Domesticated humans - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

pai mei · 03-16-2010, 10:31 PM

"Domestication (from Latin domesticus) or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. "

What's the difference between this :

Miami Seaquarium Education or Exploitation

"At the Miami Seaprison, we teach children that it is okay to break animals of that silly habit of "being wild" by kidnapping them away from their families, forcing them kicking and screaming into a chlorinated concrete tank, and making them perform ridiculous circus tricks for food (we call it training). All in the name of exploitation and profit. Oh, and education…of course"

and what we do to humans , in this "civilization" ? This Frankenstein monster, in danger to disintegrate at the first power failure : New York City blackout of 1977 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The difference is : the machine has covered the world, and most people do not know anything else, or do not have the chance to experience anything else. If they knew, or had the chance, 90 % of people would leave this madness , never to return:
Prisoner Exchange

We are told that without education we would be savages, killing each other for food... We perform all kinds of tricks to get food. We don't care why we do it, or what's the result. It's not our problem. We don't think, we don't care, we don't need to think. We are trained not to think.

China : Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

Look here :
cryptogon.com Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways
“We keep running into this,” said one of the boys, Clinton Anchors, 18. Over the past year, he said, he and five other teenagers living together on the streets had taken under their wings no fewer than 20 children — some as young as 12 — and taught them how to avoid predators and the police, survive the cold and find food.

What is going on there ? Is education to blame ? Crazy children helping each other. Why ? Why are they not killing each other ? I mean they are not "educated", why are they what we call "good" ?
A tribe is the natural way people organize when free. Everywhere around us - incipient tribes, groups of friends. Quickly erased by the machine. Or reduced to something with no real substance. Still - at the edge of the machine, where the system is crumbling, wild things start to grow again. Gangs. See Rio de Janeiro. Yes they do not look pretty and still have some machine inside them. Their environment - also is different. But there are some free people, thinking for themselves, and organizing to survive...
The "machine" : The Machine in our Heads--Glenn Parton
----------

From "Columbus and other cannibals":

"The Pawnee : They were a well-disciplined people, maintaining public order under many trying circumstances. And yet they had none of the power mechanisms that we consider essential to a well-ordered life. No orders were ever issued...Time after time I tried to find a case of orders given and there were none. Gradually I began to realize that democracy is a very personal thing which like charity, begins at home. Basically it means not being coerced and having no need to coerce anyone else. The Pawnee learned this way of living in the earliest beginning of his life. In the detailed events of every day as a child, he began his development as a disciplined and free man or as a women who felt her dignity and her independence to be inviolate"

----------------

"The Creeks are just honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers; considerate, loving and affectionate to their wives and relations; fond of their children; industrious, frugal, temperate and persevering; charitable and forbearing. I have been weeks and months among them and in their towns, and never observed the least sign of contention or wrangling: never saw an instance of and Indian beating his wife, or even reproving her in anger. In this case they stand as examples of reproof to the most civilized nations . . . for indeed their wives merit their esteem and the most gentle treatment, they being industrious, frugal, loving and affectionate . . .Their internal police and family economy. . .incontrovertibly place those people in an illustrious point of view: their liberality, intimacy and friendly intercourse with one another, without any restraint of ceremonious formality; as if they were even insensible of the use of necessity of associating the passions of affections of avarice, ambition or covetousness. . . How are we to account for their excellent policy in civil government; it cannot derive its influence from coercive laws, for they have no such artificial system."

pai mei · 03-17-2010, 03:42 AM

"No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal."

"There is as much educational benefit in studying dolphins in captivity as there would be in studying human beings by only observing prisoners in solitary confinement."

Jacques Yves Cousteau

---

Replace dolphins with "humans" above. Do free humans do what we do ? Our crazy behavior ? With a few "free" days a year ? No - because they have direct access to food. They don't need to perform tricks. We have all the food in the world, but we are slaves. There is no "We".
Even the gangs that appear - they are not like the tribes in the past. No direct access to food. They depend on the system.

http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/chapter5-5.php

Quote:

To participate in our society's depredations is an indignity. A corporate executive recently confessed to me that his job consisted of lying to the customer; another that his job consisted of frightening customers into accepting digital security products that they really didn't need. An elite lawyer described his job as, "I take money from one rich son-of-a-bitch and give it to another rich son-of-a-bitch." Part of my job at Penn State is to pass judgment on students by issuing them a grade. To be sure, there are many people fortunate enough to have interesting jobs, creative jobs, perhaps even meaningful jobs, but even if you love your work, what do you have to put up with in order to do it? Indignity is hard to avoid when our whole economy revolves around the creation and fulfillment of phony needs.

