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This is basically what a "Utopian" society is. But ultimately, ideals like these are impossible to achieve, when factoring in human greed.
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On May 05 2012 05:41 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:40 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:36 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? Everyone. The fact you think you don't just reflects how jobs and employment function in our society - it also tells me that your working experience was shit, regardless of you boasting of (presumably) being in a high income bracket. Besides, you wouldn't be choosing "work over play". You would be getting enough time for both, which is a good thing, given that people actually want both. You couldn't live that hypothetical life of playing games, watching tv, watching streams and doing nothing work-related for longer than a month without starting to feel miserable. its amazing how you know me better than i know myself. It is, isn't it? It's also amazing how little you understand people in general and what motivates them. i have only been speaking on behalf of myself. you, on the other hand, are speaking on behalf of everyone. maybe you should stick to talking about yourself and not feel the need to generalize your own apparent feelings to everyone else.
It's because I know these things, so I feel confident enough to say the things I do. Unlike what you may want to think, we're not all somehow magically unique as individuals that nobody can possibly understand our motivation if they don't know us. The whole sciences have been built on understanding people. If not me, there certainly are people who understand you better than you understand yourself - they have jobs based on their ability to do just that.
I don't want to talk about myself, because I as an individual am not really relevant to the topic at hand. Neither are you. I'm just using you as an example because YOU volunteered yourself to be an example in your own post by citing your own experiences as an actual argument (even though it's really not a suitable one).
And I'm most certainly not talking about "feelings" of any sort.
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On May 05 2012 05:47 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:46 Hertzy wrote:On May 05 2012 05:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 Whole wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. lol. i dont think you understand how amusing your statement is considering my income bracket. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? People who feel enjoyment from achieving something? Well obviously I don't like working at Quiznos, but when I'm doing something that takes intellectual effort, I have a unique feeling at the end of the project that "playing" will never satisfy. let me clarify my original statement because i think you make a fair point: sounds good to me. i want to "do whatever i feel like" all day "and not work," and have others provide my basic necessities." This is the reason I think a communist society needs a "slackers prison" and maybe a few tiers to standard of living, to be awarded for greater contributions. you mean make it so that its no longer communism? communism's purpose is to eliminate classes.
Even in Stalinist Russia there were differences in "salaries" based on one's position. The difference was these were not controlled by market pressures but rather chosen by a central planning committee. Obviously, it didn't go as harmoniously as intended though.
So yeah, the moment we think about anything even having a prison (in the form we think of it) it has a state and is thus not the communism of Marxism.
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On May 05 2012 05:48 ellaguru wrote:
communism doesn't work.
go read some books.
[citation needed]
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On May 05 2012 05:50 FIStarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:48 ellaguru wrote:
communism doesn't work.
go read some books. [ citation needed]
Was the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. not proof enough? It's certainly sufficient to say that on large scales, Communism has been a resounding failure.
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On May 05 2012 05:49 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:41 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:40 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:36 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? Everyone. The fact you think you don't just reflects how jobs and employment function in our society - it also tells me that your working experience was shit, regardless of you boasting of (presumably) being in a high income bracket. Besides, you wouldn't be choosing "work over play". You would be getting enough time for both, which is a good thing, given that people actually want both. You couldn't live that hypothetical life of playing games, watching tv, watching streams and doing nothing work-related for longer than a month without starting to feel miserable. its amazing how you know me better than i know myself. It is, isn't it? It's also amazing how little you understand people in general and what motivates them. i have only been speaking on behalf of myself. you, on the other hand, are speaking on behalf of everyone. maybe you should stick to talking about yourself and not feel the need to generalize your own apparent feelings to everyone else. It's because I know these things, so I feel confident enough to say the things I do. Unlike what you may want to think, we're not all somehow magically unique as individuals that nobody can possibly understand our motivation if they don't know us. The whole sciences have been built on understanding people. If not me, there certainly are people who understand you better than you understand yourself - they have jobs based on their ability to do just that. I don't want to talk about myself, because I as an individual am not really relevant to the topic at hand. Neither are you. I'm just using you as an example because YOU volunteered yourself to be an example in your own post by citing your own experiences as an actual argument.
i had an excellent rebuttal argument all worked out, but then i decided you already know what im going to say because you apparently know me better than i know myself. oh, and you probably already know, but i studied psychology and anthropology, and calling them an exacting science is probably not a good idea.
