Occupy Wall Street

[Wheem]

We don't need equality.  What we need is a baseline that no one falls below.  Housing (with dignity and privacy), medical care, clothing, food, education, and in geographically expansive places like N. America, transportation.  No human should be bereft of any of these things, but so many are.

Why should you have authority over the resources and productions of other free-thinking individuals?

And a somewhat rhetorical question here; what have you done to help the poor and disadvantaged? I actually find a lot of "leftists" to be hypocrites when it comes to the poor. They're always whining about how there needs to be free X, Y, and Z, but they always think it's someone else's duty to provide it - why divert my disposable income to charities that help those I claim to care about when I can instead spend decades demanding that government use force and violence to make other people do it instead (and probably give me some goodies along the way, too!)

Considering how close we are to becoming a post-scarcity economy, this **** should just not be.

Someone else already pointed it out, but I'll reinforce the point - you have no idea what you're talking about here. None whatsoever. Even Star Trek styled replicators wouldn't eliminate scarcity entirely (since, for instance, I never saw them replicating any real estate).

If you have a country of well-educated people who don't have to worry, even for a moment, about their basic needs being met, you will quickly have the most prosperous country in the world.  But our overlords don't care about building a prosperous society, they care about exploiting all resources at their disposal to make a prosperous THEM.  And we're just a resource.

Not everyone needs to be well-educated. There are a lot of necessary jobs out there that don't require a 4+ year university degree; getting one is a waste of time and money for a lot of people. And you should stop complaining about the rich viewing you as a resource when you're doing the exact same thing to them. Your hypocrisy is incredibly blatant, there's just no way you're too blind to see that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE

George Carlin let politicians off the hook way too easily, and never asked the question, "Why do (some) corporations have so much power?" The answer to the question is, "because government has so much power over the economy." With so much (undue) authority, government and (some) corporations developed a symbiotic relationship called corporatism. The only way to end the effects of corporatism is to have a separation of economy and state; as long as the government wields so much power over the economy, some actors in the economy will do everything they can to wield power over government.

 

[MadocComadrin]

If poverty is subjective to the regions or sets they're grouped in, how do you justify these sets that you've put them in? Why should the grouping of them within the confines of geography take precedent over other alternative groupings? How is this different from ignoring geological confines and just grouping them into something that's convenient for a specific interpretation of economics? To justify them based on the claim that it makes sense to designate the poor in such parametres is no different from someone else grouping them different without any regards to geological factors and claiming that this makes sense even if its entirely contradictory. It would probably make more sense to group people into sets where they are of similar economic opportunity, this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with any sort of geographical ties.

Are you insinuating that a countries, states, and cultural regions are neither geographical ties nor areas with similar economic opportunity? You're misunderstanding what I was getting at and going off on a tangent, arguing against things are are used commonly in practice due to being pretty much common sense. I don't see the point.

And a somewhat rhetorical question here; what have you done to help the poor and disadvantaged? I actually find a lot of "leftists" to be hypocrites when it comes to the poor. They're always whining about how there needs to be free X, Y, and Z, but they always think it's someone else's duty to provide it - why divert my disposable income to charities that help those I claim to care about when I can instead spend decades demanding that government use force and violence to make other people do it instead (and probably give me some goodies along the way, too!)

This! This! 1000 times this! It's not generosity if it's forced!

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Who's asking for generosity?

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Are you insinuating that a countries, states, and cultural regions are neither geographical ties nor areas with similar economic opportunity? You're misunderstanding what I was getting at and going off on a tangent, arguing against things are are used commonly in practice due to being pretty much common sense. I don't see the point.

Common sense can be wrong. I think they have some ties, but it correlative at best. Rather than focusing on geographical features of the person, there are factors at work that influence the opportunities of the person. A template for a statistic built from these factors will be far better than a template where the only requirement is the spacial location of a person. If we construct a template for all templates, we would arguably have a global template, one that supersedes all sub-templates.

We don't need equality.  What we need is a baseline that no one falls below.  Housing (with dignity and privacy), medical care, clothing, food, education, and in geographically expansive places like N. America, transportation.  No human should be bereft of any of these things, but so many are.

Why should you have authority over the resources and productions of other free-thinking individuals?

I believe he might be trying to appeal to morality here.

