Danger of a Break Down of Social Justice
I think I know what went wrong in Nazi Germany. I think I know that because I think we are experiencing the causes that lead to the horrors of Nazi Germany. I think this problem is directly related to over population.
The problem is not just a shortage of resources such as food and water and gold to back the monetary value of nations currency, or land for decent housing. Worse, the problem is a break down in human nature bringing out the worst is humans. We are manifesting an uglier and uglier reality for ourselves. An alien might think humans really hate other humans because we have stopped working together to resolve our problems.
Desmond Morris a Zoologist who wrote books about human behavior, explained how we become less humane in large cities where it is impossible for people to know each other. Our failure to know each other leads to not caring about each other. Now most of us are self regulated by notions of being nice human beings, and some of us are not. Right now the bottom line is the dollar AND fear of being the person with no power. The person who is evicted or fired. As we the danager of loosing increases, the focus on keeping what we have increases, and if that means making decisions that hurt someone, to bad. We have to do what we have to do.
It also means not helping our family or defending a friend if that could mean being evicted ourselves. As more and more of us are struggling just to maintain what we have and the competition for affordable housing and jobs with a livable wage increases, we start shutting down, and stop practicing compassion. Stop working together to resolve problems.
"the condition of being populated with excessively large numbers.
"overpopulation is a serious problem the world needs to deal with"
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS481US483&q=define+overpopulation&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwio1YOOuavmAhUFOH0KHRi4COQQBSgAegQIDxAm&biw=1024&bih=678
The problem is not just a shortage of resources such as food and water and gold to back the monetary value of nations currency, or land for decent housing. Worse, the problem is a break down in human nature bringing out the worst is humans. We are manifesting an uglier and uglier reality for ourselves. An alien might think humans really hate other humans because we have stopped working together to resolve our problems.
Desmond Morris a Zoologist who wrote books about human behavior, explained how we become less humane in large cities where it is impossible for people to know each other. Our failure to know each other leads to not caring about each other. Now most of us are self regulated by notions of being nice human beings, and some of us are not. Right now the bottom line is the dollar AND fear of being the person with no power. The person who is evicted or fired. As we the danager of loosing increases, the focus on keeping what we have increases, and if that means making decisions that hurt someone, to bad. We have to do what we have to do.
It also means not helping our family or defending a friend if that could mean being evicted ourselves. As more and more of us are struggling just to maintain what we have and the competition for affordable housing and jobs with a livable wage increases, we start shutting down, and stop practicing compassion. Stop working together to resolve problems.
Comments (66)
The only saviour, the only safe place for the soul these days is singing rock and roll. Belting it out freely, without restraints or restrictions, from the bottom of your heart.
"Sziv es pohar, tele buval, borral,
Huzd ra cigany, ne gondolj a gonddal."
Translation:
"Heart and glass, filled with worry and wine;
Play it on, Gypsy, dont' fret, don't whine."
Serves us right. Humanologists (Psychologists) usually write books about rat behaviour.
Thank you Pfhorrest. I see in the warning of which you speak, normal human behavior. Biologically our brains are far more limited than we seem to think. We need groups small enough for everyone to know everyone and to know who is related to whom. We are lucky to remember the names of 500 people and some identifying facts about them. We do this interesting thing that other animals don't do. We can imagine a Christian is one of us, or a White Texan is one of us, or those who are Black like me are one of us, or that people of the American Medical Association are one of us if we are one of them, and that is accepting far more than 500 people are one of us. This is tribal thinking that has been civilized, making a stranger, one of us even though the stranger is not actually known. We assume because he is one of us we share agreements about how to behave and what to value. That is, we have adjusted to living with large numbers of strangers in civilizations that until recently in the US met the needs of the masses pretty well, except during temporary periods of economic collapse.
Now I want to say that adjustment to social agreements, making it possible to identify with complete strangers, as one of us, is breaking down. This is the point that took Germany down. This makes what is happening in the US today like Germany and different from how we managed human needs during the Great Depression. We are not in a period of economic collapse right now, but overpopulation has caused the cost of living to skyrocket, as inflation in Germany caused the cost of living to skyrocket. That is resulting in skyrocketing the number of homeless people. I am talking about this because short of a miracle I will be homeless in three weeks so I want people to know what I am learning about the problem we have today. In 3 weeks I will no longer be one of you, but one of "them" and this is part of how this happens.... Oregon has made it law that rents can increase by only 7% . In 2017 the Social Security cost of living increase was 2.8%. Obviously the Social Security increase is not keeping pace with the cost of living. Those of us who have below poverty level Social Security incomes are going down. How in heavens name is a 2.8% cost of living increase going to keep people in housing when the cost of housing is going up faster? And from my point of view, people are living with a false sense of security because they don't see this happening to them and the people they care about unless they are one of "them" and see this from the bottom looking up.
I think I need to use a cell phone to video my large library and relative nice home before I lose it and then begin posting my experience on the internet. I want everyone to know, some of "us" can become one of "them", through no fault of their own and to understand this the beginning of the problem of overpopulation. This is not an economic collapse but a period of skyrocketing cost of living that is hurting people as badly as an economic collapse. I want people to be aware of this and hopefully, figure out a way of stopping the destruction. Please, correct me if you think I am wrong about what is happening and why it is happening.
I recall the example of Amazonian tribes who got evicted out of the forest so that some multinational could come and exploit its resources. In compensation these people were given a small house in a village outside the forest, closer to modern civilization. These people were interviewed and said that their life was much easier outside civilization, in the forest. Why? Because in the forest they only had to work 1-2 hours a day in order to hunt and cook food, and then they could do whatever they want, whereas in civilization they are forced to work all day long in order to pay for what they need to live.
When a few people own most of the land, most of real estate, and everyone else is forced to pay high rent in order to have the right to live somewhere, then the whole system becomes inefficient, people have to work all day long just to afford to live, and if something goes wrong and they can’t keep up and no one gives them a hand, they become homeless, within so-called civilization. One would think that if our civilization was so advanced this wouldn’t happen. It happens way earlier than it should if the cause was overpopulation. The main cause is people exploiting one another, and especially a few people exploiting the majority.
We certainly do have the resources, and it is very sad that there are so many around the world hungry when we do have so much abundance. I remember hearing or reading a study a while ago that most famines were essentially man-made and perpetuated by the governments themselves often for political motives. I think it's best to focus on establishing systems that lead to long-term prosperity and in reality to distribute much of this food could be quite dangerous. I'm not sure who you're referring to when you reference this "tiny fraction." Dictators? Billionaires?
Yes. The few people who own or otherwise control all the abundant resources that could be saving the lives of many but aren't.
Assuming instead that all of his charity was legitimately charitable, then that's nice of him, but the fact that the world is dependent on him being nice because so much of the wealth of the world is at his command is a symptom of a much larger systemic problem than a single billionaire.
I'm reminded of a bit I recently saw about all these news stories about things like "teachers, staff, even janitors donate sick days so fellow teacher can take time off to visit his daughter during her cancer treatment" spin that as being all about the loving charity of those people helping their colleague out, completely washing over the bigger story of "teachers normally aren't allowed enough time off to visit their children during medical emergencies". Yes, a bunch of individuals did a very nice thing, to plaster over one corner of an enormous systemic injustice.
Do you have a better alternative? Surely it's more than just the billionaires too; multi-millionaires and even millionaires could donate more and it probably wouldn't have much an effect on their standard of living. I'd group mass affluent individuals in those category as well. Regardless of how much he gives he'll pay taxes on top of it.
I'm reminded of a bit I recently saw about all these news stories about things like "teachers, staff, even janitors donate sick days so fellow teacher can take time off to visit his daughter during her cancer treatment" spin that as being all about the loving charity of those people helping their colleague out, completely washing over the bigger story of "teachers normally aren't allowed enough time off to visit their children during medical emergencies". Yes, a bunch of individuals did a very nice thing, to plaster over one corner of an enormous systemic injustice.
I sympathize. I don't know what the leave policy is like there, but I know in the military they have something called "emergency leave" which I think can be taken even if you have no leave days. I think the danger is that with public employees - since they get paid a fixed salary - could potentially abuse leave policies. It's a case-by-case kind of thing though.
Some form of socialism. I have my own thoughts fleshed out near the end of my essay On Politics, Governance, and the Institutes of Justice.
Alright, we're on waaayyyy different pages politically so it's probably not worth going into that. Do you believe in forced redistribution though? Should there be a wealth cap?
I feel like even if I were to concede to you that a wealth cap was moral it would be impossible to implement. The millionaires would either just flee on conceal their wealth which can definitely be done.
Not ideally, but while there are still other less direct but still coercive wealth redistribution systems running in the opposite direction (like rent and interest) it's an acceptable stop-gap measure. I'm a libertarian socialist, opposed to both the state and capitalism, but also a pragmatist, and while we're stuck with both states and capitalism I'd rather they be balanced against each other than in cahoots together.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
No. Not by law at least, but in effect people should not generally end up owning things they aren't using that other people are or could be using instead, so if there are people who own wealth thousands of times more than they're personally using, and controlling other people's lives because of that, then something somewhere has gone wrong, and that needs to be addressed.
Just curious, how do you see the connection - if there is one - between wealth and freedom? And, say, private property and freedom (i.e. not being required to live on government land)?
