Bitcoin Forum

I've heard the term, "fuck you, got mine," a few times, pretty much exclusively used in a derogatory way. From what I understand, it is supposed to describe an individual who is of the opinion that as long as they have attained the item they strove to acquire, they don't care if someone else, who may really need the item as well, does not have it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

So, my question is, what is the opposite of "Fuck you, got mine?" Is it something like, "I didn't do shit, give me yours?" I'm trying to understand the meaning behind the derogatory connotation. Is it really just the disagreement between the "I worked my ass off for it, I deserve it" class, and the "We're all in this together and we should all share equally" class?

I actually had to look up "fuck you, got mine" on the UD.

...Yeah, looks like the opposite of FYIGM is indeed, "I don't do shit, give me yours," since pretty much everyone who is described as "Fuck you, I got mine," are people who are complaining about paying taxes, or downvoting tax increases, against forgiving debts, etc.


The classic battle between the parasites and the productive, yes.

I always understood it to mean not caring or sharing with a problem that ought to be solved for everybody ("ought" being a subjective term), but isn't a problem for the person it applies to.

"Fuck you, got mine" might describe somebody on a sinking ship who successfully boards a lifeboat and drives it away without letting others take the empty seats.

It doesn't necessarily mean the person is a parasite: it more often might refer to a productive person who feels that those who cannot produce are parasites and deserve nothing.

Sorry to derail my own thread a bit, but... wait, what?  ??? The government has regulations that prevent mortgage lenders from changing loan terms? Or did whoever wrote that sentence meant to write, "People who were against the law that forced private banks to make changes to the loans of borrowers who were in danger of defaulting, at the expense of all other borrowers?"

"I am a caring, compassionate, and empathetic person, who cares about the betterment of society".

"Fuck you, got mine" vs. "I have enough, here's some for you."

You have two kidneys. Give me one.

People do give kidneys. I know a person who ran in an election for district supervisor and lost. She then donated a kidney. Do you need a kidney?

I'm not talking about donations. I'm talking about taking, at gunpoint.

Why are you talking about taking a kidney at gunpoint?

I'll get some Jolly Ranchers. Save my seat.

Kidney theft at gunpoint is a FY,GM action yes. You won't find a high instance of that in a socialism though, nor in any first world nation. In places where cartels and gangs rule without oversight or human rights agencies though, it happens.

Donations are voluntary. I wasn't discussing voluntary transactions. None of the examples in the UD definition are voluntary transactions.

In case you didn't notice, you're defending a belief system so despicable, it gets the label "Fuck you, got mine." Did you not notice the use of language, and what it implies? In case you didn't notice, the terminology used says one thing loud and clear: "You're a greedy selfish shit." If you were smart, you would have stayed out of this thread, because by defending it, you're also admitting to being what it implies.

You say greedy and selfish like they are bad things. Self-interest is what keeps you alive.

If the UD examples had been things like 1 person casting off a 12-person lifeboat, that would be one thing. But they weren't. They were all examples of parasitic fucks wanting a piece of someone else's productivity.

FY,GM definitely implies a person wasting assets that others need because... well... FY,GM.

Anyone have a link for that study in which people would rather get less and others get nothing than get more and others get something?

You didn't really comprehend the examples, did you?

We're pretty much there. A kidney at gunpoint is his metaphor for tax collectors in blue suits with guns.

Watch them, folks, as they fart into the wind, defending organized, systematic, theft.

I'm sure he has hoarded enough assets to never ever need help from anyone and has the guns to make sure he can hold it.

Leave the housing development run by the home owner's association that you pay dues to, and go live in another housing development then. The nation you live in was here before you, and it doesn't need you.

The opposite would be "I got you, bro."

myrkul, you're a whiner.

It's spelled "winner."

Then act like one.

"Winner", he whispers to himself in the mirror.

"WINNER!", he said again, noticing how much BETTER he looks than other people.

The children playing outside upset him for a second, one screaming "I WON! I WON!" after a footrace. He shuffled across the room, trying not to knock over anything as he made it to the window. "WINNER!", he screamed at the children. "WINNER WINNER WINNER WINNER", he continued to them as they ran away while pounding himself on the chest.

"They don't understand", he thought. "I doubt a single child has as much gold as I", he mused as his eyes were drawn back to the mirror. "WINNER!", he smirked.

Ants, the original "Fuck You, Got Mine":

http://www.longlongtimeago.com/llta_fables_antgrasshopper.html

"Love you, have this."

Grasshoppers play a role in the ecosystem. Balance is important. Your fable is cute, but ignores the necessity of fully understanding the ecosystem that scientific study reveals. Likewise, your ideas lack a solid background in ecology, environment, human behavior, etc. AnCap is also a fable.

Oh, Jesus, are you an idiot.

"But without the grasshoppers there will be a missing parts of the local ecology that will indirectly effect you!", the grasshopper said. "The death of any creatures of the forest effects everything in the forest!".

"We are totally independent of the natural world and do not need any help, nor will we be forced to contribute outside of our own hive. We don't believe in the interconnectivity of all things, because that leads to systematic theft of everything we hold dear. Greenie, you need to have secured your holdings more completely with insurance and better security." said the ant, which was entirely oblivious to the tenuous nature of their hive in the grand scheme of things.

That is a good answer, and is the opposite of "Fuck you, got mine," as intended. However, a good opposite of "Fuck you, got mine," as presented, would be "Fuck you, gimme."

Looks like there are three options then:

1) Fuck you, got mine.
2) Love you, here's some.
3) Fuck you, gimme.

I doubt any of them are applied fairly though. Especially the first one.

Um...how about China, and its habit of harvesting organs from prisoners? (Not just kidneys, either, but other, rather more vital organs.)

