What Religion Are You?

By new technologies I was talking more about hydroponic vertical farming for example and Jacques Fresco projects on a sustainable circular city that needed minimal work like the venus project. But I can understand that these projects can sound silly to some because they are very experimental but still. Jacques Fresco is a social engineer that dedicaded his life to offer an alternative to the system we are currently living in and his works are amazing. There is actually a prototype in florida and you can visit his awesome work. Unfortunately he died last may at 101 year old and I fear he will not be heard by the mass population because he didn't want money and publicity to be too involved in his project.

 

What is your first language?

Socialism/communism strives to divorce cause (e.g., effort and ability) and effect (e.g., wealth and income). As a result, resources are not employed in an efficient manner. Capitalism CREATES abundant resources. Marxism grasps for excuses for not doing that well (the excuse they use is that consumerism is bad, and that all a society needs to do is provide food and shelter).

Under capitalism, everyone has an incentive not to waste resources.

You don't think we can benefit from more progress and improvements in technology?

Capitalism would ensure that we won't. As a resource gets exhausted, its price increases, and people have an incentive to use less of it (and to look for substitutes).

Greed and selfishness is what had created our civilization (it was certainly the cause of the Industrial Revolution, it is why you are using a computer right now instead of rubbing two sticks to start a fire in a teepee). They are part of human nature and are an incredible force for good (i.e., progress and development). Every society that had adopted what you call for above, ended up in poverty, having a dictatorship, have its people trying to escape to a state where the inmates are not running the asylum.

As society becomes richer, they can buy more of all goods, including clean environment. Selfishness, greediness, and capitalism is what had historically been proven to make society richer faster (compare east and west germany, north and south korea, hong kong in 1990 and china in 1990, cuba and dominican republic, etc). [You can't provide any counter-examples, right?!]

Outside of high ranking communists, the richest citizens in USSR had a standard of living that was below that of an American on welfare.
===
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

”The dramatic progress in reducing poverty over the past three decades in China is well known. According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms.”

Maoism =>88% live in poverty

Free market =>6.7% live in poverty

I bet that the bottom 6.5% (in terms of wealth) of people in 1981 (when 88% lived on less than $1.90 per day) earned a LOT less than $1.90 per day. In other words, back when there was equality (88% were poor), the bottom 6.5% were struggling more compared to the condition of the bottom 6.5% now (when more than 90% are not poor).

In 1981, that bottom 6.5% was probably living on less than 10 cents per day. Now they are living on an amount close to (but less than) $1.90 per day. I am basing this claim on the fact that per capita GDP in China grew 25 times in 33 years, and the fact that we can use this information to extrapolate what happened to per capital GDP of only the poor people (see below).

“Independent studies by Gallup indicate the poverty rate in China fell from 26% in 2007 to 7% by 2012,[6] although World Bank extrapolations suggest that the percentage of the population living below the international poverty line continued to fall to 4.1 percent in 2014”

“At the same time, however, income disparities have increased.”

If you were a decision maker back in 1981, and you were told that if you were to do those economic reforms then by 2014 “income disparities would increase”, it sounds like you would have chosen not to go ahead with those reforms.

some people dismiss per capita GDP measure of the standard of living. Those people say that it increases as a result of rich people getting richer.

Check out
http://dataviz.worldbank.org/t/LCSPP/views/SharedProsperity/Crosstab_SHP?:embed=y&:display_count=no

This shows that usually the income growth of the bottom 40% is Higher than the average growth captured by per capita GDP. It is easier to double your money (or increase it by any fraction X) when you are poor, compared to when you are rich. The amount you need to earn to double your income is less when you are poor.


I found an even better source of data

Check out Figure 3.1 on page 73 (75 out of 193).