All the "ideologies" that try to "make people happy", capitalism, communism, all the "isms", depend on people with no direct access to the basics of life. So they can be caught in the system, made to do stuff they don't care about - just to survive. All this because we think we need "ideology" to live and be happy. We can be happy, the same way a free dolphin is happy, he needs no "ideology". He has no tricks to perform.

What do free people do, in the "wild" ? Free people have time to live, paint, sing, dance, explore, got to war, sit on the mountain and seek visions. Free people are spiritual creatures.

Ourcrazymodern? · 03-18-2010, 12:44 PM

As much as I feel like a natural thing, I don't fail to appreciate the benefits of domestication. I think you don't, either.
The "we" exists, whether or not we feel comfortable with it. I'm pretty sure (we) can't imagine living outside of our systems.
Bridging the gaps between what we are and what we want have always been cooperative ventures.
Help me to understand.

Dolores Haze · 03-18-2010, 03:43 PM

I agree with the above - and I also wonder if domesticated animals can be fairly compared to humans stuck in a system.

I don't think animals in a zoo sit there pining for the great outdoors and that fresh, wild-caught, hormone-free antelope they could expend hours and thousands of calories running down. But then, those don't necessarily count as domesticated - if you want domesticated animals, think livestock or pets. This process alters them - generation by generation - to the point where the puppy in the parlor is not the same as a wolf cub in the parlor (wolves and domestic dogs belong to the same species, by the way, if we're talking in Linnean terms). Since domestication involves artificial selection of the most docile, "attractive" and useful specimens, eventually we wind up with a variety of creature that we've created - a creature whose environment is that which humans raise it in. People will tell you that certain animals, no matter how well trained or accustomed to humans, remain unpredictable and wild - this is what separates a jackal or coyote from a Labrador. You can't tame a killer whale any more than you can "tame" a grizzly. You can become part of its frame of reference in such a way that it isn't prone to be hostile or fearful, but that's it. It can change its mind with the right stimuli.

Domestication is just guided adaptation - and humans have the curious trait of being able to direct the adaptation of themselves and one another consciously. Sure, I think a lot of the crap society makes you do is a waste of time - and there's an understandable note of frustration in your post that I would sympathize with. But there is no sinister subversion of humanity's "natural" state going on here, as I see it.

pai mei · 03-18-2010, 10:48 PM

You two presume that humans do this stuff, because they like it. Because it feels good to do. Wrong. 80% of people - would quit their jobs tomorrow if they could. See that Prisone Exchange story. But they are caught. They have to produce cruise ships - else they have no access to the simple stuff they need.

Look around. How many people just can't wait to get to their job, then when they come home they sing, and paint and tell stories of their deeds. Humans used to to that. What we have here is denial of life - and people molded to accept it. Transformed.

See here, at page 24, "Tunes & Dancers" :
Daniel Quinn - My Ishmael

And:
Against History, Against Leviathan!

Quote:

The managers of Gulag's islands tell us that the swimmers, crawlers, walkers and fliers spent their lives working in order to eat.

These managers are broadcasting their news too soon. The varied beings haven't all been exterminated yet. You, reader, have only to mingle with them, or just watch them from a distance, to see that their waking lives are filled with dances, games and feasts. Even the hunt, the stalking and feigning and leaping, is not what we call Work, but what we call Fun. The only beings who work are the inmates of Gulag's islands, the zeks.

The zek's ancestors did less work than a corporation owner. They didn't know what work was. They lived in a condition J.J. Rousseau called "the state of nature." Rousseau's term should be brought back into common use. It grates on the nerves of those who, in R. Vaneigem's words, carry cadavers in their mouths. It makes the armor visible. Say "the state of nature" and you'll see the cadavers peer out.

