OUR DOWNFALL: Business As Usual...

[AsksWhy]

I was just watching the US Presidential Debate and was quite embarrassed for both parties. Specifically, I watched each candidate blame the other about anything and everything, without ever touching on solutions to the issues that really need dealing with - from resource management, to population management, and everything in between - it was utterly despicable.

It reminded me of two teenagers bickering at one another over their petty differences, and it is scary to think that these are the prime candidates running for presidency in a neighbouring country!

Watching their actions gave me the feeling that we (Canadians included) have become byproducts of our failing systems, causing us to behave in a manner that is rude, offensive, inefficient and unproductive.

From what I can tell, we seem stuck on economic indicators - like GDP, taxes, interest rates, etc. - with the overall theme being: "Where can we put our money to try and solve this problem, or that?” And in the end nothing changes - we get deeper in debt, tempers continue to flare, and wars continue to be fought.

Is it possible that we are focused too intently on making things work in a system that is ultimately bound to fail?  By this I mean: The way we do business?

Currently, we volunteer our time, in exchange for money that we are free to spend on whatever we choose - with no allegiance to anyone or anything. In essence, we’re saying: it doesn’t matter if Joe Blow down the street doesn’t have heat in his house for the winter, as long as I have a bottle of the finest whiskey to keep myself warm. This type of business practice breeds selfishness, has spread globally, and has become a cancer in the heart of humanity.

The types of work we carry out are given a preset value based on no regards to quality of life, determined by poor economic rationale, ultimately interfering with our efforts to achieve world peace. 

Perhaps we need to alter the parameters of the game in which we play. I.e) eliminate money, allow time to be our currency, and let our unselfish tendencies guide us to fruition.  There is more than one way to skin a cat, we just need to pull our heads out of asses and figure it out. But it can't be Business As Usual!

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

....Currently, we volunteer our time, in exchange for money that we are free to spend on whatever we choose - with no allegiance to anyone or anything. In essence, we’re saying: it doesn’t matter if Joe Blow down the street doesn’t have heat in his house for the winter, as long as I have a bottle of the finest whiskey to keep myself warm. This type of business practice breeds selfishness, has spread globally, and has become a cancer in the heart of humanity.

 

"Freedom breeds inequality. Unless you have freedom to be unequal, there is no such thing as freedom." - William F. Buckley, Jr.

[Argus]

26 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

Currently, we volunteer our time, in exchange for money that we are free to spend on whatever we choose - with no allegiance to anyone or anything. In essence, we’re saying: it doesn’t matter if Joe Blow down the street doesn’t have heat in his house for the winter, as long as I have a bottle of the finest whiskey to keep myself warm. This type of business practice breeds selfishness, has spread globally, and has become a cancer in the heart of humanity.

Well, to begin with, that isn't how we or any other western country operate. I and other taxpayers sacrifice a good deal of our earned money to pay for the heat - and hydro, and food and clothing and shelter and whiskey of those who don't make enough, for whatever reason, to buy these things themselves.

Also, it is human nature to work for self-improvement, and pretty much always has been. If working harder doesn't help you then you won't work harder. As the Russians and other Communists learned decades ago, farmers will dutifully grow their crops as ordered on farms they don't own, but if you allow them a small patch which they can use and sell for their own profit, well, wow, watch the food supply explode.  If there is no reward for risk, then no one takes risks. If there is no personal reward for investing, then no one will invest. If there is no personal reward for gaining higher levels of skill and education, then most will not bother.

 

Self interest has ALWAYS been the motivating factor behind human accomplishments, and where you remove that motivation you remove the accomplishments.

 

[AsksWhy]

@bush_cheney2004 freedom to be unequal? really? I didn't even know that was a thing. too funny, but not.

@Argus self-interest = motivation... how does one remove motivation if self-interest is always going to be there? - you're not saying money is the motivator are you? because i don't believe that for one minute.

Edited October 12, 2016 by AsksWhy

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

@bush_cheney2004: freedom to be unequal? really? I didn't even know that was a thing. too funny, but not.