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25078/9781464809583.pdf

As you can see at the bottom of this figure, the shaded region gives you the information about the income growth of the bottom 40%, and the region in solid line gives you the growth of the per capita GDP for the general population. Again, this shows that the growth of the per capita GDP of the overall population gives us a good idea about the income growth of the bottom 40%.
===
So before you adopt socialism (which will lower the standard of living of the poor), ask yourself how much do you expect the poorest people to pay in order to enjoy the fact that now everyone [except the party leaders] is poor (impossible to make everyone rich, easy to make everyone poor).

 

You are saying that technology now is better than it was in 1980s. What will happen is that farmers will not do what needs to be done to grow anything using that vertical farming (the farmer has no personal stake, he will get the same salary no matter what the harvest is). A lot of the resulting harvest will be stolen and sold on the black market. A lot more will rot in the fields (talk about capitalism being wasteful). The rest will be rationed, and to get it you will have to endure standing in line for hours. I am not making this up, I am basing the above on what happened in USSR throughout its 70 years of existence (although the black market part wasn't happening during Stalin's time).

What I am trying to convey is that this "something that can actually be implemented" is bullshit, as evidenced by what happened when it Had been implemented. You are now sounding like a member of a cult (they speak of spiritual salvation, you speak of human preservation). You have to ignore a LOT of empirical observations and history, and logic and common sense in order to believe what you say you believe.

 

I feel like you are argumenting about labels that I used for comprehension and are not a good representation of what I have really in mind when I talk about a real democratic socialist ressource (materials) base economy without money, because I don't have other vocabulary to express it. I don't ignore how bad communism has been in the past and I think you are right when you say it needs beliefs to think that this kind of project can see trough. (I'm not sure it can it's more an I wish).
Venezuela can be a good example of a nearly socialist country working well. Not really a fan of the word cult either, it's just a vision that I have and where I can describe the most effectivelly my political standpoint.

French

By ressources I was more talking about limited materials that we surely will miss out if we keep this path of exponential progress and expansion with profit in the end goal. I think that our level of wealth in the developed country depend in the imperialism of colonizing other poorest country (ie Middle East to get fossil fuels the most prominent exemple). The United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined. That's humanly not acceptable to still live and depends on these methods to perpetuate our wealth.

It's obviously not enough

Actually no, the lobbyists and corporations litterally bought congress to stop many progress in technologies because they want to have the monopole of the profits (Why we still use fossil fuels when other technologies have been proven effective)

It may have been already too late and we had to do this very sooner, the free market is too slow to make these changes

''As society becomes richer, they can buy more of all goods, including clean environment.''

Wtf we can now buy a clean environment? I don't really understand what you mean here, what is at steak here is that climate changes may had pass a point were humanity is in danger
I agree with mostly all of what you said about the past history of communism but like I said, I think we just don't argue on the same thing at this point. I just want to present an alternative and don't have other word to identify it.
I propose you to listen to some talk of Jacques Fresco (he personnaly don't identify to any labels we are using right now) because he will be more capable of me to explain a solution to the problems society is facing right now.

The Choice is Ours (2016) Official Full Version

The richest 1% now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam
We are just now arguing about the rest and it's pretty shamefull
When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money

 

As I wrote earlier, an economy "without money" won't provide incentives. Without incentives, there is no economy.

You must not have been watching the news. They are eating zoo animals in Venezuela.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-venezuela-zoo-animals-to-eat-them-say-police
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=i...vD8Bom6jwOJzazwBg&q=venezuela+2017+food+lines
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1...qe4JY2-jwOLg5WQDA&q=venezuela+2017+starvation
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1...D4WgjwORpovoCg&q=venezuela+2017+store+shelves
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1...Wu60Gc2ujwOO_4DwDQ&q=venezuela+2017+hospitals

You were not aware of the fact that the 150 year old ideas you have been talking about led to a total collapse in Venezuela too. Now that you know - does that cause you to reconsider those ideas? If not, how different are you from someone in a cult (who never changes their beliefs no matter what evidence is presented to them)?

How can that happen if the prices will adjust to reflect the lack of abundance of the resource? Also, historically environment fared worse under socialism compared to capitalism.