And a somewhat rhetorical question here; what have you done to help the poor and disadvantaged? I actually find a lot of "leftists" to be hypocrites when it comes to the poor. They're always whining about how there needs to be free X, Y, and Z, but they always think it's someone else's duty to provide it - why divert my disposable income to charities that help those I claim to care about when I can instead spend decades demanding that government use force and violence to make other people do it instead (and probably give me some goodies along the way, too!)

Well, given that in general large companies and persons of considerable wealth usually have in their employment and patrons members of the public who have benefited from some of these programs as well as other governmental institutions, it would seem as if their methods of generating money relies a great deal on indirect benefits from these programs and services. They owe a fair share of their massive indirect dependence on these things like charities, public housing, stability what have you.

 

[Starforge]

Still 176% : 6% is hardly a good argument against the rising inequality. 

Eogan, in life there's no such thing as equality. To try and force such a misguided notion upon a people is to attempt punishment upon the gifted, the enlightened, and the willing.

We don't need equality.  What we need is a baseline that no one falls below.  Housing (with dignity and privacy), medical care, clothing, food, education, and in geographically expansive places like N. America, transportation.  No human should be bereft of any of these things, but so many are.  Considering how close we are to becoming a post-scarcity economy, this **** should just not be.

If you have a country of well-educated people who don't have to worry, even for a moment, about their basic needs being met, you will quickly have the most prosperous country in the world.  But our overlords don't care about building a prosperous society, they care about exploiting all resources at their disposal to make a prosperous THEM.  And we're just a resource.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE

So, in your system, are people of limited means allowed to procreate at will regardless of ability to afford the children since the rest of productive society will simply have to pick up the tab or do you start placing restrictions by limiting the 'poor' to only what the state can afford (remember - all resources are finite be it housing or medical care.)

I would also submit that if everyones basic needs were met - then why not stay home and play Mount and Blade all day?  You're not going to want for food and shelter, children or spouse.  Sure, maybe you can't afford trips to exotic places, but so what?  Your assumption is that everyone is driven, motivated and talented in some way and that's simply not the case.  Work as a janitor or play video games for essentially the same 'pay.'  For some, that would be an easy decision.

 

[MadocComadrin]

Common sense can be wrong. I think they have some ties, but it correlative at best. Rather than focusing on geographical features of the person, there are factors at work that influence the opportunities of the person. A template for a statistic built from these factors will be far better than a template where the only requirement is the spacial location of a person. If we construct a template for all templates, we would arguably have a global template, one that supersedes all sub-templates.

Gah, you really don't get it: geography is hollistic, and since it's prime subject is the study of change over space, it makes it the perfect school to use to define economic regions for further study.

Well, given that in general large companies and persons of considerable wealth usually have in their employment and patrons members of the public who have benefited from some of these programs as well as other governmental institutions, it would seem as if their methods of generating money relies a great deal on indirect benefits from these programs and services. They owe a fair share of their massive indirect dependence on these things like charities, public housing, stability what have you.

Benefit != depend. Likewise, I doubt it has as much benefit as you believe.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Gah, you really don't get it: geography is hollistic, and since it's prime subject is the study of change over space, it makes it the perfect school to use to define economic regions for further study.

No idea what you mean by hollistic there. Yes geography is in general the study of change over space, still doesn't make the regions any less irrelevant though. f you can filter out all other factors, and this general one called location into the mechanics that affect the individual, why must we take note of where this person is? Poverty isn't exactly definitionally global in this case, but it is applicable to everyone with little regards to the immediate spacial temporal facts of the person.

Well, given that in general large companies and persons of considerable wealth usually have in their employment and patrons members of the public who have benefited from some of these programs as well as other governmental institutions, it would seem as if their methods of generating money relies a great deal on indirect benefits from these programs and services. They owe a fair share of their massive indirect dependence on these things like charities, public housing, stability what have you.

Benefit != depend. Likewise, I doubt it has as much benefit as you believe.

I apologize, I used the two terms synonymous. Nevertheless it is irrelevant, whether the businesses are the recipient is the big issue. Roads, public transportation, fuel in some cases, the enforcement of regulations and laws all affect them a great deal more than the individual. Far more is at stake for them. Even if their employees or direct consumers aren't the beneficiaries of these things, people closely tied to them inevitably are. Wealth isn't created in solitary with a matter and energy generation. The society that surrounds it had a very big hand in it.

 

[Wheem]

I believe he might be trying to appeal to morality here.