Alright, that might be too big of a question so I'm gonna go back to the comment you made earlier about rent and interest being coercive redistribution systems. It's interesting because I'm someone who pays rent and I've never felt it to be coercive. If there's a problem with my apartment I talk to the front desk and they send maintenance people up to fix it immediately. If I really don't like their service I could either move or gather other dissatisfied residents and probably get the managers fired. It's not a one-sided relationship where I'm always at their mercy.
Additionally, no one is forcing me to pay rent. If I wanted to cut costs I could probably either buy an RV or just live with roommates. I do believe there are homeless shelters as a last resort, but the cost to that would be that you'd always be under their rules and have little privacy and have the bare minimum. I've lived in the barracks for years and even though it was free and I could have stayed in I was happy to move out and pay rent rather than stay there. It's hard to understate the difference in quality.
I feel like as long as you actually have alternatives - and having savings certainly expands your options and extends that freedom - that paying rent isn't really coercive. As much as I'd love to live for free where I am it's not like I can just walk into a random city and feel entitled to someone's space.
Land is the primary example, because you cannot help but exist somewhere at all times and so always are in immediate need of some place in which you are allowed to exist. But all manner of rent and especially interest, which is just rent on money, enable a coerced transfer of wealth from those who have less than they need to those who have more than they need. That's because the lenders necessarily have more than they themselves think they need (if they have enough to be renting or lending out and so not using themselves), and the borrowers necessarily have less than they themselves think they need (if they're willing to be exploited like that to get it immediately instead of saving however long it would take to buy outright).
It's coerced and exploitative because it is not a straight-up equitable trade of one thing for another. At the start of the transaction, the lender has whatever he's lending out and the borrower has nothing. At the end of the transaction, when the lease is expired or the loan paid back, the lender has what he started with plus the rent or interest payments, and the borrower still has nothing, minus what he paid in rent or interest. But because the lender has enough to lend, more than he has to be using himself, and the borrower is in immediate need of it, the borrower has no choice but to accept those terms.
And that mechanism where the whole transaction moves wealth from those with less than they need to more than what they need is what breaks the naturally distributive nature one would naively expect form a free market. It's supposed to work so that the rich buy labor from the poor so that they don't have to work so much themselves, and the poor labor for the rich so that they can get richer, until the hardworking poor have wealth enough that they only need to labor to fund their ongoing consumption, and the idle rich lose wealth until they run out of excess to sell and have to start working to fund their own ongoing consumption too. If the rich want to stay rich, they'd need to work as hard as the hardworking poor do. That's how it's supposed to work in a truly free market, wealth goes to those who are doing the work, and if you slack off you lose it. But with rent and interest, so much of what the poor "buy" with the proceeds of their labor just gets returned to its rich owners, who can then use the proceeds from "selling" that "service" of lending it to pay for more of the labor of the poor, who then spend that back on rent and interest again, and so on, so the rich can sit idly forever making money off of the same wealth lent out over and over, while the poor keep working and working forever never making any headway.
If the gap between them is big enough, at least. If the difference in wealth is small enough then extra hard work or extra good luck or some combination thereof can surmount it still. But the point is that the existence of rent and interest systemically transfers wealth from the already-poor to the already-rich, in the process creating a pressure away from the middle class (defined here as those who have exactly as much as they need, and are neither lenders nor borrowers). That increases the gap between rich and poor more and more and makes it harder and harder for more and more people to cross it.
So long as that pressure away from center exists, some kind of counter-pressure toward the center is warranted. Ideally, there would be neither, but we're far from ideal right now.
Put another way: rent and interest enable what's basically a multi-nodal feudalism. Instead of working on one lord's land to generate profit (crops) only to then have to pay that same lord most of that profit in exchange for the right to have land to live and work on, we're "free" to work one "lord's" "land" (some employer) for our profit, only to have to pay most of that profit in exchange for the right to live on some other literal lord's land. We're still serfs, we've just got multiple lords now. We're not free until we own the things we need to work and live ourselves, and don't have to borrow them from others at interest.
When it comes to Zuckerberg there is also an issue. People expect him to police the globe? He cannot do this. Should he allow only rich people access to people’s data or allow anyone to access this data more readily? Note: if he didn’t then it is not exactly difficult to hack and find this information out through freelancers.
There is no ‘law’ online. China spotted this very early on and so made blanket bans to control misinformation. The US is exporting is culture via the internet and it likes to do so.
All that said, I do agree that the US needs a large injection of socialism, but I don’t see that happening for a president or two. At some point we’re going to have to transition from economies based on a core of capitalism to something ‘new’, and the transitionary period will seemingly have to involve socialist structures - I think both have too many flaws in today’s world but a better balance between the two will be the better course for birthing a paradigm shift in terms of how economies are run.
:up:
But coercion is never the solution, coercion is what got us there in the first place. The wealthy won’t let themselves be coerced into distributing their wealth. Many of them are blind to what you say for various reasons, for instance they believe they deserve what they have, they believe they are inherently superior to other people, they believe that if others want to stop being poor they simply have to work for it, or they believe that necessarily there has to be a minority at the top and a majority at the bottom so they want to stay at the top, or they fear that they might become poor again if they let themselves be coerced into giving their wealth, ...
So coercion isn’t the solution, coercing them like they coerce everyone else will simply increase tensions and lead to violent repression or revolution, fighting fire with fire doesn’t stop fire. And when there is a revolution through force, fundamentally things don’t change. New people get in power, and those in power are more easily corrupted, often they start feeling like they deserve to be there because they fought for it, and then they start feeling superior to others, and so on and a similar system gets perpetuated only with new individuals at the top.
That coercion isn’t the solution doesn’t mean that there is no solution, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept this state of affairs, but we have to think differently. There wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if people cared about their surroundings (other people, other animals, their environment) and not only about themselves. Obviously saying it doesn’t change much, it doesn’t make people who only care about themselves care about others, and again coercing them into caring about others would be counterproductive, but first of all it’s important to realize it.
Now why do many people only care about themselves? Because they have been hurt by others in some way and so they feel like they have to protect themselves from others, they feel like the others are the enemy and that they are owed nothing. Sometimes it gets to the point that they willfully hurt others. It is clear that many who are in power do not have our best intentions at heart, that they are moved by other desires. They’re not only doing what they do to increase their personal wealth, they are influenced by other forces, for instance lobbies that hold great power themselves, and have a strong influence on the laws that get passed, on how society functions.
There is plenty of evidence that some of these lobbies have evil motives. At some point we have to call evil evil, some acts cannot be excused as ignorance, or as the mere desire to protect oneself or increase one’s personal wealth, some acts are purely evil, stemming from a will to destroy people, to destroy life. It may be hard for some to accept, but there is also plenty of evidence that some people who have great power worldwide worship evil deities. I wish this was a false and crazy conspiracy, but it isn’t, if you look for the clues you will find them.
So when we realize what it is we are facing, there is no easy solution. Any system will be used against us, be it capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchy or whatever. Violent revolutions won’t solve the underlying issue. The only hope really, is to stick together against this evil, spread love and understanding, because there are forces that work to destroy this love and prevent people from opening their eyes, so as to make them obedient and willing slaves contributing to destroying the planet.
If it’s violent enough it would wipe the slate clean and allow a new system to form.
I’m pretty damn sure what the underlying problem is, but it’s hard to see an applicable means of countering it. Capitalism is in its death throes and I expect applying band-aids will help transition to something else because there needs to be a social paradigm shift toward what is regarded as ‘meaningful’ for most people.
I honestly don’t see this happening for an economic model anytime soon, and once it does happen it’ll likely be a few generations before such a model is instilled on a global scale. Violent conflict appears to be the most likely outcome - perhaps being aware of this will help people to dig to the heart of the problem.
The more violent it is, the more counterproductive it will be. The military today is much more powerful than it used to be, things would really turn ugly, especially if other countries join the fight and then we got ourselves a world war with nuclear weapons, we really don’t want to see that. Then after all that, what would change fundamentally? The slate has been wiped clean many times in history, what would be different this time?
Quoting I like sushi
In capitalism people are coerced, in socialism people are coerced too, the fundamental issue remains the same. What do you see as the underlying problem? I explained what I see as the underlying problem: evil. Capitalism and socialism and even anarchy would work great without evil. And none of them will work as long as we don’t address the elephant in the room: evil.
People like you are making this a wonderful experience! That is pretty easy to say as I sit in my heated library protecting from the elements with absolutely no fear of a police officer telling me to move or arresting me for sleeping in an undesignated sleeping area.
I grew up in California and I thank God I do not live there. How can you live there and doubt the problem is overpopulation? When my parents divorced my mother moved us to Hollywood because want to be in the movies and loved being on stage and entertaining people. Hollywood was like an old lady with too much makeup. We could take the trolly to the beach. I have such fond memories of Hollywood and I witnessed the degrading of Hollywood.
We moved to the Valley when it was still mostly orange orchards, and I witnessed this beautiful valley become mountain to mountain blacktop and concrete. Not realizing the problem is overpopulation is to me like living on Easter Island when it was forested and not realizing what deforestation was doing to the island, finally driving the people to cannibalism.