It had created wealth FOR THE Middle East
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1024&bih=471&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=WkYzWq2fDMLhjAPr4L6gDg&q=dubai+2017
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1024&bih=471&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ZkYzWrnZGJCijwOK2pnQAg&q=dubai+1950

It is the only system that Provides these incentives (unless we count the state using brutality as an incentive).

They might have been proven technically possible, but they were not Efficient.

If an inventor were to demonstrate a method with cost that is lower than that of existing ways to generate energy, they could easily raise money for this through a startup, and then raise more money on the stock markets. So, yes, everyone has incentives to come up with more efficient methods (which is not true under the system that you are trying to defend), and the means to implement those methods.

Market prices adjust almost instantaneously.

"Green" technologies are costlier and less efficient compared to regular technology. A rich society can afford to use those technologies (the technology used in Europe and North America right now is cleaner compared to that in Third World countries.

Scientists who try to argue against "climate change" risk ruining their careers. It is not a secret that scientists get funding and are promoted when they publish papers in support of "climate change". As a result none of research on climate change can be treated as "science", as scientific method involves unbiased researchers.

Note the use of the word "denier" - this is what religions use. Scientists Welcome skeptical questioning of all of the theories.

Imagine a person back in 1880 trying to forecast the problems that we might face in 2017 (or 1930). Such a person would likely think that a major problem that we would be facing is getting rid of all of the horse excrement from our city streets (as they would expect the population to keep growing). How is this different from our projections 50 or over 100 years into the future?

 

I just clicked on one of the links in one of the Google Image searches. Cool article:
http://www.businessinsider.com/vene...hest-in-the-world-food-prices-sky-high-2016-8
"Unfortunately in Venezuela, a dozen eggs can cost 1,500 bolivares ($150.76 USD) on the black market, the Los Angeles Times noted. In the U.S., the average price of 12 eggs is just $1.49."

 

I must admit I was severely wrong about venezuela and I'm glad you adressed it.

But that being said, I'm tired of debating here because you are still demonizing my opinion based on the label I maybe shouln't had use because they don't represent fully what is good about my political belief and the venus project that I was talking about. I'm also limited with the langage barrier and it's painfull for me each responses to not being able to fully express myself like I wanted.

The wealth you are talking about being created in Dubai is great but still is mostly for the rich and big corporations. Dubai is a major city but you can't ignore extreme poverty in yemen for example, the conditions created by this war movement are horrible. You can't cherry pick and ignore the rest, there is a terrible state of famine at the moment.

I don't think you can dismiss empirical data from 97% consensus on global warming from scientist just with the argument that they get funding... in our society right now they can't do it for free.

I don't want to be pessimistic but I think here also, it's intellectual dishonest to compare horse shit to the problems humanity will face in the future because of what we did to the planet. It's a terrible analogy because the hugeness of the problems is just incomparable.

I'm happy you adressed many of the flaws in my arguments and I learn a great deal thanks to you.

 

Please explain what motive people in your ideal (yet realistic) society will have in order for them to voluntarily choose to work.

You don't think it is odd that whenever this is tried, it fails?

As I explained in my earlier posts, when the rich benefit - so do the poor. If not for that "imperialism", the poor would be worse off. Impose restrictions on how much the rich can earn, and the poor will lose a larger fraction of their income than the rich.

If there is oil in Yemen, the poor are better off than they would have been if not for that oil. Also, the poverty is there most likely because of corruption and lack of economic freedoms. You need both a market based economy and effective law enforcement to achieve prosperity.

First of all, question that 97% figure
http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...ge-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle

Second of all, you will be surprised what results you can achieve when you give people incentives to say something (and end their career when they say the opposite). Incentives matter.

The point is that it doesn't make sense to try to predict what will happen in 50 years. Also keep in mind that technology now is changing faster than it was changing back in 1880.

