> I gave the World Wars as an example. Perhaps you missed the part where I also mentioned possible outcomes like a full on nuclear war (enabled by technology etc). And of course, there's also climate change and such. Or even simple rampant deaths due to overuse of antibiotics.
Oh.my.god. Can you really be so clueless as to use antibiotics overuse as an example of the BAD side of technology? I think I actually might die of laughter. It blows my mind that you don't realize that the worst-case scenario of antibiotics overuse is that every antibiotic will become useless...i.e. taking us back to the situation before antibiotics were developed. Your example of "a nightmare scenario of science and technology" is "going back to before this technological advance existed". If I wasn't convinced before, I'm 100% certain that you're truly way, way, way out of your depth when trying to comprehend this topic.
> Not to mention it has little to do with any advanced technology, and more with simple precautions, like running water, cleaner birth environments, etc. You can get over 80% of the decrease in the infant mortality rate just by those, and in fact many activists in third world countries do exactly that -- not much modern equipment required.
Oh you're totally right, and the scientific advances and (relatively) huge amount of resources required to bring these things to the entire world had nothing to do with science, technological advances, or economic growth. I...how do you think these things happen exactly? Do you think that God pops down every twenty years and drops off another set of stone tablets with a list of scientific discoveries and inventions? I've officially crossed over from finding this hilarious to finding it terrifying that there are people who think the way you do.
> What I'm fundamentally saying is that the "market knows better" is borderline religious fatalism.
Do tell how "We should have a complete and robust safety net" is anywhere close to religious fanaticism around "the market knows better"? AFAICT, what I'm talking about is leveraging the market's strength (making local decisions about cost, price, and efficiency) AND avoiding its weaknesses/leveraging govt's strengths (dealing with externalities, providing safety nets, etc). How the fuck is that more fanatic than your proposal of ignoring the market's ability to do anything and making _everyone_ poorer in the process?
> Nobody gives money to the "poor, or the sick, or the needy" that are taken from "dockworkers or taxi drivers". What happens is that the "dockworkers or taxi drivers" are instead thrown into the ranks of the "poor or the needy".
Oh holy fuck what are you even saying. If unemployed dockworkers and taxi drivers become poor and needy, then _by definition they're covered by the robust safety net for the needy jesus christ_. The whole idea behind a safety net is that there ARE no needy people because they're taken care of. If someone in a replaced industry happens to be independently wealthy, or married to someone who makes a decent amount of money, or hell just rich from their protected job, you'd have to have the brain capacity of a toddler to think that it makes sense for welfare transfers to go to them (and make no mistake, protecting obsolete jobs is a transfer of wealth AND a net destructor of wealth). If you think this is impossible, just take a look at what percentage of farm subsidies goes to the very wealthy owners of huge agribusinesses. Giving money to random job classes independently of need in the hopes that it will roughly line up with the needy is _fucking stupid_ compared to actually just giving money to the needy. I can't imagine what sort of bizarro-world one would have to live in where that sounds like it makes any sense.
> Let me put it this way: it wasn't because growing cotton was cheap "in itself" or trivial that the cotton industry people thrived and prices were low. It was because they could push human beings to do it for substinence level compensation. Throu raw force first (slavery) and through "law" and taking advantate of their situation later then (Jim Crow etc).
Right.....which is an excellent argument for outlawing slavery and Jim Crow. I definitely agree that there are jobs out there right now that only exist because they people are driven to work them by the whole "needing food and shelter" thing. How in God's name is that not completely addressed by "a robust safety net"? Shit it's the DEFINITION of "a robust safety net".
TL;DR: I've yet to hear a single credible argument between "1) Maximize the amount of wealth society has, by not intentionally gimping productivity (education funding etc is also part of this, as is welfare et al but this connection is murkier to explain).
2) Use this wealth (by taxing wherever can take it: the rich have historically low top tax rates atm so that's naturally a good place to start) to redistribute to those who actually need it. By definition, this means a robust safety net and ideally a basic income. This is made much easier by the excess amount of wealth generated by step 1.