:lol: I am feeling pretty bruised and scared and I sure am not into arguing, but I have to fight for people's lives and that means knowing the truths so there is a chance of resolving some problems. This is not the first time in history mankind has dealt with overpopulation. With technology, we have been able to increase our population more than humans could in the past, and need we to learn from history. I forget the title of the book that explains why good times become bad times and bad times become good times. If a plague reduced the population of California by 1/3, wages would go up and the cost of property would go down and humans would start being a whole lot nicer to each other. My life has been extremely good since retiring and living an apartment for people over 55 and going to the senior center often. My life is full of caring people and in general, we are very caring of each other. I have not lived the dog eat dog reality for many years. My life is nothing like your mother's because we are still surrounded by nature and we can walk along a beautiful river. My life has been so good. :lol: Stepping into homelessness is a huge shock and I am not sure how well I do. But for sure, I am going to record it with a cell phone and put it on the Internet. I pray I maintain my humanity and do not become like a feral cat as so many people do when they are homeless. The cold and the pain I will experience may reduce me to the manner of a frightened animal. This old body is not going to do well.
Gosh, I love what you have said, and I will stick to the problem of overpopulation because of what this does to how we behave and experience life. In small numbers, everything is managed on a personal level, The rules are informal and 100% managed with social pressure. The word civilization means city life and that is a large number of people organized by formal laws. In the city and with laws, life is impersonal. We can look away from the starving mother and child, and go about our lives as though they don't exist. The rich have a reality totally different from the dirty masses, and they come to believe their difference means they are superior and they are more deserving. I am sorry to say, but Christianity reinforced this division of people and slavery. Jesus would be so hurt by today's reality and how good Christians believe they are doing very well, but "those people", the dirty masses are unworthy.
Oh my, I am a Senior Companion. That means for $2.65 an hour, I pick up an older person and take this person shopping or to doctor appointments, or to a nutrition site for lunch. The idea is to keep them engaged with the larger community, independent and happy. It is very difficult for me when these very sweet people, often Christians, point at the homeless people we pass and say unpleasant things about "those people". I tried to get them to stop that or to see it differently without offending them. Well, it will be interesting to see how they react to me being homeless. I am not sure how well I will be able to be "professional" when I no longer have a home to come to and feel like a human being, instead of like a wounded animal in danger. :wink:
We can not be ignorant of human nature and that we are violating the laws of nature, and save everyone. The rich know things must be as they are or they would be no better off than the lowest people. Let us put this fact of life in a more manageable way.
Islam and the Quran have much to say about protecting women. However, they also put men above and women and it is a tradition for the men to eat first. This practice is based on a survival need when it is essential for men to provide for and defend the family. That reality becomes a belief that men are more important than women, and this is true of all our patriarchal societies. Okay, let's say the family has 6 children and has only enough food for 4 people. Who is going to get that food and who will not eat that night?
If we do not have rich people who can invest in our capitalist system, we sure as blazes will not have a high standard of living with all our technology and wonderful hospitals. Undeveloped Muslim countries see the immorality of our capitalism. Ever since the beginning of the industrial age, those with the most money are the men who provide and protect us. I don't mean the gender of being male, but the social position of being male. How to say? The family in less developed societies is not safe and can not be well fed without a strong male. We can not have a high standard of living without the rich. They must be fed first. We can not distribute the food evenly because that would make everyone weak. And there is absolutely no way, this mass of humanity can return to the land and live in harmony with human nature and environmental nature.
I fight so that we might do better, and we can not do better unless our knowledge is all the knowledge we need. Our way of life depends on the wealth of a few and the poverty of the dirty masses who work for low wages and create the wealth of the few. This is what made the growing middle class possible and it has lifted far more people out of poverty than ever before. We depend on those with financial strength as in simpler times we depended on strong males. Socialism may offer a better reality than laize fair capitalism? I am not sure?
PS however, we should demand replacing the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model, and that our education does not prepare us for the democratic model of industry could be considered a conspiracy or perhaps a problem with Christian control of our nation and false beliefs based on the Bible.
Whoo! I think we need to avoid a belief in the supernatural and the mythology of God of Abraham religions if we are doing to resolve problems. We most certainly need to avoid violence. We absolute need to return to education for democracy and stop leaving moral training to the church!!!
So many of my friends are Christian and this hurts me deeply because Christianity is not compatible with democracy and it has been the root of our evils, as ignorance is the root of evil. In 1958 we replace education for good moral judgment with education for technology and left moral training to the church. This was a huge mistake. A huge mistake!
PS even in the most primitive tribe people live with coercion. Another term for coercion is "social pressure". All social animals including dogs, apes, and humans must minute by minute decide to put others first or to put self first. Those who can not put self first are most apt to die, and those who do not put others first are apt to be killed, severely wounded or just driven away. Humans are social animals like dogs and apes, and that means learning to get along with others.
The sooner we can replace religion with science the better.
I apologize for the interjection, but maybe you et al who have a good grasp of economics can help me understand something. Where is all this money that is being made by multibillionaires going? I imagine much of it is being hoarded - problematic, and some of it is being invested - constructive, but do financial mechanisms necessitate that most of the money be hoarded for investment to even be possible? Could restructuring or reinventing the investment process be a means of making capitalism more equitable in its distribution of influence, without necessitating political or ideological upheaval? If a dozen billionaires invest some fractions of their wealth to speculate in the most profitable markets, that is a tolerable risk, but a billion citizens investing a hundred dollars each every decade is an equally powerful mechanism if it could be coordinated towards specific goals, like funding cancer research or clean energy technology for instance. Maybe investment could be orchestrated in a way that does not even require monetary profit. This idea is based on a book written recently by an economist.
At the start of the transaction, the lender has whatever he's lending out and the borrower has nothing. At the end of the transaction, when the lease is expired or the loan paid back, the lender has what he started with plus the rent or interest payments, and the borrower still has nothing, minus what he paid in rent or interest.
In reality it's a little more complicated. The lender is taking a risk with the borrower (this is true for both rent and interest) and also the risk isn't just with the borrower it's with many extraneous factors. I feel like socialists/Marxist don't have clear account of risk which is really, really central to capitalism.
If we're just talking a normal loan the borrow could just run off with the money, or inflation could become such so large that by the time the borrow repays he's actually paying off less (in real terms) than the original amount. If we're talking about a renter here we need to take into account renovations, trash removal when the renter leaves, problems with facilities, replacing older appliances, and a billion other factors that could arise. The landlord could be sued.
The landlord needs to worry about constant upkeep and the highs and lows of the real estate market. Landlords and lenders can very easily lose money and I never see this risk mentioned when this point is brought up by leftists/marxists/etc.
That's how it's supposed to work in a truly free market, wealth goes to those who are doing the work, and if you slack off you lose it.
Not necessarily - maybe their investments go up. I actually find some capitalists tend to agree with you here (i.e. they really stress hard work and how those who work the hardest make it to the top and deserve it) but this just certainly isn't how I see things. I mean don't get me wrong - much of the top earners do pull insane hours, but risk tolerance again can definitely play a role. I don't know about you, but I would never want to live in a world where the ultimate determinant to making wealth was how many hours you worked. It would be like slavery. Investment helps you escape this.
I don't know what you're going to think of this, but those who don't work don't necessarily deserve to be poor and those who do work long hours don't necessarily deserve to be rich. Would you agree? "Deserve" has a place when it comes to morality and justice, but we need to be very careful with it when it comes to economic status.
A few questions for you:
1) What religious conspiracy theories are you referring to?
2) Why do you feel the need to flag something you're not willing to discuss?
3) Do you feel that censoring things we're not willing to discuss has a positive impact on society?
4) What would you say is the underlying reason why capitalism, socialism, and anarchy do not work?
5) Do you think that your post is philosophically relevant?
Certainly overpopulation is problematic, however I think it would be wrong to see it as the root cause of the division and indifference you're mentioning. If the dynamic of the society isn't healthy at its core, then overpopulation only exacerbates the problem, but it would be misguided to think that if there were many less people we would suddenly all be nicer to each other. You can have a few people oppressed by a tyrant, it doesn't take many people to be divided. There are people who willfully hurt others, they aren't indifferent but they aren't nice either.
I agree that religions have been used as a tool for evil purposes by some people, but pretty much anything can be and has been used as a tool for evil purposes.
Quoting Athena
I'm not sure if you got the idea that I'm a Christian, I do not follow any organized religion in particular, and I wouldn't say that all Christians only spread love and kindness, it seems to me you yourself spread more of it than the people you mention.
Quoting Athena
It saddens me that you are going to be in this situation. Overpopulation or not there is no excuse for people to be indifferent or to exploit others. It seems obvious to me that if everyone cared for one another homelessness wouldn't be a thing, except for those who want it. And I see how most people walking by the homeless ignore them, just focusing on themselves and often on petty pursuits. But then again many people live a difficult life, for various reasons. I mentioned evil as the root cause, apparently that word is taboo for some here, however you wouldn't be in this situation if there were only loving and caring people, and I don't think it's controversial to point out that there are plenty of desires and beliefs that contribute to spreading suffering.
I really hope things will get better for you, is there really no one you know that can let you stay at their place?
Coercion has to be acceptable in order to prevent coercion otherwise there would be unrestrained violence (e.g. we need to be able to use force as necessary to stop people from murdering, for an obvious example). But yeah, the ultimate goal is to de-escalate and minimize coercion, so if there are non-coercive solutions those are preferable.
Quoting leo
That's like saying that the mighty won't stand for anyone else to gain any strength. And it's true they'll usually try not to, but that doesn't mean we have to just let them get away with it, and oughtn't fight back.
