaks and wives to a secluded getaway.

You have to go to the holodeck version of the island though, because the real one belongs to everyone.

Scarcity does no one any good. If supply is low and demand is high, prices will go up, yes, but not past the threshold that no one would buy anything, because then no one would buy anything, naturally. The solution is more product, but not so much that the product is worthless. Diamonds. Everyone likes diamonds. But if everyone had diamonds, then the diamonds themselves are nothing but worthless rocks. That is why supply is limited. Yes, there are tons of the stuff in Africa, but if it were distributed to everyone, I wouldn't want it anymore. Yet, if only you had diamonds, I would want diamonds too.

But just because everyone has diamonds, and they're worth nothing, doesn't mean that diamonds aren't pretty. Using diamonds in the way your talking about them is merely showing off how much cash you've got.

It was my understanding that you viewed "honest government" as an oxymoron. And again, what would this government consist of? People? What people would want to run such an operation when they could be the beneficiaries of it? There would have to be some sort of motive for such a desire, and apparently desire is selfish. Unless whoever runs the show is chosen at random, but with no one being educated because no one needs education anymore, we'd have an idiot in charge of the whole world.

A government under a monetary system cannot be honest. A government which genuinely acts in the interests of the people, and solely for the personal benefit of doing so, is the government I'm talking about. They can't benefit from it, because they can get those benfits regardless.

If everyone owns everything, that would make your house mine as well. Hope you have bunk beds. Hmm, that means that there's no more theft either, since everything belongs to everyone... that's a nice watch you're wearing... I don't really feel like waiting for the government to get me one just like it, how about I take yours and you can ask them for another one? No? Why not? It isn't yours, it's ours, don't be selfish.

Another flawed analogy. You should already be wearing your favourite watch.

You know it's funny, people who think we didn't land on the moon say that their conspiracy will help dispel illusions of freedom too by revealing government lies.

Maybe it would, if it we're true. Maybe it is true. The point is that there is little to no evidence to suggest that we didn't go.

And there are people who believe Atlantis was real, but if the government's official position is that there is no Atlantis, they are obviously covering something up! It's a conspiracy! Call the media, I have their lead story!

Because they're using cheap Atlantasian labour to produce chemical weapons? It serves no purpose finding out the truth on this matter.

In seriousness, what would you or other "truthers" do if such a thing were to be done only to find out that it couldn't have been anything other than planes hijacked by terrorists flown into buildings? Probably the same thing that JFK conspiracy theorists would do if they were to find out that Oswald killed JFK because he simply hated American society, and what then? "Okay, let's go home."

If it turns out that that is the case (and I seriously doubt that with regards to 9/11), then yes. We all go home and stop thinking about it.

Under Clinton we had a surplus, didn't need fixing then. Then again... that money came from cuts to things like NORAD and FAA and everything else...

My point is that something always needs fixing. That is because effiency is the enemy of profit.

Because of the flaws such a system would have, there would be corruption. And it is impossible to have everyone agree on everything, that is why the governments of the U.S. are divided as they are, to allow individuals to have what they want without imposing it on others who don't want it.

So you're not having anything imposed on you that you don't want? Wow.

I believe it's because liberals are afraid of growing a third eye as a result of nuclear energy production. Let's say we had a global government that would take care of us, we could build enough nuclear plants on, oh, Australia, to supply enough energy for the whole world. I wonder if Australia would go for that though...

Nuclear energy is expensive and inefficient, and requires a much higher initial investment of energy that what I'm talking about. Between solar, wind, tital, wave and geothermal energy, we would have more energy than we know what to do with, for virtually nought initial investment of energy.

Those with money have an advantage? Lesson: Henry Ross Perot. This guy had billions and billions of dollars, still does I imagine. Served in the Navy and was a common sense guy that a lot of people liked. He was one of the most successful independent presidential candidate with just shy of 20% of the popular vote. All that money did nothing for him. Obama had one of the most rigorous campaigns ever, he didn't have money. Not a lot anyway, and certainly not as much as Perot. Hillary Clinton drove herself into massive debt with her campaign. Money doesn't mean you'll win. It helps, but it's not the most important factor, which is trust. Because if I don't trust you, I'm not voting for you. (I voted for Ron Paul despite knowing that he wouldn't win, he was the only one there that I trusted.)

You're cheating by throwing in another variable. Of course it's really down to how the money is used (but then we all know that education favours the rich). If all the candidates had the same know how with regards to using money to advertise, sabotage, whatever, then you can bet that the candidate with the most money is going to clean up.

I'm saying that if the federal level could administrate all government, in any form whatsoever, they would. Has nothing to do with whether or not they could do a good job, because they can't. The Founders of America didn't want that because it's totalitarianism, whose close relatives are communism, dictatorship and monarchy. Its distant relatives include economic collapse, poor standards of living, rebellion, and revolution.

Your founding fathers were very smart men. It's too bad that the country they conquered was subsequently undermined by the corporations (which are a natural product of the monetary system).

As I said earlier, our government is this way so as to allow us the freedom of deciding how we want things operated on a local level without imposing these things onto others in another city, county, district, or state who want something different. And because it's a work in progress that can always be changed to what the public majority wants, it can adapt to changing times. And because the free market and capitalism encourage innovation and education, people go to school and invent stuff that allows for a better way of life. It's not exactly government bringing me hookers and steaks, but my system is more realistic.

Free market capitalism does notencourage innovation and education. Free market capitalism rewards corruption and punishes ethics, which leads to those at the top corrupting the education system. So you don't do too much thinking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120400730.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/main838207.shtml

You'd think that if the government isn't getting the results it wants, then it would try to change things?

Do you think that if a way was found to provide free energy to everyone was found (which is has) that the energy companies would like that? No! It means that they become irrelevant, so of course they're going to try and prevent something like that from happening.

Well Arseface's face looks like an arse! Plus he sucks! I'm not very good at this.

Well your face looks like a doe.

His face looks like an WHAT? Now you're outta line, John! I'ma gonna have to give you a two week ban!

*I'm just sitting at work, watching the 1.5 hours I have left tick by dreadfully slowly. I'm sorry for this derailment of the thread.*

And I think we could use something to lighten the mood a bit.

Yeah, all this seriousness is getting a bit serious.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Re: Zeitgeist

This is probably the cleanest "argument" in the history of projectego!

I was thinking the same thing, quite proud of the members that have managed to maintain their maturity throughout and still get their points across. Goes to show that an interesting 'debate' can be held without the need to resort to flames, insults and ignorance. Everyone has a difference in opinion and good to see people voice theirs in an adult way, bravo.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

For the purposes of this discussion, I'd like to make it easier by labeling a couple of things.
Capitalist republic democracy with labor, monetary system and free market - JohnDoesian Society, or JDS.
Moneyless, laborless, stressless utopia - Arsefaceian Society, or AFS.
Solely for the purposes of this discussion.

Agreed.

This argument's getting hard. I like it.

So people build the machines. You call it an investment, I would describe it as the beginning of a dystopia that I'll call Neo Arcadia because that's what it reminds me of. Not because of Terminator or Matrix or anything of the sort, but because of dependency. If we are totally dependent on a global system, and this would be the ultimate global system, what would we do if we wanted to break free from that system? What if I wanted to move somewhere where the politics were more to my liking? I couldn't, it's global. What would we do if the system failed? We can't fix it, because we would be reliant on the system to fix the system. People build the original machines, and then we build machines that build machines, and then we build machines that will keep all other machines maintained, and machines to maintain the maintenance machines, and machines to do everything for us, at what point will we stop educating our future generations on how to fix the machines should the self-sustaining elements of the machines should fail? In the JDS, education is key to ensuring future generations of JDS. We can die peacefully knowing that our children will be able to keep their systems going, because should something fail, they will be able to fix it and not reliant on a machine to do it for them.

Unlike what you think, education is the most important aspect of the AFS, just like it's supposed to be now. It's not technical knowledge, or mathematical or scientific knowledge specifically. It's knowing alot about alot of things. Everyone is aware of their environment (the world) and it's goings on, through interest. We can forsee the system breaking, and if we don't we can easily fix it. When everyone stops competing with each other, and starts cooperating with each other, for the purpose of improving our collective experience in the universe, then we can do anything.

And having a computer in everyone's brain that allows for instant communication could probably also allow for easy tracking of everyone as well, kind of like having everyone microchipped. Wait a second, wasn't someone here thinking that having everyone microchipped was a little too extreme to conceive as plausible?

But it's not, because being microchipped in such a way (the one described in Zeitgeist) is only bad under a monetary system. The whole idea being that if you start doing too much questioning, they freeze your assets. Since no one has any assets, then it's a moot point. It simply serves to make your life easier.

I was making the point that secrets can be legitimate for various reasons, fear included. In the AFS, nobody will want to hurt anyone else, which means you'd have to clear out the people who have violent tendencies towards others for arbitrary reasons, like because you're not the same race as me or because you're great-grandmother's great-grandfather was Jewish, or because I'm simply crazy and get off on the thought of others dying and so recruit impressionable minds telling them of the great rewards of suicide bombing.

No one will think along those seperatist lines anymore because education will have freed them from those restrictive mindsets.

Regarding your impulsive rapists, murderers, etc. The solution for those people is to find out what makes them like that, and remove that element from them. Failing that, we can suitably punish them.

They were voted in to save money and spend money where it had a more apparent affect on the people. That's why they were elected. They brought results to the table too, and because that saved money was going towards programs that people used, they didn't care to ask where the money came from.

So it's a case of the government being seen to be doing something, rather than focusing on national security (which ended up effecting everyone way more than those programs did).

Again, it was the people's doing. After 9/11 when things hit the fan, national security suddenly because a top priority with the people and so politicians went about doing things in the usual way. Of course I'd prefer it if at least airport security was privatized, cheaper and more effective than the government so that I don't have to worry about getting prodded in the arse to check if I have a stick of dynamite up there.