Insist that "freedom" and "the state of nature" are synonyms, and the cadavers will try to bite you. The tame, the domesticated, try to monopolize the word freedom; they'd like to apply it to their own condition. They apply the word "wild" to the free. But it is another public secret that the tame, the domesticated, occasionally become wild but are never free so long as they remain in their pens.

Stare At The Sun · 03-19-2010, 07:08 AM

What about the fact that animals in captivity are bred and released back into the wild to repopulate endangered species?

Seems like a noble cause to me.

Dolores Haze · 03-19-2010, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

You two presume that humans do this stuff, because they like it. Because it feels good to do. Wrong. 80% of people - would quit their jobs tomorrow if they could. See that Prisone Exchange story. But they are caught. They have to produce cruise ships - else they have no access to the simple stuff they need.

Look around. How many people just can't wait to get to their job, then when they come home they sing, and paint and tell stories of their deeds. Humans used to to that. What we have here is denial of life - and people molded to accept it. Transformed.

I don't think I presumed any such thing. Humans don't do this stuff because it's "good" or "bad" or "feels good" - they do it because a power stronger than the individual, whether that's a tribal council, robber baron, feudal lord, democratic republic, constitutional monarchy, etc., compels them to. The artificial social constructs by which humans are bound to ensure their survival are no more oppressive than the natural laws governing the survival of wild animals. And no, I don't think "wild" is a slur - but I don't think it's synonymous with "free", either. Our lives contain struggle - struggle against a system, or to up hold it, from outside or from within. Similary, the life of a trout, coyote or even mosquito is a struggle to survive and reproduce amidst a scarcity of resources and the threat of predators. There is no difference - it's just that our particular human jungle happens to include copy machines and plastic cups.

I'm afraid the phrase "denial of life" seems a bit shaky. You are assuming that a genuine "life" has to look a certain way without bothering to back up why that is - so far the examples you've given are all about how people still manage to be caring, good and happy when the system fails them, but you haven't proved the opposite - that the system precludes genuine joy and participation in one's life.

[EDIT] I went back up, and I saw that you did talk a bit about people being dissatisfied with their jobs and the moral implications of positions in corporate administration. But elite lawyers and rich executives are only a tiny sliver of the work force. Are schoolteachers miserable with what they do? Does a gardener, line cook, construction worker or Radio Shack employee go home wracked with moral guilt? I can see how society might tell a person that being a rich lawyer is more desirable than being, say, a prep cook at your local seafood restaurant, but no amount of pressure can force you to comply - ultimately, the decision is yours.

Ourcrazymodern? · 03-19-2010, 02:14 PM

I don't even doubt that what we like has been shaped by our domestication.
Is our spirituality lessened by our entrapment?

pai mei · 03-19-2010, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dolores Haze

but no amount of pressure can force you to comply - ultimately, the decision is yours.

I am not talking about guilt, I am talking - do you really want to do the stuff that you do ?
Did you see the pictures from China ? it's their decision : work or die. Work - not for the basics, but for junk. For stuff that will be bought and will be thrown away in 6 months :

The Story of Stuff

I am from Romania. Do you know what I saw tonight ? 2 humans, in front of a shaworma place. A place where you get this food called shaworma. One was sitting down near a wall, trembling - it was cold. The other was near a pole, looking at the people buying. He was small, and thin. You could see the bones of his cheeks. They were still there 1 hour later - when I returned searching for them. I gave them some money.

WTF. Is there not enough food ? Of course there isn't . In this capitalist hell. That replaced the communist hell. Each man for himself. Eat, eat , gather more and more. When you die you will die rich. Unlike other "losers" who die poor. Hahaha.

Quote:

Crazy Horse, Tashunkewitko of the western Sioux, was born about 1845. Killed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1877, he lived barely 33 years.

As a boy, Crazy Horse seldom saw white men. Sioux parents took pride in teaching their sons and daughters according to tribal customs. Often giving food to the needy, they exemplified self-denial for the general good. They believed in generosity, courage, and self-denial, not a life based upon commerce and gain.

One winter when Crazy Horse was only five, the tribe was short of food. His father, a tireless hunter, finally brought in two antelope. The little boy rode his pony through the camp, telling the old folks to come for meat, without first asking his parents. Later when Crazy Horse asked for food, his mother said, "You must be brave and live up to your generous reputation."