You realize that communism and socialism are different things, right?

Actually I have seen this in a clothing line.  It is called DGK ("Dirty Ghetto Kids" - don't get me started on the name).   One of their popular shirts I see says "What Recession?" on the front and "Gots Mine" on the back.  Here is a link to Images (https://www.google.com/search?q=dgk+clothing&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=Y7a8UOSWMK7viQKTx4GoBg&biw=1854&bih=1113&sei=Z7a8UMffIqKNigKZ1ICwCQ). 

It represents is sort of live for today, self-centered and narcissistic attitude and is becoming more prevalent these days.  I had an ex-friend I knew that wore this stuff and to be honest, it really summed up his outlook and that is just not what I am all about, so we fell out.  I thought this fit with the theme of this post.

Dalkore

Your really out of sorts in this thread Myrkul.  There are times when the whole's needs is actually greater than the individual.    I know this may sound like heresy to you.  Yes you will die some day, like me and other around us.   But the human species will go on and if you rightfully and lawfully came into a resource that had a greater good than you sitting on it and profiting, we may just come take it, only by force if you did not voluntary release it and take some form of compensation.   That is just the world we live in and it over it, it could happen to any of us.  

FYI - These "folks" you talk about are not very many, your a fringe group in a sense.   Most people would not want to live in such a self-interested society and god-forbid if we ever get to a point where we accepted your point of view completely.  I am not saying we are all equal or we should share everything, but we should never go to ANY extremes no matter what direction. You find balance.  

The reason this derogatory statement buried me is because it seems to be quite often misapplied to Radians and AnCaps. I can see it applying to the casting off by yourself in a lifeboat scenario. Another couple of examples where FY,GM applies:

Illegal immigrant policies (fuck your lack of jobs in your country. I got mine, and you ain't taking it)
Regulations against shipping jobs overseas (same as above)
Tariffs (taxes) on imports like steel and sugar (fuck your resources, production, and need to trade for food, got mine here)
Minimum wage laws (There is only so much revenue from this company to spread around, so fuck you, employee whom the company can no longer afford, rest of us got our $7.25)
Continued support for farm subsidies (fuck your family farm, got my gov check to undermine your prices with)
Continued support for highway and road construction (fuck your struggling railways, got my trucking and roads)

These are things that both of the popular political spectrums are guilty of (Dems and Repubs). They are also all things that libertarians like Randians and AnCaps, are against. So I think a term that would fit libertarians best would be
"Got mine, go get yours"
I don't think I've met a libertarian who would actually prevent someone who doesn't have something from getting it, as long as they went for it in a fair way, through their own work. So I'm not sure the "fuck you" applies. Rand was certainly all for everyone getting everything they wanted, as long as they worked for it, and used their heads instead of relying on bailouts.

The only way he could profit from that resource is by selling it to other people, for their greater good. You can't profit from a resource by sitting on it.

Actually, while discussing this, I remembered that there is one more level to this. It's the classic battle between the parasites and the productive, which stems from the battle between the Marxists who think the pie is only so big, and capitalists who think the pie can expand.
The parasites believe that there is only so much wealth in the world (limited size "wealth pie"), and the wealthy have most of it, so the only way for others to have wealth is to take the piece of the pie from the wealthy. The productive have witnessed how their own wealth was created largely out of nothing, without taking anyone else's wealth by force, and thus believe that the amount of wealth in the world isn't really limited, and the "wealth pie" can just get bigger, expanding to give more pieces to those who work for it.

Man, Marx has really infected the collective human mind with one hell of a viral parasitic thought  :-\

(P.S. I knew this before, especially since this concept was described in detail at my "evil, liberal brainwashing, public university, but I often forget about it, and mainly described the "pie" in detail to those who aren't familiar with the concept yet)

Last time I checked, we have only one pie called planet earth and some of it is renewable and some of it is not.   So just there is a valid discussion about how the pie is divided.   

Its like this, if Rupert Murdoch finally got to a point where he had enough money to buy all the newspaper, radio and TV stations,  should we let him just because he can.  My answer, hell no, double hell no, the public interest and common good would not be served and that matters before a single persons ambitions.  No I would not take this approach on many things but there is limits and until all people of different ideologies realize this, their thinking has no present or future. 

What a concise way of summing it all up. Of course, myrkul will argue that there's the whole Universe, as if we can count on cheap space travel soon, and everyone's content to live on Mars or in orbit around Jupiter.

There is a thread here entitled 'Greed'. I wrote a post in it. A lot of libertarians are just plain ignorant of why people rail against them because they have false assumptions about our planet - mostly they simplify the complexity of the foundations of our existence. This is the post, which was in reply to some ridiculous assumptions by posters above me: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97243.msg1073879#msg1073879

Resources are limited (assuming we stay on earth - not a valid assumption). Wealth is not, because wealth (value of possessions) is subjective, because value is subjective. If you have a car, and want a painting, and I have a painting, and want a car, when we trade, I am getting something I value more than what I am giving up, and you are getting something that you value more than what you are giving up. When the trade is completed, we are both wealthier than when we started. Wealth is created by free trade, and destroyed by aggression - either directly, by damaging or destroying things of value, or subjectively, by forcing someone to give up something they value more for something they value less.

Which explains why socialist regimes impoverish their peoples.

You don't understand everything. http://capitalinstitute.org/blog/growth-and-free-trade-brain-dead-dogmas-still-kicking-hard

Lovely post FA, really.

It is always painful to see someone oversimplify the natural world in order to rationalize some reckless and selfish action that puts many many things at risk. What is the cost we would pay to clear the sky again if the rain was so bad it ate through clothing on contact? Is there any price we WOULDN'T pay? What is the fiscal investment to return the seas to their original state?  