Quoting leo
Literally speaking, it actually does. That's why that's an idiom: backfires are a firefighting technique used by real firefighters, and (speaking as someone living in the only unburned area in the middle of the footprint of the largest fire in California history) they work.
Quoting leo
I agree with this, and that's why I don't advocate a total revolution, but a careful evolution of what we've got toward what we should have.
As for the rest of your post and the followups with others, setting aside the religious aspects of it, I also agree that the ultimate solution has to be a reform of the people themselves and their sense of morality and justice. Governments are a reflection of the people who make them up, and the only way to get better governments is to have more and better people with more power and the initiative to use it. Even an absolute monarch or dictator only has that power because people allow him to: if few enough supported him and enough opposed him, he would be powerless. So the ultimate solution is to ensure that people support good things and oppose bad things. But that starts with figuring out what's good and bad in the first place, what we should support and what we should oppose.
I'm glad to hear that. :-)
Quoting Athena
Because there are more unoccupied homes than there are homeless people, and still tons and tons of undeveloped land. I live in a place with mixed suburbs, rural orchards and ranches, national forests and other nature preserves, and so on, and it's still ridiculously expensive to live out here on the edge of nowhere... and there's always lots of fabulous houses for sale, and lots of people living in trailers and sharing run-down slums because nobody from here (like me) can afford the real houses, it's just rich people from elsewhere who want to live close to nature and so jack up the prices and stall any further affordable development to keep their property values high.
It's not a matter of there not being enough resources to support this many people, it's a matter of the resources being artificially restricted by systemic factors so that the people who control them gain more wealth and power, at the expense of a whole lot of other people that they couldn't care less about.
Mind you, I do think that overpopulation exacerbates the problem, and in places where nobody wants to live (which are subsequently sparsely populated) you don't see these problems because there is so much unwanted excess. And there certainly is some point where the world can't support any more people. But we're not there yet.
And once again, best of luck with your troubles to come.
I would guess it was the part about powerful leaders of foreign countries worshiping evil deities. That sounded a little weird to me too.
If we do not have the riches, we will not have those things, but we don't need those riches to be in the hands of just a few people. And economically speaking, "trickle down" is pretty much conclusively disproven. Economic activity is driven from the bottom up: poor people spend more of their incomes than rich people, so if you put money into the hands of the poor, it will immediately be spent on whatever they actually need, funneling that money into businesses generating actual value for actual people (who will then hire more people to meet that increased demand and so on). If you put that money instead into the hands of the rich, who already have everything they need, they will "invest" it meaning lend it out to or buy stock in whatever businesses they bet will be able to pay them back the most money. Rich people gambling on who they think will make good returns for them is a less efficient allocation of resources than poor people directly paying the businesses that provide goods and services people actually need. That's the efficiency of the free market right there.
But yeah, lots of individuals investing the same money still achieves the same investment results, the proceeds from that just get paid out to more people. I'm not at all against investing in the sense of owning stock, which is fundamentally different from lending or renting. In my ideal world, everyone would have a small diversified investment portfolio about equal in total value to an owner-operated small business, which would financially be like a world where everyone is their own boss (runs their own small business), except we could still have the efficiency of big organized businesses, and our risks would be spread out among each other instead of each of us sinking or swimming on our own. There just wouldn't be one class of people who own everything and don't have to work, and another class of people who do all the work because they don't own anything.
I feel like you've almost got it here. Yes, the poor will spend more and the rich will tend to invest it. However, the poor won't just spend the money on things that they need... they'll just spend it. Maybe they buy a luxury vehicle. Sure, it feeds the economy but are they really better off? Cars and clothes depreciate quickly. I feel like you're so close to being right here. Many of the rich are rich because they invest.
It's funny, and I know we're veering off more into sociology now, but I'm someone from a UMC background who works with mostly lower middle class or people from poor backgrounds. It's just a very, very different mentality about money. I'm not making a value judgment here, but the poor tend to be more concerned about acquiring status items/symbols or material possessions or possibly being able to present as wealthy or at least owning X possession. I can't say I blame them given their background/upbringing.
The borrower is also taking a risk, many times a greater risk. If you take out a mortgage to buy a house, and the market changes, or you lose your job, or have to move, or any other risks, you can end up losing all of the money you put into that effort... and the bank still has a house. Risk is real, but it goes both ways, and doesn't entitle the lender to more than it entitles the borrower to. The lender just has the leverage to force the borrower to cover their (the lender's) risk, because the lender has something the borrower needs.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
They would need to worry about that if it was their own home too. None of that is the renter's fault, so why should they pay for it? (Yes, renters can damage homes, but landlords can charge the renters for such damage. They only cover the upkeep that they would need to cover anyway, which is just to maintain the value of their own property, not out of some kind of generosity to their tenants).
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I didn't say the number of hours. Working smarter instead of harder is still a valuable thing, and that's the thing that has really advanced humanity's standards of living over the centuries. But Bill Gates didn't work millions of times smarter or harder than the average American.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I almost don't know how to respond to this, I'm so flabbergasted. This sounds to me like a feudal lord saying "I would never want to live in a world where how much you eat depended on how much you farmed! It would be like slavery! Having serfs helps you escape this." But having serfs is like being a slave master. You sound like you're saying a world where you can't be a slave master would be like slavery.
Having to work to support yourself is the natural state of being for all creatures. And it sucks, yeah. There are two ways to reduce the work needed to support a given quality of life: technological improvements, working smarter instead of harder; and coercing other people into doing your work for you. The first of those is the legitimate way to escape from having to work so hard. The second is basically slavery.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Nobody deserves to be poor. If we could effortlessly make everybody rich then we should. But it's not effortless. The question is how to distribute that effort and the rewards it pays off. And while I wouldn't blanketly say that those who put in the most effort deserve the most reward (not just because of the smarter-not-harder factor, but also because e.g. disabled people who just can't put in such effort still deserve a good quality of life, and other chance circumstances need to be accounted for too), it definitely is not the case that those who already have more deserve to get more reward for less effort, which is what capitalism gives them.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Economics, and politics, are closely related to morality and justice. They're all about value of some kind. (It was actually my childhood interest in politics and economics that lead me into ethics to begin with). And general principles of morality and justice apply just as much to economic and political activity as they do to any other aspect of life.
They'll spend it on whatever they think is most worth the money, whatever their highest priority is, whatever gives them the most value in their lives in exchange for it. Who are we to tell them that what they value is wrong?
(Mind you, having babysat my poor mother's financial life for years now, I have strong feelings similar to yours that some people just don't realize what's really going to be of most long-term value to them, but I only cared about that when it meant that she was going to be nagging me for money to cover her necessities when she blew what she already got on luxuries. But now that I've made it clear that I'm not going to do that, that she has to decide whether she wants a shiny bauble now or to still have food at the end of the month, she gets that the consequences of her spending habits are up to her, and if she wants to make that sacrifice she can and I'm not going to tell her no, she can learn that lesson herself).
I'm not going to tell them that; I'm not their parent. However, from an economic standpoint - since we're talking about economics - clearly a reality exists there.
This is a topic that I see almost every day. It's a military meme (and it has been for decades) that you have lower enlisted (typically those from the lower middle/poor sectors) driving around in these 40k trucks or camaros or whatever. And sure enough, a couple of months ago one of my good friends/co-workers who grew up in section 8 housing went out and bought a 40-50k audi. Obviously, I wasn't going to step in and parent him. We're the same age. But whenever these discussions arise between how these wealth disparities could exist and how the wealthy horde all these investments, etc. these stories do pop into my head.
I would never in a millions years do what he did. I drive a toyota corolla. As much as you might speak down to investing it is part of the road to wealth and financial independence. Again, on a social level, not my job to shame him.
I don't speak down to investing across the board. I have investments myself, and a few posts above I described my ideal world and how investments fit into it. I'm against rent and interest, and against a tiny fraction of the population holding most of the wealth (which they are of course investing, as anyone with wealth to spare would). I want to see that wealth more spread out and more people owning smaller investments and gaining financial independence. And what is "financial independence" if not freedom from debt and rent, not owing anybody anything just to keep what you already have, only needing to pay (and work to earn that pay) if you want something more? The world I want is a world where everybody has that, and where it's not a nigh-impossible lifelong struggle to achieve it.
Attacking someone is coercion, protecting someone isn’t. Regarding your example, people attempt to murder for various reasons, they usually do not wake up one day and randomly decide to kill some random person, understanding the reasons can help de-escalate a situation without having to physically hurt anyone. In extreme cases it can be necessary to physically restrain someone, but even then to prevent it from happening again there are better ways than locking up the person for many years.
Anyway that’s not what I was referring to, I was referring to the fact that often the same people who are coerced by capitalism want to coerce others through socialism, that won’t solve the underlying issue.
Quoting Pfhorrest
In the rest of my post I specifically said we don’t have to accept this state of affairs, that we can change things, but not by fighting back with the same weapons that they use, that ultimately won’t work.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Come on that was a metaphor, if you add fire to a fire it doesn’t stop the fire, the technique you mention is not at all a suitable analogy, we can go into that if you want but that would probably be a waste of time for both of us, why are you focusing on these superficialities?
Wealthy people coerce others to work for them. If you coerce wealthy people so that they redistribute their wealth, now they are coerced too. Or as another example, if there is a revolution and the oppressor becomes the oppressed, well there is still oppression occurring, the underlying issue isn’t solved, only the new oppressors have the illusion that it has been solved. Or if someone hates you and you hate them in return, that doesn’t de-escalate anything. That’s the kind of examples I was getting at.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Indeed, or in other words figure out what are the things that lead to peace, harmony, happiness, and what are the things that lead to conflict, division, suffering. Which I call good and evil.
