A SAD, SAD DAY...

[Yao]

It is mathematically possible. Utopia is attainable in the presence of 100%
contentment or 100% indifference. Relativity and Emotion would have to be
destroyed. They are the tools by which Utopia is destroyed. Of course,
relativity and emotion can never be eliminated nor should they because they
are part of the human condition. Freud tried to explain rational and irrational
relationship and how they are reconciled when he wrote about id, ego, and
superego. But even his simplistic postulations have been wrought with controversy.

Dammit, you beat me to it Mylexicon. I'm not as good with words as you are in English, but that's right on the spot. If Utopia is about living like a robot, I don't think I want to live in such a society. Emotion is what makes life worth living: for every negative emotion there is a positive one, it's the peaks and lows in your mental state that make it all worthwile.

Living without fear, anger, jealousy etc, but also without happiness, love, compassion etc. What a world. Utopia is a computer-generated world, in which things are always subject to a set of given rules and in which any decision is taken without emotion, only a cold win-lose analysis. Remember the film 'The Matrix'? Sounds stupid to bring it into the story, but they said one thing that is true in it: the first Matrix was a perfect world, but that one failed miserably because the human mind could't accept that one. It was too perfect.

We are not mathematical equations. We're humans.

[mylexicon]

So who IS going to pay for the war on Iraq?

We will......

The irony is that our federal budget of 1.5 trillion dollars is more than ample
to cover our war debt. But our politicians are to busy running around trying
to create Utopia and buy votes with our money. Unfortunately they will ask
us to pay more instead of controlling their own spending. They know that when
they flash the national debt over and over and over they will scare the money
right out of our pockets. They've been doing for 3-4 decades now. And they
always succeed in blaming low taxes as the reason for our bloated defecit.

[Jenks]

[ Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker?

The market dictates worth. Fact is, there are not many wide receivers who can run a 4.1 / 40, hence why one who can is paid millions of dollars based on the value the sport and the revenue it generates. School teachers = bad example, they should be paid as much as doctors, but they're not. sad. Investment banker, lawyer, specialized people, are worth more, not in terms of human life, but in terms of how much they contribute to the society and their value in the marketplace.

I can go out today and find 10000 people who can push a broom. I can't very well find 10000 highly educated people to manage my investment portfolio aggressively.

Not that sanitation workers aren't needed too, but in terms of value, they're not worth as much. Sad, but true.

[sacredawe78]

my lexicon what you just said is the essence of capitalism...stemming from the protestant movement Calvanism...the "visible signs"...the more stuff you own is symbolic of your right to salvation, therefore attain as much as you can

christianity was fuel for capitalism...they are inextricably bound at the moment

i dont think lobster feels the way you are saying he does...i think he feels humans have more self worth outside of materiality

[mylexicon]

A clever way to dance around the issues I raised. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not particularly interested in talking economics. I am talking straight up human worth. Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker?

I know people, personally, that work two full-time jobs and are still impoverished. These are decent, hard-working people, just trying to survive and take care of their families. You claim they are "worthless".

Yes of course, Americans have it better than third world countries, and sure I would like to see poverty alleviated elsewhere. But flat out, change starts at home.

Why do you regard the amount of consumer junk a person has as an
indication of their self-worth?

You've been poisoned with the juice of the liberal party. Liberals encourage
consumerism by declaring that money and junk are indications of what
society thinks of you. Therefore, if you don't have money and junk you
have been disenfranchised and disrespected.

[sacredawe78]

we are all our paying for the war in iraq

unfortunately

our taxes pay for it

we are all evil ultimately

that is another unfortunate reality of capitalism

lots of people with good intentions, but evil actions

hence, they are evil

their soul is not a measuring stick, only their actions...thats how it should be

[Kobe]

So who IS going to pay for the war on Iraq?