It was customary for young men to spend much time in prayer and solitude, fasting in the wilderness --typical of Sioux spiritual life which has since been lost in the contact with a material civilization.

My solution that will never be applied : http://paimei01.blogspot.com/2009/08...ever-work.html

Dolores Haze · 03-19-2010, 11:16 PM

Eh, I do. I do actually enjoy doing what I do, most of the time. Do you claim that if your proposed solution were implemented, people would be any happier with their lives and daily routines than they are now?

I'm not somebody who believes in linear progress - and, as a corollary to that, I don't believe in linear regress...at least in terms of the relative "goodness" or "badness" of the world. I don't think that the average person today is any happier than the average person before plumbing, or penicillin, or all the rest of modern medicine, sanitation and the other social services enhanced by scientific progress. Nor do I think that they were any happier than us. There never were any "good ol' days" -- at least in terms of individual contentment. "The human condition" is always in the singular for a reason. It stays the same.

So, if we aren't getting any happier, what the hell have we accomplished as a species?

If you value intellectual growth (which, given your disdainful treatment of education, you don't seem to), then we can definitively say that the general corpus of knowledge increases as mankind experiences and discovers new things over the passage of time.

In recent years, capitalism facilitated that (in part). Did it have to be capitalism? Of course not. Any system that could concentrate resources in order to conduct the kind of inquiry and scholarship necessary for the expansion of knowledge would have accomplished it just as well (let's all give a nod to the Sputnik). Try building a space shuttle in an egalitarian hunter-gatherer society. Or a submarine. Or a pacemaker. Or, for that matter, an online discussion board.

pai mei · 03-21-2010, 02:21 PM

Yes people would be happier. Nobody would stop you from doing what you say you like to do. You don't need a boss for that ? Maybe you do something complex that need all this ? Good for you - but you understand, there are people out there, maintaining all this just to survive. Do you still like what you do if you know they exist ?

rahl · 03-21-2010, 02:38 PM

pai mei I'm curious, are you for an anarchal society/tribal society?
If so, don't you think without some form of govn't we would revert back to every man for himself/only the strong survive?

pai mei · 03-21-2010, 02:54 PM

This is what I am for :
Growing trough the asphalt: Why capitalism can never work

Very limited government. Nobody receiving more than the basics. This means - no corruption. I mean how much can you eat, how many clothes and useful items can you stockpile ?
And after that work period - free humans.

rahl · 03-21-2010, 02:58 PM

ok.
But what gives you the right to tell me what I can and can't buy with the money that I earn? Why can't I work hard for the things that I want, not just the basic things that I need?

A world without money(currency) has never existed for a reason...it doesn't work.

Zeraph · 03-21-2010, 05:14 PM

It's not so cut and dry. Haven't you noticed many people that retire (and by that I mean truly, like they have tons of money to do whatever) are mostly bored out of their minds?

Personally I'm poor and don't give a shit. I live free. Anyone can. But there's always a price. For anything. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's ever a free lunch: TANSTAAFL.

pai mei · 03-21-2010, 10:33 PM

Where did I say "free lunch" ? Do you really think you need to build

empty cities

to obtain the basics ? So you want to say people will be bored without bosses ? Of course , because they have been killed. Transformed. if they can't find happiness without somebody telling them what to do. You can do whatever you want. You can even work more, inside the system, or do what you like - outside of it.

rahl - in my system you can have everything you want. If there are enough people willing to work for it. You add a "module" to the system and say "those who work here, also get a cruise ship, besides the basics". You want it - you get it.
What you want now - is to involve me, and right now I get involved because I can't simple access the basics, and I don't care about cruise ships, cars, or whatever.
A system without money existed for the most part of our history. And it worked. No police, no homeless, no people working like crazy.

rahl · 03-22-2010, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

Where did I say "free lunch" ? Do you really think you need to build empty cities to obtain the basics ? So you want to say people will be bored without bosses ? Of course , because they have been killed. Transformed. if they can't find happiness without somebody telling them what to do. You can do whatever you want. You can even work more, inside the system, or do what you like - outside of it.

rahl - in my system you can have everything you want. If there are enough people willing to work for it. You add a "module" to the system and say "those who work here, also get a cruise ship, besides the basics". You want it - you get it.
What you want now - is to involve me, and right now I get involved because I can't simple access the basics, and I don't care about cruise ships, cars, or whatever.
A system without money existed for the most part of our history. And it worked. No police, no homeless, no people working like crazy.