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On May 05 2012 05:54 ampson wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:50 FIStarcraft wrote:On May 05 2012 05:48 ellaguru wrote:
communism doesn't work.
go read some books. [ citation needed] Was the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. not proof enough? It's certainly sufficient to say that on large scales, Communism has been a resounding failure.
That was State Socialism, not communism. The fact that you can name them as states where "communism" existed means it wasn't communism.
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On May 05 2012 05:55 rackdude wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:54 ampson wrote:On May 05 2012 05:50 FIStarcraft wrote:On May 05 2012 05:48 ellaguru wrote:
communism doesn't work.
go read some books. [ citation needed] Was the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. not proof enough? It's certainly sufficient to say that on large scales, Communism has been a resounding failure. That was State Socialism, not communism. The fact that you can name them as states where "communism" existed means it wasn't communism.
Communism cannot work.
It's against human nature.
Proof? Reality and history.
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On May 05 2012 05:46 Hertzy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 Whole wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. lol. i dont think you understand how amusing your statement is considering my income bracket. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? People who feel enjoyment from achieving something? Well obviously I don't like working at Quiznos, but when I'm doing something that takes intellectual effort, I have a unique feeling at the end of the project that "playing" will never satisfy. let me clarify my original statement because i think you make a fair point: sounds good to me. i want to "do whatever i feel like" all day "and not work," and have others provide my basic necessities." This is the reason I think a communist society needs a "slackers prison" and maybe a few tiers to standard of living, to be awarded for greater contributions.
That defeats the entire purpose. Then the society is not egalitarian, which sort of defeats the entire purpose of Communism, no? You're trying to find ways around human nature, when we all ready have it, and it's called private property & the market. It does the job perfectly, and all without need for political and individual oppression and these "prisons". You're torn. You realize communism is a fools errand, and in being so attached you try and find solutions to a problem that's already been solved a long time ago.
You'll get there eventually. The most equitable, free, and prosperous societies are liberal societies with the protection of private property from the political plunderers and the non-political.
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On May 05 2012 04:42 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 04:19 DeepElemBlues wrote:Unconditionally providing everyone with everything needed for a simple life - that's a good thing. It's an impossible dream. All we really need is a decent system of taxing and basic support for everyone that doesn't let anyone suffer, but also lets people earn more wealth by "hard work". We have something that has worked better at reaching this goal of not letting anyone suffer, it's worked better than any other system ever used, it's called "capitalism." The more taxing you do, the less wealth overall you create, it's been 'proven' in theory and actually proven by results over and over again. That is incorrect. It is quite easily doable for first world countries to achieve your impossible dream. Evidence is that many of them are actually doing it now. Of course all of them still use capitalism mixed with socialism to achieve that. There is no need for some strange utopias as in OP. Even some European communist states were able to do that quite well, but even they kept the money system. More "pure" capitalist systems (and also communist systems) actually achieved worse results in this than mixed systems.
No, that is correct. It's basic economics and it has shown itself true over and over again. You want to create more wealth overall, you remove government from the economy as much as possible.
It is impossible for first world countries to achieve that dream which is why none of them are actually trying to as they did over the last ~50 years. There is no evidence that any of them are doing it right now. You have an inflated and counterfactual sense of how successful Europe has been at the 'social democracy' game, sorry but there is and always was an underclass that social welfare has failed to uplift out of generational poverty. No country is advocating a total reversion to the 1970s-1990s style of heavy and ever-expanding social welfare or the extreme of a planned economy, Soviet-style or not. Not even Hollande is advocating to just turn the clock back.