[LobsterClan]

Americans are relatively poor and relatively impoverished. Granted there are
some Americans who are extremely poor, but in the grand scheme of global
poverty you could actually consider them well-to-do. Which is why I get frustrated
with the Democratic party. The energize their American base by saying that
they have it rough, and that they are victims of capitalist raider barons. The
hilarious irony is that the capitalists they hate, and their fortunate birth into
the USA is precisely what keeps them from being one of the 2-3 billion truly impoverished
people who live all around the globe. Think about how much good could be
done if we took the 400 billion we dedicate every year to "eliminating poverty" in America
and actually invested it in the future of other discouraged nations abroad, in order to
eliminate real poverty. Unfortunately, such progress would require us to drop our nationalistic legislation,
but i don't see the Democratic party ready to do that anytime soon.

A clever way to dance around the issues I raised. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not particularly interested in talking economics. I am talking straight up human worth. Who's to say that a pro athlete is a more valuable human being than a schoolteacher? Who's to say that a sanitation worker has less value than an investment banker?

I know people, personally, that work two full-time jobs and are still impoverished. These are decent, hard-working people, just trying to survive and take care of their families. You claim they are "worthless".

Yes of course, Americans have it better than third world countries, and sure I would like to see poverty alleviated elsewhere. But flat out, change starts at home.

[sacredawe78]

i appreciate your insight into the subtelties of these economic theories and the people who've created them, but i now i feel that we are saying the same things

i feel capitalism is just an extension of mercantalism....mercantalism failed...capitalism was the inevitable conclusion

you originally attacked me by saying that i was wrong for saying capitalism is the hoarding of natural resources by the individual...

it terms of what is ultimately valued...i dont see any difference than mercantalism...the most valued goods/services set the scale for inflation...thats it...

i suppose in mercantalism...there is no such thing as inflation because of the finite wealth...but what is the fucking difference in terms of value here?

with capitalism you have infinite wealth, but it still depends upon the person with the highest control over the natural resources setting the value for which we must strive to stay ahead of inflation...

because there are over 7 billion people in the world...and because our financial transactions are so complex...it is very difficult to pinpoint what these natural resources are and whom that person may be...it always changes, but that doesnt mean i am incorrect...they both depend upon a measuring stick...mercantalism has no inflation and limited wealth...capitalism does....in terms of values, its still about the individual shaping the measuring stick or trying to keep up with individual who created it

capitalism is just an extension of mercantalism because mercantalism could not have lasted...trade is inevitable...natural resources dwindle...supply and demand...technology...they've all changed what we value....and they always will...

mercantalism is not even a possibility anymore, so why bring it up

and as far as what you said about emotion...ive already talked of how we need to reduce the illusion of relativity...we are more mathematically similar than dissimilar genetically...so we should be focusing on species flourishing and survival, not indivualization, that is so honored in capitalism


and finally, with regard to your bullshit statement about the Democratic party and wealth in the usa..and how we really have it good, etc..

your right, its stupid...we shouldnt complain right?? ...we have more wealth here than anywhere....BUT the world is becoming americanized...capitalism has spread everywhere...our dollars set the standards for everyone elses because were the epicenter of the capitalistic movement...we are a vortex...
that is why Bin Laden wanted to destory the WTC

it affects everyone else in this world...every poor person in Africa is poor because we cant invest there...there is no market...

that is how we think...only in terms of profit and loss...not in terms of any moral sensibility or argument

money has absolutely nothing to do with the species survival or flourishing in a perfect moral world...so why cant we use that form of thinking as a measuring stick...rather than profit or loss...seems a bit more rational to me in terms of what is good

[mylexicon]

2 entries found for mercantilism.
mer?can?til?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m?rkn-t-lzm, -t-)
n.
The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade.
The practice, methods, or spirit of merchants; commercialism.


cap?i?tal?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-zm)
n.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.



i don't see what your point is???

mercantalism was culturally from a completely different historical period first of all...capitalisam utlmately is just an extension of that era...i don't see how you can sit here and honestly think that mercantalism is even around right now??? the laws of supply and demand will always bring about equity growth to those resources that are more valued (in demand)...that is just a naturally occuring mechanism of capitalism that keeps it going...

the same thing happened during the mercantile era...except it evolved into more advanced forms of individuals having control in a more "free" market...hence, the capitalism we know today...

youre trying to say that they are mutually exclusive realities and that mercantalism may be an alternate reality to what we currently have...

i say that that mercantalism was part of a historical evolution in economy and i say that its evolved into what we have today

you are out of context

Damn You really haven't stepped into an economics class. I was just kidding around but obviously I was right.

