X-Message-Number: 28072 Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:28:51 -0600 From: "Anthony ." <> Subject: Re: economics and cryonics On 6/21/06, egg plant <> wrote: > >My point is that the vote is larely uninformed and > >driven by certain irrational needs and beliefs in the value > > of consumer items. > > That is the exact same dismal song every tyrant sings, How this leap from regulation, law, and foresight to tyranny? Don't you realise that a "free-market" and a massive rich-poor gap is it's own tyranny? The idea of democracy is that people have a part in making informed decisions regarding how our economics works out between us. No regulation means no democracy means no protection - protection which the poor and the environment need. Indeed, rich-boy wannabes like yourself need it too, unless you're immune to pollutants. As I've already pointed out, it has been clear to me during my work on remediation in the oil & gas sector that prior to regulating something like, say, waste disposal, the dangerous and polluting practices of O&G were astonishing in their carelessness in pursuit of the profit margin. Regulation stopped this flagrant disregard for human life and ecosystem. Well, it stopped a lot of it, but O&G companies like breaking or bending rules for an extra $. > trust me I know > better than you do how to spend your own money, People do not spend their money very well. This is a natural tendancy made worst by consumerism. What I suggest is not controlling people, but working towards changing our current attitudes towards consumption. For example, "primitive" peoples, e.g., Native American tribes of the Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska, held potlatches on special occasions to display their wealth and emphasize their superiority over their peers. "The festivities began with dancing, feasting, and speechmaking. The host would then distribute gifts, usually in the form of food and blankets. The host might even destroy money and verbally abuse his guests to indicate his financial and social superiority. Guests who received gifts were obliged to hold potlatches of their own at a later date. They would usually try to give gifts of an even greater value than those they had received in an attempt to establish their own superiority and wealth." (Microsoft Encarta, 2000). This kind of excess in universal among human cultures. The problem now is that the excess is beyond that which we have ever had to cope with before. > You can trust me I'm from the government. This is the exact same "dismal song" every coporate pig or wannabe-pig sings, "trust me I'm from an honest-to-god corporation". You think that people should spend and consume wantonly, if for no other reason than it is their inalienable right to do so in pursuit of the life, liberty and happiness as asserted in the Declaration of Independence, the document which inspired the formation of the United States of America. I disagree, for three reasons. First, people with lots, and often enormous amounts of money, are, contrary to common sense folk wisdom, actually no happier than their less wealthy counterparts, and are statistically more prone to depression and other forms of psychopathology. I can send anyone who is interested a list of the psychological research which lends heavy empirical weight to this opinion. No doubt you will simply object to this painstaking, peer-reviewed, scientific research because it does not jive with your rich-boy aspirant world-view. I don't blame you that much, it is typical. Second, obsessive superfluous consumption now permeates all levels of American society, creating a culture of mindless greedy acquisitiveness (e.g., The Prayer of Jabez, based on a passage in the Old Testament interpreted by Evangelical Christians suggesting that greed is Godly, has sold four million copies in America) to the economic detriment of many middle and lower class citizens: "Marketing experts have shown the value of associating success and social standing with a product, and that this technique can be successfully used to captivate a market share of lower-class urban families. As a result we often see lower-class individuals spending their money needlessly on expensive cars, pagers, cell phones, and designer shoes rather than learning to grow their money through smart, safe investments "Western marketing's most important principle is to encourage the consumer to buy with as little reflection as possible On the day after Thanksgiving 1999, the San Antonio Express News reported that thousands of shoppers began lining up outside of WalMarts, Best Buys, and Targets at 2 am for the new "tradition" of after-Thanksgiving shopping. The newspaper reported that most shoppers said they had no idea what they wanted to buy. They were simply lured out by the promise of sales." (quote from www.consumerzone.org, 2001) Of course, you will keep hollering that it is our right to keep this up because that is Liberty. Unfortunately it is libertine. Third, wanton consumption is not a good idea for human beings' because our insatiable lust for money and consumption leads to massively inequitable distribution of the world's wealth and natural assets, fostering economic and political instability, and at present, the very real danger of self-imposed extinction of the human race by fatal depletion of natural resources You've already made it clear that your skeptical about this point, depite the actual facts. But denial is a powerful tool, and it is why we are here today. As I've said, this isn't just due to capitalism or corporate culture, it is naturally human to seek an abundance, and their are clear psychological underpinnings which support this (again, I'll send you a list of research if anyone wishes to see it). > Mao Tse-tung and Stalin had ideas much like yours and > their great leap forward lead to the starvation of tens of millions of > people. The Red Threat on Cryonet again! Actually, their ideas are nothing like mine, but because you have not read the ideas of Mao, you would not know this. The truly human market place will require a delicate balance of "enlightened" self-interest, reason, and empathy with, and compassion for, our fellow human beings. The primary goal of the human market should be the satisfaction of individual and collective needs and desires determined by educated people through the democratic process, rather than by "market forces." A healthy economy would be reflected by maximum satisfaction of basic and genuine needs (not artificial needs created by commercial forces to boost sales) and desires within a social context that provides value and meaning to as many people as possible. The human market place would be limited, not by capital constraints, but by technology and resources (a quantitative measure of human stupidity is the difference between what we are technologically able to accomplish and what we actually choose to do), accompanied by concern for preservation of the physical environment upon which our survival always ultimately depends. Unfortunately, the U.S. is perhaps the most imbalanced of all societies because it is so focused on the mythic value of individualism. In most places in the world, even relatively individualistic cultures like Germany and the Netherlands, there is a sense that fellow countrymen and women are part of a family or community, and the needs of one's people must be met. Americans may be the only people who widely embrace a "dog eat dog" mentality regarding their own ingroup. A prominent example of this is the resistance to implementing national health insurance, despite the ample resources to do so. Although Americans are undoubtedly more collectivistic than they think they are, a substantial shift toward a communal orientation regarding each other will be needed to even approach this sort of optimal balance. Anthony Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28072