Physical health is relatively easy to define. Defining mental health is more dangerous. Defining objectively happiness and prosperity is impossible.
You can't optimize happiness because is relative.
You can't optimize happiness because is relative.
We could debate about that, but it's not the matter of discussion.
Physical and mental well being can be scientifically evaluated.
There is much scientific research on this, the emotional well being (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_well-being), the Human Development Index, the Physical Quality of Life Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Quality_of_Life_Index), the Happy Planet Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index), the Gross national happiness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness) and many others. None of them are complete, but you don't just dismiss the whole thing outright because of that.
In the same way, we have no universal unequivocal definition of life, but I guess you don't say "oh, you can't define life, therefore you can never know when something is alive" or any of that nonsense.
So, you can tackle this issue, and evaluate scientifically. The RBE approach gives you a blueprint for that. The free market doesn't care if people are well fed, emotionally and physically well, and that's exactly why there is so much unnecessary suffering on this world.
A support for the profit-based market is a silent acceptance and reinforcement of all this violence and suffering.
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Ok. I like beer but I don't need it to survive. The RBE won't give me beer because it's not necessary for my health (although it is for my happiness) so I will get it in the free market.
It's pretty simple:
- the degree of freedom will be decided by what the planet can provide, or in one word, sustainability
- within that, anything is acceptable, according to the people's values
the big difference from the current system is that we don't put any limit of what can be produced/consumed, which is nonsensical if you realise that the planet from which we depend has a very finite carrying capacity.
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Is my education/culture inferior because I like beer? Who say so?
Don't be silly.
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Also what about arts?
If a reincarnation of Jim Morrison appears, will he gets the Watts he deserve?
If a reincarnation of Jim Morrison appears, will he gets the Watts he deserve?
You mean the MEGA-FUCKING Watts he clearly deserves?
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That's what I deny, that capitalism and free market go hand in hand.
Then please explain.
Any proft-based system is fundamentally corrupt because:
- it doesn't care about being sustainable
- it has to adhere to the price-efficiency mechanism, which makes you create crappy, useless and obscolecent products
regardless of whether you call it socialism, capitalism, or free market. it's still the same shit.
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Corporations may seek just monetary profits, but our society is not just for monetary profit. When a self-sufficient permaculture farmer grows his own food, he makes it in a sustainable way and for his own profit, but not for monetary profit.
You seem to demonize profit.
You seem to demonize profit.
Very circumstantial example, 95% of production and pollution is made by 100 megacorporations seeking profits. They are the ones who will make the planet inhabitable, so yes, I'm fucking demonising profit, it's effectively destroying the only planet I have to live in.
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States are coerced by corporations and then states coerce any other corporation/individual that tries to compete. What I claim is that private property and free market is not enough for monopolies to appear. Coercion is needed.
Play it as you like, it's because of profit that all this happens. Try to take you hands off your keyboard, stop thinking, close your eyes, pause, then think again.
You might get it.
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Unless the producer of the good/service you need/want wants to give it to you as charity, you either have to coerce him or give him something he wants/needs in exchange.
Money's just a proxy.
Money's just a proxy.
You haven't been reading the material.
Who owns the sidewalk on the street?
We get free sidewalks, why can't we have automated hydroponics facilities to produce food and distribute it for free? It's technically possible, and quite simple, too.
It's because it would destroy the fucking market, that's why. People won't have to enslave themselves, and will have time to read some books, think for themselves and realise that this system is fucked up.
That's why.
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I plan to do it myself and educate those around me.
Good! That's what we are doing
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So called intellectual property is not private property. I'm against intellectual property.
We need private property to manage scarce resources, but information can be replicated at no cost.
We need private property to manage scarce resources, but information can be replicated at no cost.
Alright! You are halfway there, just a little further and you'll see that the need for private property in a system of universal access is greatly reduced.
Maybe not eliminated, I don't really care, to be honest. But reduced for sure.
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Sacrificing free trade is sacrificing freedom.
And you don't have to.
Look, I'm not against free trade. You wanna do it? Fine, nobody's gonna stop you.
As I said, the limit is the carrying capacity of the Earth. Within that, do whatever you like the most.
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Exponential growth in oil (and other resources) production has made us think that our exponential monetary system is sustainable, which is false.
+1. Making progress
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The green revolution (science powered, with the noble aim of feeding the world) has destroyed our soils, but oil derived fertilizers keep us in the illusion that our land is fertile.
Errrr, politics oriented. If it was up to science, we would have made aquaponics, hydroponics, aeroponics, or even synthesised directly the enzymes needed for the production of food, without destroying any field, and without the need of any pesticide.
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All these illusions are coming to an end. There will be free market after the oil era, but without an exponential monetary system.
How will that be? o_O
Profit requires growth, otherwise you'll go steady state, which is good for us, but bad for profit.
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The demand for energy will decline with its supply. Energy won't be a non scarce resource in the near future, neither food.
Ahhh, and so will people, who will starve to death, readjusting the prices, right?
I can't accept that. Billions of deaths just to preserve the profit-religion? Fuck that.
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No necessarily, I see a period of transition where it might be useful. I just see the inevitable consequence of the shift in culture.
And that's your belief.
No, that's the projection I make, based on the available evidence.
But again, I don't care.
If we manage to make our living here sustainable without killing billions of people, I'll be happy.