Mercantilism and Capitalism are fundementally different. Night and Day really, because of the advancements in economic theory in the 19th century.
During Mercantilism the prevailing theory of wealth was displacement or the
Archimedes principle of wealth/zero-sum game. Because mercantilists believed
there was a finite amount of wealth in the world, they thought the only way
to make themselves prosperous was to hoard giant stockpiles of gold and silver bullion.

During the 19th century many economic philosophers particularly Keynes
diproved the Archimedes principle of wealth. In addition, David Ricardo came
up with the law of comparative advantage.

During the 1600's when Adam Smith wrote wealth of nations, he theorized
that a nation had to have an absolute effeciency advantage in order to trade
with foreign nations (another reason people hoarded gold and resources).
Ricardo proved that two nations could trade for mutual benefit even if one country had no absolute
advantage. This breakthrough led to modern economic theory.

RECAP:

Mercantilism is about hoarding giant piles of finite wealth.

Capitalism is about creating infinite wealth that can be spread around through mutually beneficial
labor and trade markets.

i dont see why we cannot have a morally perfect world, a utopia, and still not live in accordance with entropy...seeing that for sure at least this one variable would always be there...

it seems mathematically possible

It is mathematically possible. Utopia is attainable in the presence of 100%
contentment or 100% indifference. Relativity and Emotion would have to be
destroyed. They are the tools by which Utopia is destroyed. Of course,
relativity and emotion can never be eliminated nor should they because they
are part of the human condition. Freud tried to explain rational and irrational
relationship and how they are reconciled when he wrote about id, ego, and
superego. But even his simplistic postulations have been wrought with controversy.

I don't know who you are, and I care not for your little economics lesson, but your views on lower class and impoverished people are despicable. Apparently to you, how much money one makes is the sole factor determing their worth.

Believe it or not, there is more to life than money.

Americans are relatively poor and relatively impoverished. Granted there are
some Americans who are extremely poor, but in the grand scheme of global
poverty you could actually consider them well-to-do. Which is why I get frustrated
with the Democratic party. The energize their American base by saying that
they have it rough, and that they are victims of capitalist raider barons. The
hilarious irony is that the capitalists they hate and their fortunate birth into
the USA is precisely what keeps them from being one of the 2-3 billion truly impoverished
people who live all around the globe. Think about how much good could be
done if we took the 400 billion we dedicate every year to "eliminating poverty" in America
and actually invested it in the future of other discouraged nations abroad, in order to
eliminate real poverty. Unfortunately, such progress would require us to drop our nationalistic legislation,
but I suspect Democrats will probably never support the elimination of our
narcissistic regression as long as there is an abundance of political power stemming
from our disillusioned lower class and our "misenlightened" upper class
(read Alec Baldwin; Susan Sarandon; Tim Robbins).

What is it about celebrities and other wealthy socialists that makes them
believe that the government is the only way they can give their money away?
Oh wait, that's right. Their deep seeded narcissism leads them to do what makes
them feel self-righteous and they know it is a lot easier to force America to
participate in their moral crusade rather than trying to convince Americans
that what they are doing is right.