You are not the first person (nor the last person) to find those old ideas to be appealing. That "global warming" is the latest version of Christianity's "original sin" idea. The point is to make people feeling guilty and then to exploit those people.

 

They are even selling indulgences (carbon offset credits) now!
"An indulgence was a payment to the Catholic Church that purchased an exemption from punishment (penance) for some types of sins."

 

I ready don't think that all metrics can be judged with knowledge of the truth by one person unless they have been part of a system in question.

I've been treated in a couple of emergency rooms in Europe and I was impressed by the level of treatment. These hospitals have patient healthcare ratings much higher than the US hospital that I have been seen at for the last thirty years.

 

Yes, there is something weird going on with US Healthcare

 

This is just one of the reasons there is so much chaos in the world and lack of respect and morals. Everyone doing exactly as they want to do or would like to do without any compunction at all. Parents unable to control their children, mostly due to the "system" and the restrictions it has imposed on parents. I am not a religious person, in the sense that I do not go to church. However, I do believe we didn't just appear here out of thin air as so called "science" would like most of us to believe or that the we live on a rotating ball.

Michael

 

@Michael Leigh @Bill Bauer Both of you do tell it like it is on subject matter that you know something about. I have to respect you and others here for their honesty on subject matters that they know something about. Only honesty may bring awareness and change. Looking the other way doesn't.

 

As I said @Greg Sacramento I am not a religious person but believe there is a creator as in all things and we didn't evolve out of nothing as some would like us to believe. Science is mixing lies with the truth and therefore, I look to myself and try and decipher truth from fiction. The way the world is going it is clear to see there is an ultimate aim by those in the upper echelons of society that we do not see, for they transcend the heads of "state" who are in effect just figure heads. It doesn't matter who's in power the outcome will be the same, for I believe there is a plan for a new world order and I don't think it will benefit the human race.

Michael

 

Your similar thoughts caught my attention in a previous post. I totally agree. After the last election in the US, many news media comment sections disappeared for your mentioned reasons. I didn't vote.

 

I'm Pastafarian.

Pastafarianism is the only true religion.

 

Indeed. My next comment might put the cat amongcst the pigeons when I say: the illuminati, is at work...

 

A good explanation of incentives under the venus project : https://www.thevenusproject.com/faq/would-people-lose-their-incentive/

You keep going on another faux analogy (sophism) just because of the use of the same words... (concepts have limited meaning)

Yes Bill Bauer seems to know very much about the past failures of communism regime
But I wouldn't say the same about climate change and brushing empirical data of an extreme majority of scientists that took their life to explain and prove where we are heading as humans being...

I find this article dismissive and they don't give all sources to their claims. On the internet you will always find what you search for because of confirmation bias... It's may not be 97% but still an extreme majority of scientists

Don't you think incentive from fossil fuels lobbying would be exponentially more huge for disproving climate change? If there is money to make it's here and not by disclaiming it

 

Well I'm Pagan/Wiccan. Scotland itself is majorly atheist/agnostic/non-practising by 52% (last i checked), but I grew up in an area with a lot of Pagans from all sorts of branches so I just naturally fell into it.

 

Tfw north Europe will never be pagan again.

 

I meant *by claiming it's real

 

It is "an explanation". But it makes no sense.
"The free-enterprise system does create incentive to achieve, however it also breeds the incentive for corruption, theft, and greed."

First of all "greed is good". Greed = incentive to earn money - when a society enjoys good law enforcement, the only way to earn money is to convince others to give it to you, the way you do that is to generate more value for those people than the value (to them) of the money you charge them. So greed is the incentive to do something good for others.

Socialist societies lead to poverty, and poverty breeds corruption and theft (as was historically true - more corruption and theft in socialist countries compared to capitalist countries; likewise surely corruption and theft in present-day Venezuela is higher than it used to be back when Venezuela didn't have socialists in power).

"as facilities would be made available to serve everyone’s needs."

Who will pay for those facilities?!

"I worry about people whose main motivation is money."