Privatization would seem to be better (because of competition), but it isn't. Competition paralyses progress, because it rewards corruption.

Americans don't put a fixed cost on an American life. Could be one, could be a hundred, same result. We've displayed military might over lesser things. Grenada.

We try not to put a value on life, because we know that it's wrong. We do it anyway, if only subconsiously. I'm sure we'll all agree that two deaths is worse than one, and they're both bad anyway. The point is that 9/11 needed to feel like a kick in the nuts, rather than a slap in the face.

Then why would the oil companies be behind it? And I find your argument on scarcity and inefficiency to be flawed. The more product you have, the more you can sell. The more efficient it is, in producing the product, in distributing the product, in selling the product, the cheaper it is. If you don't make enough of the product, competition will make, distribute and sell their own product to potential consumers who would then not be buying it from you. In the case of energy, if oil companies want to make money (and they do), and if they own politicians (and they don't), then why aren't we drilling for oil solely on our own land which would make it much cheaper for them?

Efficiency is the source of profit. If the economy is running smoothly efficiently, that means everyone all along the way is making a buck.

Really? Do you pay for oxygen? That's pretty abundant. It's so efficient it costs nothing to make. You think that if they could make energy, or food, or clothes so abundant that it would be pointless to sell it, then they would? Of course not. It would make those companies irrelevant.

Say the world runs out of diamonds. Through luck and forsight I managed to stockpile them over the years, and now I have this huge pile. Enough for everyone ten times over. How do I get rid of them? Obviously I don't sell them all at once, because that would devalue them. I sell them one at a time, because then I'll be able to make a larger profit of them. The monetary system rewards scarcity.

The people are human, yes? I would imagine so, unless we replace politicians with machines too. And simply in being human, they have the ability to be dishonest, corrupt, and evil. You don't need money to be a bad guy.

And simply being human doesn't qualify you as a selfish ****. People are 99% shaped by their environment. Our environment at the moment rewards corruption and dishonesty, etc. If our environment changed, so would our behaviour.

Corruption doesn't create violence or vice versa. Money doesn't create either one. Ill intent creates corruption and violence. People don't rape, murder and eat other people for money, they do it because they're crazy and evil. Money doesn't make one tribe of people try to wipe out the people of another tribe, there is no monetary gain to such genocide, they do it because they're evil.

Why do people do these things? What create's ill intent? Fear. There's no reason for us to fear each other, as I've already said. Since a monetary system rewards corruption (brought on by fear) with profit, then a monetary system is obviously bad.

I don't know, who created the ideals of the four Islamist radicals who planned to kill as many people in a Sydney barracks as they possibly could? What a distraction, we have real problems like the 9/11 conspiracy to think about here!

Religion! Which is purposely spread by the men behind the curtain to keep us as seperatist, as distracted, and as competetive as they can. "Worst of all, religion empowers those who know the truth, but use the myth to manipulate and control society."

There are plenty of Earth's resources to go around. I acknowledge that. The point I'm making is that government wouldn't take all of these resources, divide by population and send everyone the entirety of their share, because then there wouldn't be any shared resources because they'd create individual ownership of resources. That's my share of gold and cows, that's your share of steel and cotton. The wouldn't send me my share in entirety because then all that is mine and only mine and no one else's. Ownership. Presumably they would want this system to sustain itself, so they'd only send me what they feel I need, a day's worth of food each day, a day's worth of water each day, and so they would have to define what a day's worth is. And call it what you will, this is rationing.

Ok, so it's rationing. But you get whatever rations you ask for. Thats the key. The government doesn't decide how much of anything anyone gets. The recipients do.

Who manages this transit logistician's nightmare? Machines? You're putting a lot of faith into something that cannot think for itself.

We can make an advanced enough machine to be completely sentient. We can even make an advanced enough machine which has more computing power than the entire human race. We could just let him do all the menial stuff. We don't have to of course, but seeing that, it wouldn't be hard to make a symple train automation program.

But can the machine cook it with love?

You're being deliberately facetious. If you want to cook the damn steak, then you can cook it with as much love as you want.

And who builds the machines that maintain the machines that maintain the machines? Or what if the maintenance machines break down? Or what if the original machines that are so efficient that they never need maintenance break down? What if I blow them up? Who replaces them?

We replace them because we know how. Education will not lax, as you seem to think it will. People are naturally curious (if we weren't, we'd still be living in caves), but we are stopped from looking at things to closely because we'd get in the way.

In that case... I'll take two buckets of rum and a new liver on the side please. And I want the RobotGurl X500s OEM-HALLE-93769, and this part's important, I want the one with STDs.

You're doing it again. The facetious thing. I can't see your point for the sarcasm.

I'm not talking about laziness. Do you have any children in your life? A child could waste away in front of computers, video games, television, they could accidentally kill themselves by not eating, not drinking, not voiding their bowels, not looking both ways crossing a street. There is a reason children are accompanied by adults, and that's because they're children.

Ok, a child's primary job - their only function in life - is to learn. They learn about the world, and how it works. By institutionalising this process we have become lead to believe that this process generally stops after university. Why? Because after that we're expected to put ourselves to work for the benefit of someone who certainly isn't you or me. If we can hang on to this natural curiosity (as many of our great minds have), then we don't have to tought anything - we'll start seeking knowledge, rather than being handed it.

Or are we to take away the personal responsibility of parents by replacing them with machines that tend to children? Who then would love the child? What is love but doing things for someone else that you wouldn't ordinarily want to do for anyone other than yourself?

I would never take away a child from their parent's (unless the situation is completely detrimental to the child, in which case we give them new ones). The key is educating the parents. If everyone knows alot about alot of things, then parenting will easily take care of itself.

Who then is responsible for instilling values and morals into children? To teach them about action and consequence? To teach them about honesty? To teach them about being an adult and what it means to find someone they love? Who then teaches them about how to be parents themselves? If no one is responsible for doing these things, no one will do these things.

You seem to think that humans are inherently lazy. Why do you think that if humans have everything provided for them, then they wouldn't do anything with their time? Humans have an urge for knowledge, and slavery (work) is just a distraction from this goal. I certainly know that if was provided for and left to my own devices (so to speak), then I would concentrate my energies fully on pursuing art, or science or philosophy, or something to that effect.

On the matter of education, yes, we went outside, climbed trees, played around, and in doing so, we learned. We may have learned that birds eat bugs, that cats don't like having their tails pulled, that bears do crap in the woods, we may have learned which berries were edible and which ones were not, we may have learned to leave be the leaves of three, and we may have learned that falling several feet and breaking the fall with your face is exceptionally painful, but did we learn anything that we would have in an academic environment? Did we learn algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, chemistry, biology? Did we learn history, government, economics or political science? Did we learn the finer points of linguistics? I didn't remember learning the engineering necessary to build and maintain machines that would automate all of life's daily chores while swimming in the river.

No, but you learned how to learn. You learned how to search for knowledge, and how to apply it. If we feed this eagerness to learn, then the rest will take care of itself. The education system today is solely guided by the purpose of providing students with knowledge that will get them a job (perpetuating the whole slavery thing), and will allow them to do the job. Nothing else. If we want to break free of this self defeating cycle that we find ourselves in, then we have to turn that around.

And if everything is taken care of, what purpose would there be to advance human technology? Everything's taken care of. Necessity gives rise to knowledge, and if you need nothing, you'll learn nothing. Cuba. Castro purchased a large number of American cars for his country, and with our history, he wasn't about to buy any more. So, it became absolutely critical that they had the ability to maintain these vehicles, which is why they now have the greatest mechanics. They learned because they needed to, not because everything was just dandy and they all decided one day that they'd take up a new hobby for fun.

But we do need things. The AFS isn't the be all and end all of human achievement, it's merely a step towards it. We can't solve everything with it (you've certainly done a good job at pointing that out), but it can make the world a much better place.

The greatest minds in human history were not motivated by money. But the other 99.9999% of people still alive today in research fields are doing something or another to keep themselves funded. Their work is their meal ticket. If I was a researcher and that was all I knew how to do, you can bet your appendages that I'm going to do my very best work every single day so as to ensure that I will never have to do anything else, like cleaning septic tanks. While it's not directly money-driven, the indirect motivation of not wanting to do crap work instead has the result of me doing better research than I would if I knew I wasn't going to get fired or defunded. Of course I could lie and say I may have found another planet but should I be discovered, I'll be disgraced and punished.

They only do that because they've realised that they can benefit financially from it - because they need to. I'm sure if they could benefit regardless, they'd do it anyway. Sure you get a few people who lie about discoveries. I wonder why. Oh yeah, to make more money.

Whoa, I like eating. In fact I get a sort of satisfaction in wiping my own ass. It is representative of not having to rely on someone else to do so as I once did as a child and might unfortunately end up doing as an old man. I take pride in the independence I have that I am able to wipe my own ass. It was the first independence I had ever had.

Then you can wipe whoeverse arse will let you. You can even write programs where you can just go around wiping peoples arses. The point is that you'll be able to do whatever you want with your life. You can have whatever degree of control you want.

Again, can the machine cook it with love?

Stop it.

There's a distinct lack of human interaction with that scenario. I like that I have to work towards building strong relationships with fellow human beings, or... you know... paying some amount of money for hookers...

Then you can forge your own relationships with real women! Or you can get cyber hookers for free (and progam them the **** you however you like).

You can't regulate the flow of money with regulations. Not all of it. And who says I can't spend my money on cocaine? People do it all the time.

So if you're cought buying cocaine in the USA they don't arrest you and charge you, etc? Cool, I'm moving there.

And insurance money can't go interstate, but money money can go interstate. The wealthy are leaving California because of their regulations, and they're going to states that compete for them. The more reasonable the taxes, the more wealthy people. The government doesn't want the flow of money to go to places where they get less of it.