[sacredawe78]

k so many fallacies everywhere i have to respond to a few.......

people are dying, people are poor and suffering...and etiquette is only a part of stagnation....im not here to cause anyone physical harm, nor am i apart of anything EXCEPT raising the standards of equality

So why do you vote for a party that takes money from the .0001% of the globes
richest people and then redistributes it to the top 20% of the world's richest
people. Buying votes much? You say: "But no! democrats really do care about poverty!" Laff. The only reason we have welfare is because republicans and democrats
alike realized we were going to have to pay people not to turn communist. B/c
of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers.
Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global
economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat

the only thing that hes right about is that you moronic country re elected a guy who has run 2 businesses into the ground driven your dollar ridiculously low and killed millions of your people for an unjust cause. enjoy the next few years of your life, they will be interesting

A low dollar makes our exports more appealling abroad and makes imports
look more expensive at home, which helps our country close its enormous
and sometimes out of control trade defecit. If your talking about the two Texas
oil companies W ran into the ground, you are wasting your breath. Tons of
people lost their shirts when Texas Tea dried up.

it can be right here...but i cant happen if we contiue to live in a world based on the individuals proliferation, hoarding of all natural resources, (i.e. capitalism)...

WTF. Hoarding of natural resources is called mercantilism. Repeat after me.
Mercantilism. Capitalism is about making things more valuable by generating
cash flows and making the assets you have appreciate in importance over
time. Not about building a big pile of money to sit on. Everyone who has
ever stepped into economics 101 knows that hoarding natural
resources is self-defeating. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and
social scientists were actually economists. They also have been seeking ways
for people to live in peace and prosperity. The only thing holding capitalism back today is
the uneducated dimwits who enter the American workforce with absolutely no
capitalistic training what-so-ever. And the hilarious thing is most of those people
go around calling everyone else uneducated or uncultured.

we can be TACTFUL with our strife, we can argue, we can reduce our omnipresent strife to a stage of reason...THE ARGUMENT...that CAN happen...

Argument and reason mandate that all people maintain complete objectivity.
Can you ask a parents to accept the suffering of their children? Can you
ask a husband to accept the suffering of his wife? No. Because of the intimate
emotional bonds between people. Objectivity is only possible through the
suppression of emotions. As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be
unattainable.

Damn i gotta go work on this project.

Peace

2 entries found for mercantilism.
mer?can?til?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m?rkn-t-lzm, -t-)
n.
The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade.
The practice, methods, or spirit of merchants; commercialism.


cap?i?tal?ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-zm)
n.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.



i don't see what your point is???

mercantalism was culturally from a completely different historical period first of all...capitalisam utlmately is just an extension of that era...i don't see how you can sit here and honestly think that mercantalism is even around right now??? the laws of supply and demand will always bring about equity growth to those resources that are more valued (in demand)...that is just a naturally occuring mechanism of capitalism that keeps it going...

the same thing happened during the mercantile era...except it evolved into more advanced forms of individuals having control in a more "free" market...hence, the capitalism we know today...

youre trying to say that they are mutually exclusive realities and that mercantalism may be an alternate reality to what we currently have...

i say that that mercantalism was part of a historical evolution in economy and i say that its evolved into what we have today

you are out of context


secondly, yes i do agree with you about emotions being a problem to overcome when attaining a moral utopia...but ive already made it very clear that strife is essential, that you need only one variable existent to be homogenous with entropy, etc...

people die randomly at the hands of nature...death will always occur no matter what outside of our control...we can die from an accident, an earthquake, causes outside of our scientific understanding, etc....

that is in itself a variable

i dont see why we cannot have a morally perfect world, a utopia, and still not live in accordance with entropy...seeing that for sure at least this one variable would always be there...

it seems mathematically possible

emotions can be suppressed...yes they are essential, but with reason being the level playing field in an argument, we all have to play by the rules...we have to follow a deductive path from premise a and b and c, etc. to the conclusion....therefore, our emotions really have no place in this arena anyhow....

why cant we be tactful with our eternal strife and set the stage ourselves...in the form of an argument??? rather than just using our understanding of entropy as a normative justification in itself, i.e. the world is at war, so i must do everything i can do justify that fact...continue to cause more and more chaos (moral problem)

and then you may say, well how do you avoid dogma?? one person cant always be right, etc,.