Rehabilitating the oceans from their obscene overfished state would be a herculean task, maybe an impossible one, and those costs are not considered by someone who thinks the sea is infinite and endless; a handy assumption to make when hauling tons of fish at a time and claiming it 'your labors'. Those fish are the labor of eons of development, a global ecology, and a fragile lifecycle; more than any man on a boat with a net. Just because the ocean spirits don't send you an invoice for their removal doesn't mean there is no impact, and cherry picking studies of oceanic life to prove yourself devoid of responsibility doesn't mitigate it in any real way.

I'm not even an environmentalist.

edit: So If you have a car and want a fish, and I have a fish and want a car, and the marine ecology has started catastrophic collapse due to overfishing and the wellbeing of billions of humans is at risk; where is the wealth? Do we look upon the next generation and say, well... FY;GM I really liked that car and I didn't have anything to do with it anyway maybe you should try to find a new market somewhere. Space maybe, I dunno it isn't my problem.

What makes you think I was talking about world economy?

This entire discussion is about personal wealth, not national GDP.

 :o

Because Rassah, who started this thread, recently made some comments related to tariffs and overseas jobs in which the most recent discussion occurring right now has now built upon. That's why. And furthermore, an outgrowth of the discussion relates to the planet's resources. Pretty simple if you pay attention.

http://zs1.smbc-comics.com/comics/20091218.gif

Not an appropriate cop-out for stewardship of the seas.

No, this discussion was built on this:
Resources are limited. Wealth is not.

Yes, an outgrowth of the discussion. A tangent. The same tangent, I'll add, that you always go on. Go back to your movies. I'm done discussing this with you.

You can't untangle personal wealth from the global flow of wealth in the same way you can't untangle a rain forest from the ice caps, doing so is EXACTLY the kind of intentional simplification used in order to rationalize....

hell, forget it.

LOL! I think pretty much everyone ignored your take on the meaning. I'm sorry myrkul, but the discussion was not built on that.


Speaking of movies, since you brought it up, I rewatched Yasujiro Ozu's Late Autumn last night. Great film.

As for you being done discussing this with me, nothing would please me more. Please keep your word.

This reminds me of the nonsense myrkul and company write about their right to land modifications (or decimation) sans regulation. They claim that they are free from regulation of activities on land they own because they bought the land with their own money (presumably hard earned). I showed the absurdity of it. It goes like this:

Myrkul works his ass off for Joe on the east coast putting up fences around Joe's plot of land, cutting down the trees, and building a big mansion. Joe pays myrkul. Myrkul, flush with cash, moves to the west coast, and buys land. He then proceeds to do the same to his plot of land. Myrkul claims the government has no right to tell him he can't cut down trees on his new plot of land because he bought it with his money.

Consider though: myrkul's money came from decimating land on the east coast. Apparently that buys him the right to decimate land on the west coast. Myrkul believes money buys him rights which cannot be contested. Myrkul in fact precisely believes (if we work out the chain of effects) that engaging in environmental destruction on the east coast affords him exactly the rights to engage in environmental destruction on the west coast. That's wealth creation in the eyes of myrkul.

Myrkul claims he has done nothing but create wealth. Has he? Or has he made the planet a poorer place?

Furthermore, apparently those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, in myrkul's eye of the way the world works, have more rights to create devastation than those who don't have the money.

That is myrkul's world.

Wealth doesn't come from natural resources. It comes from trade and from the mind: thinking, inventing, creating new ways to use resources or services. The most obvious example of this is in the Middle East, when you compare Israel and Dubai, two nations that have practically no resources to speak of, and make all their resources from their minds, to the rest of the countries in the area, which are dirt poor and torn by war.

Do you know what wealth exists in biodiversity? Honest question.

They are not exactly related though. You are thinking that if someone has $1 of crude oil (a limited natural resource), then the only way for them to double their wealth is to get another $1 of crude oil; and that the total wealth in this example is now only limited to $2.
The fact is, you can refine that crude, and from the products sell black tar for $0.10, gasoline for $0.75, airplane fuel for $0.50, kerosene for $0.30, and plastic for $0.25. You can then collect and recycle that plastic for another $0.10 (prices are very rough estimates purely for example). You can then make even more money by forming that plastic and black tar into useful objects instead of just selling the raw materials for $0.10 and $0.25. So $2+ from just that single $1 resource, and that second $1 worth of oil is still free for someone else to take. Even more so, the people you sell those refined components can make even more wealth by trading it and using it to produce other things, like farming food, or transporting people. Then even more people can use that wealth to figure out and invent yet more services on top of those, thus growing what we can get out of that $1 exponentially. That's what wealth is, and how it was able to grow so much faster in the last century than the amount of mined resources.

That's actually specifically my point: they make money on trade, by providing a service, not by using and exploiting natural resources.

There is no wealth in biodiversity. It's an ecological and biological system, not a financial one. True, you can ruin it by recklessly pursuing financial wealth, and you can likewise ruin your wealth by not managing the biodiversity properly, but they are two separate systems, so don't conflate them.
(It's like asking, "Do you know what wealth exists in a waterfall?" It's a nonsensical question)

Did you not read my link to Herman Daly's article? http://capitalinstitute.org/blog/growth-and-free-trade-brain-dead-dogmas-still-kicking-hard

Furthermore, despite your nice post about refining crude, you failed to mention the costs beyond infrastructure and labor to harvest it, and the costs of burning it.

Incorrect. Resources are wealth. Now, please answer the question. What is the wealth that exists in biodiversity?