Since humans started walking upright and grouped together there has been some form of currency. Be it teeth, bones, berry's, furrs, barter and trade...all are forms of currency and have been around for virtually all of human history.

I just don't understand how your system would work. What module? And who say's "those who work here, also get a cruise ship"? Who is this person that is in charge of handing out the cruise ships?

pai mei · 03-22-2010, 02:44 PM

Wrong, inside a tribe there was "gift economy". Search about it. There were no people left without food, or shelter. And not because someone made them be like that. See first post. If it was "each for himself" - the tribe would have not survived the first pack of wolves or something.

You are in charge of handling cruise ships. The system produces food, clothes, some useful items like knives, and other stuff like that. Even some shelter. That's 15% of the work of today. So - 15% of the people work, the rest are free to do what they like. After some time (3 years), the next 15% work. And so on. There is no need for all to work. And everyone gets these basic stuff. The rest of the time, you are free to improve your life, travel, whatever.
Of course - there will be no more cars produced, unless you want to work for them as an extra. That's the module, you add to the system. What you can't do is force people to work for cars by locking up the food. They have food (the basics). Now they work for cars or cruise ships only if they really want. Want the Buckingham palace ? Gather more interested people and start building it. You have all the time in the world.
You agree - it's fair not to conditions anothers survival on him working for your dream, he may like other things, like playing football all day.

And a movie :

YouTube - HOME (English with subtitles)

The_Jazz · 03-22-2010, 03:11 PM

pai mei, you continue to ignore against the well-known facts of the historic record. The Chocktaw, Aztec and Inuit didn't practice any sort of "gift economy". The Aztec especially had a very vibrant and powerful money-based economy.

You're also arguing that all tribal cultures are monolythic in belief systems, when that's patently offensive to pretty much all of them. The Pawnee are NOT indicative of all Native American cultures. There's a Cherokee who's laughing at you now.

rahl · 03-22-2010, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

Wrong, inside a tribe there was "gift economy". Search about it. There were no people left without food, or shelter. And not because someone made them be like that. See first post. If it was "each for himself" - the tribe would have not survived the first pack of wolves or something.

You are in charge of handling cruise ships. The system produces food, clothes, some useful items like knives, and other stuff like that. Even some shelter. That's 15% of the work of today. So - 15% of the people work, the rest are free to do what they like. After some time (3 years), the next 15% work. And so on. There is no need for all to work. And everyone gets these basic stuff. The rest of the time, you are free to improve your life, travel, whatever.
Of course - there will be no more cars produced, unless you want to work for them as an extra. That's the module, you add to the system. What you can't do is force people to work for cars by locking up the food. They have food (the basics). Now they work for cars or cruise ships only if they really want. Want the Buckingham palace ? Gather more interested people and start building it. You have all the time in the world.
You agree - it's fair not to conditions anothers survival on him working for your dream, he may like other things, like playing football all day.

]

I guess it's just me but that system would never work in any reality. Once you have people wanting more than the basics needed to survive your right back to the systems we currently have in place.

Humana beings have always strived to improve their lives, by always striving for the things they want, not just what they need. This has been true since we left the caves and formed civilizations. Well over 10,000 years of history would disagree with you.

pai mei · 03-23-2010, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rahl

I guess it's just me but that system would never work in any reality. Once you have people wanting more than the basics needed to survive your right back to the systems we currently have in place.

Humana beings have always strived to improve their lives, by always striving for the things they want, not just what they need. This has been true since we left the caves and formed civilizations. Well over 10,000 years of history would disagree with you.

You are talking from imagination. They can get exactly what they want, nobody is stopping them. But you would not have the stress of today. No homeless, no hungry people. You could take an entire year off, you have the basics, then you can go back and work for whatever it is you want. No money involved. No other people that may not want what you want involved. If your desire is real - then you will enjoy both working for what you want - and the result. If it's not a real desire, you don't want to work for it. And there is no problem. My system allows you to work exactly for what you want, find something you enjoy doing. Not spend your life - 8 hours a day being bored.