What about more substantial things, like residencies? What if I wanted to live on the beach? What if I wanted to have an old-style mansion on an uninhabited island? A thing is a thing is a thing, and even if you could have an abundance of things, you can't have an abundance of land. Land, unlike a steak, cannot simply be made. "An island? Would you like palm trees with that?" Being more realistic but not very realistic, even if everyone had the same kind and size of residency with the same space, there will still be logistical nightmares housing everyone to their satisfaction.

There will obviously have to be some kind of limitation on residencies, and I don't know how it can be achieved. Perhaps we'll have some sort of sharing arrangement going on. I certainly can't say at this point. That doesn''t mean there isn't a solution though.

Where's the living in that? I want to have the shame of a poor performance, I want the risk of diseases, I want to have to go to the hospital to have antibiotics shoved into my veins, I want a doctor to tell me that I can't have sex for six weeks. I want a partner who tells my friends that I'm lame in the sack. I want a real-world experience with real-world consequences. Sure, I could have a virtual ex-girlfriend who runs around telling people that I have small reproductive organs and a virtual doctor who gives me virtual painful shots in the ass but that wouldn't be real, there would be no human connection there.

Then form your own relationships. Nothing would be stopping you from doing that.

And if they can get those benefits regardless, why would they bother being a part of the government? It would be work. Are they simply interested in maintaining the utopia? What motivates this interest? These people are human, yes? The motivations for the actions of human beings can be very surprising, regardless of what government or what position they're in

Because people who realise that doing things which will benefit the civilization will benefit themselves aswell. You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get from doing something good which doesn't actually benefit you in any way? Exactly that.

Story: Years ago, I had been saving up money to by a car. I had finally saved up enough, went to the dealer and they didn't have it, and a salesman pulled out this catalog that had everything in it. I picked out the car, the equipment, the accessories, and a few weeks later I was in my favorite car. Then I saw this other guy's car and my jaw dropped when I realized that someone else was driving my new favorite car. I may have been wearing my favorite watch in that scenario, but desires change all the time. Again, stop being so greedy, it's our watch, not yours.

Well, it's my watch as long as I'm wearing it. I know that's contradictory to what I was saying before, but you've shown me that a line has to be drawn somewhere. Wait for your own damn watch.

Hopefully without bringing the previous discussions back on the table, if you change your perspective just a bit, you might think that there is little to no evidence to suggest that 9/11 was an inside job.

But there is soooooo much evidence to suggest contrary, and none of it is easily explained away.

The purpose is in knowing the truth, isn't that the importance that you're trying to peddle to me?

It is important to know the truth. Maybe once we have the weight of these distractions lifted off our shoulders then we can concentrate on finding Atlantis. I'm saying there are more important things going on right now that need to be looked at.

Well that's peachy, but it doesn't fix our current problems. It's funny what you would decide to call a distraction. I would think that initiatives that are known for certain to provide absolute gain would take priority over those that would only have speculative gain, and let's examine this speculative gain. Okay, Bush and Clinton and daddy Bush and hell, even Reagan, why not, and their administrations and everyone involved in any way are exposed and imprisoned and even executed for the sake of making a point. What then? We'd be in exactly the same spot with everything else, such a thing would not fix anything, let alone unemployment, economy, the environment, international politics, or anything that we need taken care of right this very moment.

It would emphatically help to raise the collective awareness of what is going on in the world, and it would motivate the people to try and fix it.

Much less than I would if the federal level dictated all law for everyone.

But your life is still being dictated. Your life would truly be yours in the AFS.

It's expensive to set up, yes, but it has cheaper operating costs, cheaper maintenance cost, outputs tons more electricity than any other current source of energy, and it's clean and safe despite what others think. Solar panels are expensive and output low levels of electricity, just like wind generators which themselves have the added benefit of breaking down all the time. Hydro generators are a joke, the largest hydro energy plant creates 22.5GW/year, the largest nuclear plant can create 57.5GW/year and isn't restricted to locations that have an enormous flow of water.

Did you know that if wind energy was fully harvested in just three American states, it could alone power them all?

Did you know that geothermal energy has the power to generate hundreds of zeta joules a year if it were effeciently harvested? Earth's annual energy consumption is about half of one zeta joule. Both with minimal environmental impact.

Why aren't we using them? Because that would make the energy corporation's irrelevant.

(Education favors the rich, the wealthiest man in the world dropped out of college. Just saying.) You cheated by leaving out variables. Anyway, who would know how to capitalize on money more than those who have money to capitalize on? Perot had billions of dollars, which is billions more than his competitors. Nixon, that broke-ass prick, funded his first political campaign with winnings from poker bets. He won, by the way.

Are you seriously sitting there and telling me that education doesn't favour the rich? Why then can't I afford to go do a non-government funded university course?

Ok, so there's a critical amount of money, above which it doesn't matter who has more. The point is that you or I certainly can't afford to do it. That is not a democracy.

That's because government doesn't know how to run a school. Thankfully many colleges here are privately owned. If it were strictly privately owned colleges being stacked up against each other, our numbers would be much higher. That's because no one voluntarily gives money to do a bad job. The JDS supports innovation because... Ralph Emerson; mouse traps.

Lesson: Competition exists in the free market. If I can build a product that is better than your product, people will buy my product instead. That will drive someone else to build a product better than mine. "If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods." He didn't live long enough to see mouse traps, but when they came around, he was misquoted as saying "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, the world will beat a path to his door." The word "better" here has two meanings. If I can make a mouse trap more effective or longer lasting for multiple uses, or if I can make a mouse trap exactly the same as your mouse trap, but I can make it cheaper and so can sell it for less, people will buy mine. Both is innovation. And before you throw the child labor thing at me, I was referring to the type of innovation that brought about the cotton gin.

Even though government couldn't manage a school, it was in a government-owned school that I learned the importance of thinking for myself. I had three teachers of importance when it came to this, a U.S. History teacher who taught that G. Bush was the devil and Hillary Clinton would save us, an Economics teacher who taught that Hillary Clinton was a Communist, and a Political Science teacher who told me that I should make up my own mind on what I should think. I've always wondered what their opinions of Obama were, I've been wanting to call them and ask just for laughs... but back to topic: I would think that if government was using the educational systems to intentionally brainwash students, they'd do it third reich style and tell us that big government is great and that if we don't like our government, we're traitors and deserve to be shot. Yet that's an opinion I have never heard voiced in our schools. I also had a class on Business and Ethics, but I never heard the instructor there teach anything about breaking rules to get ahead in life. I have found in my previous practice that people who practice unethically were punished with such wrath that... Madoff.

Lesson: Bernie Madoff (pronounced as in "bastard made off with all my money") was the biggest scumbag of our time. Neither one of us will see another lowlife prick as dirty as this one. This guy was just seething with crooked intent. His scandal makes bank fraud look like writing a bad check. And now he's serving 150 years in prison. He'd have been out sooner if he killed someone. In my previous practice, I once worked with an unethical employer, and she too has caught and had the book thrown at her, and she is serving 25 years in prison. And that was just for tax fraud.

But for the sake of this, let's say we had the technology to provide fusion energy to every home in the world, the cheapest and cleanest and most efficient source of energy. There's the matter of infrastructure, there's the matter of management, stuff doesn't run itself yo. Now, we can put government in charge, and of course it'd be "free", but then there's taxes. And then there's quality of service, if you don't like your service, you can't go to another provider because there's only one. Instead, let's consider how the private sector would do it. They wouldn't be drilling for oil or anything else, but they'd be in charge of setting up the infrastructure of how the energy would be distributed, they'd have to bid on a contract to do this per region. Who ever could do it cheapest gets the contract, unless they neglect to do it, in which case someone else gets the contract. After the private sector sets up the infrastructure at a lower cost than government, there's managing it all. Same thing, who ever can do that cheapest will provide the services, and if they don't do a good job, competition can step in and people can switch providers. Energy companies would do that best, because that's what they do. Of course in the AFS, there'd be no motivation to do a good job because there isn't competition or even money, guess that's why we put machines in charge. But then I wonder what incentive was given to those who initially built the machines... it'd be ironic if they were paid seeing as how they'd be pushing towards a moneyless world, but if they weren't paid, how would they feed themselves before the "no money" piece is put into place?

Yours is more of a transition issue than an issue with the AFS. I agree that there are definitely unanswered questions as to how this could come about. The short answer is this: It has to start somewhere. If everyone agrees that this society is preferable to the current one (which it obviously is, at least in my view), then the rest will take care of itself.

On the subject of energy. We have the technology now to fully automate the process. Why not just do it then? Because that would make energy companies irrelevant.

I'll admit that there are a few issues with this whole AFS thing. Chiefly concerning the aspect of transition from our current one to the next, self perpetuation and ownership. I think this society (if done properly, and I believe it will be) is easily preferable to the current one.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

Christmas truce is over. Let firing commence.

We had a Christmas truce?

After reading the above post, I'm realising more and more that this is like arguing with some free market brick wall. You keep assuming things about the AFS (lets say it's my fault for not explaining it properly) which aren't a part of my mental model. It's now getting properly frustrating.

I know a lot about a lot of things. I also don't know a lot about a lot of things. Here's what I know - universal cooperation for the purpose of improving the collective on a global scale is not possible so long as anyone disagrees, and people will disagree. Here's what I don't know - how the AFS is going to make everyone agree.

Wait, why is disagreement cause for my society to fail? I'm not saying everyone will agree, and will be working towards a common goal. There will be groups of people working towards different things, much like today. Except without money (and particularly the necessity of making money) as a distraction, it will be much more fruitful.

Okay, so with a money system, having everyone microchipped means that the government can sieze your money. Under a moneyless system, what is there to sieze? Well, your rations, for one. If you were to disagree or voice an opinion that government didn't like, your privileges to the all-you-can-eat buffet can be taken away.

They could, quite right. But nothing happens without a motive. Cause and effect. Without a reason to freeze your resource font, of course they're not going to do it.