I did. The reason the “when to stop rule” doesn't seem like it applies is because whenever we seemingly reach the point where rising marginal cost equals declining marginal benefit, someone comes out with an invention that greatly increases marginal benefits again, and so we keep rising.
In trade, there is no real difference between a city, a nation, or a planet. So there's really no difference between capital being mobile within nations and capital being within planet earth. In deregulated international commerce, it's not nations that do the trade, it's individuals. A person in one place is selling their labor, time, skills, and at times health and the health of their surrounding environment, for the wealth of another person in another location. It doesn't matter if the other person is in China, France, or US.
And it's true that trade may not be voluntary, but the price you charge is. If it costs you more to avoid polluting your home, charge more for your product. If you can't avoid it, transition to another kind of specialization. Or move. Stop putting value in "place where I grew up," and put value in your own health, well being, and capabilities.

Wealth can be comprised of resources. Biodiversity is a variety of life forms. Since I don't know what wealth there is in a concept of "variety," please enlighten me.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. By wealth, I meant possession or access to different physical things and specific services. That wealth doesn't go up because we have more resources, it goes up because we invent new ways of using those resources in more economical and optimized ways. My whole point on this stupid wealth argument is that our brains, and the inventions we use them to come up with, are our biggest resource, and it's virtually unlimited. Thus the comparison between poor nations that rely mostly on their natural resources, and wealthy nations that have service-based economies. What did you mean?

But, back to the OP topic, does anyone *coughPeter Ugslycough* have any issues with my list of FY,GM examples that seem to cross both socialist and capitalist economic sides, or has anything more to add to the topic? Like, maybe, why are libertarians lab led with the FY,GM label, when the FY portion suggests they would keep something from others, when all they ask for is a fair price?

Little word game, then:

So, the Gulf oil spill is still pretty terrible. The gulf has lost value to the life there, the people there, and the cities that are on it's border. It has cost the environment  and the doings of mankind. The cost to repair it would be, it appears, too great of a burden to bear. Where is the wealth growth in ignoring it and hoping it fixes itself?

Socialists might demand restrictions on oil well drilling at unsealable depths to prevent it from happening again and begin the long campaign of readjusting the human interactions along the gulf in order to mitigate the damage, at least in the human world. Oil production would scale back immediately as a result, throwing charts and graphs akimbo. Public transit would have to run more often (you can't raise fees as it's already paid for, likely) and in extremes new GPM requirements might be pushed through on vehicles to ensure the supply isn't strained to the point it causes further catastrophe. Scientists would likely be called in to create a rehabilitation plan and offered a large grant to see it through.

Communists would close up businesses in the gulf area to force the population to move elsewhere to mitigate the damage, run stories about how undesirable the area is, and mitigate human harm by forced relocation. Those that refused to relocate would be made responsible for cleaning it up, but as it isn't a state sponsored action would likely suffer heavy shortages of supplies. The deserted areas would make a great place for a new penal colony, and the locals could use the help.

Libertarians would ____________________________________________________________.

One life form contains x data, which can be studied at many levels, such as the genetic level, the microscopic level (internal structures), the macroscopic level (such as methods of locomotion), and the society level (how their society works). Benefits of studying such a life form leads to advancements in medicine, material science, engineering, computer science, urban planning, etc.

Multiply x data by 100,000, and we have 100,000 times the potential knowledge within these life forms. That's the benefit of variety. Biodiversity is variety. Biodiversity is untapped wealth.

Furthermore, and independent of all that untapped knowledge, biodiversity exists within rich ecosystems, where the life forms, dependent on each other, are components of a system which produces services, in this case, ecosystem services. The more biodiversity within an ecosystem, in general, means the greater productivity in ecosystem services. Humanity depends on those ecosystem services in many ways. Our well being, and wealth depend on the biodiversity within those ecosystem services. They are our foundation. Without them, we would not have wealth. Here are some key terms for you to help you along the way to better understand how everything relates: trophic cascades, ecosystem services, island biogeography.

Libertarian societies are comprised of competing agents which aspire to pick the lowest hanging fruit until exhaustion. As the price of the fruit rises in price, the effort and technology applied to harvest said fruit increases, as it can be sold for more. This continues until exhaustion, at which, belatedly, efforts are made to harvest and utilize the next lowest hanging fruit. In each case, the world becomes a less richer place.

So the people living there would first attempt to defraud anyone they could to take title of their land in effected areas as they got the hell out of there. Then the people who foolishly invested in the toxic assets would strip the assets there clean to recoup their losses, especially the trees. Low income people are offered free living in the abandonded areas if they work at the newly repurposed factory areas, now much cheaper to run with the complete collapse of the local economy creating a new 3rd world along the gulf. This increases pollution making the gulf catastrophe worse. The impoverished parasites there complain about their 35 year lifespan and the ocean continues getting worse because it was nobodies responsibility to fix it.

E: hey, in the ole USA we did all 3!

"Here, have some."

"Let me help you with that."

"Just keep it."

It is hard to have a meaningful discussion on this topic in a forum, due to severe cultural differences. Individualism is not universal.

Hey I'll take it a wee bit further to highlight INNOVATION.

After the great gulf culling and the social conversion of the coast into a wasteland there would be more than a few collapsed markets for foodstuffs. The price of oysters and fish skyrocket, causing underground aquaponics farms without any form of regulation to spring up everywhere. As each is found out as a source of salmonella or other toxin, as all corners are cut to ensure highest returns, the operators are forced to move quickly under new names to ensure that their customers never know about their past. Small arms combat between private contractors securing diy bioreactor feed for large scale aquaponics farms become more and more common as there are less and less foods, which only happens in food-poor neighborhoods. People living in rich neighborhoods complain about the parasites that want protection from the cartels that slowly establish more permanent gulf-food alternative farms need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and shovel manure into the fish vats for 14 hours a day instead of 10. The poor are tasked with finding organic matter, paid by the pound, to throw in the feed vats. Those that couldn't afford the endless tests necessary to ensure factory grown crops by financiers with no concern for quality are safe die without burial money. Another innovative idea is discovered.....