What's moral about threatening one person or group with many years of imprisonment if they refuse to pay the transportation costs incurred by someone else?
What's moral about claiming to have authority over someone else's property, such that you can demand that they employ it only in ways that you find personally acceptable?

Screw that, he's just a thief that legitimizes his proposals with vague notions of democracy; ie, it's OK to steal from 49% of the population, as long as the other 51% votes on it, and a warped sense of "fairness." Oh and uniforms! The crooks must have uniforms, otherwise it's bad.

Well, given that in general large companies and persons of considerable wealth usually have in their employment and patrons members of the public who have benefited from some of these programs as well as other governmental institutions, it would seem as if their methods of generating money relies a great deal on indirect benefits from these programs and services. They owe a fair share of their massive indirect dependence on these things like charities, public housing, stability what have you.

Though we may agree that corporate welfare itself is bad and undesirable, that doesn't sound like what you're describing here.

Employers don't owe anything to the universities, trade schools, or individuals that trained their workers. Nor do they owe anything to the parents of a teenage/young adult worker that bought them a car so they can get to work.

Individuals and businesses make various economic agreements with one another. Making any one particular agreement doesn't mean that you're in any way beholden to all the individuals and businesses that made previous deals with the other party; claiming otherwise introduces a convoluted and wholly unworkable set of problems that really have no basis in anything other than maybe some sort of socialistic fantasy.

I mean honestly...if I sold you some gardening equipment today, and you later start up a successful landscaping business, should all of your future clients be forced to pay me some sort of royalty fee? After all, even if you aren't using any of the equipment that I sold you, one might claim that you learned your trade with it. In reality, the only person in this theoretical scenario that owed me anything was you; and all you owed me was whatever payment we agreed on for the gardening equipment. Once that transaction is over, so are our obligations to one another (barring some sort of contract/warranty, of course). Whether you create a thriving business, a failed business, or simply use the tools to improve your own yard is up to you; I'm not responsible for any of that.

I apologize, I used the two terms synonymous. Nevertheless it is irrelevant, whether the businesses are the recipient is the big issue. Roads, public transportation, fuel in some cases, the enforcement of regulations and laws all affect them a great deal more than the individual. Far more is at stake for them. Even if their employees or direct consumers aren't the beneficiaries of these things, people closely tied to them inevitably are. Wealth isn't created in solitary with a matter and energy generation. The society that surrounds it had a very big hand in it.

So because the government paved a road (which is supposed to be paid for through gasoline taxes - which may actually be diverted to other purposes, leaving some roads in quite poor shape) at some point in the past, businesses basically have to do anything and everything the government says they must do; no-holds-barred? What a tyrannical attitude.

And certainly, a society that surrounds a business has an impact on it - they are, after all, the laborers and consumers. That said, this isn't a one way street; businesses provide goods, services, and employment to the society that surrounds them. This mutually beneficial arrangement doesn't justify individual welfare anymore than it does corporate welfare.

 

[Róisín]

So, in your system, are people of limited means allowed to procreate at will regardless of ability to afford the children since the rest of productive society will simply have to pick up the tab or do you start placing restrictions by limiting the 'poor' to only what the state can afford (remember - all resources are finite be it housing or medical care.)

Rich people and healthy people have less off-spring.  If you want to increase the population rate, there are only two things you need to do:
1. Create a large disparity between the rich and the poor.
2. Reduce life-expectancy.
Factor one will produce factor two as people begin to compete more and more aggressively for the limited resources available.  As life-expectancy decreases, the birth rate booms and the accepted conception age drops down close to puberty.  This is why ghettos inevitably develop gangs and why teenage pregnancies become commonplace.  Higher risk behaviour is the only way for resource-deprived, short-lived people to thrive.

That is why VACCINES are one of the best population-growth controls we have.  If you make people healthy and make it more likely that their children will survive, you reduce the birth rate considerably.

I would also submit that if everyones basic needs were met - then why not stay home and play Mount and Blade all day?  You're not going to want for food and shelter, children or spouse.  Sure, maybe you can't afford trips to exotic places, but so what?  Your assumption is that everyone is driven, motivated and talented in some way and that's simply not the case.  Work as a janitor or play video games for essentially the same 'pay.'  For some, that would be an easy decision.

Which is exactly why no open-source free software has ever been successful.  Why Armagan simply refused to begin work on M&B until he had a corporate contract that he knew would provide for his means.