You mean it will have freed them of a mindset that tells them to question with boldness. Government is good and you will like it. What if I don't? What if I like the idea of money?

You won't when you fully realise it's crippling effect on society. Why doesn't anyone like Monarchies anymore? Because we've realised what a bad idea absolute power is, and we had the technology to get around the problems of democracy (cheap ways to account for votes, etc). It's a logical progression.

And how does

We have a good system for that now - we execute them. That should be on par with 'population control' and 'keeping the peace' ideals.

Why do we punish them for acting on natural impulses (not talking about premeditated, fear motivated ones)? Surely it's a better option to simply genetically engineer them to behave otherwise (to the extent of the affecting gene), or otherwise remove that precipitating condition in their life, than to simply punish them.

But it's a matter of people making that decision as opposed to government making that decision. Anyone who was interested could have taken advantage of a transparent government to see where these budget cuts were being made, and anyone who wanted to voice against this could have (and they did). But hey, we had a surplus so it's all cool. Until horrible things happen, that is.

Did anyone care about it? No. Reason being you guys (not limited to Americans, but Americans in particular. And not all Americans though) thought you were so untouchable, what with being the "only" superpower in the world and all, that you had nothing to fear. The reason being is your government (or corporations, or whatever you want to believe) has used propaganda to spread that image.

That's personal responsibility - if you don't have health insurance and don't intend to buy into a policy because you feel it's a waste of money, and then you get hit with brain cancer and can no longer get health insurance, you are royally screwed. But that's your doing by just trying to keep a balanced budget.

So you're left out to dry with a drastically limited lifespan, and a horrible debilitating condition simply because it's harder for a corporation to make a buck off you. Under the AFS people will have a genuine concern for the wellbeing of everyone else, and that being the case, you'll get the best medical care. People are only the ****s you make them out to be because money rewards such behaviour.

Competition drives progress. As I said before, if you have a product that I think could be better, and I make a better product, I will be rewarded in product sales. But if we're reliant on solely the government to take care of us, and I think the government should make a better product, I tell them to make a better product instead of inventing it myself. And I wouldn't bother inventing it myself if I had nothing to gain by doing so.

You would have everything to gain. If people like you stopped caring for only yourself (and don't you dare tell me it's not possible) then everyone would constantly be moving towards improving the collective human experience.

Of course two deaths are worse than one. My point is that when slapping yourself in the face is more than enough, why bother kicking yourself in the nuts? Here's where I think we might disagree - people tend to value the lives of their countrymen more than the lives of those of other nations. Scenario for the sake of making a point: If a hundred Australians get beheaded by Somalian pirates, I feel bad for you, I do, but it's not the duty of Americans to safeguard Australian transports. If it were Americans, and we had a government that didn't care what other nations thought about us, each transport would be armed to the teeth and we'd blow up inflatible fishing boats if they got too close. My point in mentioning Grenada, we caught hell from Canadians, British, but it wasn't their countrymen studying there. So what if they weren't in immediate danger? It wasn't exactly a Falklands War but it was enough that we went in and killed the leader of a government.

Oh we don't disagree. But we do both know that feeling that way is fundamentally wrong. Everything on this planet comes from the same place - the sun. We'll all go back there (sort of, but that's irrelevant). We've just been seperated from that oneness by being born, and being given a name, and an identity. We have (through evolution) been conditioned into this idea that the preservation of the clan is above everything else (this particular clan being your particular nation). All humans are fundamentally identical, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as seperate from everone else.

I assure you, if the government had the means and was allowed to do so, they would manage the distribution and sales of air. And there's a chance that our government might still be heading in that direction anyway, cap'n'tax being the first step. Capping emissions can ultimately lead to charging citizens for breathing through taxes. But that's air. Oxygen on the other hand I do pay for. Going to a hospital and having those tubes wrapped around my nose, I have to pay for that service. But both of these are aside from the point.

You don't pay for oxygen. The oxygen in the air is what your taking, and that's free. When you get the oxygen out of a tank, you're paying for pure, concentrated stuff. If I went around selling jars full of regular air, you wouldn't buy it because you've already got an unconscionable amount of the stuff. If we were on Mars, though, and I was the only supplyer, you'd have to buy from me. What I could do, though, is invest in terraforming the planet, so that everyone has a large amount of free oxygen, but then I couldn't continually profit from it, could I?

The point you make is abundance leads to irrelevance of industries - I disagree. Again, if a company can make better energy, better food, better clothes, even in abundance, they could still sell it because it's better than what everyone else has. However, if only the government made energy, food and clothes, there won't be that competition that drives innovation to make better energy, food or clothes. And what individual would make better clothes if there is nothing to gain?

What's not to gain? You've improved your life.

In the JDS, you could do whatever you want with those diamonds because they're yours. You could sell them for any amount you want, but if the price is too high, driving up the market price of diamonds, other people who have diamonds (the people who got them before Africa ran out of them) could sell their own for a cheaper price while still making a profit because your prices are absurd. Or you could sell them at a ten cent markup, selling ten to each person, and you have a net profit of $1 x the population making you a very wealthy person. Free markets.

You messed with my diamond analogy. I was thinking that I was the only supplyer. It doesn't work if there's more than one supplyer. I think the Mars one works better though.

I disagree wholeheartedly. In an environment where no one would want to lie, cheat, steal, or hurt others in any way, there'd be no need for laws or government or anything else.

Excellent! That's exactly what the AFS is supposed to be about.

The problem is that where ever a human sees an opportunity to gain through dishonesty, they will have an opportunity to be corrupt, and this will be something that will render the transition of our current systems to the utopian systems into an impossible pipe dream. "Yes, yes, everyone will be happy, I just need everyone to commit their resources under my control and the whole world will be peaceful forever." Fact is that humans are flawed. And because we are flawed, anything we create, like a government, will also be flawed. I strongly advise that instead of putting faith in a government that claims to be perfect, you put faith into a government that acknowledges its flaws, as the 'perfect' society won't be taking into account how to take care of problems because they're not anticipating any problems since everything is supposed to be flawless, while the flawed society will have the systems in place to improve on these shortcomings.

Who said my government is claiming to be perfect? I never even said the society was perfect. In the word's of Jacque Fresco (the founder and leader of the Venus Project), "This society isn't perfect, it's just a lot better. We can never achieve perfection."

Not necessarily fear. How about hate?

Why would people hate each other? Think about it.

So the AFS would require everyone with religion to shed their shackles and free themselves of the enslavement of religion. I wonder how many of the billions and billions of religious people would absolutely refuse to the very end to let go of their convictions, and I wonder how the AFS would deal with that.

Why don't we take Astrology seriously anymore? Sure, there are still people who practice it, but any informed person knows that it's just a coincidence that the stars happen to make "pictures" (they're not even stick figures, really) in the sky. It's just another step towards that end. There will be a time when people view religion only in terms of history and the affect it had on people.

And that's not even going into how the matter of nations not wanting to surrender power and control to a global government would be dealt with.

Again, it's a transitional issue. All that needs to change is people's minds.

Even the flawed systems in place acknowledge the difference between impractical and worthwhile. If I ask for my entire share in whole at one time, it will be refused for being unreasonable. What would I ever do with 1/(Population) of the world's water at one time?

Doesn't matter, if I want it and it belongs to me, then it's mine and I should be able to have it, and their logistics should be able to handle that. Unless of course they don't want me to be able to do this. Which would mean they have control. In the JDS, if it were mine, I could have it, and I could swim at my beach whenever I would want because it is mine.

But it's not your's, it's everyones. You can live there, and swim there, and whatever there, all you want, as long as you're happy doing it with everyone else who want's to.

"Him"? The machine is still an abstract and it already has a gender? For now, let's just designate it as T-850; Model 101.

What are humans if not machines? The only difference is in computing power and build.

Joking aside, this probably wouldn't happen in the transitional phases of the AFS, more likely down the road long after complete transition.

I've already acknowledged that there are potential problems in the transitioning phase. Again, though, all that has to change is people's minds.

As for transit automation, there's a lot involved in software development, and I find it hard to imagine that a government that can't fix itself (because it's obviously perfect) wouldn't think to have software that can operate when there's problems, either in the transit components (like say a gear popped out of place) or in the software itself (software will have bugs, always).

Bugs in software are caused by poor writing (and are usually brought about by deadlines or other limitations). If we spent enough time dedicated to writing perfect software, then the only bug that software can have is in encountering situations which it's not programmed to handle. I've played a game called Sid Meier's Railroads, where you build train tracks and send trains around. The train's movements and coordinations with each other are all automated. The only time it's screws up is when I've put too many trains on one track, and that's my limitation, not the software's. We could easily make adequate software which was an order of magnitude more sophisticated, and it would be more than enough to coordinated the AFS transit system.

Then there's the matter of actually writing out the software... who's going to do it if no one has to do menial tasks such as software authoring? Will we be teaching advanced programming anymore? Which is something I'll get to shortly.

We'll be teaching everything to whoever want's to know it. You should know that I spend a large portion of my time on Wikipedia, trying to learn as much as I can about anything, and I don't imagine that is uncommon. You think humans are lazy. If someone knows a lot about alot of things, or even a lot about one thing, and has everything provided for them, you don't think they'll put forward a minute of their time to put that knowledge to use? People will spend their time contributing to society out of the sheer joy of doing so, rather than contributing to someone's pockets out of some percieved necessity.

If everyone gets what they wanted and nothing that they don't want, you would have to imagine that the number of educated will fall drastically. How many people on just this one forum have stated at one time or another that they would prefer not to take certain classes or go to school at all?

First of all, the education system is quite poor. You could not want to partake in a class because of the teacher, the nature of the subject, etc. I'm sure if we let people learn about what they wanted to (which we don't quite allow now. It's always a certain number of classes or studies, etc. You'll always find that once someone has the capacity to choose their subjects, they'll always like one of them. The rest are auxilliary)

What are the current motivations for learning? Opportunities at good jobs, not being an idiot, stuff like that. But if everyone is taken care of regardless, where is the motivation then? On the matter of the previous proposed problem of teaching programming, what motivation is there to learn such things? Currently, the motivation is in having better software than the competitors for the purpose of selling. But if there's no money to be gained...