Boy, not clicking that "show" link really results in a saner thread, and a much more enjoyable reading experience.

What most of the people whom I'm no longer reading label "FYGM," is actually "got mine, go get your own," or "got mine, would you like to buy it?"


The standard parasite mantra goes something like this:

"You 'got yours' by exploiting others. You should give back, and share with those less fortunate. They need it, you have it, and not giving it to them freely is evil."

You have two healthy lungs, and this smoker has lung cancer. Give.

Libertarians would not have limited BP's liability to the small amount Obama has (mind you, I was for Obama this past election). Instead, they could continue to sue and demand money until BP put enough resources into the problem to get it fixed. If BP kept avoiding payment, libertarians would attack BP more directly, possibly at the sources, without there being a US military (paid by those living in the gulf I might add) around to protect BP's assets. BP would have to hire its own security, the expenses of which would be directly proportional to how much they've pissed the world off. BP would be made an example of, and other oil companies would see how much of a liability it is to drill in the Gulf; a liability that currently doesn't exist because spills result in a slap on the wrist, and the government doing the cleanup. More so, the fine that BP paid comes out of the company profits, which come directly out of shareholders' stocks. Most of those shareholders are just people with mutual funds in their retirement accounts who had nothing to do with what happened. Libertarians wouldn't go after the corporate entity, they would go after those responsible directly. Again, no socialist government to stop them. Other companies, seeing the liability of drilling in the gulf (and having to pay for their own protection instead of making us do it) would raise their gas prices, making people rely on things like bicycles, public transportation, and electric trains and vehicles much more. As a result, there will be fewer emissions and destructive urban sprawl, since living 45 minute's drive from your job would be considered too expensive. And the gulf would be left alone, or at least very carefully maintained.

TL;DR You know how the trailer trash right-wingers vote against their own self interests, such as universal healthcare and fair wages, by voting for the republican party? That weird disconnect exists within environmentalists socialists (not using socialist in a derogatory way mind you) by voting for government that provides oil companies with free military protections, shelters the CEOs with corporate liability protections, and pays to clean up their messes.

I'm... not quite sure you're using the concepts correctly. Each individual specimen is possible wealth, and areas that contain a diversity of species in a sustainable manner are quite literally areas with abundant natural/biological resources, but I don't think "biodiversity" is specifically the word to use here. All it really means is variety of life. So, in my mind, vast untapped resources can potentially become wealth. Whether they are varied or not doesn't really matter.
Obtaining that wealth in a sustainable manner is another entirely different matter, and really doesn't depend on whether capitalism or something else is involved.

Judging by this statement, we were a MUCH richer place when we burned wood for heat and used steam and horses for locomotion. I would tend to disagree.

That would be, "Come at me bro! And bring a lawyer."

You're invited to read my post again, and if you are able, demonstrate comprehension of the points and terms presented. I really cannot fathom what point you're trying to make here, except some type of self imposed obligatory defense of your own ideals by rewording some snippets of what I said in a slightly different way, and then through some implied redefinition of words according to your own whims, hope that it sounds officious enough to stand in for a rebuttal.

Rudd-O, the king of content and substantive posts!

How much is a color spectrum worth? How much is a range of 1 mile to 100 miles worth? How much does acceleration from 1mph to 10mph worth? Biodiversity is a diversity of bio organisms. It doesn't say what kind of organisms, how they are related, or anything like that. It's a descriptive concept, not a thing. I know you are trying to pin a value on the ecosystem, or something like that, but that's also not something that is quantifiable. It's waaaaay tooooo vaaaaague. 5,000 salmon are worth something. Clean water to sustain them is worth something. Food to feed them is worth something. One lifeform containing data is worth something. A nebulous square meter of space with some living things in it are not worth anything. Not until we calculate the sum of their individual parts, anyway.

Besides, if your entire point is "Don't focus on profits, because you'll ignore and thus destroy the environment," that point is moot. If people want a clean and vibrant "biodiversity," that is exactly what they will pay for, whatever it may be, because "wealth" is not accumulation of green papers or bitcoins, wealth is accumulation of what people want. A lot of people on the socialist side, with bad images of fat cats in top hats, tend to miss that point.

Please. You are comparing mathematical concepts to physically extent resources. You're engaging in a contrivance of wordplay. Biodiversity is a term which describes a healthy and abundant variety of species within a given ecosystem. It's akin to metal rich ore deposits.

This geographical region has more metal rich ore deposits than this one. This geographical region has more biodiversity than this one.

Also, the post in question discusses ecosystems and ecosystem services. However, it's noted that the brunt of your argument is in discussing the syntactical and semantic use of a single term, as it's the only counter-argument you can come up with. Also, did I not provide three terms for you at the end of the post? Don't let your lack of understanding cause you to stick to a weak argument.

Quoted for truth (and justice!)

You mean trophic cascades, ecosystem services, and island biogeography? How much does each of those cost?

It is not.

You should think about the human species with a historical perspective. More than 2000 thousands years ago, Brazilian lands were already populated by native tribes. They recognized wealth in the biodiversity of the environment where they lived. E.g. if a native male were able to fish a great quantity of fish, he would be a wealth man. If a tribe could obtain a great quantity of manioc, they would be a wealth tribe. The tribes lived for many years attacking each other regarding the quantity of wealth held by each. Of course this is not the only reason for the attacks. This serves to illustrate that wealth was recognized in the biodiversity before the human specie develop complex economic models.