Alright, lets imagine a family here with a few kids. Lets say they own their home and car outright - no debt, but also no investments and the parents (or parent) work low-end jobs which they don't really like.and can't really get another job. Just because you have no debt doesn't mean you don't have expenses. You still need to pay for food, clothing, cell phones, insurance, etc. - and sure, lets say they can cover these bills but they don't have much left over every month.
Would you call these people financially independent? They work for what they have and they owe nobody.
Additionally, would you call someone with $10M in assets and 500k annual income who rents a $1500/month apartment and has $1000 left on his car debt in a financially worse place than the aforementioned family? Who do you think is in the better situation here?
EDIT: To clarify, the 500k income is from passive investments not from working a job he hates. It is from multiple streams of income.
Yep. I live a very comfortable life that I could afford on a minimum wage job if it weren't for having to pay rent and save like a mofo in the hopes of some day being able to afford stop paying rent. Getting by when you don't owe anything besides to pay for your ongoing consumption is pretty easy, and it is a lifelong uphill struggle just to get to that point. People already at that point young in their lives don't know how good they have it.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That person is financially better than the aforementioned family because not only does he not owe anyone anything, they owe him, on balance. Yeah he's renting an apartment and borrowing for his car but he's getting way more income from other people paying him rent and interest than he's paying out on it, and at any time he would pay off the car and buy out his (or an equivalent) apartment and still have loads of money that other people are paying him to borrow, so he's not stuck owing anyone rent or interest, he's just (for some reason) choosing to pay it when he has the easy option to not do so without losing anything.
We're almost in agreement! We're like 80% of the way there.
100% agree. $1k of debt with those types of assets and income just isn't meaningful. Keep in mind there are certain advantages to renting: This person can pick up and leave and travel where ever he wants without needing to worry about taking care of the house or mortgage payments. Renting can be very flexible.
I feel like you're not considering the quality of life factors and potential power imbalances that come from working a minimum wage job. Keep in mind, if our provider from this family is fired then this family is in serious trouble. They have no investments. Maybe they have some savings but those could go quick in prolonged unemployment especially with children to take care of.
I'm someone who has worked in a factory earning roughly minimum wage where I wasn't allowed to sit down. I'm not entirely sure why this rule was in place; it just was. Similarly, this family (or just our one provider) could be subject to arbitrary rules or a nasty boss who unfortunately holds this economic power over him. When you're living paycheck to paycheck your options to fight back are limited. I'm surprised you're not more critical of workplace hierarchies. Maybe I'm the real socialist here?
I've been the starving guy who can't find a job and can barely afford to eat, and while that was awful, I at least had a free roof over my head at the time (barely... a tool shed, but it was something), and it doesn't hold a candle to the abject horror of the prospect of not even being able to sit and starve in peace one I lost that and had to constantly pay a huge chunk of my income just for the right to be somewhere. I've spent my entire life since then trying desperately to get back to a point where I don't have to be afraid of going temporarily broke, a point where there is some kind of rock bottom to hit and rest upon as I try to pick myself up again, and not just an infinite gaping void below me waiting to swallow me up if I slip up for a moment. That terror is what has made me chained to jobs and working myself to death (and avoiding every possible risk, and consequently opportunity, that could jeopardize that fragile stability) my whole life since, way worse than just having to skimp on food made me do. And the realization that it's probably going to take me my entire life just to get back to that point, and I'm doing better than 75% of Americans according to the statistics, is what made me turn to socialism from my more libertarian roots.
ETA: Also, see again a few posts back where I described my ideal world, wherein everyone, like this example family we're talking about, would have a small investment portfolio, equivalent in value to if they owned their own small owner-operated business, and how that's like everybody distributing the risk of their individual businesses among each other. That is how investment should create the safety net that seems to important to you. And that's a form of socialism: widespread individual investment in many diverse businesses is a way of having the means of production owned by the public. But that's very very different from a tiny handful of people owning most of everything.
I didn't mean to ignore your earlier response; there's just sooo much material out there that I don't want to go in a million different directions. If there's one or two things you REALLY want me to respond to or focus in on let me know.
Didn't want to neglect this though:
Alright, lets say I throw half of my investable assets into bitcoin right now. What do I deserve? Maybe I deserve to lose it all for taking a stupid risk and being greedy or maybe I deserve to double it for being bold. I honestly have no idea.
Lets say instead of throwing my assets into bitcoin I decide to start my own business and work really hard. Do I deserve millions of dollars for being a hard worker? Or maybe I deserve to lose it for being selfish and not donating it?
What kind of a return do I deserve on my investment portfolio this year? I feel like I would need to ask myself how nice I was.
I've played poker for years as a way to supplement my income. Do I deserve money from that because I'm better than the competition or maybe I deserve to lose my bankroll because I'm preying on people and taking advantage of holes in their game. Do I deserve to win money if I get my money in as a favorite?
If you want to offer some answers here I'm all ears.
Okay, I have to agree with you. Some of us are so fortunate to live in the US and know each tribe was different. Hopi are perhaps the most peaceful and Apaches were known for being aggressive warriors. The Mongols also were known for wiping out large cities and coming from a harsh region where survival depended on hunting made their culture very different from agrarian city people, and Genghis Khan told his people to never settle and never start accumulating possessions because he thought city people were very immoral! Mongols were committed to feeding and sheltering each other because their harsh ski god just assumes kill pathetic humans in blizzards and they thought the idea of a caring god was ridiculus. Okay, let's look at cities with a caring god, where life encouraged lying and stealing and made some rich and some poor. You are obviously right about the importance of the core of society. But I think we really need to take advantage of science in understanding humans and figuring out what encourages desirable behavior and what does not. Quoting leo
Obviously we also have a disagreement. Only when we have the right facts is there a chance of resolving our problems. Labeling some of the effects of city life as evil is totally different from the religious understanding of evil. You see with science we can see the reality of evil and the cause of it so we can effectively overcome that evil. With religion, evil is a supernatural power and the only help is another supernatural power. The religious belief burns witches instead of making sure the water is not polluted, and to this day religious belief prevents people from having the right facts and taking the right steps to overcome evil. Please consider the word "evil" is tied to supernatural powers, and therefore, the word can be problematic.
Quoting leo Can we adjust that to a supernatural belief in good and evil supernatural powers is problematic because it promotes ignorance and results in well-meaning people doing the wrong thing? I think this is a much greater problem today because we dropped education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the church, resulting in an explosion of superstition and a very serious and harmful cultural and political crisis! We no longer have agreement that moral is a matter of cause and effect but think morals are about the church and religion. That is extremely harmful to understanding democracy and what morals have to do with being a democracy. That is both a social and a political problem.
Quoting leo
There is an important difference between following the teachings of Jesus and being superstitious. If you believe evil is a supernatural power and we must be saved by another supernatural power, Jesus, that is superstition, a belief in supernatural powers. It is also believing Satan is as real as God, and boy oh boy, has the belief in Satan caused a lot of trouble! Satanism depends on believing the Christian mythology. The cure to superstition is science.
Quakers have done a better job of living with the teachings of Jesus than other branches of Protestantism. They ignore the old testament. But unfortunately at the time the Bible was written the region had absorbed the demonology of the East and this got mixed up the stories of Jesus. Like let's get real, back in the day, people were trying to figure truth and want is good or bad, exactly the same as we do today, only they didn't have science. A god was not giving anyone special information. Thinking the Bible is somehow the word of God instead of stories told by humans, is just wrong. The teachings of Jesus are great, as long as they are not tied to superstition, but Christianity ties his teachings to superstition by claiming demons come out of people, and we must be saved by the supernatural power of Jesus. All humans know only what humans know. And we all can have spiritual experiences. We are equal in that way. No one at any time was special to a God who could do special favors for them if He was pleased, or He could destroy them if He was displeased. Earthquakes and the such are natural forces. Bottom line, we can follow the words of Jesus without being superstitious, but I think the people who claim to be Christians associate his words with superstition and wear silver crosses to defend themselves against demons and the power of Satan. Unfortunately, that silver cross doesn't work as well as washing hands, and keeping your pit for human waste far away from your water supply. The people of India and Hebrews got the cleanliness thing right, but Christians rebelled and got it wrong.
I think you are wrong about the poor doing more status spending. We are just like the rest of the animals when it comes to status and survival. :lol: I assure you I will do my very, very best to not look like or act like a homeless person if I end up on the streets. I do not want to get thrown out of places because of having the status of a homeless person. This is as true for us as it is true for all social animals. If you look like and act like an important member of the group, you will be treated like an important member of the group. If you look like and act like the one who is at the bottom of the pecking order, you will be treated as one at the bottom of the pecking order. All social animals push the losers to perimeters where they are most likely to be dinner for the preditors. Survival is best for those in the inner circle and no one can stay in the inner circle without appearing as a member of the inner circle. That overpriced handbag and shoes a woman must have are her pass into the inner circle.