 

It has been a thing for thousands of years.   Why would it change now ?

[AsksWhy]

@bush_cheney2004 So you think our system is fine the way it is then?

[bush_cheney2004]

8 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

@bush_cheney2004 So you think our system is fine the way it is then?

 

Well, it's not really a "system" at all, but yes, I like individual freedom over collectivist socialism.

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, AsksWhy said:

Is it possible that we are focused too intently on making things work in a system that is ultimately bound to fail?  By this I mean: The way we do business?

I think it's just that we've invested too much faith time and resources in the way we do business. Now we're in a blind alley or up a creek without a paddle and don't know what else to do. The only way out in either case is through a bottleneck - a tight squeeze made all the tighter by the fury and acrimony that's come to characterize our political landscape.

Simply put the water hole is getting smaller and the animals are getting meaner.  This isn't something that is going to happen in the future, it's been happening for awhile now.

[AsksWhy]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

I think it's just that we've invested too much faith time and resources in the way we do business.

 

Sorry, but it sounds to me like you're saying it would be TOO MUCH WORK to change the way we do business.  That's like saying it's impossible.  If that is the case, shouldn't we just bury our heads in the sand and kiss our asses goodbye?  I like to think: we created this mess, and by all means we can fix it. - Maybe I have too much faith in people, I don't know.

[Bonam]

5 hours ago, AsksWhy said:

 

Currently, we volunteer our time, in exchange for money that we are free to spend on whatever we choose - with no allegiance to anyone or anything. In essence, we’re saying: it doesn’t matter if Joe Blow down the street doesn’t have heat in his house for the winter, as long as I have a bottle of the finest whiskey to keep myself warm. This type of business practice breeds selfishness, has spread globally, and has become a cancer in the heart of humanity.

Hmm, based on this paragraph it seems like your main beef is with free market economics. However, no one has come up with a better system. We have taxes and redistribution to a certain extent in our societies, as we should to make sure no one is left to starve or freeze, but so long as work must be done to keep society going and advancing the underlying motive for people to work to better themselves must be maintained. Otherwise society breaks down, as we have seen in so many social/economic experiments throughout the 20th century. Collectivism does not work, and it is a horror for those that must live in a society that attempts to implement collectivism. 

In fact, an unbiased examination of actual data clearly illustrates that the system that we do have is responsible for and is continuing to produce the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people that has ever existed in human history. As a percentage of the world population, fewer and fewer people lack for the basic necessities of life with each passing year, life expectancies are rising around the world, diseases are being eliminated or reduced in their impact, poverty is being reduced, fewer people are dying in wars, etc etc etc. Almost any metric that can be quantified shows that we live in the best time in human history. 

The system we have is working, and it's not just working a little bit but it's working spectacularly. The only serious medium term concern that we have facing us is human impact on the climate and resulting reductions in the abundance of resources, but we are well on the way to finding the resolution to this concern through technological innovation. 

[eyeball]

21 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

Sorry, but it sounds to me like you're saying it would be TOO MUCH WORK to change the way we do business.  That's like saying it's impossible.  If that is the case, shouldn't we just bury our heads in the sand and kiss our asses goodbye? 

Well, sometimes the hardest challenge is simply letting go the old ways. The bigger challenge facing us is how we manage the power of our governance.  Putting it another way, the ease with which we mismanage our governance and the lack of effort we put into changing that makes its collapse inevitable.

I like to think: we created this mess, and by all means we can fix it. - Maybe I have too much faith in people, I don't know.

I know I do. We at least have the sense to keep throwing out old ways of doing business and trying new ones. Sooner or later well get it right.

I do think your Star Trek/Kumbiya economy is where we need to go but I doubt we'll get there until we reach the technological singularity...That's the thing I'm losing faith in.

The final most difficult and godawful hurdle will be overcoming the socio-moral imperative to not be a slacker and to carry your own weight. Don't forget that includes paying for the defence of our nation's precious bodily fluids.

