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How to Make Trillions of Dollars

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Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#91

Post by DanI-S »

kiba wrote: post #89
tabsa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comment it seems that your are advocating an "intellectual life". Isn't this the same old consumerism, just a changing real goods for virtual ones (aka information)?

Hardly, because for your life to be intellectually interesting, you must discriminate between information. You're choosing not what people will think of you, but what is interesting to you.

I'm sure most people at least in some way try to develop interests in certain areas so that other people find THEM interesting!

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#92

Post by dstorrs »

anthonyb wrote: post #86
jacoblyles wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind a…

There was a society based on the principles of the free market - Victorian England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages, child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery. Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety, pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and prosperity.

Victorian England is definitely a good candidate, yes. But for an example of a "free market" society that is nearer in time and space to modern Americans, read Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_ : http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Jungle/Upton-Sinclair/e...

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#93

Post by anthonyb »

Evgeny wrote: post #54
jacoblyles wrote: post #32

Hey guys, it has been too long since our last self-righteous anti-consumerist circle-jerk. This one is good! You can smell the smarminess right through the screen. We live in a time where the individual has more freedom to do what he wants with his life than ever before. When people live longer, survive perviously unsurvivable diseases, and can get by with the least work. When the glorious knowledge produced by human…

Mostly they just seem to get a kick out of criticizing how other people have chosen to live their lives. Doesn't it make you sad that a huge number of people are unhealthy, unhappy, die prematurely from perfectly preventable reasons or just plainly do not have any slightest idea about what to do with their lives? That's especially sad because it happens at the times when there are the most possible opportunities avai…

Which I think is the original article's point - we're living in what should be a time of plenty, but just having plenty isn't enough if you sacrifice everything else to get there.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#94

Post by anthonycerra »

jacoblyles wrote: post #53
lisper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. > Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Sure. And nobody has proven that Jesus or Vishnu won't come back and destroy the world for its sins, either. Positing a future apocalypse that will envelope the world unless everyone adopts your pet religion has a long pedigree.

Now I think you're going too far. The point above says that you can use capitalism to benefit the world around you. Instead of spending $3 million on a car, you can spend $3 million on businesses in a 3rd world country. In the end everyone wins instead of you alone.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#95

Post by liamk »

moultano wrote: post #57
jacoblyles wrote: post #32

Hey guys, it has been too long since our last self-righteous anti-consumerist circle-jerk. This one is good! You can smell the smarminess right through the screen. We live in a time where the individual has more freedom to do what he wants with his life than ever before. When people live longer, survive perviously unsurvivable diseases, and can get by with the least work. When the glorious knowledge produced by human…

>I guess it makes them feel better about themselves to imagine the great majority of the population are rubes and they are some wise sage. On the contrary, I identify with the article because I know how stupid I am. I know how manipulatable I am. I know how easy it is to hijack by overclocked-monkey-brain instincts. I know how subject I am to addictive behavior. I know how far I am from my ideal self. I know how much…

"It is not contradictory to believe that capitalism is the most effective engine for driving human ambition towards useful goals, and at the same time, decry the perverse incentives it creates to manipulate people against their interests and to destroy the environment."

Extremely well put.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#96

Post by icarus_drowning »

The entire article rests on the assumption that the things which are produced in order to be consumed have no value-- or at the very least, that, as more of them are produced, the total value in "the system" doesn't increase. While this is undoubtably true for many things, is it true for all of them?

I mean, sure, I can't accept that enormous piles of consumerist junk manufactured every year don't really represent the creation of much value. But that isn't everything, and, I'd argue, it is dwarfed by the enormous amount of valuable materials, goods, and services that are produced.

In order for this kind of invective to carry in weight, one has to implicitly agree with the hidden assumption that the trillions of dollars of goods and services produced every year represent essentially no value to human beings.

And that seems to me to be a pretty ridiculous statement.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#97

Post by zeteo »

anthonyb wrote: post #86
jacoblyles wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create unprecedented human health and prosperity[1]. Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would change Chomsky's mind a…

There was a society based on the principles of the free market - Victorian England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages, child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery. Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety, pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and prosperity.

Are you kidding me? Victorian Britain was the most prosperous country on Earth, at the time. Sure, the average Brit had it much rougher than they do today, but that's not a valid comparison. Give me one country that had it better during the 19th century than Victorian Britain!

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#98

Post by momotomo »

jacquesm wrote: post #87
momotomo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the maintenance part is possibly the hardest aspect. It's also killed typical socialization in my own home, except for people that genuinely enjoy just sitting, sipping tea and talking. I was pretty stuck anyhow (progress wise), so if it takes a couple of years to gain new momentum, I feel it's time well spent. A few people asked if I was heading overseas, the more people that do, the better an idea it sounds l…

So, are you heading overseas?

To travel, yeah. Baby steps, it'll be my first time offshore (at 28 years of age)

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#99

Post by anthonyb »

zeteo wrote: post #97
anthonyb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a society based on the principles of the free market - Victorian England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages, child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery. Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety, pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and prosperity.

Are you kidding me? Victorian Britain was the most prosperous country on Earth, at the time. Sure, the average Brit had it much rougher than they do today, but that's not a valid comparison. Give me one country that had it better during the 19th century than Victorian Britain!

Sure, they were more prosperous on average, but the poor were much more worse off than the poor in rural areas.

It's also impossible to say whether the prosperity was due to the free market and lack of regulations, the industrial revolution and development of steam power or the rise of the middle class and their increased free time/income.

I suspect that mostly it was technology, similar to what's happening in developing nations right now, rather than any free markets.

Re: How to Make Trillions of Dollars

#100

Post by zeteo »

anthonyb wrote: post #99
zeteo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding me? Victorian Britain was the most prosperous country on Earth, at the time. Sure, the average Brit had it much rougher than they do today, but that's not a valid comparison. Give me one country that had it better during the 19th century than Victorian Britain!

Sure, they were more prosperous on average , but the poor were much more worse off than the poor in rural areas. It's also impossible to say whether the prosperity was due to the free market and lack of regulations, the industrial revolution and development of steam power or the rise of the middle class and their increased free time/income. I suspect that mostly it was technology, similar to what's happening in devel…

"the poor were much more worse off than the poor in rural areas."

Do you have any support for that assertion? The poor themselves decided en masse to move from village to city at the time, which seems to indicate the contrary. Yes, in the city they were also much more visible to literate observers who would write about their misery, but who knows what those same observers might have exposed if they had lived in a village instead. The people who knew both sides of the situation, certainly seemed to vote with their feet for the industrialized cities. We see the same phenomenon at work in China nowadays.

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