Yesterday a friend told a story of knowing she gave money to the wrong person because she later saw that woman in a fine restaurant enjoying a special coffee and pastry. Wrong ! You can bet your bippy if I do end up on the street I am going to treat myself very, very well because I know that will be essential to feeling like a decent human being. If I get consumed by the cold, pain and fear, and become as a frightened animal, my chance of survival is very poor. I must remember who I am, and I must treat myself very well if I going to get through this trial. A nice thing about not paying rent is having money to treat myself in a high-class hotel by the river. That will be more important to remembering who I am than it is now, when I can comfort myself in my own soft bed, in the safety of my home.
I don't know if I am explaining things well or not. What I am about to do will only be destructive if people are not agreeable to what I say.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Welcome to Nazi Germany. I think we are back to the OP. It dawned on me when I was denied HUD housing by a woman who resented the "special favors" it get such as special accommodation for a medical condition and not have to claim the $2.65 I earn as a Senior Companion as income because it is stipend, that what you wrote of is how Germany spun out of control. People who struggle as you did can become compassionate or resentful. The woman I had to do deal with was resentful and hell will freeze over before she is unfair by giving someone more than what everyone else gets. Because she had zero compassion, she saw me as a terrible person taking advantage of the system and she was not about to let that happen. Others are shocked that I was denied because I spoke up to get what I am allowed. A person without pain such as the pain I live with has less need of a bathtub to manage pain. I don't think doing my best to get an apartment with a bathtub is being unfair. When she responded in an ugly way, it became even harder for me to smile and kiss her ass as though she were a king who can rule on a whim. But the reality is, what she did is against the policy but she can get away with it because there are so many people on the waiting list who would kiss her feet to the get the apartment. Legal Aid may help me, but too late for me to avoid being homeless.
There is more to this, She has her job instead of a compassionate person because the private owners who own the HUD housing are concerned only with the money. She was not chosen to be compassionate but to enforce the policy and defend the monetary interest of the property owner. Now some people I deal with like the Section 8 caseworker are very compassionate! The social service providers are often there because they really care about the people, and their organizations are about helping people, not monetary interest. Occasionally the social service workers are not compassionate at all, depending on the culture in the community, but hopefully, the culture is compassionate and about caring for people, instead of a focus on money and power. However, when more and more of the people in positions of power are resentful and willing to do anything to keep the security of the their job, we have the condition of Nazi Germany and the number of needy is growing rapidly.
If a person managing storage sheds is compassionate this person will do the best s/he can to help someone get their stuff out before the storage shed is locked and everything in it is sold off. This person will feel really bad if s/he must follow the rules and take action which means the person who can't pay the bill can't even get personal photographs out of the storage shed. If this person is afraid of losing the job or displeasing the employer, like the Nazi victimizing Jews, s/he will coldly do the unpleasant and each time it will become easier and easier to do the unpleasant.
We all like to think of ourselves as nice people, but the conditions we find ourselves in can make us less nice than we would like to be. If most people are desperate, who is going to do the "right thing" instead of following orders? We can do the wrong thing more easily when we believe it is the right thing, and the victims are at fault for everything. We all know those homeless people made bad choices and brought the problem on themselves, obeying authority is the way to avoid their fate. Hail Hitler who makes us proud and strong and is finally doing something about "those people" who cause us a problem.
Quoting Athena
The idea that microscopic germs exist and cause diseases used to be seen as a supernatural power, because we couldn’t see them and the idea seemed far-fetched at the time. Or the idea that continents drift. Or the idea that rogue waves exist. And many other examples. What we call supernatural is usually that which we believe does not exist, then when we come to believe it exists we stop calling it supernatural, when we come to see it or come to understand how it acts on what we see we stop calling it supernatural and start seeing it as natural, as really existing. Something we call supernatural now may not be seen as supernatural in the future.
Now when I talk of evil I’m not asking anyone to believe that there are forces we can’t see and can’t explain that are responsible for all the conflicts and the suffering in the world, we can focus on what we do see. For instance we do see that there are some desires and beliefs that contribute to unite people, to protect life and spread happiness, whereas there are some other desires and beliefs that contribute to divide people, to destroy life and spread suffering. We can see these latter desires and beliefs as natural forces, and we can call them evil forces.
Now where do desires and beliefs come from? People who believe in materialism say that they are the results of chemical reactions in the brain, of particles moving according to laws of physics. Whereas people who believe differently say that desires and beliefs do not come from particles, that they may be influenced by physics but that they are also influenced by other things which we do not see with the eyes. The idea that desires and beliefs solely come from laws of physics is a supernatural explanation itself, because we don’t have evidence of that, that’s a pure belief. But regardless of what we believe on the matter, regardless of where desires and beliefs come from, when we talk of evil we can simply focus on some desires and beliefs without necessarily assuming that there are unseen entities who work to make us have these desires and beliefs.
And I wouldn’t say that believing there are things we don’t see or don’t understand promotes ignorance, on the contrary it prevents us from believing we already know everything, it keeps us open-minded and keeps us thinking and looking. There are some people who like to remain ignorant by looking to explain nothing, and there are people who like to remain ignorant by believing we already see everything. But the idea that we don’t see or don’t understand some things in itself doesn’t promote ignorance.
And so I don’t see what’s wrong with identifying forces that contribute to divide people, destroy life and spread suffering, and what’s wrong with calling them evil. Some of these forces are some desires and beliefs. There are other evil forces we can identify, and there can be other such forces we are yet to identify and understand. If you don’t like the word ‘evil’ you could use another word for it, maybe you have suggestions. But the reason I call evil the elephant in the room is that if we keep ignoring these forces, we can’t explain why social systems always seem to break down no matter what we try.
1. Quoting leo
Are you arguing that there is a God? I have no problem with that. However, if you are arguing the Bible is anything but mythology, and that it is the word of God, then we have a disagreement.
2.
Then you are not asking us to believe in Satan and demons and power of curses and reason for why we are not living in Paradise and why we need to be saved?
3.
I really can not think of feelings, thoughts, consciousness as matter. It can even be hard to believe in matter because everything is energy. However, I think you have argued yourself out of accepting the Bible as the word of God because without believing the story of Adam and Eve and the snake/Satan and the forbidden fruit, the whole Christian notion of being made different from all other animals and needing to be saved falls about.
4.
"ignorance" means to ignore something. People who believe the story of Adam and Eve, have cause to fear Satan, and false information from a supernatural source, and forbidden knowledge. They tend to ignore science and the scientific method of judging truth. What you said is true and it is a good argument and to me, it explains what is wrong with Muslims and Christians. They can be holding a false belief and kill people believing it is God's will they kill the pagans and infidels or those Christians who have a different understanding of the Bible. Those who believe they can know the will of God, can be pretty dangerous people.
5.
Wants wrong with calling them evil? They are Christians and Muslims who think they are doing the will of God. Are you wanting to call these religious people evil? Do we want to think of disease as evil spirits and watch for demons to come out of evil people? Do we want to eat without washing our hands but with faith that Jesus is protecting us and if we are saved we are protected? Do we want to believe Bush jr., Obama and Trump are made good presidents because of God and our prayers? Do we want to believe we are better people because we know the word of God and those who do not agree with us do not have the right understanding of God's word so it is okay to use million-dollar bombs and destroy their most important cities? Killing people with weapons of mass destruction because their leader may be developing a weapon of mass destruction. We can do this but they can not?
Oh yes, we can explain why social systems break down. Civilizations are born and die and we know a lot about the cause and effect. And the best reason for opposing Christianity is these people hold false beliefs and do not look for the truth outside of their belief, just as you explained in paragraph 4.
:grin: There is hope we can come to agreements. At this point, I am think our disagreement is narrowed down to when we are at that point. And this is a good time for me to say our system of allocating who gets what could be improved. However, as I look at the new housing with almost no front or back yard, and see the teeny tiny apartments for low-income people and student housing used for family housing, I think we passed that crucial point 20 years ago. In California, it was more than 20 years ago. Do you know what California's demand for water is doing to the environment and the very real limits on the supply of water? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California Californians are like the frog that doesn't jump out of the pot on the stove. They are in much more serious trouble than they realize.
I am reminded of the story of Easter Island. Easter Island was a paradise with plenty of everything people needed, like Oregon was a 100 years ago. Each new generation saw the island as it was when they came of age, not as the generation before them saw the island. They did not see what was happening to the island, and they did not see the day coming when the island was deforested and their food supply was gone, and those who survived were reduced to cannibalism. Not only are we overpopulated already but all these people are going to have babies and overnight all that available land can be gone, the tick of the clock between we are not at our limit yet and we are over our limit, is the final tick of the clock. We needed to take overpopulation seriously when Buckminster was writing, the forces that prevented this and exasperated the problem with consumerism could cause our civilization to fall as those before us fell.
:heart: I like the forums best when we have agreement and can move forward from there. Now let's see if we can do some problem-solving.
Empty homes are not free. Someone invested in the home and that home can not be taken from that person without compensating the owner. If you sank 5 hundred thousand dollars into a home how would you turn it into a place for people who need housing? Or how could we turn that private land into public land? Who is going to pay and who is going to pay for maintaining the home? And by the way, where I live there is not a surplus of housing. Rentals are off the market a day after they are put on the market and $500,000 housing is gone in a couple of months. I do not see the land for new housing, and the city is pressured to build up, but as you said, people with private homes do not want apartments built next to them. They don't want the extra traffic and more children in the schools, all things that decrease their standard of living and increase their cost of living as growth demands more services and more taxes. I am afraid I am not saying this well, but we need to think about this mathematically. Let us stop agreeing over human values and simply make all this a mathematically understandable problem.