Oh.  Wait.

Besides, why do we NEED everyone to work?  Seriously.  Production levels have skyrocketted since the industrial revolution.  Without the ludicrous consumerism modern advertising crams down our throats every chance they get, how many man-hours does caring for our basic needs require?  With modern technology a person can do in an hour what previously took a week's work.  The only reason our economy requires SO MUCH effort from its workforce is because our economic structure requires exponential growth to prevent collapse.

We don't NEED people to work 40 hour weeks to just get by as a society.  5 hour work-weeks would be plenty.  Many people will WANT to do more, and many will want to do less.  If too many want to do more, those that only vaguely wanted to do more will stop doing more.  If not enough gets done, those that only vaguely wished to sit on their asses will find the motivation to contribute.  The drive of the human species is a very wide spectrum.  Equilibrium will be found.

Also, in an economy where all base needs were met without effort, being a janitor would become one of the HIGHEST paid positions.

NB, I am discussing an economy where socialism saw to base needs and education only-  all other advancement would require endeavour to achieve.

We don't need equality.  What we need is a baseline that no one falls below.  Housing (with dignity and privacy), medical care, clothing, food, education, and in geographically expansive places like N. America, transportation.  No human should be bereft of any of these things, but so many are.

Why should you have authority over the resources and productions of other free-thinking individuals?

What does that even mean?  It's this thing we social animals like to call "society".  We gain the benefits of working together at the expense of occasionally being the ones to work for our fellows.

And a somewhat rhetorical question here; what have you done to help the poor and disadvantaged? I actually find a lot of "leftists" to be hypocrites when it comes to the poor. They're always whining about how there needs to be free X, Y, and Z, but they always think it's someone else's duty to provide it - why divert my disposable income to charities that help those I claim to care about when I can instead spend decades demanding that government use force and violence to make other people do it instead (and probably give me some goodies along the way, too!)

Don't even go there, you ass.  I have supported children in Africa, I got a whole company supporting children in Africa.  I have supported people in need to the point of impoverishing myself.  I never track the "debt" when they "borrow" from me because I don't care- if they pay me back it's because they have the means and the sense of honour to do so.  I also never deny them the dignity of paying it back because I know how insulted I would be if I couldn't pay back someone who had helped me in a time of need.  I have spent 15 hours a week driving hundreds of kilometres so that a lonely friend who was working in another town where she knew no one could be among friends on the weekends and for events during the week.  My first financial priority, before internet, phone, or even rent is maintaining my vehicle so that I can have the privilege of always being the one who goes out of his way at any gathering to make sure that every has a safe ride there and a safe ride home- to the point now where some of my closest friends offer people rides in my car without even asking:  even if I have to cross town just to get there.

I have NO shame in how much I do for others.  I live for others.

1.  A rhetorical question is one where the answer can be assumed, which strongly implies you were assuming about MY character.  I don't appreciate that.
2.  Even if it were true, it's irrelevant.  The actions of those who espouse an idea do not influence the validity of the idea itself.  That is Ad Hominem Tu Quoque.

Considering how close we are to becoming a post-scarcity economy, this **** should just not be.

Someone else already pointed it out, but I'll reinforce the point - you have no idea what you're talking about here. None whatsoever. Even Star Trek styled replicators wouldn't eliminate scarcity entirely (since, for instance, I never saw them replicating any real estate).

First, being close to post-scarcity is not even close to being post-scarcity.  (ha! i c wut i did thar!)  Getting close to post-scarcity simply means that more and more things, especially those pertinent to survival, simply require less or no effort.  Approaching post-scarcity is like approacing C:  the closer you get, the more effort it takes to get closer.  Even with infinite resources, and exponentially growing society could quickly use them up.

By the way, our society's consumption is growing exponentially.  Many of see this as something of a problem.

If you have a country of well-educated people who don't have to worry, even for a moment, about their basic needs being met, you will quickly have the most prosperous country in the world.  But our overlords don't care about building a prosperous society, they care about exploiting all resources at their disposal to make a prosperous THEM.  And we're just a resource.

Not everyone needs to be well-educated. There are a lot of necessary jobs out there that don't require a 4+ year university degree; getting one is a waste of time and money for a lot of people. And you should stop complaining about the rich viewing you as a resource when you're doing the exact same thing to them. Your hypocrisy is incredibly blatant, there's just no way you're too blind to see that.