the answer to that is that you view arguments as an inductive possibility in themselves...they are not a panacea...just because you resolve one conflict through reason does not mean that it is over

i think that in a continual dynamic social reality where humans argue constantly about what is best (morality) in terms of consequence (not intention)...the arguing in itself is the most probable (inductive) way of achieving a utopia...and since we can never ovecome the bounds of living within entropy, we can reduce as many variables as possible all the time...this is in accordance with what we can possible know and do, therefore it is a utopia

you may say weve already achieved all the arguing and fighting continually
but its not rational, we dont reduce the variables, we extend as many as possible...we base our arguments on religion, on profit, on loss, on bullsit like that...we dont first reduce our arguments to the moral sphere in a scientific deductive manner, and then homogenize with entropy...we tend to want to create more and more strife as much as possible

seriously this needs to be elucidated, but it could fill a book

more later

[Jenks]

Re: A SAD, SAD DAY...

MyLexicon lol,cracks me up when he does that. I pretty much agree with all of it.

cheers man, come around more often!

[Yao]

Lexicon had been around here longer than us Lobster, just been away for a while.

And yes, he has also struck me as being very capitalistic. Hopefully he has heard about humane capitalism, too.

[LobsterClan]

B/c of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers.
Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global
economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat

I don't know who you are, and I care not for your little economics lesson, but your views on lower class and impoverished people are despicable. Apparently to you, how much money one makes is the sole factor determing their worth.

Believe it or not, there is more to life than money.

[asdf_admin]

k so many fallacies everywhere i have to respond to a few.......

sacredawe78 wrote:
people are dying, people are poor and suffering...and etiquette is only a part of stagnation....im not here to cause anyone physical harm, nor am i apart of anything EXCEPT raising the standards of equality


So why do you vote for a party that takes money from the .0001% of the globes
richest people and then redistributes it to the top 20% of the world's richest
people. Buying votes much? Laughing You say: "But no! democrats really do care about poverty!" Laff. The only reason we have welfare is because republicans and democrats
alike realized we were going to have to pay people not to turn communist. B/c
of our utterly spoiled and useless lower class, the rest of the world suffers.
Only one party collects their votes and promises further stagnation of the global
economy on behalf of poor Americans. The party: Democrat

Terry wrote:
the only thing that hes right about is that you moronic country re elected a guy who has run 2 businesses into the ground driven your dollar ridiculously low and killed millions of your people for an unjust cause. enjoy the next few years of your life, they will be interesting


A low dollar makes our exports more appealling abroad and makes imports
look more expensive at home, which helps our country close its enormous
and sometimes out of control trade defecit. If your talking about the two Texas
oil companies W ran into the ground, you are wasting your breath. Tons of
people lost their shirts when Texas Tea dried up.

sacredawe78 wrote:
it can be right here...but i cant happen if we contiue to live in a world based on the individuals proliferation, hoarding of all natural resources, (i.e. capitalism)...


WTF. Hoarding of natural resources is called mercantilism. Repeat after me.
Mercantilism. Capitalism is about making things more valuable by generating
cash flows and making the assets you have appreciate in importance over
time. Not about building a big pile of money to sit on. Everyone who has
ever stepped into economics 101 knows that hoarding natural
resources is self-defeating. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and
social scientists were actually economists. They also have been seeking ways
for people to live in peace and prosperity. The only thing holding capitalism back today is
the uneducated dimwits who enter the American workforce with absolutely no
capitalistic training what-so-ever. And the hilarious thing is most of those people
go around calling everyone else uneducated or uncultured. Laughing

sacredawe78 wrote:
we can be TACTFUL with our strife, we can argue, we can reduce our omnipresent strife to a stage of reason...THE ARGUMENT...that CAN happen...


Argument and reason mandate that all people maintain complete objectivity.
Can you ask a parents to accept the suffering of their children? Can you
ask a husband to accept the suffering of his wife? No. Because of the intimate
emotional bonds between people. Objectivity is only possible through the
suppression of emotions. As long as humans have emotions, Utopia will be
unattainable.

Damn i gotta go work on this project.

Peace

thank you Lexicon. :wink: