If you don't mind, I'll try to organize a bit our discussion by marking my answers with 4 main claims:
1) Scientifically directed evolution assumes good is an absolute concept
2) The end of scarceness and strategic conservation conflict between them.
3) Private property and free trade are best recipes for non coercive society
4) Interest is a flaw of a technology called money with evil effects for both the society and the environment
Gesell describes its social effects very well. For the environmental consequences maybe you want to read Bernard Liater.
Anyway I'm happy to answer any question you have.
Please stop insulting me. I've studied systems theory.[...]
Fair enough, I apologise.
In return, please don't use false associations with loaded terms such a any-ism, which brought me to believe that you haven't studied.
Accepted. But I can't promise I won't write more the suffix -ism. I'll do it when I mean a concept that written like this.
Where does directed scientifically evolution goes?
I dont' really understand the question, but I guess the direction we propose is Dynamic equilibrium with the planet.
This is clearly a point of misunderstanding and conflict between you and me. Let's put it the name you prefer.
I mark this matter with 1 (scientifically directed evolution).
As you said, you have to decide what you want to achieve first. But you assume we all want the same thing, that ethics are absolute or something.
We are not discussing all the realm of ethics. Just the basics: do we agree that we want the survival of the species on the planet and that we want to ensure the well being of all the people? That's what we are talking about.
I agree. I'm sure (?almost?) everyone does.
This is related with 1 and 2 (the end of scarceness and strategic conservation).
So your answer is education would be enough to control population growth. What if not?
As I said, it's a difficult issue, I don't know what if not, we'll have to discuss it. In any case, why not trying education, first?
And again, what is
your proposal?
I'm for education. I'm sure it can solve many of our problems. I'm just against public education.
The planet can't feed an unlimited amount of people so can only promise food and water for everyone if you can control the population growth.
The problem I see is that if the priority is food production, the population would be adjusted to consume all those resources.
Maybe the optimal population size for say, cultural progress is lower than the maximum population size sustainable on the planet.
This is more of 2.
Sure, that's why we need strategic conservation, instead of wasteful infinite growth and a throw away society.
Isn't that incompatible with "everybody would have access to the resources"?
No, it's the basis for that. As I said a million times, you have to change the values before you change the system. First, people need to understand that their desires need to take into account what's actually possible in the real world, and that wanting a 500-rooms mansion in unsustainable, and that many people will suffer because of that.
Yes. Changing the values is needed. I don't think that people should want 500-rooms mansion.
My point was the same as in 2.
So there would still be corruption and self interest within the RBE.
Self interest probably reduced by education, right?
Greatly reduced, through education and a change of values. The same way we now consider horrible owning slaves. We evolve our culture.
Education and change of values can also be achieved with
private property and free trade (3). The bodies of slaves are not their own property and that's disgusting.
No, "everything is for the greater good" sounds like religion.
As opposed to "everything is for the good a a very small elite that can impose its power on the rest of the starving population"?
Who claimed that?
Oh, I forgot you think it's a necessary consequence of private property and free agreements between people (3).
Insulting Friedman doesn't prove he is wrong.
Yes, "free market always leads to either monopolies or cartels" is an opinion to be proven.
I addressed the fallacy of Friedman's arguments in the post below, I didn't just pick on him.
Anyway, here's a very clear rebuttal that explains why the free market proponents get it wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozy52bZ6JTwI'll see the video after posting this. But I don't think you have proved in this forum that free market necessarily leads to monopolies.
You didn't even proved that monopolies are possible without coercion.
I'm saying planned obsolescence would disappear without monopolies and cartels.
... and they are a product of the profit-based market system, whether it is free, partly free, or socialist. The underlying mechanism doesn't change. See the video posted above.
3
I understood that all the production/distribution would be planned by the public sector using the scientific method and an improved form of democracy.
If it's not the public sector and the private sector (free market) will become obsolete, where operates the RBE?
Isn't the access to resources without private property controlled by the state?
If, by State, you mean the people directly, according to what they really need and what can be scientifically accomplished, yes.
If by State, you mean what we have now, a big and loud
no.
By the state I mean the public sector (public property instead of private), no matter how perfect the democracy or governance system.
If by Free market you mean what we have now, I'm also against.
I'm not a believer in free market, just an advocate.
That's good to hear.
Are you an advocate of RBE or it's just self evident?
I advocate a way for the species to survive, without destroying the planet's resources and without forced slavery for billions of people.
What do you advocate, and how's the "free market" going to solve that?
The free market won't solve nothing, the people have to do it, as you said, changing their minds. But we can do it within a free market or under more coercive systems.
I propose to change the current monetary system in a way that makes the economy compatible with long term thinking and social justice.
So, it doesn't matter if we destroy the planet from which the depend in the process? And what is social justice? the richest 1% controlling 40% of resources is social justice? Billions of people starving to death is social justice? How's this "long term thinking" going to prevent that?
What makes you think that Ripple or freicoin will destroy the planet in the process of being accepted?
What you describe is the opposite of social justice.
The fact that the long term thinking is damaged by a flaw in the current design of money is bad for our relations with the environment and with ourselves(4).
I think we need to eliminate interest and get the government out of the issuance of money to achieve that. I think Ripple can make it, maybe freicoin too.
Again, the question is sustainability. How's that addressing the issue?
4
I'm also an advocate of decentralization and permaculture.
+1
I'm not very confident that TZM advocates for decentralization.
I love robots too, but I don't think they're going to end labor. I see many people employed extending arduino in the near future, for example.
+1. When we say that labour will be reduced, we talk about jobs that don't produce anything useful for society. And by having the necessities provided automatically (technically possible, really, if you look into it) the only jobs that remain are the ones that you
would like to do, not the ones that you are
forced to, otherwise you die.
We can't know for sure if public jobs give value to society. Someone values the work of privates jobs.
I "believe" in moral relativism, that's why I won't ever agree with the concept of "arriving at decisions".
For morality, that's fine. But what you need to survive is not an opinion, it's a scientific fact, and the market system is not designed to provide what's needed for the survival, you have to fight for it at the expenses of others. A cruel game of musical chairs, where the poor and the weak always loose.
To apply the scientific method you need a more specific problem. How many individuals do you want to survive? As much as possible?
The interest is the stolen chair in the market game.
Profits tend to zero in a free market.
W-w-whaaat? o_O
Why?
Because other entrepreneur can make your same business for less profit. I must clarify that I mean profits different from capital yields.
I'm ok if you prefer to use another word for them.
As said, doesn't happen the same with capital yields. If a capital good (for example, an industrial machine or a house) provides less return on investment that money itself, its construction is not financed. (4)
But with our current monetary system (and older ones) capital yields do not.
Interest on money prevents capital yields to tend to zero too.
You could blame interest instead of free market for many of the things you say it is responsible for.
Free market it's just about people deciding their own wants and cooperating with each other to achieve their goals in a non coercive way (trade).
Again, that doesn't address the problem of sustainability, which is the number one priority.
We can discuss all day about exchange rates, capital investments, State intervention, free market and the like, until we end up in a time where there is no more a planet to host our philosophical discussions.
I think we clearly have different views on state intervention and free market. Maybe that deserves discussion.