I don't mind being a resource.  I mind being a powerless and exploited resource.

Just because education is free doesn't mean everyone will want it.  Or that everyone is intelligent enough to achieve it.  And if there are necessary jobs that require difficult, unskilled labour, well you'll soon find that LABOUR is a very valuable resource and will need to be payed accordingly.  But the thing is, manual labour is the easiest thing to automate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE

George Carlin let politicians off the hook way too easily, and never asked the question, "Why do (some) corporations have so much power?" The answer to the question is, "because government has so much power over the economy." With so much (undue) authority, government and (some) corporations developed a symbiotic relationship called corporatism. The only way to end the effects of corporatism is to have a separation of economy and state; as long as the government wields so much power over the economy, some actors in the economy will do everything they can to wield power over government.

Government is a sham.  From the campaign, to the primary, to the primary campaign, to the very parties themselves, the corporations have bought them long ago.  There has never been a write-in president.  The government IS the corporation because that's who they work for.  Whether it's George W. Beebelbrox or Zaphod Obama makes no difference.

 

[Róisín]

You're not going to want for food and shelter, children or spouse.

Sorry, almost missed this.

When did socialist state-marriage and reproduction become part of this.  You still have to go get your own spouse and children.

 

[Adorno]

But the most important thing pointed out in your link is also the fact that:

Inflation adjusted income data from the Census Bureau shows that household income has increased substantially for all demographics, with larger gains experienced by those with higher incomes. The emergence of dual-earner households has had a substantial impact on increasing household income, especially among households in the upper 20%. Along with the entrance of women into the labor force, the discrepancy between those households with one and those with multiple earners was amplified significantly.

So when people try to interject some stats and charts to scare people about "The rich are leaving us" argument, it almost always excludes the fact that women are now more intertwined in the workforce, and how this has amplified the statistics of mean income ownership per household, or they just have absolutely no idea about it in the first place.

I'm not sure what the point of this is.
Yes more women are working and therefore household income has increased, but as shown "especially among households in the upper 20%".
And "larger gains experienced by those with higher incomes". The fact that women now work doesn't change the fact that:
"Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations"

What interests me is the overall economic inequality, because that has proven to be the most important factor in the well-being of a population.

 

[Wheem]

What does that even mean?  It's this thing we social animals like to call "society".  We gain the benefits of working together at the expense of occasionally being the ones to work for our fellows.

I'm an advocate of a free society, which necessarily means that one person or group should not be forced - under the threat of violence and/or imprisonment - into providing for the needs of anyone else. Institutionalized, coercive violence is a divisive and destructive force in society.

Now if I've misjudged you, and you're actually a strong advocate for voluntary charity rather than forced wealth redistribution - then my bad. Maybe I was mixing your posts in with someone else's to some degree.

1.  A rhetorical question is one where the answer can be assumed, which strongly implies you were assuming about MY character.  I don't appreciate that.
2.  Even if it were true, it's irrelevant.  The actions of those who espouse an idea do not influence the validity of the idea itself.  That is Ad Hominem Tu Quoque.

I said, "somewhat rhetorical" because I don't really care what your individual answer is. There are generous people of all political persuasions.

First, being close to post-scarcity is not even close to being post-scarcity.  (ha! i c wut i did thar!)  Getting close to post-scarcity simply means that more and more things, especially those pertinent to survival, simply require less or no effort.  Approaching post-scarcity is like approacing C:  the closer you get, the more effort it takes to get closer.  Even with infinite resources, and exponentially growing society could quickly use them up.

Then what was the point of mentioning it to begin with?

I don't mind being a resource.  I mind being a powerless and exploited resource.

How are you being exploited?

Just because education is free doesn't mean everyone will want it.  Or that everyone is intelligent enough to achieve it.  And if there are necessary jobs that require difficult, unskilled labour, well you'll soon find that LABOUR is a very valuable resource and will need to be payed accordingly.  But the thing is, manual labour is the easiest thing to automate.

Um, labor is a valuable resource right now. And manual labor being automated is a darn good thing, obviously; otherwise we'd all still be breaking our backs on a farm for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Government is a sham.  From the campaign, to the primary, to the primary campaign, to the very parties themselves, the corporations have bought them long ago.  There has never been a write-in president.  The government IS the corporation because that's who they work for.  Whether it's George W. Beebelbrox or Zaphod Obama makes no difference.