No European communist state was ever able to do it quite well or even barely, you're simply ignorant of how awful the state of material and social equality or even sufficiency in European communist states was if you actually believe that.
And sadly, no. There has never been a 'more "pure"' capitalist society. I'm not an anarcho-capitalist or a libertarian but if you actually study capitalism it has always been the 'mixed' system. Laissez-faire has never actually been tried, not that it would be successful to a degree justifying staying on that path. But it wouldn't be the blood-soaked starvation ideology-over-results clusterfuck that Communism was.
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I could not disagree with this more. There are several problems with the global economy right now, some of them having to do with the green movement itself. For example, the Club of Rome's malthusian limits to growth, and the zero-growth advocacy of the Council on Foreign Relations and other establishment bodies, such as the Global 2000 and Agenda 21 policy ideas. Other issues are the lack of government issued cheap credit, and the domination of the credit markets by Wall Street and London banks, which use their foreign policy arm, the IMF, to impoverish most of the world with impossibly high interest rates and austerity measures. Another huge problem is the domination of many sectors of world trade by global cartels, such as Bechtel, who exist only because they are a preferred client of Wall Street or London banks, and who are able to use their connections to get access to cheap credit that other businesses do not have access to. There is a global lack of development, lack of fresh drinking water, electricity, refridgeration, HVAC, roads, rail, etc. We should be encouraging this type of development worldwide through the issuance of new government issued credit for productive investments such as these. This is exactly the type of development the IMF currently prohibits in the developing world through their usurious lending policies deisgned to control nations through debt. I suggest people read John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" if you haven't already.
TLDR: Money is not the problem, who is controlling and issuing the money right now is the problem.
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In a system like this the education system would have to look at kids as mysteries to be unraveled instead of vessels to pump information into.
This is based on the Acorn Theory where people have innate gifts that need to be cultivated through their environment:
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Acorn-Theory&id=3337338
When the vast majority of society is pursuing their talents - that's when the progress will be made. People won't need material things to be happy. Just doing what they were meant to do will be enough.
This idea is very out there, but I think it's possible. We just need to revamp our whole outlook of almost everything we're familiar with.
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On May 05 2012 05:49 EienShinwa wrote:
This is basically what a "Utopian" society is. But ultimately, ideals like these are impossible to achieve, when factoring in human greed.
Human greed, much like many other primitive urges people have, can be hammered out via education (not just formal education). The problem is that we live in a society that encourages it.
Greed isn't the first bad "habit" that we had to get rid of during the course of civilization. If we didn't get rid of many others, today we would be living in a society where it would be perfectly normal for a man to rape a woman every time they want to have sex (although I suppose it technically wouldn't be rape, since women would naturally accept it as a fact of life), or a society where it was perfectly normal to hurt or kill somebody we disliked or if he had something we wanted.
But having people roam around doing things like this turned to be extremely detrimental to the society because it allowed people to hurt one another for their own benefit.
Greed does the same thing, it's just slightly more subtle. Once it proves to be detrimental enough to the society that people take notice, it too will be hammered out.
On May 05 2012 05:54 dAPhREAk wrote:
oh, and you probably already know, but i studied psychology and anthropology, and calling them an exacting science is probably not a good idea.
I didn't call them exact sciences, I called them sciences. And for somebody who apparently studied them and at the very least knows what intrinsic motivation is, a statement that "nobody chooses work over play" would certainly seem very uneducated inaccurate incorrect.