You seem to think that money improves your life. Here's the thing though: It doesn't. Neither does religion, politics or entertainment. You can't eat those things to keep you alive, you can't make your car run on them, etc. What does improve your life is technology. Technology makes your livfe easier, it allows to more time to do the things you want. That is the ultimate goal of my society.

You also seem to be under the impression that you don't like the idea of depending on technology to do things for you (one of your primary cons for the AFS, no?). Think on this though. Do you depend on your car to get you to places? Do you depend on your house to keep you safe from the elements? Do you depend on the internet for information? You don't depend on anything wholly except yourself. It's not different under the AFS. The AFS just takes it a step further.

Can't have the discussion getting too heavy and practicing wit adds to the fun. I'll put a limit on it if it is overly bothersome.

I don't like it too much, but then I like heavy discussions. They make me feel important.

I have learned more outside of schools than in them. But there was a reason for this - I had to in order to make myself a preferred applicant in the workforce. Take away that motivation away and there will still be things you're curious about, but they won't be curious enough to find the resistance between two nodes a knight's move apart on an infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors (0.7732395). The reason people learn these things now is because there is a demand for people with this knowledge in the markets. If no one needs to know in order to enjoy global benefits, then no one will bother learning and understandably so - that stuff is hard yo.

Again, I'll take you to my point about the various great minds of our history. They weren't motivated by anything other than a spectacular curiosity. Since all humans are fundamentally identical, what makes you so different? You've been fooled into rejecting.

It's not about having parents and children together, it's about parents themselves taking care of their children. You'd be depriving parents the responsibility that goes with having children. If adults have machines that wipe their asses, I think infants would have such machines as well. Who taught you how to use a spoon to take food from a dish and put it in your mouth? Do you think a machine could do that in a manner satisfactory to a child?

If we're going to go that far, then we may as well just hook ourselves up to a machine and live in the Matrix (albeit, more in a permanent holodeck sense than for harvesting people for energy). I personally enjoy the idea of having my basic functions and needs covered my myself (much like your good self), but who's to say that after a generation of this, that people will feel the same?

I'm not saying humans wouldn't do anything with their time, only that they wouldn't do anything worthwhile. I did my more impressive learning feats because they were necessary for work. I don't study these things that other people will never need to know for the fun of it, and if I didn't need to know, I wouldn't have bothered learning.

Why wouldn't you have bothered? Because it would have been a distraction to doing things that were supposedly beneficial for your survival. People come pre-conditioned with this natural passion and curiosity, and we stifle it until it becomes largely hidden. We need to stop that.

But who would be making the world a better place if everyone can sleep all day, eat all they want, have everything they want, and everyone's happy? In a world with problems, it takes innovations to come up with solutions. In a world without problems, there are no solutions and so no innovations.

At what point did I say that my world doesn't have problems. Given the emergent nature of reality, then there will always be problems to solve. The only difference is that people are not motivated to solve a problem because it will indirectly serve their individual needs, but because solving it is in their common interest. The question will not be, "How much does it cost?" but "Can it be done?"

The people who lie are punished, go back up a few posts for my piece on Madoff. It's embezzlement. And my point is that if people can benefit whether or not they work harder than anyone else, then they'll not work so hard.

What about all the people who don't get cought? Madoff was just dumb enough to keep going after the first billion, so he got cought. If he'd stopped there and hid the cash/evidence of his crime (perhaps using said cash to bribe people?) he'd probably have been fine. What I'm finding though is that there's a reccurring theme of cash precipitating corruption.

Two groups of researchers, one under JDS and the other under AFS. JDS will grant funds to their researchers, AFS will give everything to everyone. AFS researchers are found to spend half the day talking about how they tried out wiping their arse for the first time and how weird it felt, and they will still get the same benefits. JDS researchers fail to deliver or are found to be wasting time discussing differences and flaws in both JDS and AFS, and they're fired, and more competent researchers are hired.

But the AFS researchers aren't motivated by money, they're motivated by a desire to learn. Ultimately they are more successful because there is not a direct x amount of money for y amount of research. It's just

There is no degree of personal control if there is absolute reliance on the government.

But not when we can be the government, in the true sense. Have you read the Confederation saga, by Peter F. Hamilton? In that universe there's this group of people, called Edenists, and they have developed this gene which allows for instant, telepathic communication. They also live in giant living (and sentient) habitats orbiting gas giants. The habitats basically rule everything, and not being motivated by anything other than because thats the way it was made to operate, they control policing, education, etc. The really cool thing about that (besides the sentient, biological spaceships which every citizen is entitled to, and has a relationship with from birth) is that with the whole instant telepathy, everyone in a habitat can temporarily merge their collective concsionce together to form a true democracy and make instant decicions. I know it's a work of fiction, but it definitely paints a plausible picture of how society could work in the future.

Of course you're arrested. The point is that they don't regulate the flow of money going towards cocaine. They don't keep track of cocaine shipments, they don't tax cocaine purchases, they don't require dealers to be authorized, licensed, certified and/or qualified vendors of cocaine.

But they're telling you what you can and can't spend your money on (thus regulating it's flow out of the hands of the cocaine dealers). My point is that without money, there'd be nothing to regulate.

These are few limitations on the abstract. I wonder what limitations there will be in the actual application. You know, few limitations were found in the abstracts of socialism as well. Of course as we both know, there were many more in the applications of socialism.

And socialism has been applied by corrupt, power hungry men, championing a cause and then twisting it to their own ends, simply because it was completely unrealistic with the technology available. We are on the cusp of that availability, and we can do it right for once.

In democracy, the abstract is that there will be problems and that the people will take care of the problems with their own solutions. The genius in this is that it promotes self-reliance and takes away from government dependency.

So you're saying you're not dependent on the government? Riiiight...

The warm fuzzy feeling I get from doing things that don't actually benefit me is non-existent. I do things because they benefit me, and the warm fuzzy feeling I get is a warm bed and food in my stomach. If my actions benefit others, that's because it was my job to do it, or it was a positive externality of my actions. And I'm not against that, just saying that I do what benefits me most, not what benefits others most.

So you never just stop to assist someone if you see them in trouble (and not even big trouble). I once saw this old guy who was trying to activate a paper train ticket on our new automated touch card scanner things (it's basically an Oyster card for you Londoners, or if you know what that is. We just bought the license from you). Even though I risked missing my train I stopped and tried to help him out. It didn't benefit me one bit, but I guess that's the kind of guy I am.

You, on the other hand, have been manipulated by this society (and not consciously by either party) to accept that competition with each other is productive and helpful, and you accept the idea of individual self preservation. How can we hope to survive as a species if we're still operating with this obsolete assumtion?

You must forgive me for finding humor in this. It is common for people to disagree on things but there is a sense of irony in this point of discussion. I do believe there are more important things going on right now that need our attention much more so than the moon landing and Atlantis, but I also feel that the 9/11 investigations aren't so important right now as fixing the current state of things. And getting lower paychecks and being hungry are two very strong motivators to fix things. Right now, 9/11 investigations wouldn't get our full attention because the building we're in is going to collapse soon. We could stay inside and check out what's left to be seen, or we can fix the building and then check things out. I've decided to help fix the building. You can stay inside if you'd like.

Oh, I can see the irony. The point is that I can also see that it's the men who did this who are making your building wobbly (not directly of course, just bear with me). It's like how I play with my dog. I wave both my hands on either side of her face, and which ever one she tries to bite, I hit her with the other.

Except for the part where I would have a computer or microchip in my body, and except where the government knows everything I'm doing and where, and except where I'm entirely dependent on the government to take care of me in every way from health care to education to what I'm eating for dinner. That doesn't sound too free to me.

You're misconstruing my whole idea. You're not entirely dependent on anyone but yourself (in either the JDS or the AFS), and the computer in your head is no more than an invasive mobile phone (except much more advanced).

I'd like to know where you got those numbers.

The truth is that I originally cited them from the Zeitgeist movie, who's credibility I've very recently lost a lot of confidence in. Not that it matters, I still whole heartedly believe in this society. Those astronomical numbers don't matter though. I was trying to illustrate that we have enough cheap renewable energy sources that between them we could easily power the world 10 times over.

I won't argue that geothermal is a good energy source, but shouldn't be relied on 100%.

That wasn't what I was trying to say. I originally said between the solar, wind, geothermal, etc. That being said, I don't see why we shouldn't rely on it 100%.

Wind, on the other hand, is expensive to harvest and maintain for the given outputs when considering the alternatives, like nuclear, which I again state is the most powerful and cheapest source of energy that we have today, with the cost of their initial setups and maintenance being not so much when you consider their outputs.

Well then let's use it more! The whole thing is that the whole idea of it being unsafe is a completely manufactured, and purposely sustained image.

If we were to do anything though, I would say that all sources of energy should be tapped and developed to higher efficiencies. This would still give energy companies the purpose of maintaining and distributing the energy, as well as building and maintaining the infrastructure for a power grid. How many power lines are there in BFE, Africa? The private sector could set this up much better than a moneyless government due to motivation.

I'd like to see the private sector make energy production completely automated, super efficient, and so abundant that we needent ever worry about it. Too bad the whole idea of self preservation completely undermines this idea. See the Mars analogy.

Because you don't have the money to. There are scholarships and grants and funding foundations in place, and failing that you can always work nights, save money, then attend a private university. No where in my constitution does it say that you are guaranteed an expensive private education, but you are guaranteed the opportunity. Which is to say that if you can pull it off, no one can rip you out of that university and say that you don't belong there, that lower classes can't have a private education.