[Bonam]

6 minutes ago, eyeball said:

 

I do think your Star Trek/Kumbiya economy is where we need to go but I doubt we'll get there until we reach the technological singularity...That's the thing I'm losing faith in.

 

Even after the singularity, there will still be work to be done. Keep in mind, the singularity only looks like a singularity from a historical perspective, looking at the trends of things on a linear graph. For people who live through the singularity, each day will still seem like business as usual. There's not gonna be a day when you wake up and the world is suddenly run by AIs and all work is done by robots and all you have to do is go upload your consciousness into a computer and spend the rest of eternity existing blissfully as an energy being. 

[Moonlight Graham]

Maybe it's not capitalism, but how we choose to organize ourselves and live within it.  Time is a zero-sum game, if you spend more time in your day doing X you will lose time to do everything else.  Back in the day we had bigger families, we talked to our neighbours more, we actually did things with other people to pass the time.  Now we spend a lot of time on our smartphones, on Netflix, on message boards, playing video games etc., going to the gym.  Some of those have social aspects, but really how much so?

Media takes up such a big part of people's time now.  When we aren't working in front of a computer, we often expose ourselves to display screens and have our earbuds in rather than our 5 senses being present in reality.  Stranger don't talk to me, just let me be in my own little world texting my "real" friend.  Compare that to the pre-TV era.  How does this affect our politics, our political campaigns?

 

[eyeball]

13 minutes ago, Bonam said:

Even after the singularity, there will still be work to be done. Keep in mind, the singularity only looks like a singularity from a historical perspective, looking at the trends of things on a linear graph. For people who live through the singularity, each day will still seem like business as usual. There's not gonna be a day when you wake up and the world is suddenly run by AIs and all work is done by robots and all you have to do is go upload your consciousness into a computer and spend the rest of eternity existing blissfully as an energy being. 

Why not? What work?

In any case you'll probably be surprised to know I'm entertaining the idea that the only way forward may be to encourage the concentration of wealth into as few hands as possible.  Maybe channeling the combined productivity of humanity through the hands and desires of the fabulously rich and immensely powerful will prove to be what it takes to push humanity to the stars and beyond.  OTOH like trying to attain the speed of light, no matter how much power we apply it'll never be enough.

[Bonam]

9 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Why not? What work?

 

Because more can be achieved by smart people applying themselves than without them, even in a world with AIs and robots. 

Quote

In any case you'll probably be surprised to know I'm entertaining the idea that the only way forward may be to encourage the concentration of wealth into as few hands as possible.  Maybe channeling the combined productivity of humanity through the hands and desires of the fabulously rich and immensely powerful will prove to be what it takes to push humanity to the stars and beyond.  

Yeah, it certainly seems that billionaires can more effectively use their wealth to achieve specific ends like space exploration than national governments can. You can get a lot farther a lot faster following one leader's vision than trying to appease thousands of different political masters. But that doesn't mean you need to "encourage concentration" of wealth into as few hands as possible, it merely means that you need to let innovation pay off as it currently does. 

Quote

OTOH like trying to attain the speed of light, no matter how much power we apply it'll never be enough.

I don't think it's analogous. The speed of light is a hard limit according to physics as we understand it, whereas "going to the stars" is just a matter of engineering and funding. 

[?Impact]

8 hours ago, AsksWhy said:

I was just watching the US Presidential Debate and was quite embarrassed for both parties.... it was utterly despicable.

I couldn't agree more. Two debates, and the people and issues got left on the sidelines and it was all about Trump & Clinton. 

 

1 hour ago, Bonam said:

it certainly seems that billionaires can more effectively use their wealth to achieve specific ends like space exploration than national governments can.

 

I don't see any billionaire doing space exploration. No scientific missions, just garbage scows and tourism.

[Argus]

16 hours ago, AsksWhy said:

 

@Argus self-interest = motivation... how does one remove motivation if self-interest is always going to be there? - you're not saying money is the motivator are you? because i don't believe that for one minute.

Of course money is the motivator, or what it can buy, like a nice car, a house and vacations.