I have a bone to pick to with all cities. We know the price of real estate goes up and up and room to grow does not. We know, or should know, our economy depends on cheap labor. Nothing is affordable without cheap labor or robotic machines that don't pay taxes and who wants a robot waitress or waiter instead of a real human? So let us think of reality good for humans and the reality of needing cheap human labor (how many and amount of wages) and the fact that these human beings need affordable housing (where and how much can they pay). How sane is it to not set aside land for the future needs of low-income people? Some countries such as Mexico have set aside land for the indigenous people. In the US we have reservations for indigenous people. I have read Germany is doing a good job of providing affordable housing and keeping everyone employed. What in hell is wrong with the US? We need to wake up to our reality. We no longer have a wilderness to fill up with our growing population. What should do get people to wake to our changed reality and think mathematically about the problem?
Ouch, :broken: can you show me mathematically how the problem is not too many people and not enough resources?
Well, my sister is on her way. She has been on the warpath since I told her about my situation. She has been to our state capital every day since, arguing that something needs to be done. She is coming to get proof that the woman who denied me housing violated the HUD rules. It is a two-hour drive for her to get here and I better be ready when she arrives. When my sister is upset she is like an armed nuclear bomb. and I don't want to trigger an explosion by not being ready or by arguing with her about details. The two of us have independently fought these battles before and we win but we have avoided each other most of our lives. She is a little too intense for me, and I am a little too passive for her. I hope we get through this without killing each other. :lol: Had I know she would react as she is reacting, I would have never told her.
As I said I’m not a Christian, I do not follow any organized religion. I don’t think the problem is non-Christians and I don’t think the problem is Christians either, I described where the problem lies: in the forces that seek to divide, to separate, to spread suffering. These forces can be present within both Christians and non-Christians. Examples of such forces are the desires and beliefs that lead to separation, to suffering.
When some Christian priests rape children or nuns, what they do is part of the problem. When non-Christians kill people or promote hate, what they do is part of the problem. When you say that the problem is Christianity, that’s part of the problem. There can be a horrible world with or without Christianity.
Quoting Athena
As I said I wasn’t arguing that, the points I make are relevant whether you believe in a God or not. Personally I do believe that our usual senses do not show us the whole picture, that there is more that exists than what we usually see, that existence doesn’t end with the death of the physical body, but I don’t believe that everything that is written in the Bible or the Quran or the Torah is true, however I believe there is some truth in them, that it isn’t pure fantasy, that the people who wrote these texts had important things to share, things they understood or saw and that we misinterpret today.
Quoting Athena
I’m not asking anyone to believe that the Devil exists, forcing people to believe something is one example of force that divides people and spreads suffering. I’m not forcing beliefs on anyone, I’m simply sharing things I have come to see and understand, important things that I didn’t use to understand, because they are hard to see, and that’s why I see it as important to help others see them too. In this thread I am attempting to highlight the underlying reason why social systems break down, which is the forces that divide, that separate people from one another, that separate people from their environment, that separate people from what they feel, and so on.
I’m calling these forces evil, you don’t have to believe that a Devil you don’t see is behind them, you can simply focus on these forces that you do see. However you choose to call these forces, if you ignore them you can’t explain why social systems break down.
Quoting Athena
I don’t believe that humans are fundamentally different from other animals, I believe that we are all beings with different abilities, different weaknesses and different appearances, but that fundamentally there is something that connects all of us, so indeed I don’t buy the whole notion that other animals were created to benefit man, the very idea of separating humans from other animals is another example of force that divides, which leads humans to cause immense suffering to other beings, and to destroy the environment. As I said not all is true in the religious texts, the people back then didn’t understand everything, but they did understand important things so we shouldn’t dismiss all of it.
Quoting Athena
Yes the belief that we already know everything is a form of ignorance, and ignorance leads to false beliefs, and false beliefs lead to suffering. But there is not only ignorance in religious people, there is also a lot of it in non-religious people, for instance in the people who believe that science proves there is no God and no free will and no existence after the death of the body, or who believe that scientific theories are proven to be true, and this ignorance can be very dangerous too.
Quoting Athena
Christians and Muslims who falsely believe that they are doing the will of God when they kill people aren’t evil, their false belief is due to ignorance, and that’s what becomes an evil force.
There are many diseases we can cure without believing that evil spirits are behind them, but we shouldn’t dismiss too hastily the extensive evidence that exists for healing miracles, which conventional medicine doesn’t explain. Or the evidence that cats can sense when something bad is about to happen to you, as if they could see things that we don’t see, it isn’t clear that a better smell or better eyesight can explain how they know that.
It is clear that faith in Jesus or in some other being is not enough to overcome evil forces, otherwise some priests who dedicate their life to their faith wouldn’t rape children. And Jesus himself wouldn’t have been crucified if faith alone was sufficient. But that doesn’t imply that faith is useless. Same remark for the presidents, faith can be useful but it is not all-powerful.
People who believe a loving God would tell them to kill people or bomb cities are ignorant, again ignorance becomes an evil force.
Quoting Athena
In order for a system to keep going, its different parts have to work together, in harmony. If different parts work against one another, if there are forces that disrupt that system, if these forces become stronger than the forces that keep the system going, then the system collapses. We have to focus on these forces, otherwise we will keep addressing superficial problems instead of the root cause, and neither capitalism nor socialism nor communism nor anarchism will work as long as we don’t address the root cause.
Quoting Athena
Vilifying Christianity will create division, which will create suffering. Christians have mostly good intentions, good intentions in themselves aren’t a problem, false beliefs are. And we all have false beliefs, not just Christians. But they aren’t wrong about everything, and we aren’t wrong about everything either.
We all have to work together, they should be open-minded but we should be open-minded too. Open-mindedness doesn’t mean believing whatever we’re told, but not believing that we already hold the whole truth, and so being open to what others say, being open to discussion, without looking to force one’s beliefs onto others.
However forcing someone to be more open-minded is not a solution, if they aren’t open-minded they will perceive you as a threat and then it creates a conflict, and if you don’t defuse it it escalates and then it spreads suffering, and suffering generates more suffering and so on. And keep in mind that many Christians do not condone the killing of people or the bombing of cities. Evil forces can infiltrate in insidious ways, there is a tight balance to find, in order to move as a whole towards more understanding, more collaboration, more harmony, more unity, towards truth.
I think the Bible has many great analogies and metaphors and if we all saw the analogies and metaphors for what they are, the Bible wouldn't be so bad. Thinking of a militarized government like a beast that devours resources is a great metaphor. Thinking a God literate made us from mud in the Garden of Eden is a terrible mistake. Going on your concern of division, dividing things between good and evil can be problematic, and thinking a God controls what is happening instead of natural forces and human choices is problematic.
This is a thinking problem. I think with proper education everyone would interpret the Bible abstractly instead of concretely. They would see the analogies and metaphors for what they are, instead of being superstitious. Holding that man can know the will of God, is a terrible, terrible thing that we must not tolerate because this belief can lead to evil.
We agree holding false beliefs can be a serious problem. How do you suggest we correct the problem without causing division?
I really hope things are going to work out for you, hopefully your sister can get you out of these difficulties.
Quoting Athena
Yes many things can be problematic. But identifying forces that contribute to divide, to spread suffering, I don’t see that as problematic, precisely it’s what we need in order to solve problems that we haven’t managed to solve.
Dividing things between good and evil can be problematic if we classify something good as evil and something evil as good, if we classify wrongly because of false beliefs or because of an evil intent. Hopefully you agree that there is such a thing as true good or true evil, that good and evil aren’t purely relative. If you don’t agree that’s OK but that means I would have a harder time getting my point across as I would have to show you why this is true. But for instance I hope you agree that something like torturing and killing children to get a kick out of it isn’t good, it’s evil, it’s a destructive force that spreads suffering. I’m sure you agree with that, but when people don’t agree with that it becomes even more difficult to help them see the light, but it’s still possible.
And yes thinking that what happens is independent of human choices, that a God decides everything, is a problem. But many people who don’t believe in a God believe that we have no free will, that everything that happens is determined by physical laws, and that’s a problem too. However it isn’t necessarily a problem to believe that a God who has a limited power exists.
Quoting Athena
A belief in itself isn’t harmful, it’s what we do with it that can be harmful. I wouldn’t really have a problem with someone claiming that they know the will of God if they don’t go around killing people or spreading suffering. What if one individual really does know the will of God? What would that say about us if we imprison that man or worse because we have decreed that we cannot tolerate such belief?
Quoting Athena
With promoting understanding, listening to one another more rather than forcing our beliefs onto others, not blindly believing what we are told, finding out for ourselves, considering what others say without blindly dismissing it even if we don’t agree with it. Finding what we can agree on and move from there. Caring about others and about ourselves, caring about other animals, about the environment. Realize that we are all in the same boat so fighting one another is counterproductive. Identify the evil forces that work to disrupt all that, in order to better understand what we’re up against. While being careful not to spread evil ourselves.
And at the same time be strong. Turning the other cheek in the face of evil is problematic in that it is an invitation to let evil destroy ourselves. We have to be strong to stand our ground and say no when faced with evil. If we turn the other cheek we let evil spread, and if we retaliate we spread evil, so the good thing is to prevent evil from spreading without spreading it ourselves. And ask for help when we can’t face it on our own. And be willing to help those who need help when we can help them, when it’s not about helping them spread evil.