But we're forgetting that the government doesn't control things in a free market society. I'm not allowed to have youth allowance (basically free money for working class kids to be able to afford to have a life) because my parents apparantly earn too much, despite them being completely wracked with debt, and unable to afford to do anything that's not necessary. I'm not allowed to use any of the scholarships because my situation isn't bad enough. I still can't afford to take the various financially based opportunities though. It's a case of the institutions looking like they're helping (and I suppose to an extent they are), but they're not really trying. Under the AFS education is truly free (not to mention extensive), so education favours everyone.

Why couldn't I? I can run for representative at age 25, licking envelopes and making yard signs, posters, and if I'm better than my competitor (he's a really good guy, but let's say that he's a dirty, corrupt son of a gun), I can expose his crap-smelling foulness and win on a clean ticket, all I have to do is convince the majority of the district. Then I can make a run for the senate at age 30, just have to convince a majority of my state. I could also start off in local politics, city or county, then go up the chain to governor. With either path, I can make a run for the presidency at age 35. Fundraising and campaigning against corrupt politicians shouldn't be a difficult task. The hard part is convincing the majority of the voting block that I would be a competent person for the job and that I would do what they wanted, and gaining trust is easier when you come from the same place as the majority of the voting block, which is middle-class. If you mean average joe schmoe people not being able to run for president, of course not.

But your opponent can supposedly pay for TV ads slandering you, and it doesn't matter how true they are or not, because he's got ten lawyers who says they are. He can pay for incriminating evidence to be planted on you, etc. The whole point of a free market, capitalist society is that it favours the wealthy (the catch being that you work to become wealthy, but we all know that that is a self defeating trap).

If you mean average joe schmoe people not being able to run for president, of course not. You don't simply jump from nothing to leader of the most powerful nation in the world overnight.

That's what I'm saying. You could be the most intelligent, benign and ethnic man in the country, but if you don't have a cent to your name, you're not going anywhere.

Committing a decade of your life to politics or having some manner of noteriety would be essential. Still though, money is not the most crucial factor to the point that trust and support is - if I can smile, if I can kiss your baby, I can raise money.

But that means nothing if he can pay for child pornography to be planted in your basement, and sends in an anonymous tip and a few camera men.

[continued]

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

[to continue]

And who will agree to that? Kings will not like the idea that they cannot be kings, corrupt nations (not 'corrupt' as you say the states our, but 'corrupt' as many other nations actually are) will not like the idea of surrendering power, prosperous nations will not like the idea of surrendering prosperity, wealthy nations will not like the idea of surrendering wealth, religious nations will not like the idea of surrendering freedom of religion, and actively political nations will not like the idea of global government. Then you're just left with idealists who can't understand why people don't simply agree with them, believing that they and only they have the absolute truth (which to me sounds like a political and/or religious view).

If I was a king who realised that this kind of society is something to work towards, and am not afraid of change (which I'm not), the I would realise that this kind of change is beneficial for everyone, not just me. The problem is that people are afraid of change, and would rather maintain the status quo because it benefits them (and is much easier to maintain), rather than work towards an end which would benefit everyone, but is a much harder road.

And lets get this straight. I'm not saying that just the USA is corrupt. I'm merely using it as a good example because that's where you live, 9/11 happened, etc. Every corporation, business, government, etc is corrupt because they deal with money.

The transition issue is not just an issue but it is the key issue. As far as I'm concerned if you can bring everyone to an informed decision of an agreement for the transition, the rest will be a piece of cake.

Is that not what I've been saying?

The automation of this process would only be as good as the person who designed the automation. The benefits of privatizing this and having companies compete for this is that they will always improve services.

Companies which are solely focused on profit, and not providing a good service, will never be able to perform any task to its full potential. Let me tell you why:

This year I took a business management class, where I learned about business management (surprisingly enough). Through the course of the year, I learned a term called planned obsolescence, and I never understood it. Why would a company want it's product to become obsolete? After watching Zeitgeist I understood why. If a company makes a car that never breaks down, is super advanced, has its own electricity generator which is powered by 100% efficient solar panels, and is so good that you'll never need a new one, then it's a detriment to a number of industries. Why? They'll never buy another car. You won't be able to make money from servicing that car either. You'll never need to buy fuel. So they keep them as inefficient as they can to still be competetive so they can continually profit off of the new car sales, fuel sales, car repairs, etc.

I encourage you to ask questions at these lectures, but I caution you that many activist groups do not like being questioned, as it is often considered opposition and you can quickly find yourself outside these lectures.

At least then I'll know where they stand. I'll stop supporting the group, but I'll never stop supporting this cause (unless of course I find reason enough too).

I'm also interested to hear what other people think on this issue, if anyone else is reading our posts. It get's boring arguing with just one person.

That took me three and a half hours to write, and it's half past three in the morning. I hope to god it gets read by someone other than John.

 

[Walker]

Re: Zeitgeist

The first World War: Britain and Germany go ape**** at each other, and the US officially declares neutrality, that being what the great majority of the public wants. The corporations, however, are secretly itching to get involved, so as to make some cash. They decide to send the Lusitania and all her civilian passengers into a warzone, despite prior warning from the Germans that they would fire upon any British ship, and even a last minute warning my the German Embassy*. Lo and behold, the Germans destroy the ship along with all her American passengers and surprisingly enough, this ****es off the American people enough to make them want to punish the Germans. The Americans enter the war.

World War II: Similar situation, with the public not wanting to go to war, and the big wigs wanting to... The US knows it cannot be seen as the aggressor, so it cut's off an already warmongering Japan's oil supply, and funds some Chinese (Japans enemy at the time) things, and that's where Pearl Harbour comes from. You guys even ignored a warning us Aussies (only trying to do the right thing) sent you about an advancing Japanese war machine.

WWI: RMS Lusitania sunk in the year 1915. US enters WWI 1917. WOW. Are we slow to react. Lusitania was only a small part of what made us enter the war.

To rehash a little what John said-- Yes, a large part of what made us enter the war was financial. Not so much economic, as I remember from last year's military history. We were shipping some arms, but France was doing the heavy listing materiel-wise. I just threw out my notes, or I'd go find the numbers for you. As it is, all I have is the books from the class. The financial incentive for the US to enter the war was that we were loaning the French and Brits and all money. We could only recover our investment if they won. But it wasn't solely a financial motivation.

EDIT: Also, I want to point out that there weren't actually all that many Americans killed on the Lusitania. We were a definite minority. It still ****ed us off. But we were REALLY ****ed at the Brits, who swore up and down that they weren't shipping munitions on the Lusitania. They probably were.

WWII: Look, Arseface. The Japanese were invading everyone and their mother. Embargo was a way of trying to irritate them into stopping WITHOUT getting involved in a war. Yes, it was a crushing embargo (especially all the scrap metal they weren't getting anymore), but it WAS NOT WAR. The Chinese were our allies and trading partners (some of them.) Yet we were avoiding war. I don't want to argue "oh, no, the government knew about Pearl Harbor and ignored it!" If we HAD known about it in advance, and reacted, what would the best possible outcome be? This:

US: Japan, do this and we will crush you.

Japan: Do what? What're you talking about? We aren't doing anything. [drops the "invade the US" idea. Molests Australia in the ass instead.]

And yes, part of our motivation was economic (this time, not as much financial, at least not with the Japanese) but I don't see how there's anything nefarious in that. If our companies are losing money it's going to affect all of us. Not neccesarily enough to get into a war, but it is a valid reason in some circumstances.

And sorry, but I only read to that post I quoted. And I don't feel too bad about necromancing. I was wandering around eavesdropping and saw you asking John why he wasn't posting here anymore, so I said, sure! Let's give 'em my two cents.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

And sorry, but I only read to that post I quoted. And I don't feel too bad about necromancing. I was wandering around eavesdropping and saw you asking John why he wasn't posting here anymore, so I said, sure! Let's give 'em my two cents.

Don't worry about that. John was apparantly planning to resume the argument after the festivities anyway.

WWI: RMS Lusitania sunk in the year 1915. US enters WWI 1917. WOW. Are we slow to react. Lusitania was only a small part of what made us enter the war.

To rehash a little what John said-- Yes, a large part of what made us enter the war was financial. Not so much economic, as I remember from last year's military history. We were shipping some arms, but France was doing the heavy listing materiel-wise. I just threw out my notes, or I'd go find the numbers for you. As it is, all I have is the books from the class. The financial incentive for the US to enter the war was that we were loaning the French and Brits and all money. We could only recover our investment if they won. But it wasn't solely a financial motivation.

EDIT: Also, I want to point out that there weren't actually all that many Americans killed on the Lusitania. We were a definite minority. It still ****ed us off. But we were REALLY ****ed at the Brits, who swore up and down that they weren't shipping munitions on the Lusitania. They probably were.

The Lusitania by itself didn't spark the American entry into the war. That, as well as the Zimmerman Telegram, were the start and the end of a snowball effect that lead to America's declaration of war. The Telegram was released by the US administration with the sole purpose of generating support for a war.

But the fact that you agreed that your motivations were financial sort of moots the argument.

WWII: Look, Arseface. The Japanese were invading everyone and their mother. Embargo was a way of trying to irritate them into stopping WITHOUT getting involved in a war. Yes, it was a crushing embargo (especially all the scrap metal they weren't getting anymore), but it WAS NOT WAR. The Chinese were our allies and trading partners (some of them.) Yet we were avoiding war. I don't want to argue "oh, no, the government knew about Pearl Harbor and ignored it!" If we HAD known about it in advance, and reacted, what would the best possible outcome be? This:

US: Japan, do this and we will crush you.

Japan: Do what? What're you talking about? We aren't doing anything. [drops the "invade the US" idea. Molests Australia in the ass instead.]

Hindsight is great, and of course I'm grateful to your nation for me not speaking Japanese right now, but that doesn't mean it wasn't provoked. What the hell does the most powerful nation in the world want with a backward little mining country (and our mines weren't actually that **** hot until recently)? You certainly weren't interested in helping us, that was just a positive implication. You dropped their oil supply, and surprise surprise, they attacked you. They could have easily left you alone and had an area of basically the same size (excluding Alaska) for virtually no fight, but you provoked them.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

That's provocation? So, if Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor is justified because of oil, I would think the Gulf War would be justified for the same reasons as well.* Just a thought.