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On May 05 2012 05:49 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:41 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:40 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:36 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? Everyone. The fact you think you don't just reflects how jobs and employment function in our society - it also tells me that your working experience was shit, regardless of you boasting of (presumably) being in a high income bracket. Besides, you wouldn't be choosing "work over play". You would be getting enough time for both, which is a good thing, given that people actually want both. You couldn't live that hypothetical life of playing games, watching tv, watching streams and doing nothing work-related for longer than a month without starting to feel miserable. its amazing how you know me better than i know myself. It is, isn't it? It's also amazing how little you understand people in general and what motivates them. i have only been speaking on behalf of myself. you, on the other hand, are speaking on behalf of everyone. maybe you should stick to talking about yourself and not feel the need to generalize your own apparent feelings to everyone else. It's because I know these things, so I feel confident enough to say the things I do. Unlike what you may want to think, we're not all somehow magically unique as individuals that nobody can possibly understand our motivation if they don't know us. The whole sciences have been built on understanding people. If not me, there certainly are people who understand you better than you understand yourself - they have jobs based on their ability to do just that. I don't want to talk about myself, because I as an individual am not really relevant to the topic at hand. Neither are you. I'm just using you as an example because YOU volunteered yourself to be an example in your own post by citing your own experiences as an actual argument.
The bolded part is so horribly out of place in an intelligent argument.
But you see the crux of dAPhrEAK's point is what do you do if one person doesn't do his "fair share" of work? Do you still give him the same thing as everyone else, effectively subsidizing his lifestyle at the expense of other people's toil? Or do you boot him out of your utopia? If you do, who determines what "fair share" is? Will "fair share" increase or decrease if a portion of the population want an extra car to go with their allotment? What about people who don't want an extra car? Or people who don't want a car at all? Will their work go towards providing other people with cars?
It's precisely because people are different, with different priorities and different expectations and different goals and different levels of effort they want to put into work and play that you can't homogenize an allotment of work and luxuries to everyone and expect everyone to be happy with that.
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On May 05 2012 05:47 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:46 Hertzy wrote:On May 05 2012 05:43 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:39 Whole wrote:On May 05 2012 05:29 dAPhREAk wrote:On May 05 2012 05:26 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
sounds good to me. i want to play video games all day and have others provide my basic necessities. Do you really want to play video games all day? Or is wanting to play video games all day actually an urge for escapism from what is the current reality? Perhaps if you did not live in a shithole of a society - which pretty much all of the societies today are - that by design makes any rational human miserable and stressed, you would in fact not want to play video games all day because that's a boring and life-draining activity. Do you think people who lock themselves in and play games or watch television all day actually enjoy their life and would rather not do something else with it? Think again. People have an inherent motivation to learn, work and create things - and this motivation is not just mere survival. The antagonistic view of labor and the desire to stop working comes entirely from the - in vast majority of cases very justified - feeling of your labor being exploited and treated unfairly and the hostile working environments this leads to. Do you think people dread going to work in the morning because the actual work is too physically or mentally difficult for them, or because of this hostile environment bred entirely by following economic dogmas? People can't not work. It's in our nature to want to work. But it is also in our nature to resist being exploited or forced to do things that exploit others. lol. i dont think you understand how amusing your statement is considering my income bracket. i dont want to go to work because who the fuck wants to work? i want to be lazy and play all day long, not work. video games may get boring, but then ill watch tv, watch some streams, etc. who chooses work over play? People who feel enjoyment from achieving something? Well obviously I don't like working at Quiznos, but when I'm doing something that takes intellectual effort, I have a unique feeling at the end of the project that "playing" will never satisfy. let me clarify my original statement because i think you make a fair point: sounds good to me. i want to "do whatever i feel like" all day "and not work," and have others provide my basic necessities." This is the reason I think a communist society needs a "slackers prison" and maybe a few tiers to standard of living, to be awarded for greater contributions. you mean make it so that its no longer communism? communism's purpose is to eliminate classes.
Actually, it is more about eliminating private ownership of means of production. Essentially, the problem during Marx's time was that someone who owned a field could get a bunch of people together and tell them "If you plow, plant and harvest this field, grind the grain, and bake a cake out of the flour, you can share a slice among yourselves", and then sit on their ass waiting for their cake. A lot of this was caused by people being born to social classes, hence the classlessness.