[AsksWhy]

1 minute ago, Argus said:

Of course money is the motivator, or what it can buy, like a nice car, a house and vacations.

So it's okay to put your wants ahead of another persons' needs? and you are fine with that approach to life?

It seems kind of primitive to me (no offense).

[Argus]

Quote

So it's okay to put your wants ahead of another persons' needs? and you are fine with that approach to life?

It seems kind of primitive to me (no offense).

You think you can alter basic human nature? We already give more than enough of the product of our labour to attend to the basic needs of others. I might be my brother's keeper but that guy two blocks away I've never even met is not that much of a concern for me.

[AsksWhy]

40 minutes ago, Argus said:

You think you can alter basic human nature? We already give more than enough of the product of our labour to attend to the basic needs of others. I might be my brother's keeper but that guy two blocks away I've never even met is not that much of a concern for me.

What is human nature? You think your greed is inherent, or is it learned?  Personally, I think it is something we learn based on the environment we are exposed to. Our current system is inherently greedy, thus I understand where you are coming from.

I only wish that people would see that we can change the environment we live in by upgrading the way we do business.

Edited October 12, 2016 by AsksWhy

[AsksWhy]

All I'm getting at, is that before any system is implemented and put into service, a conversation has to take place first.  And how those conversations went back then - I'm not sure - but a few assumptions can be made:

1) The technology at the time those conversations took place helped determine what type of systems could be realized.

2) Most of these conversations were NOT held in global forums (as they are today), as technology wasn't there yet.

3) Major sections of the world's population provided no inputs into these systems (due to language barriers), obviously shifting the outputs from these systems in favour of those who were involved in the conversation to begin with.

My bet is: that if those same conversations took place today - given where technology is currently, and considering the gains we've made in overcoming global language barriers - the systems in place would be significantly different, more impartial and more efficient.

For example:

Let’s take a look at one of our OLDEST systems: the Monetary System.

This system was realized (over time) out of the need to simplify human transactions during an era when personal ownership wasn’t questioned. Therefore, it was designed under the pretense that these conditions were always going to be true – that is: human transactions need to happen, and these transactions will always involve personal property.

Thought Experiment: If we were faced with the same issue today, would we come up with the same solution?

In my opinion, efficiency through automation would be our goal today.  The idea of personal property would become a thing of the past (unlearned over time), and material items would be accessible to all.

The new system would allow for inputs from everyone, thus resulting in better outputs.  Living standards would be established – poverty would cease to exist!

Furthermore, every transaction would take into consideration its effect on our environment; thus, we wouldn’t support systems that allow people to put their personal wants ahead of other’s needs – therefore money would be out!

Human effort would always have its place within this new system; therefore, personal time contributions could be established.  Progress could continue to be measured in this fashion as well: instead of Tax Returns and figuring our GDP’s, we could establish Time Returns that would help us prioritize our efforts collectively.

We won’t have all the answers (obviously), things will continue to change (as they always do), and we will likely stumble many times along the way - but the point is: If we improve (or change) the way we do business now, we can ensure a brighter future for everyone later!

[bush_cheney2004]

OK...start in Somalia...see how that works out.  

[AsksWhy]

58 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

OK...start in Somalia...see how that works out.  

No other thoughts? Hmmm... kind of disappointing really.  Thanks for nothing.

[bush_cheney2004]

29 minutes ago, AsksWhy said:

No other thoughts? Hmmm... kind of disappointing really.  Thanks for nothing.

 

Well, the "system" is not going to be displaced by something different in wholesale fashion, so start with a small demo first.    Somalia sure could use some great ideas.

Have a conversation with all the warlords, pirates, arms runners, slave peddlers, and other stakeholders about what would be best for the future.   I'm sure they all want to be part of the solution.

[Argus]

4 hours ago, AsksWhy said:

What is human nature? You think your greed is inherent, or is it learned? 

Why call it greed? The desire to improve ones life, ones comfort, to improve on the status quo, has been the driving force behind all human accomplishment, expansion and achievement for tens of thousands of years.