That's my point. It's not justifyable, under any circumstance. Corporations and governments scapegoat convenient events (contrived or otherwise) to manipulate public opinion, to support a war that only feeds the process.

* As I had said earlier, as we get most of our oil from Canada and Mexico, I would think it much more useful to storm those countries for oil, and keep the territory as a point of strategic defense and base of operations for when we decide to expand such conquests, because Imperialist America isn't done until they have the world.

Well there's cheap oil, and the rest of the world hating you, or slightly more expensive oil, and everyone seeing you as a hero because you're "getting the bad guy".

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

You're both the bad guys. You both wanted war, and you both got it. The only difference is that only one of you got pummelled.

 

[Walker]

Re: Zeitgeist

The Lusitania by itself didn't spark the American entry into the war. That, as well as the Zimmerman Telegram, were the start and the end of a snowball effect that lead to America's declaration of war. The Telegram was released by the US administration with the sole purpose of generating support for a war.

But the fact that you agreed that your motivations were financial sort of moots the argument.

Hindsight is great, and of course I'm grateful to your nation for me not speaking Japanese right now, but that doesn't mean it wasn't provoked. What the hell does the most powerful nation in the world want with a backward little mining country (and our mines weren't actually that **** hot until recently)? You certainly weren't interested in helping us, that was just a positive implication. You dropped their oil supply, and surprise surprise, they attacked you. They could have easily left you alone and had an area of basically the same size (excluding Alaska) for virtually no fight, but you provoked them.

[cough]Unrestricted submarine warfare[/cough]. Had a lot more to do with us entering the war than did the Telegram. Sure, the Telegram ****ed us the **** off. I would like to point out that the Nazis suspended unrestricted sub war in the aftermath of the Lusitania. It wasn't until they started sinking tons of ships that we got ****ed again.

I'm sorry, moots what argument now? I'm not arguing that our motivations were somewhat mercantile. I'm arguing that this is somehow a great evil.

First, allow me to point out that Japan was not the most powerful nation in the world. They had a very good military, a very good manufacturing base. They had zilch in the way of natural resources and, not satisfied to get them in trade, were in the process of invading everyone in the vicinity to get them.

It wasn't so much the oil as it was the scrap (really. Pretty big margin as I remember. Scrap, then oil. Which, hey, also gives them a reason to want whatever mines you had.)

But here's the thing-- so, it would have been a GOOD thing for us to stand by and let our allies and trading partners get conquered by a rampantly imperialist, militarist power? I'm not saying that we did anything out of the goodness of our little hearts. I'm too pessimistic for that. I AM saying that our going to war was a good thing.

On top of that, there was a good deal of US imperialist sentiment. There was a lot of worry that the Phillipines and our other territories would be attacked, even without us doing anything. And it wasn't an unreasonable fear. I won't argue that our holding the Phillipines was all that much better than Japan, but at least we didn't slaughter civilians all that often.

And you can't really argue that Japan and the US were equally war-hungry. Japan started conquering people in the late 1920s. The US stayed out of it, aside from embargoes and diplomatic censure. HOW [EDIT: ACCIDENTALLY HIT SUBMIT. OOPS] is sticking to isolationist principles and diplomatic methods war-hungry when the other side is busy conquering everyone and their mother? Yes, we eventually got into the war-- Japan responded to our embargoing the **** out of them by attacking us. There was some idea that hitting Pearl would convince us not to challenge the mighty Japanese empire. Or something. Never really understood it. 'Course, I've never really understood how out embargoes and nasty notes were going to get them to stop conquering people.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

[cough]Unrestricted submarine warfare[/cough]. Had a lot more to do with us entering the war than did the Telegram. Sure, the Telegram ****ed us the **** off. I would like to point out that the Nazis suspended unrestricted sub war in the aftermath of the Lusitania. It wasn't until they started sinking tons of ships that we got ****ed again.

That's not my point. The point is that the US administration/corporate behemeth/whoever is running the shop wanted a war. Conveniently they send merchant ships into U-boat infested waters, feign anger when they get destroyed, publish a secret German telegram saying how they soo want a war with the US, and away they go.

I'm sorry, moots what argument now? I'm not arguing that our motivations were somewhat mercantile. I'm arguing that this is somehow a great evil.

You don't think killing people for money is evil? Wow.

First, allow me to point out that Japan was not the most powerful nation in the world. They had a very good military, a very good manufacturing base. They had zilch in the way of natural resources and, not satisfied to get them in trade, were in the process of invading everyone in the vicinity to get them.

It wasn't so much the oil as it was the scrap (really. Pretty big margin as I remember. Scrap, then oil. Which, hey, also gives them a reason to want whatever mines you had.)

You misunderstand me. I was saying that the US was the most powerful nation (or up there, at the very least), and wondering what interests they could have in protecting us.

And we didn't even have a great mining sector back then. Back then it was agriculture, primarily wool.

But here's the thing-- so, it would have been a GOOD thing for us to stand by and let our allies and trading partners get conquered by a rampantly imperialist, militarist power? I'm not saying that we did anything out of the goodness of our little hearts. I'm too pessimistic for that. I AM saying that our going to war was a good thing.

With hindsight, yes it was very good. I'm saying that I can't imagine what tangible reason you would have had to want to help us, apart from generic war profit (arms manufacture, loans, etc).

And you can't really argue that Japan and the US were equally war-hungry. Japan started conquering people in the late 1920s. The US stayed out of it, aside from embargoes and diplomatic censure. HOW [EDIT: ACCIDENTALLY HIT SUBMIT. OOPS] is sticking to isolationist principles and diplomatic methods war-hungry when the other side is busy conquering everyone and their mother? Yes, we eventually got into the war-- Japan responded to our embargoing the **** out of them by attacking us. There was some idea that hitting Pearl would convince us not to challenge the mighty Japanese empire. Or something. Never really understood it. 'Course, I've never really understood how out embargoes and nasty notes were going to get them to stop conquering people.

I'm not saying you were equally war hungry at all. Japan certainly did start things in the pacific, invading everything they could see, but you saw this as an opportunity and wanted to get in on the action. Lucky for you, you guys came out of it as heroes.

 

[Walker]

Re: Zeitgeist

That's not my point. The point is that the US administration/corporate behemeth/whoever is running the shop wanted a war. Conveniently they send merchant ships into U-boat infested waters, feign anger when they get destroyed, publish a secret German telegram saying how they soo want a war with the US, and away they go.

You're right. We should stop trading and murder our economy because everyone else is in the middle of a war. YES! We should commit economic and financial suicide so that we can claim the moral high ground.

There was no feigning of anger. Our people were being killed, our money was being lost.

And as I recall... we didn't do the publishing. Don't remember for sure, though

You don't think killing people for money is evil? Wow.

Killing people for money? Not quite. There's a difference between, hey! Gimme five bucks and I'll kill this guy!/hey! Lemme kill this guy and steal all his possessions and gouge the gold fillings from his teeth!

And hey! Those guys are beating up the people we loaned money and sell things to! ****! We gotta get in there or we'll be ruined!

We did the third option.

You misunderstand me. I was saying that the US was the most powerful nation (or up there, at the very least), and wondering what interests they could have in protecting us.

Okay, sorry I misunderstood. I would also argue that we weren't the most powerful nation in the world. In large part, it was WWII that made us that way. Previously we were mostly a sleeping giant kinda deal.

And we didn't even have a great mining sector back then. Back then it was agriculture, primarily wool.

Sorry, I wasn't researching Australia's economic development for this discussion. Just going off what you said. But, clearly, Australia is big. It has land, and space. What the Japanese empire, on a bunch of tiny little islands, missed.

With hindsight, yes it was very good. I'm saying that I can't imagine what tangible reason you would have had to want to help us, apart from generic war profit (arms manufacture, loans, etc).

Help you? Australia in specific? No idea. But I do no that we had trade, manufacturing, and agricultural interests all over the Pacific. China was pretty major, even then, and Japan was seizing all this **** for themselves. And consuming it. We weren't getting any goodies, because of the embargo and because they needed it themselves, plus making it risky to get at what we and our allies still held.

I'm not saying you were equally war hungry at all. Japan certainly did start things in the pacific, invading everything they could see, but you saw this as an opportunity and wanted to get in on the action. Lucky for you, you guys came out of it as heroes.

I would argue with that characterization, but there's no way to do it short of traveling back in time and reading people's minds. We're a big country. Majority opinion was isolationist, but yeah, lots of people wanted to get into the war for different reasons and even different sides. Money, ideals, lotsa things.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

You're right. We should stop trading and murder our economy because everyone else is in the middle of a war. YES! We should commit economic and financial suicide so that we can claim the moral high ground.

There was no feigning of anger. Our people were being killed, our money was being lost.

It's about more than the moral high ground. People are being killed. Does human life mean nothing to you?

And as I recall... we didn't do the publishing. Don't remember for sure, though

The Brits gave you guys the Telegram, and your government released it in order to get public support for a war.

Killing people for money? Not quite. There's a difference between, hey! Gimme five bucks and I'll kill this guy!/hey! Lemme kill this guy and steal all his possessions and gouge the gold fillings from his teeth!

And hey! Those guys are beating up the people we loaned money and sell things to! ****! We gotta get in there or we'll be ruined!

We did the third option.[/quote]

It's still killing for money, no matter which way you look at it.

Okay, sorry I misunderstood. I would also argue that we weren't the most powerful nation in the world. In large part, it was WWII that made us that way. Previously we were mostly a sleeping giant kinda deal.

Not my point

Sorry, I wasn't researching Australia's economic development for this discussion. Just going off what you said. But, clearly, Australia is big. It has land, and space. What the Japanese empire, on a bunch of tiny little islands, missed.