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On May 05 2012 05:59 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:49 EienShinwa wrote:
This is basically what a "Utopian" society is. But ultimately, ideals like these are impossible to achieve, when factoring in human greed. Human greed, much like many other primitive urges people have, can be hammered out via education (not just formal education). The problem is that we live in a society that encourages it. Greed isn't the first bad "habit" that we had to get rid of during the course of civilization. If we didn't get rid of many others, today we would be living in a society where it would be perfectly normal for a man to rape a woman every time they want to have sex (although I suppose it technically wouldn't be rape, since women would naturally accept it as a fact of life), or a society where it was perfectly normal to hurt or kill somebody we disliked or if he had something we wanted. But having people roam around doing things like this turned to be extremely detrimental to the society because it allowed people to hurt one another for their own benefit. Greed does the same thing, it's just slightly more subtle. Once it proves to be detrimental enough to the society that people take notice, it too will be hammered out. Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:54 dAPhREAk wrote:
oh, and you probably already know, but i studied psychology and anthropology, and calling them an exacting science is probably not a good idea. I didn't call them exact sciences, I called them sciences. And for somebody who apparently studied them and at the very least knows what intrinsic motivation is, a statement that "nobody chooses work over play" would certainly seem very uneducated inaccurate incorrect.
actually, you are correct. i shouldn't have generalized to everybody. "I" would never choose work over play. thanks for showing me that we shouldn't generalize our own feelings to everybody. btw, the irony in your correction of my statement is beautiful.
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Because this system works right? Half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day, about 80% of the population works in the service sector which could be automated, corporations have more money than whole nations and it's the workers who make it all possible yet the owner benefits the most, war kills innocent civilians even though they have nothing to do with it, etc.
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It isn't communism.
It's technocracy.
The primary issues being addressed are a critque of the price system, the energy inefficiencies of curent capitalism and the issues arriving in a post scarity society (see digital software in copyright vs piracy).
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On May 05 2012 06:07 dAPhREAk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2012 05:59 Talin wrote:On May 05 2012 05:49 EienShinwa wrote:
This is basically what a "Utopian" society is. But ultimately, ideals like these are impossible to achieve, when factoring in human greed. Human greed, much like many other primitive urges people have, can be hammered out via education (not just formal education). The problem is that we live in a society that encourages it. Greed isn't the first bad "habit" that we had to get rid of during the course of civilization. If we didn't get rid of many others, today we would be living in a society where it would be perfectly normal for a man to rape a woman every time they want to have sex (although I suppose it technically wouldn't be rape, since women would naturally accept it as a fact of life), or a society where it was perfectly normal to hurt or kill somebody we disliked or if he had something we wanted. But having people roam around doing things like this turned to be extremely detrimental to the society because it allowed people to hurt one another for their own benefit. Greed does the same thing, it's just slightly more subtle. Once it proves to be detrimental enough to the society that people take notice, it too will be hammered out. On May 05 2012 05:54 dAPhREAk wrote:
oh, and you probably already know, but i studied psychology and anthropology, and calling them an exacting science is probably not a good idea. I didn't call them exact sciences, I called them sciences. And for somebody who apparently studied them and at the very least knows what intrinsic motivation is, a statement that "nobody chooses work over play" would certainly seem very uneducated inaccurate incorrect. actually, you are correct. i shouldn't have generalized to everybody. "I" would never choose work over play. thanks for showing me that we shouldn't generalize our own feelings to everybody. btw, the irony in your correction of my statement is beautiful.
But we were not discussing feelings, we were discussing science. Based around actual generalizations, rather than individual feelings you seem to cling to as if they were relevant at all.
Moreover, if you're so reluctant to "generalize" - what exactly are you doing in this thread to begin with? In fact almost all political or social topics require you to generalize to an extent because they deal with issues that concern a large population.
PS. The problem in your statement wasn't the generalization. That is not what I corrected.
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It's not just human nature it's against, but the fundamentals of economics. Scarcity cannot be eliminated no matter how advanced our technology becomes, and the only way to allocate scarce resources without a market is with an authoritarian system which employs force.
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EPT