The government-corporation relationship is much more symbiotic than you're claiming. And again, without heavy government interference in the economy, there wouldn't be corporate influence on government. If they're not adding tens of thousands of pages of regulatory minutia every year, why spend millions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions in order to get a hand in writing those regulations?

What interests me is the overall economic inequality, because that has proven to be the most important factor in the well-being of a population.

Uh, no it hasn't. Economic inequality - especially when it's based on snapshot data - is irrelevant. I'd rather be in the bottom 10% of income in America than the top 10% in Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, etc...

Edit: Quote fail followed by a post fail

 

[FrisianDude]

I read hundreds of occupy members have been arrested in Chicago?

 

[Róisín]

What does that even mean?  It's this thing we social animals like to call "society".  We gain the benefits of working together at the expense of occasionally being the ones to work for our fellows.

I'm an advocate of a free society, which necessarily means that one person or group should not be forced - under the threat of violence and/or imprisonment - into providing for the needs of anyone else. Institutionalized, coercive violence is a divisive and destructive force in society.

Anarchy is also a divisive force.  The "free society" you speak of immediately divides people from being part of a cohesive group into autonomous units, which makes members of that society FAR more vulnerable to all manner of predation.  Your society would have no police, no hospitals, no fire departments, no road infrastructures... it would quickly devolve into a warlord-controlled despotism.

A "free" society ceases to be a society.
The term "society" came from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend, ally")

Societal obligations and expectations in return for much greater protection and opportunity is what a society IS.  And you don't need violence.  In a society where capitalism is even a small part you can simply garnish.  If you do not contribute to society, you cannot contribute to yourself using the structure of our society.  You still get all your basic needs met, but if you have any aspirations to use our society to your own betterment, you must agree to contribute to it.  After all, the benefits of being part of a society are substantial and can be considered a form of capital.

If you don't like it, I saw a really cool documentary about a guy that flew to the middle of nowhere in Alaska and build his own cabin by hand and lived a completely independent, self-sustained life there.  You could always do that.

Now if I've misjudged you, and you're actually a strong advocate for voluntary charity rather than forced wealth redistribution - then my bad. Maybe I was mixing your posts in with someone else's to some degree.

I believe in personal honour and dignity.

I also believe that a society with the means to easily provide for the basic needs of all its citizens several times over (of which, ours is the first in history) that allows millions of its members to suffer starvation, exposure, and ill-health is unconscionable and unforgivable.

I said, "somewhat rhetorical" because I don't really care what your individual answer is. There are generous people of all political persuasions.

Then what was the point of bringing it up?

Then what was the point of mentioning [post-scarcity] to begin with?

To illustrate how easily we could provide the basic needs to every single citizen.  Our agriculture provides many times more food than would be required:  our society THROWS OUT more food that it would take to feed everyone.  Our industry could provide housing and clothing without any significant (statistically speaking) effect to its bottom line.  SO MUCH of our industry is automated, roboticized, and computerized that we don't need to redistribute wealth from the rich to provide for the poor:  we would simply need to stop being so miserly with what we have.  To stop creating false-scarcities with every product in an effort to maximise profits.

We waste so much; we have such bounty that we think nothing of throwing it away, and yet we are so greedy with its distribution that a very large percentage of our population can't even afford the basics of survival.  We have created a society where a person can work full-time and still not be able to afford to raise themselves out of squalor.  We require prolonged educations for people to truly get ahead, but charge so much for the honour that the vast majority is left indentured for life.  We have made a two-income household so common that parents cannot afford to stay at home and care for their children.

It's sickening.  And it's what those in power want.  The more desperate our need to remove ourselves from debt and decrepitude, the more cheaply they can demand we sell ourselves to provide wealth for them.  And it carries steadily on, like rising gas prices.  A recession here, and downturn there, and they tell us to tighten our belts and pitch in a little more to get by.  Then the economy recovers, and we experience wealth again, just not quite as much as before.  But it's so hard to remember where we were before because we had gotten used to our belts being a little tighter, so it seems like a bounty and we are appeased.  Then the cycle repeats.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  And we are told over and over that if we just gave the rich a little more independence, a little less interference, that it would all start to get better.

It's bull****.

I don't mind being a resource.  I mind being a powerless and exploited resource.

How are you being exploited?

Are you kidding?  I'm out of work and hoping to go to school eventually.  I'm fighting for the opportunity to be exploited. 