Yeah, I know. It would have been far easier for you to cultivate a good relationship with the Japs, and maybe they'll let you use some of their prime, Australian real estate.

Help you? Australia in specific? No idea. But I do no that we had trade, manufacturing, and agricultural interests all over the Pacific. China was pretty major, even then, and Japan was seizing all this **** for themselves. And consuming it. We weren't getting any goodies, because of the embargo and because they needed it themselves, plus making it risky to get at what we and our allies still held.

So you had other interests in the pacific - they're all financial. It's mercenary! (is that the right word? I meant for it to be an adverb, not a noun)

I would argue with that characterization, but there's no way to do it short of traveling back in time and reading people's minds. We're a big country. Majority opinion was isolationist, but yeah, lots of people wanted to get into the war for different reasons and even different sides. Money, ideals, lotsa things.

You've proven to me that money is the only real motivation to kill people.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

Of course it means something to us, we are humans too after all. People are dying throughout the world, the point though is that it isn't our business until it's our business, and it becomes our business once it starts affecting us... for example, through our economy. If those indebted to us no longer exist, they obviously can't pay back their debts. That's business. Then there's the part where it got personal when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor which was pretty much a sitting duck.

It obviously doesn't mean that much too you if you just shrug it off and say, "**** happens". This **** is only happening because we're letting it happen.

The fact that getting your money back was the prime motivation for helping out the Brits, with the perk of "Oh, well I guess we'll save some lives as well", is not heroic. It's mercenary. If Germany had owed you money (despite how unlikely it may have been for you to loan it in the first place), would you have gone to war against Britain?

It would be wrong if people of a nation weren't informed that there is another nation out there that would absolutely love to fight a war with them. That's news. Turn on the television. There are countless groups who seek to terrorize... well I was going to say America but it's actually just about every English-speaking nation. Personally, I'd like to know if someone wants to kill me.

News or not, it was very convenient for your government to have that Telegram to release in the first place. I'm not saying they fabricated it or anything, but they knew what they were doing by releasing it.

If it was simply killing for money, we would have a war every weekend.

How many wars are going on that you know about? Numerous dispites are happening in Africa and the Middle East, etc. There is a war every weekend. They may not be "wars" in the classical definition, but it's still war.

Perhaps not, but it is his point which I think you may be missing. As we weren't perceived as the most powerful nation, and as a nation that practiced isolationism, we preferred to take care of ourselves. And when our interests were at risk, it was prudent to take care of ourselves by protecting our interests. It's not that we take delight in killing people, else we wouldn't discriminate against civilians, a more effective strategy - kill everything, less surprises that way.

Enough civilians are killed anyway. The fact that we class people as civilian and millitary, American and German, black and white... It's wrong anyway. Everyone is fundamentally identicle. Saying that suffering Chinese people doesn't affect you because they're Chinese, but that as soon as some people in Hawaii were bombed it's personal, is completely racist. You have no more of a connection to those killed in Pearl Harbour than you had to anyone else in the pacific. It's this invented, false, divisive, separatist, whatever-other-adjective-you-want, idea of nations and families, which is utterly perverse..

With the way things panned out, it just so happened that we ended up being considered the most powerful nation in the world. Which was good, it would be another 70 years before anything comparable to Pearl Harbor would ever happen to us.

And they were both subsequently used to justify horrible bloodshed order's of magnitude more severe than the initial events. There's such a thing as reasonable force. You don't nuke hundreds of thousands of civilians because a few kamakazi pilots killed a few hundred of your guys.

We tried the peaceful route. The Japanese left negotiations half an hour before the attack on Pearl, probably just enough time to catch the next flight out of the country.

Because you guys predictably overreacted.

As an adverb, no. As an adjective, yes, that would be correct linguistically, but not factually. It is not mercenary to protect our interests, to ensure that our trade with other nations isn't perturbed by Japanese attacks, just as it wouldn't be mercenary to get revenge on the arse of a hobo who stole your chips and made you drop your drink. It would be mercenary if we stormed Japan and claimed it as a U.S. Territory designated as Texas 2, executed all the politicians, occupied the nation, and imposed massive taxes on the citizens there, or if you were to walk around neighborhoods looking for hobos to rob. But we didn't do that, and you wouldn't do that.

Tit for tat. Ignoring the fact that I made the hobo remark in jest, any revenge I would have hypothetically sought would have been equal and opposite. I wouldn't have killed him and everyone watching.

In reality, if I had the means, I probably would have tried to help him.

There's a difference between 'killing people' and 'fighting war'. A war is more than just dead bodies. A war is fought when means to reach a mutual understanding and agreement, such as negotiations, have failed. Simply killing people, for money or otherwise, is not about national political or economic gain.

You only try to negotiate with them because it's easier, not out of any desire to spare human life.

 

[Arseface]

Re: Zeitgeist

It means enough to me for me to encourage those that are dying to do something about it, since it would be in their best interests... for example, come to America as a legal immigrant.

That's not any level of meaning. Saying, "Oh yeah, you might want to help yourself out of the **** you're in," isn't way to help anyone.

We weren't selling nearly as many goods to Germany, and we stopped altogether, because it's mercenary to sell guns to both sides and stay out of it. We weren't trying to be heroic, that would be romanticizing something that deserves no romance. We were merely protecting our interests. And there's nothing wrong with that.

There is when it involves ending human life. Everyone's only trying to "protect their interests". When you get everyone trying to help themselves, you end up with the ****hole we call the modern world, and you can't say that there is nothing wrong about the way the world is now.

Okay, let's say we didn't release information like:
"...don't eat at Subway, every store failed a basic hygiene test"
"...you think you're just taking a shower, but could you really be poisoning yourself? Details, after the break."
"...be careful if you're driving on Sunset Dr., because a bank robbery is currently underway"
"...in other news, the White Supremacists that were rallying in the metro area have started a riot"
"...four planes were hijacked today, one crashing into the Pentagon, two crashed into the Twin Towers, and a fourth intended to crash into the White House has instead landed in Pensacola, PA. More information as it comes in."
"...Iranian leader Ahmadinejad has broken off negotiations and states that he will continue to enrich uranium; Ahmadinejad later stated that he has what he calls a 'special gift' for America and that we'll be receiving it via 'air mail' soon."
"...North Korea has test-fired four nuclear weapons today, captured two American journalists, and Kim Jong Il has opened a fast-food chain that serves 'minced beef with bread' that look and taste suspiciously like hamburgers".

Sure, let's not inform Americans that there exist countries that seek our destruction. Let's instead convince ourselves that we're loved worldwide and no one would ever hurt us. No thanks, I prefer to know the truth.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have released it. I'm saying that the reason it was released was to get public support for a war. If America really wanted to stay out of the war, they wouldn't have released it. It didn't mean anything anyway, because the Mexican government declined Germanies offer.

Being the self-serving prick that you would make me out to be, I only concern myself with wars that directly or indirectly affect my country. If Russia were to invade Canada, I'd be interested. Simply because it's the right thing to do? No, but because they're one of our major suppliers and as an ally, they represent a strong point of defense should we ever have need to fight Russia, as well as countless other points of interest. It is protecting our interests.

Your "interests" don't lie in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter. You're not an American, you're a human. I'm not Australian, I'm just a human. Tsuyu's not Swedish, he's just human. Nationality is a lie, and you're too caught up in it to see it for what it is.

I'm racist because I favor Americans to non-Americans? It has nothing to do with skin color, but nationality. And we classify civilians and soldiers separately because the death of a civilian, a non-combatant, isn't the same as the death of a soldier, which to them is an occupational hazard. And we classified Americans and Germans separately because the soldiers of each were trying to kill each other. And no one said anything about black and white, so I don't know where you got this racist thing from.

I was trying to link the idea that one would favour an American over a Russian (or anyone else), which seems perfectly acceptable, to the idea that one would favour someone differently because of their skin colour. It's the exact same thing.

That figure of two hundred thousand, which isn't even half of the Japanese civilian deaths, is dwarfed by what the numbers would have been otherwise. It was a quick end to the war that had already killed well over sixty million people (a third of whom were Soviets, no wonder they were mad as hell). The campaign to get that far had already killed more than that, and to invade Japan itself would prove much deadlier for both sides. It was a devastatingly powerful weapon, and I believe Truman made the right call.

He made the wrong call. He would have made the wrong call if he had used conventional warfare. The Japanese made the wrong call by bombing Pearl Harbour. They also made the wrong call when they decided to invade China and Indonesia, etc. War in the first place is the wrong call.

And how should we have acted when one moment a nation feigned desires for peace and in the next moment they bomb us? Declaring war is no overreaction.So if, hypothetically, this hobo were to have made you drop your drink and stole your chips, you'd show up the next day and offer him another bag of chips and a drink? Because that would be equal and opposite.

I'm saying that if someone hits you, you hit them back, equally hard. You don't kill them, move into their house and put their family to work as slaves.

And if America had the means, sure, we'd make dreams of world peace and an end to world hunger realized for everyone. Unfortunately, no one has such means.

We all have the means! It's just that everyone is so caught up in the idea of nations and ideologies that they can't see past their own selfish (and ultimately petty) desires to try and make the world a better place for everyone.

Now you're just being disputatious. First, no, it is in desire to spare human life, our human life, as well as resources and time (because time can be spent doing other, better things). Second, yes, negotiating is easier, and so long as an agreement is met that does not threaten us, that does not impede our interests, we're golden. It doesn't matter what our motives for negotiating are so long as we are there to strike an agreement to not fight, rather than confuse the enemy and buy time for the incoming raid.

Take the USSR. If you could have had a 100% guarantee that you could kill all of them (all of them) without any "negative" ramifications (no mutually assured destruction, no bad rep with the rest of the world, etc), you guys would have hands down gone for it. No regard for any of the life there, it would have just been one less thing to worry about.