Another interesting example is the Brazilian Atlantic forest, which was almost destroyed by the economic progress and urbanization. What was left is protected by the state. If the state did not interfered, this peculiar kind of forest which is only located in Brazilian east coast would not exist anymore. All the potential wealth which could be obtained from that biodiversity would vanish forever. This would be catastrophic for the Brazilian ecosystem. The Atlantic forest holds a rich diversity of fauna and flora which cannot be reproduced anywhere in the world.

I recommend this article if you want to learn more about the Atlantic forest:

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/893

Your remarks simply are not demonstrating any level of comprehension on your part. The three terms in question would be (as already mentioned) a great starting point for you to better understand these concepts. Instead of going down the nonsensical path of trying to sound like you can intelligently debate this, just go read a few books on the subject.

Oh, for fuck's sake:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_biogeography

It took me literally thirty seconds to search these terms, and another thirty to paste them in here. Why was this so hard for you to do, FirstAsshat? (don't bother answering, I likely won't bother clicking the "show" link)

Oh, by the by, you still haven't explained what ecosystem services crude oil provides, sitting in the ground. I don't expect you to, though, so that's OK.

Then why the fuck have you been badgering me to explain those terms to you for six plus months? Especially since I already did here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97243.msg1073879#msg1073879

I've been badgering you to finish what you started. But apparently, even providing wikipedia links is too much work. You prefer to get that Amazon referral mojo going, I guess.

And as I said way back in August,

I don't recall any referral identifiers in the URLs I posted. What a suspicious and paranoid individual you are. And for about the tenth time, I told you that it is not my responsibility to write whole treatises on the subject, especially when there are well written books by PhDs far more versed in the subject matter. I have introduced the concepts. The interested reader should then proactively seek to educate themselves, rather than make demands on others for their education. Frankly, you have a very strange attitude.

Please demonstrate where you see the affiliate link in any URLs I provided.

Who owned the Brazilian Atlantic forest when it was being destroyed?

Imagine this: You visit a bar, and meet a lovely young lady. You agree to head back to your place to finish the night off in style. Just as you're about to get going, she starts putting her clothes back on, and tells you that you should finish things yourself. She even suggests that you put on the Penthouse channel to help.

Would you not be a little upset with her?

You got me all exited that I was going to finally learn the secret to why you view the little fuzzy animals as more important than your fellow humans...

To continue this post, please deposit 0.25BTC in the address below.

A normal person can follow the logic about the little fuzzy animals. I really don't know why you cannot. A normal person can parse the meaning of trophic cascades, island biogeography and ecosystem services and figure it all out. I really don't know why you cannot.

I understand perfectly. What I continue to not get is why you consider those concepts acceptable justifications for slavery and (mass, even near-genocidal) murder.

I assume that explanation was slated for later in the thread, but you got bored.

Wtf? O.o Did I miss something on another thread? I'm still just wondering why trophic cascades, ecosystem services, and island biogeography are considered wealth, as opposed to natural resources or theories that can be used to generate wealth.
And also wondering wtf any of this nature stuff has to do with FY,GM. If it like, "Fuck you, dolphin. I got my fish"???

FirstAsshat considers the position that private ownership of all resources will act to preserve them to be false. He advocates, therefore, the existence of a State to preserve and hold in reserve for future generations, all natural resources. Trophic cascades and island biogeography, he sees as consequences of private mismanagement of land resources, and ecosystem services to be the true "wealth" of the land. He has yet to explain what ecosystem services mineral resources such as oil and copper provide in the land, however.

Now I understand why you continued to badger me for the past six months! You made false assumptions about my motives. It's best if you don't do that when engaging in discussion or debate. I hope you've learned your lesson. Now we can move on.

Murkylogic is almost nearly correct here. He just seems to think that biodiversity include oil and copper and there was a claim that ecosystem services are derived from oil and copper. Furthermore, he can't really put together two and two and figure out that the act of harvesting oil, and then burning it, do have damaging effects on ecosystems, and thus ecosystem services.

Rassah, I never claimed that island biogepgraphy is wealth. I pointed out those terms to you so that you could gain some knowledge by engaging in research. That's very clear in my post where the terms appeared. Would you like me to recommend some books for you to help you better understand the ramifications of what you argue for?

My parents were both biologists, so I grew up with the knowledge of biology, evolution, speciefication, biodiversity, and how it was all related from a very early age (I asked a lot of questions when I was little, and my parents, being good parents, always answered, without dumbing it down to a kid level). Now, granted, I am not a biologist, and don't know nearly as much as someone with a degree would, but I think I know enough to understand what you're getting at here, thanks.
That said, it was still pretty off-topic for you to bring a nature ecosystem concept into a discussion about wealth, accumulation thereof, and sharing (voluntary or otherwise). At the very least, your biodiversity is not owned by anyone, and thus can't be called wealth at all. It is something people rely on, benefit from, and would do better if it was preserved, but to put it bluntly, biodiversity is something everyone mooches off of, hoping they can get as much out of it while it lasts, without anyone owning or taking responsibility for it. It's a classic tragedy of the commons scenario.
If you can somehow explain to me how biodiversity is wealth, I'm all ears. (*points to avatar pic*)

Another thing to consider: our current system of national parks and oil leases (you may have heard this before, as I've mentioned it in another thread).
In our current system, land (your natural biodiversity) is publicly owned by the government (or, to put it another way, by a bureaucratic group that works hard to avoid any responsibility). When an oil company wants to drill, it gets a temporary lease for a plot of land. The lease is given with certain environmental safety conditions, which have been passed into law. Who gets those laws past do you think? People who care about the environment, or the money rich oil companies? (Easy question I'm sure). The oil company comes in, pumps out all the oil, and once the land is useless to them, just packs up and leaves. Thanks to the lackluster "environmental protection" laws, or the so low as to be almost useless fines they may have to pay, they often leave the area in a pretty nasty condition. The task to clean it up? That's left to the government. So, tax payers foot the bill to clean up the mess, while whoever allowed this drilling to occur is working full time to avoid taking responsibility. If that wasn't bad enough, tax payers don't want to pay taxes. Especially if it's to clean up someone else's back yard. And especially if they live in one of those oil rich states where the politicians keep promising to cut taxes.
So, really, you end up with a profit-hungry business borrowing a plot of land no one owns or wants to take responsibility for, after which no one wants to bother paying to clean it up.

A slightly more libertarian alternative would be to directly sell that land to the oil company (and maybe charge then a ton of property taxes on top of it), and have them take full ownership of it. If it gets trashed, you have one single entity to blame. And if they do trash it, their incentive would be to clean it up as fast as possible, just so that they can resell it to someone else, and stop losing money on useless land and high property taxes. Even if that land was already privately owned by someone else instead of a government, and that owner just leased it too, you can bet that the owner would be a hell of a lot more diligent at keeping an eye on it than a government. Maybe that's your problem here: you think the government's responsibility is to the people instead of the corporate lobbyists.

Rassah,

First of all, you need to stop getting hung up on your insistence that biodiversity is not wealth. To argue in such a way only implies that less biodiversity has equal value to more biodiversity.

Now, regarding corporations, governments and property ownership: What the government actually does is the result of different government organizations and processes, comprised of politicians, the EPA, the National Parks system, law making, bills, voting, lobbying, etc. There are successes and failures. You are making the mistake of arguing that government is the problem, rather than arguing that some processes and components are not working as effectively as others. This is not an argument for no government - it's an argument for more strength and power within certain divisions, and less vulnerability to greed, and a more and better understanding of natural processes.

With regard to property ownership, you seem to think it's the solution. You aren't factoring in the ignorance of the property owners, and how they apply what they know to solve their personal goals, completely independent of larger and more holistic solutions. Please don't be so naive.

I'm arguing that biodiversity is a general concept that may generate value, but until it is limited to a certain area, broken up into specific items, and the value potential is quantified, it is not wealth. Not any more than the moon is wealth, despite its plentiful resources and tidal benefits. Besides, an area vastly contaminated with various weapons-grade flesh-eating bacteria by a long-abandoned, derelict bio-weapons lab would be a good example of biodiversity, but it definitely wouldn't be considered of value or wealth.

I'm not arguing that government is the problem, I am arguing that government is incapable of solving the problem, because government by it's very structure distributes and bureaucratizes all responsibility (e.g. who is responsible for the greatest catastrophe of early 2000's, the Iraq War?), while following the exact same incentives it's supposed to protect against, namely greed, for tax revenue, for private lobbyist dollars, and for power. Like the anti-Occupyer statement goes, "Want corporations out of government? Get government out of corporations." The more strength and power over private business a government exerts, the more that business will be forced to influence it, and, newsflash, government doesn't pay as much as those corporations.

Regarding property owners, if they are ignorant, and they are people who read and see the same stuff as everyone (everyone) else does, why do you think the people in government will be any different? Especially when the people in those government organizations try their best to avoid or bury responsibility? If a land owner screws up, they are broke or dead. If an EPA agent screws up, it's either the fault of whoever else was up the chain who provided him information, or, at worst, they're fired. Who do you think has a bigger incentive to give a shit?

I am sorry for you folks, but the Brazilian state and the Brazilian people are not interested to let the private initiative take care of the rainforest's biodiversity.

In other words, "fuck you, got mine ours":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/12/brazil.climatechange

^^ Good luck! If it works for you, then it works for you. We just haven't had a very good run of it up here in the states. If things start to go bad, though, take a look to the west of you, in Chile, where the most vibrant forest is owned, maintained, and regrown by Empresas CMPC, the largest paper pulp company in Latin America

Why do use the word 'regrown'? That word isn't really associated with forest conservation.

 
Because when you cut down a few trees, immediately replace them with new saplings, and don't affect the overall surrounding forest or the forest as a whole, it still conserves the local nature, biodiversity, or what have you. In the same way that recycling is a form of conservation.


This being a human problem was kinda where I was going with it, too (but didn't want my really long post getting any longer). Yes, I agree completely, people are, generally, the same, whether they are employees, business owners, CEOs, or government workers. Thus, they can all be "corrupted" by the same things, like greed and power. And at that point, it really all comes down to incentives: do you get wealthier and better off for doing the right thing, or for doing the wrong thing? If you own the property, you get poorer for destroying it. If you're just in government and no one really owns it, you get wealthier by letting someone else screw with it. Or you go to jail, but that's unlikely, since the laws really are written or screwed with by those with money.
And, seriously, it doesn't even have to be a law that blatantly allows pollution, it can just be a law that adds an extra layer of protections so convoluted, it makes the whole thing impossible to understand and worthless.
BTW, the big key to this gov v.s. private is that government doesn't pay much. Because of that, it typically attracts lower skill workers. Anyone with good enough skills will go to higher-paying private sector. Because of that, companies in private sector who deal with government are very adept at outsmarting it, while those in government struggle to keep up. And those in government who do figure things out, are oftentimes recruited away by private companies, and are put in charge of going around government restrictions, since they know how things work on the inside. That is largely apparent by the recent oil, banking, investing, and other business scandals we've had in the last few decades (century?), where the private sector screwed up big, the government was caught completely by surprise, and then not much really came out of it.

Trees never fall in FirstAsshat's forests, animals never die, and it's always spring. It's all unicorns and rainbows.