Um, labor is a valuable resource right now. And manual labor being automated is a darn good thing, obviously; otherwise we'd all still be breaking our backs on a farm for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Labour is the cheapest of all human resources right now.  Because it has the fewest prerequisites it is the most abundant and therefore the cheapest.  In a world where everyone had access to free education, the labour market switches from a buyer's market to a seller's market.  You can't just say "if you're not willing, we'll find someone who is", you'd have to actually pay fair compensation for the strain and exertion the labourer endures.

The government-corporation relationship is much more symbiotic than you're claiming. And again, without heavy government interference in the economy, there wouldn't be corporate influence on government. If they're not adding tens of thousands of pages of regulatory minutia every year, why spend millions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions in order to get a hand in writing those regulations?

The regulations are the politicians "goods" which they "sell" for campaign financing, which is the capital they use to secure their power and position in the government.  Like labour, politics is a buyer's market:  the available positions are so few that if one politician won't play ball with the corporations, there's another who will.  Luckily, the cost to win a campaign is really a small expense in the grand scheme of things, and the salaries and pensions of the people the corporations put in power is paid by the people, not them, so it's an extremely economically efficient system.  It's also a placebo for the masses, something that can take the blame, make the people feel empowered, and distracts from the real power.  In other words,

Government is a sham.

Next you're going to tell me that the legal system has something to do with "justice". 

 

[Róisín]

I read hundreds of occupy members have been arrested in Chicago?

 

[FrisianDude]

I read hundreds of occupy members have been arrested in Chicago?

Spoiler

Article I read mentioned those 130 and some 170/180 who had been arrested before.

 

[MadocComadrin]

Rich people and healthy people have less off-spring.  If you want to increase the population rate, there are only two things you need to do:
1. Create a large disparity between the rich and the poor.
2. Reduce life-expectancy.
Factor one will produce factor two as people begin to compete more and more aggressively for the limited resources available.  As life-expectancy decreases, the birth rate booms and the accepted conception age drops down close to puberty.  This is why ghettos inevitably develop gangs and why teenage pregnancies become commonplace.  Higher risk behaviour is the only way for resource-deprived, short-lived people to thrive.

That is why VACCINES are one of the best population-growth controls we have.  If you make people healthy and make it more likely that their children will survive, you reduce the birth rate considerably.

This isn't quite right. The large disparity doesn't matter that much: it depends on a huge number of cultural variables as well as life expectancy. Culture aside, if the general life expectancy is short, even the rich will have many children (compared to the rich in nations with long life expectancy).  Likewise, vaccines are not a population control at all. In fact, it's often the cause of overpopulation when introduced to countries with low life expectancy, as their many-children extended households survive to create more many-children extended households. It's this overpopulation that leads to the need for population control, which may or may not happen.

 

[Starforge]

So, in your system, are people of limited means allowed to procreate at will regardless of ability to afford the children since the rest of productive society will simply have to pick up the tab or do you start placing restrictions by limiting the 'poor' to only what the state can afford (remember - all resources are finite be it housing or medical care.)

Rich people and healthy people have less off-spring.  If you want to increase the population rate, there are only two things you need to do:
1. Create a large disparity between the rich and the poor.
2. Reduce life-expectancy.
Factor one will produce factor two as people begin to compete more and more aggressively for the limited resources available.  As life-expectancy decreases, the birth rate booms and the accepted conception age drops down close to puberty.  This is why ghettos inevitably develop gangs and why teenage pregnancies become commonplace.  Higher risk behaviour is the only way for resource-deprived, short-lived people to thrive.

That is why VACCINES are one of the best population-growth controls we have.  If you make people healthy and make it more likely that their children will survive, you reduce the birth rate considerably.

I would also submit that if everyones basic needs were met - then why not stay home and play Mount and Blade all day?  You're not going to want for food and shelter, children or spouse.  Sure, maybe you can't afford trips to exotic places, but so what?  Your assumption is that everyone is driven, motivated and talented in some way and that's simply not the case.  Work as a janitor or play video games for essentially the same 'pay.'  For some, that would be an easy decision.

Which is exactly why no open-source free software has ever been successful.  Why Armagan simply refused to begin work on M&B until he had a corporate contract that he knew would provide for his means.

Oh.  Wait.