Thank you for your concern, "holier than thou" man.

"For instance, if this is the motivation of a doctor instead of the desire to solve problems in the field of medicine and health and enhance people’s lives, to many others, and me the services are not very trustworthy."

Why? If the incentives are right (the doctor will lose his/her license if providing low quality service, the doctor will get fewer patients if the patients are unhappy with his/her bed side manner) I would trust the person motivated by money. The person motivated by some childish altruism might lose interest all of a sudden, or he might not like Me and choose not to do his best, etc. That person is totally unpredictable.

"It is a tremendous myth perpetrated on people in a monetary system that people are mostly motivated by money to achieve and produce. I could give you endless examples of people who fought, studied, created, and excelled without the allure of money as a reward, there are much more meaningful rewards than that."

Note, the problem is not to find a system that would provide incentives for 50% of the workers. The problem is to find a system that provides incentives for 99.9% of the workers. Those countless examples are nice. We have over 200,000,000 workers in North America. Will the overwhelming vast majority of them be motivated to work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 44 weeks a year, for 50 years if they could get the same money if they were to just enjoy life at home (or get the same money if they showed up for work and just hung around socializing with their co-workers)? You are saying that their love of humanity and their desire to "be good" would be enough? I would be embarrassed to say something as laughable as that, but I guess there are people out there who can manage to do that and keep a straight face.

"all of the people we have admired in the past,Michelangelo, da Vinci, Bell, the Wright Brothers, Darwin, and many others worked because they were interested in problem solving, not financial gain."

This person hasn't learned in school to be careful when using the word "all". Clearly that is false. (Quick counter example - most of the inventions made during the age of Industrial Revolution. See - Countless examples exist proving the opposite of that guy's Countless examples.) There are plenty of people who did it for the money. Also, it is one thing to come up with some cool idea. The real work comes at the stage of idea implementation. Inventing is fun, working is tedious and boring. Can he name one cashier or truck driver or accountant who wasn't interested in financial gain?

"Usually money-oriented people become business men, or stock brokers; they are rarely creative."

Business men are the people who actually make sure that people benefit from the invention. Read any book on creativity and on getting ideas (as I had been doing back in my 20s). Somewhere on the first page the authors usually state a simple fact: ideas are a dime a dozen. Take penicillin. It was invented in 1920s. But the difficult part was to produce it in industrial quantities and also to distribute it. It wasn't until 1940s when "businessmen" figured out the logistics and gave society the benefit of antibiotics. So the author admits that businessmen (and I guess everyone working at a business, except the creative idea people) need financial incentives. So how is the author proposing to replace those incentives?!

"On islands in the South Pacific, people had more than enough resources. Although banana, coconuts, fish and breadfruit were abundant, the natives worked continuously building navigation equipment, canoes, huts, and weaved cloth. Although no money was used, their incentive improved their standard of living."

The author is basically spelling out here that without financial incentives, society has to be a hunter-gatherer stone age society. As long as food just grows all around you by itself, nobody will starve. Does the author really think this is helping the case he or she is trying to make?

"In the early days in America a man and wife could build a log cabin in several months. Today it takes 30 years or so to pay off a house with the additional funds to bankers and others that actually have nothing to do with the building of the house."

Is it clear to you that the quality of the log cabin (no indoor plumbing, small, located in a place far from a city where you can find jobs and entertainment, not located near paved roads, etc) was a lot lower than the quality of the modern house? Bankers allowed a person who didn't have money to buy the home. So yes, they made a significant contribution.

And again the author implies that once financial incentives are abolished, we are kind of back to not having a society that benefits from 21st century technology.

"It is not the availability of resources that is disturbing to people, it is the lack of resources that is responsible for most crimes, embezzlement, deception of all kinds, etc."