Wisdom is needed to uncover what’s truly good and what’s truly evil, but blindly believing someone who appears wise is precisely not wisdom, that’s something we have to uncover ourselves, through introspection, observing, thinking, feeling, listening without blindly believing, discussing, experimenting, ...
In order to uncover our false beliefs, we have to uncover in the first place what it is that we believe, and then find out whether it is possible that our beliefs are false, and if they were false what would that imply. Discussing with people who have different beliefs can help uncover them too. There is so much to say on the subject, but all this can be a good starting point.
I hope things will work out for you, take care.
In short, I think what you said is that we must examine everything philosophically. Then it follows what is required for the philosophical examination of life?
I kind of want to get this thread back on the topic of the breakdown of social justice. While going through my books I found one explaining the mass migration from Europe to the US and how disruptive this is to people's lives. They are born in one culture and one position in an economic structure and must come to understand the needs of a different economy and what is required of them, and the new culture and what it demands of everyone. This is not really different from a civilization taking over a region that is occupied by indigenous people and forcing them into housing and a way of a life foreign to them. This is devastating to their identity and social ties and often leads to alcoholism. I am not sure that the huge problem we have with drug addiction is not the result of the same uprooting, only people haven 't moved but our culture and economy has changed so much they might as well have moved. I am very sure that for most homeless people there is no family to help them. Most of humanity has been ordered by family order and that is no longer true.
Are you referring to our banking system creating an artificial economy? I think that is something we could look at. Oh wow, I just got a cell phone and if I could learn how to take pictures and put them on the internet I could post some very powerful pictures that are in a 1916 book "Poverty and Riches". This book speaks of $768 a year of earned wages, providing a decent living for a family of six. He uses numerals to make a point that 7/10 of the workers earn less than $750 and that these people do not have a decent wage. Today, not even a single person could live decently on $750 a month. Our rents are higher than that. Why in a little over 100 years has our money been so devalued?
However, 7/10 of people below the poverty level is 70% and that is huge compared to today with the states with the highest poverty percentage just below 20%. In the past, only 20% of the people were middle class, and 10% were wealthy. About 50% of our population is middle class. Another site says our upper class is 1% to 2%. That does not work. If 20% are below the poverty level, and 50% are Middle class and only 2 % are upper class we are missing 28%. Help can anyone explain that?
I think that says we are doing something right because those living below the poverty rate has decreased the middle class has increased. However- the relative deprivation is greater. To just function in today's society requires a substantial amount of money and that was not exactly so in the past. Check this graph below to see the growth in the cost of property, and consider people homesteaded in the west for free. Not only did they get large parcels of land free, and build homes with free trees, but they could live off the land in many places. Now they can't even find a free place to put a bedroll, they can not hunt year-round, and they can't even pee without being fined. Until the west was filled, people could escape the poverty of industrial cities and the plantation economy of the south. Now they have no place to go and if we are intelligent we will do something about this.
Quoting Observations
Definitions of economic class vary and some are more useful than others. By some sources the poverty line is defined at the bottom quintile, so by definition 20% of people are always below it no matter what, which obviously isn’t very informative about social wealth distribution. I don’t know where your other figures, 50% middle class and 1-2% upper class, are from, so I can’t comment on them. I do know from memory that about 75% of people presently make an income below the national mean personal property income (i.e. GDP per capita, what you’d get if you added up all incomes and divided by population). The median personal income, which 50% of people are below by definition, is about half of that mean income: around $25k/yr as opposed to around $50k. The mode income, the group with the most people in it, is barely over half of that, at around $15k/yr.
As I would define them, lower class is anyone whose rent and interest expenses are higher than their income from the same, middle class is anyone where they’re equal (so their only expenses are their own consumption and all their income is earned), and the upper class is anyone whose income from rent and interest is higher than their expenses on same. By those definitions, almost everybody is lower class, and almost nobody is middle class, because it’s way easier to move from middle to upper class than it is from lower to middle.
I don't know if I will understand what you said better in the morning? I have an idiot math IQ and as important as I think math is for defining truth, I am not good at it. However, because math is essential to defining truth, I want to develop my ability to think with math and communicate with it. I get from what you said, not only must our figures agree but so must our terms agree. At this point in time, we (all of us) do not have the communication system we need to understand anything about our economic reality and homelessness.
How might we begin creating a dialog about homelessness that makes sense? In "Poverty and Riches" Scott Nearing, Ph.D. states the cost of living and then speaks of wages.
I am using information for my area from this site https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/
Rent Per Month
Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 972.73 $ 800.00-1,150.00
Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 821.78 $ 700.00-1,000.00
Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 1,700.00 $ 1,600.00-1,800.00
Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 1,421.88 $ 1,200.00-1,600.00
Average Monthly Net Salary (After Tax) 2,574.85 $
The minimum wage is 11.25 so that is $1,800.00 for 40 hours work.
Childcare
Preschool (or Kindergarten), Full Day, Private, Monthly for 1 Child 936.00 $
So if a single parent pays the $972.73 for rent and $936.00 for child care, that leaves the parent $108.71 for everything else, if I did the math right. There is no problem with that is there? Unless the car breaks down.
What does your community look like?
I wouldn't quite say that, but the communication we need is nuanced and sometimes difficult to understand. There are a lot of similar but importantly different things we could be talking about, and keeping them properly differentiated is hard. Some of those things are:
What defines an economic class? Is it:
-Being in a certain percentile of incomes?
-...of wealth?
-Having sufficient income to meet certain goals?
...or sufficient wealth?
-etc
If relevant, what is an "average"?
- Mean? (Add together all the figures and divide them up evenly)
- Median? (Line all the figures up in order and pick the one halfway down the line)
- Mode? (Group all the figures into similar classes and then pick the biggest class)
And if we're averaging, what are we averaging?
- Household income?
- Personal income?
- Household wealth?
- Personal wealth?
What you usually hear people talk about is median household income. But even then, it's not consistent whether economic class is being defined by being in a certain percentile of household income (like the poverty line is usually defined), or by having sufficient household income to meet certain goals.
On top of that, I think that personal figures are more useful because household size can vary so those household figures might be divided over one person or six (on average it's about two, so household figures are usually about twice personal figures).
And I think mean and mode figures are just as important to be aware of as the median, if (as is the case) the mean is way above the median, and the mode is way below it, which means that wealth is really concentrated at the top, so the mode or "typical" person (one who falls into the biggest group) makes way less than the median, while the mean or "average" person (one who has an even-sized slice of the pie) makes way more than the median. In our case, the "typical" American makes about 30% of what the "average" American makes. That fact is lost when all we talk about is what the median two-person household makes.
And on top of all of that, I think it's way more useful to talk about wealth than income. That mode ("typical") income is about what I spent to live a quite comfortable life, and it's about what a full-time minimum-wage job would pay. But because I lack wealth (such as a home of my own) and so have to borrow (rent) it from others while also saving to buy my own so I can stop doing that some day, I'm working my ass off to bring in that mean ("average") income that's more than three times what I need to fund my comfortable level of consumption. Someone who inherited a house could be living a lifestyle better than mine on less than a third of my income, but if all we look at is income figures, I look fantastically rich compared to them, while they have already realized my lifelong goal that I'm not sure I will ever manage to realize.
Quoting Athena
Rent Per Month
Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre 2,200.00 $
Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre 2,000.00 $
Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre 3,500.00 $
Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre 2,800.00 $
Numbeo doesn't have figures for my town's income, but for the closest other one:
Average Monthly Net Salary (After Tax) 3,933.33 $
Preschool (or Kindergarten), Full Day, Private, Monthly for 1 Child 900.00 $
Quoting Athena
Only subscribers can upload photos to the site directly, but if you upload the picture somewhere else (like http://www.imgur.com/ or such), you can put the URL to the picture inside of img tags, like this but without the spaces:
[ img ]https://i.imgur.com/ms2mozp.jpg[ /img ]
and it will show up like this:
n damaged. :lol: That is a little humbling considering I normally think of myself as a pretty well-informed person, but I can not wrap my head around what you said. This youtube is fun and helpful but it will take a while to sink into my thick skull https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=explaining+average%2C+meidum%2C+mode&page=&utm_source=opensearch If I had a magic wand I would make it possible for us all to think like this, because this is the first step to understanding our social problems and possible solutions. The way we are talking about "those homeless people, just isn't helpful. I think you are a real blessing to all of us because of what you know.
The stats for your community could give me a heart attack. My monthly income is $783. That is what people with Social Security and SSI get. :lol: That might give you an idea of what my rent problem is and why it is my intention to use my new cell phone to post on-line and hopefully inform people of our reality and what will be their reality if they work for low wages and can never afford the wealth of which you speak, or if they become disabled before making it to retirement. If they make it all the way to retirement on low wages, their reality won't be much better than mine. They might be able to afford nicer restaurants while they haul everything around in a shopping cart. :rofl: If you can help me talk math to make the point, that would be a real blessing! :heart: It is a terrible wrong to do city planning with those kinds of stat's I am sure that results in decisions that do not include all the low income and our economy depends on them. Wealth is made by paying the laborer the least wage possible and charging the renter the most the market will bear. We are creating a terrible problem and seem to blind to that fact while we pat ourselves on the back for being so wealthy. :joke: We are not getting- things do not add up right. Rows of homeless people camped on our streets is what happened in India, not the US.
I am trying to establish an account with http://www.imgur.com/ but that isn't going so well. I will keep trying.