Besides, why do we NEED everyone to work?  Seriously.  Production levels have skyrocketted since the industrial revolution.  Without the ludicrous consumerism modern advertising crams down our throats every chance they get, how many man-hours does caring for our basic needs require?  With modern technology a person can do in an hour what previously took a week's work.  The only reason our economy requires SO MUCH effort from its workforce is because our economic structure requires exponential growth to prevent collapse.

We don't NEED people to work 40 hour weeks to just get by as a society.  5 hour work-weeks would be plenty.  Many people will WANT to do more, and many will want to do less.  If too many want to do more, those that only vaguely wanted to do more will stop doing more.  If not enough gets done, those that only vaguely wished to sit on their asses will find the motivation to contribute.  The drive of the human species is a very wide spectrum.  Equilibrium will be found.

Also, in an economy where all base needs were met without effort, being a janitor would become one of the HIGHEST paid positions.

NB, I am discussing an economy where socialism saw to base needs and education only-  all other advancement would require endeavour to achieve.

There is a lot of speculation that goes into your assumption about rich / poor birth rates.  You may be able to show a correlation, but I doubt seriously that one could determine cause or effect in the population as a whole.  An argument could certainly be made that it is the very social safety net put in place that allows people of lesser means to have as many children as they would like because society picks up so much of the tab.  When you subsidise something, you get more of it - even if it is not a direct subsidy.

5 hours per week?  So we've become Rome have we?  Do essentially nothing while importing goods and labor from those poor people who happen to live outside developed countries (It's still cheaper to hire labor than use technology for many tasks.)  And no - a Janitor would NOT be a highly skilled resource unless you acknowledge that the desire itself to pick up after others would be in such short supply that they would have to overpay.  Exactly the type of task you would like your driven and motivated people to devote themselves to.  And here I thought you folks were all about more education.

I wasn't, btw, talking about software being free.  Many will, however, value entertainment or drugs over having to work.  Being someone who has been alive a while, I've seen friends make such poor choices even in a society that does not reward it.  Subsidise such behavior by making it easy is not a worthwhile goal, IMO.  You certainly aren't going to get the support of those people who will be asked to foot the bill for the freeloaders.  Then again, you could be advocating a form of communism which is fine, as an intellectual exercise, but doesn't survive reality and never will.

You're right, btw, that a spouse was rather inappropriate to your vision.  Why bother when you have no real need for a family structure.  Have as many kids as you like - no need to worry over forming bonds unless useful at the moment.

 

[Róisín]

It's evolutionary psych.  You should check out Baba Brinkman.  Also, check the links in the annotation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXDJveODTk&feature=related

5 hours per week?  So we've become Rome have we?  Do essentially nothing while importing goods and labor from those poor people who happen to live outside developed countries (It's still cheaper to hire labor than use technology for many tasks.)

5 hours/week for everyone.  Rome was able to afford its rich that luxury based on nothing more than aqueduct technology.  How much more could we accomplish with our automation, centralization, specialization, and transportation technologies?  Advancement has made one man-hour of work many, many times more productive, so why do we still work such long hours?

And no - a Janitor would NOT be a highly skilled resource unless you acknowledge that the desire itself to pick up after others would be in such short supply that they would have to overpay.  Exactly the type of task you would like your driven and motivated people to devote themselves to.  And here I thought you folks were all about more education.

Highly-skilled?  No.  Highly sought?  Yes.  And it's not overpaying;  it's fair compensation.  I thought you were a Capitalist- there's no such thing as overpaying in Capitalism!  It's just what the market will bear.  The reason that sort of work is so cheap at the moment is because there are so many prospectless and desperate people in our society that janitors and other menial labourers get vastly UNDERPAYED for their time and services.  And BEING so underpayed KEEPS them at that point of desperation, thereby fuelling the rich's ability to dominate and exploit them.  Take the desperation of poverty out of the picture and watch the value of menial labour skyrocket.

You say it's still cheaper to hire labour than use technology?  Give those labourers food and shelter, medical care and education and see how long that remains true.  Without poverty, exploitation of the poor ceases.

 

[ealabor]

5 hours/week for everyone.  Rome was able to afford its rich that luxury based on nothing more than aqueduct technology.  How much more could we accomplish with our automation, centralization, specialization, and transportation technologies?

Alright well, that's it. You're done.

There's so many things wrong with just this little bit, but also the rest of the post in question, that I can't even begin to speak on.

You are serious?