I agree. Up to this point, the author had never listed the incentives that he expects to replace financial incentives and greed. He vaguely mentioned the desire "to enhance human lives" as a motivation for doctors (and that will be enough of a motivation for something like 50% of the doctors - I imagine the lineups are going to be pretty bad). He also mentioned "much more meaningful rewards than that" where "that" refers to money. Finally, he or she mentioned "love of problem solving" as the incentive for inventors. Fair enough. What about the rest of society?

Without incentives, people won't work (or won't work as well), and the result is going to be poverty (see Venezuela). Capitalism provides reliable incentives, and alleviates poverty, so there are more resources and less crime.

"Consider this when few nations control most of the worlds resources and exploit other nations with their positions of differential advantage."
Oh, now he is talking about the West exploiting China and India (where this exploitation led to increases in the standard of living noted in my previous post), right?

"All of the technical staff and everyone else will have access to a very high standard of living; the incentive, which will propel people, is the end of war, territorial disputes, economic hardship, debt, and the basis for most crimes as they will all be eliminated."

Now he is talking about the incentive to get rid of capitalism (as he sees it). What about the incentives to work 9-5 for the next 50 years?

And you are saying that you read this and thought it was compelling/convincing?

By definition, incentives is what makes people do what they do. As I explained earlier, the end of one's career is good enough of an incentive for people to keep their mouth shut.

The above makes sense to me, and is something that I never thought about before. Having said this - what can they do? Scientists have to disclose "conflict of interest" whenever they submit studies to journals. If the oil companies pay a scientist to publish a "denier" study and the scientist acknowledges the grant, the study will not be taken seriously (independent of its scientific merits). If the scientist does not mention the grant and is found out, the scientist's career at the university will be over. If the oil firm then hires the scientist and lets him or her publish unbiased research, those studies will not be taken seriously again. Also, journals might just reject those studies for political (and not scientific) reasons.

 

To quote George Orwell's 1984:

 

p.s. I forgot to write that the difficult part regarding penicillin was to produce it at a Low Price.

In case it wasn't clear from my previous post: What Are those incentives that would motivate 100% of the workers to work for 50 years and that would replace financial incentives and greed?

 

I agree, as George Orwell also talked about controlling people who lack the abilities to tolerate differences. I had once worked with a compassionate caring nurse administrator. Others having worked closely with this person said that she also needed to be always proven right and always needed to be praised and rewarded for her compassion. She never attended an employee meeting to discuss what was wrong with the system and what changes could be made for system improvement.

 

Jacque Fresco believed that with all his project implemented, there was no need to be obligated to work all day from 9 to 5 for 50 years and automation will just need little work of maintenance.
The rest of the population will be free to work when they want for the better goods after that but with all basic needs satisfied, there is no need to produce more if they don't want to.

Are you insinuating I can't understand your analogy because I'm heretic of climate change opposer? Maybe it wasn't fair to say it's a faux analogy but I just don't think it's a great one because obviously we don't have the same beliefs (shouldn't use beliefs because I consider it evidences) on climate change. (Don't insult my intelligence I didn't insult yours)

I'm done here because I feel like you just cherry pick flaws in my arguments and dismiss the rest just for the sake of winning a debate when I wanted more to just have a conversation and I realised I won't be able to adequatly express myself because of the langage barrier after. I realised the limit that I had to express myself here. I know how to choose my battles (figure of style) and I feel I can't bring more here because of those limitations. I feel like you don't want to fully take the venus project seriously and I understand it.
I don't have the same fate in capitalism than you but you had brought things that made me reconsider my beliefs. I still think that with the end goal being profits in mind in a society you need to make enormous cut like in the environment, working quality and well being of those that don't have priviledges (watch out buzz word).

You obviously were more inform than me on the subject matter of past failures of communism and without expressing myself I wouldn't had the oppotunity here to learn.

I want to believe that humanity isn't intrinsically bad and that many of his bad side came from the survival instinct and with a project like this you obviously don't need it anymore.
It was also fun to have the opportunity to pratice my english

 

So how is this different from a La La land?