The company which you used as example does not cut just few trees. It is necessary a great quantity of trees to produce paper and pulp. You are also not aware that certain trees needs more than a century to grown and replace the cut tree. Moreover, you presume that when a tree is cut the biodiversity will not be affected while the new tree develops.

http://www.junglephotos.com/amazon/amplants/trees/trees.shtml


http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html



No, recycling is not a form of conservation. The biodiversity cannot be "recycled".

Rassah, are you familiar with old growth forests vs secondary growth forests? Perhaps you've heard of the spotted owl controversy? Do you understand what that was all about?

Yep. I'm aware. It doesn't matter though. You still think that a forest is better off when no one is in charge of it.

It does matter. Please explain your understanding of it.

I know what it is. You know what it is. It doesn't matter to the OP topic, and doesn't matter to anyone else reading this, and it doesn't matter to me what you think about it. Just as anything I say regarding ownership and stewardship of private property apparently doesn't matter to you.

Is this an admission that you don't really know? I think a few sentences with the same word count as your response would have been sufficient. Instead, you posted what you did - which is a huge red flag that you don't know, which basically invalidates a lot of your previous statements.

Maybe he doesn't feel like educating you.

I have an idea, let's add "Fuck you, Pay me" into the mix:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/09/a-note-to-you-should-you-be-thinking-of-asking-me-to-write-for-you-for-free/

How ironic/strange/confounding is it, that Bitcoiners are labeled as FY;GM types who are only interested is getting rich at the expense of others, and yet our community has donated over $4,000 to charities through the public Bitcoin100 organization, and has given away a lot of money through less public means via tips, direct donations, and gifts...

This is anecdotal. Chatting to a small sample of maybe 10-20 Brazilians, all have been blaze' - "It's a big place". It's taken for granted because it's home. I try to communicate that our Europe was covered in forest too - that was big too and now we have very little. Basically none indigenous, this is the last place left and we can see it happening on Google Maps at the most zoomed out level.

Many Brazilians I've met though have appeared kind but also with an undercurrent of arrogance and selfishness or snobbery even I find hard to swallow - perhaps this is the difference between a less class enforced society and not so lucky. Online gamers I've only met cheating. Guess it's culture.

I am fascinated by this thread because the central issue is something I have been meditating on for many years. I tend to agree with capn noe here but I'd like to step back and look at the big picture and the modern setting in which FYGM has gained traction.

For one, we're living in the age of peak everything. Whether we are at peak oil now, is not my point, only that we are at peak production. Meaning we are at the point (and have been for almost 20 years) where adding more population (i.e. human labor) does not increase world GDP in terms of purchasing power. Which means the average income per capita in terms of purchasing power has been falling steadily for quite some time. In addition to this backdrop we are witnessing in our lives a colossal shift in world wealth and power from the west to the east. I remember back in 2006 or 2007 I hypothesized China would get an aircraft carrier in 2012 and I was laughed off usenet. Lo and behold I was right -- I was right because I lived here (in Asia) and I knew what was going on. I could see it. These are big changes. In general in the 80s the picture was, 10% of the world's wealthy was in America and 10% was in Europe. In another 10 or 20 years it will be, 20% in China/Asia and 10% in Europe and America combined. This is a huge colossal shift. And what I am hypothesizing is that the population is going to go into drastic decline. Maybe through famine or poverty. War isn't working these days, it's not fast enough.

So back to FYGM. The negative connotation stems from a notion of fairness and equality among human beings. This is a very tempting viewpoint to have. But it is by nature unsustainable. It is a morality which served us well as a species in our formative history (the last 6,000 years). But it has now become our undoing. The issue is really what we can control and what we cannot control.

We can't control energy. Once it's gone it's gone. A massive shift to wind, solar and geothermal might be our last chance, but there are cost and sustainability issues with that too. We can't control food and (for the most part) we can't control weather. Maybe to a degree we can use fertilizers and modern farming methods but my point is that there are limits.

There is one thing we can control though -- population.

And this is where we are forced to realize that we must cut off our right hand so that the left does not know what it is doing.

Look at all of the things we think are helpful and good:
 - Feeding the poor
 - Disaster aid/disaster relief
 - Volunteer work
 - Housing the homeless
 - Advanced medicine, elective surgery
 - insurance of any kind

These things have become a serious problem because they are a threat to the human race as a whole. We are approaching a tipping point -- that is undeniable -- where the human race must stop growing in number. Think about it. Somehow, versus today, millions and millions of babies must stop being born. This is not a joke. Maybe not today but definitely within the next 10-30 years we will witness this live.

It will require a massive shift in perception, consciousness, morality, an across-the board change.

And what is even more likely is that it won't just be babies not getting born, it will be that people as a whole need to start dying.

This is shocking and against all known human morality. It is against our nature to think this. This is not what 6,000+ years of evolution of human history have taught us.

So I propose a simple test for those family lines who are to survive the coming crisis (or not). It's simple. If you understand that FYGM is pretty much the demarcation line between who is going to live and who is going to die, then you deserve to survive. It's not a happy thought but it's pretty much undeniable at this point. In the future, no matter what we feel is right or wrong, at least half the people on the earth -- right now -- need to die.

And there is nothing you or I or anyone can do about it.

I hope I'm wrong...

Self Immolation:
If you help people, they may help you back some day.  Not so with lighting yourself on fire.  Completely selfless political action.

Not to mention wealthy countries that have good reproductive healthcare and comfortable living tend to have zero, or even decreasing population growths. No need for anyone to die; just make whether to have a child or not more of a choice.

Are you saying this bad or good?  I would say that it is desperate and hopefully could be avoided but sometimes people should be able to make these types of messages.  Sometimes through acts like this, you see real awareness, discussion and hopefully progress.