Of Course once the machines will be able to do all of the work (which I believe will never happen, partially because there are socialists among us who are slowing technical progress; and even the most optimistic among us think that we will need to wait many decades until the time when most goods and services are produced by machines), goods will most likely be just given away. Yes, when food grows by itself, or when wealth can be extracted by foreigners from under your soil, or when robots do everything, then there is no need for capitalism and for incentives. We are in agreement there. But why talk about fairy tales? This is like saying "if food where to grow in my mouth, it would no longer be a mouth, it would be a garden, and I would not need to do anything to put food on the table." What is the difference between this and what Jacque Fresco said?

It is certainly desirable to have robots do everything and to have people work on interesting projects to entertain themselves and to help others. The question is what is the fastest (and possibly the only) way to get there. In my opinion, the answer is capitalism and greed.

May I ask you to please summarize your argument? If you don't have time for that, please let me know what incentives people would have if they can't have financial incentives (and when they don't live in a place where goods appear around them as if by magic).

What is the alternative that will ensure that people work (and that as a result the standards of living of everyone, including the poor rise)?

Please just answer one question about the incentives. It is a simple question, and yet an important one. Incentives is what makes people work. Work brings about progress (those robots) and rising standards of living. It keeps poverty at bay.

We began saving the environment and improving quality of working conditions only after we became prosperous (i.e., had high profits).

This is what I was talking about (in a post that resulted in us having this discussion) when I compared Christianity with Leftism. Both believe humanity is intrinsically bad, and want to change human nature.

I hope you can see from my posts that I never wanted to offend you. If I didn't respect you, I wouldn't spent so much time typing such long replies. I might have gotten emotional at times, thinking about those issues tends to do that to people.

You are right, we don't want to have a long discussion. I am very busy this month. But I am hoping that you answer that one question about incentives.

 

Incentives to implement a project like the venus can be to stop the course of climate change by living in autosuffisant cities that are stable for the environment and mitigating the effects it will have on future generations, personal gains (virtue and materials) like feeling we are doing something for the greater good of everyone and hitting for stability of basics needs being always adressed for everybody even if you get sick and couldn't take care of yourself anymore. Battle the unfairness and judgments of social class and division/misunderstanding and perpetual unnecessary conflits. Saving many lifes from these future, not so far problematics. (in case of the climate)
Personally I would work like crazy for those and it would not be comparable with money in case of motivation.
(Seeing just the aspect of fascism in your comparison with christianity before, I now understand the parallel you did just by these statements but I think it brings the good side of it)

 

I thought religion and politics were to be avoided on a tinnitus forum???

 

So that is the incentive? You think everyone who is working now, will work just as hard as they do now (and work for 50 years) when that is their only incentive? It is self-evident that this is false. If it is not self-evident to you, then luckily this had already been tried, numerous times by a very diverse set of cultures - every single time those people found that the above is not a good enough incentive. Now what?

This is happening in capitalist countries (which tend to have generous social safety nets). As you've seen with that latest Venezuelan experiment (which you will agree several years ago stated that they were doing exactly what you had proposed we do in your post above) - instead of helping the poor, the experiment resulted in Everyone's standard of being falling.

The way to ensure that the poor people are well off is to pursue aggressive growth and development. As the society gets richer, so will the poor people.

I studied throughout my teens and 20s. Then I worked hard on my career during my 30s. Some of my former classmates partied (instead of studying and working) when they were teens and when they were in their 20s. Now I am better off than those classmates. Are you saying it is fair to force me to share what I earned with them? Who is going to share all of that fun during one's teens and 20s with me?

My guess is that once you would notice that most people around you are not working, and that the fruits of your labour are wasted (i.e., Soviet farmers would grow food, but then the central planner would not have enough trucks to carry the food to the food stores, and most of the food would end up rotting in the fields), you would stop. Also, as years go by, you would have less energy. I doubt anything would be left of your enthusiasm after a decade or two.

What are you talking about? In my comparison I was talking about Marxism.