Look here:
ZORIAH - A PHOTOJOURNALIST AND WAR PHOTOGRAPHER'S BLOG: Guest Photographer/Photojournalist: G.M.B. Akash ? Child Labor
Look at the China pictures in the first post. Tell me we need all this. Those children need to work, else there is no rice ? There is enough rice, we just have this mad organization. They have no acces to the basics - unless they do something, whatever. Build empty cities. Build plastic toys - that end up here. What "environment" ? Who cares about that when you are forced to do stuff without thinking about all the consequences ? Just to be able to access the basic stuff ?

I want - free access to the basics, and the work only for them. Want more - FREE TO GET MORE. Where did I say you are not allowed ?

And those 10000 years : it's a story of slavery. You say "people always wanted more". Of course, the slave masters, and then the nobles, and now - the rich corporations always want more. The slaves just want some free time to live.

rahl · 03-23-2010, 05:04 AM

Well clearly we disagree on history.

But back to your cruise ship analogy. There's no way to do it without money and education. Your solution is that if I want a cruise ship I can work to build one. Problem there is I don't know how to build one, nor do I have the materials in order to do so, nor will I have a crew to operate it while I lay back and enjoy the seas.

The education part comes into play because I'm not an engineer. I don't know how to build a ship. I also don't know how to mine the iron ore in order to make steel. I also don't know how to make steel.

Your society is an impossibility because of no education and no forms of currency.

And I never have been, nor will I ever be a slave. I work hard for the things that I both need and want, as well as what my family needs and wants.

pai mei · 03-23-2010, 08:40 AM

You said "people will always want stuff". And "progress is inevitable".
If there are not enough free people, deciding among themselves how to build that ship, and not arguing about who does what - there will be no ship. Let people be free, and then we will see what they really understand by "progress". Maybe they will have better things to do.
Maybe you say "people need a leader" ? Free people have leaders too. Informal ones. They follow the one who they respect the most. So : the people wanting the ship, will follow someone who knows how to do it. Either they settle things among themselves - as free people, or - no ship.
About education here : http://www.spinninglobe.net/condunces.htm

Carl Jung

Quote:

"The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad."

I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

"They say that they think with their heads" he replied.

"Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise.

"We think here," he said, indicating his heart.

I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augustine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced conversions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hollowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then followed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even
these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them.

You say you are not a slave ? I am telling you: we could have not only the basics but even a Mercedes and a villa for everyone. (But I say - only the basics, then everyone does as he wishes. Maybe there are people who don't care about a Mercedes) And working less than today. But we are insane. When there are too many houses - we get "Crisis" ! Our own system denies it. Everyone having everything - it's our system's nightmare ! So - we will make sure that does not ever happen. Keep destroying the planet, turning it into garbage, for our economy to work, else no jobs - meaning no access to the basics....

This is 1927:
The Gospel of Consumption | Orion Magazine

Quote:

In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that “the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear.

rahl · 03-23-2010, 09:35 AM

[quote=pai mei;2770892]

You say you are not a slave ? I am telling you: we could have not only the basics but even a Mercedes and a villa for everyone. (But I say - only the basics, then everyone does as he wishes.QUOTE]

Well I would suggest that you buy an island in the pacific somewhere and take a few thousand people with you. But you can't take with you any modern conveniences that today's capitolistic society has given you. Once there go ahead and build your cruise ship and mercedes. Out of the thousands there I doubt there would be a single person who knew how to mine for iron(if there is any on the island) turn it to steel, then build said ship or car. Your Utopia, while intriguing, is simply not possible or sustainable. I think you've taken the star trek universe a little to seriously.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:01 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

About education here : Confederacy of Dunces

]

I got through about a quarter of that nonsense before I stoped reading. I'm suprised I made it that far. Basic education is absolutely crucial to any society. The better educated the better the society will be.

telekinetic · 03-23-2010, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

The system produces food, clothes, some useful items like knives, and other stuff like that. Even some shelter. That's 15% of the work of today. So - 15% of the people work, the rest are free to do what they like.

I'm going to post what I post in every thread that you start. Your pulled-out-of-your-ass figure of 15% relies exclusively on modern infrastructure and specialization. You cannot provide for the basic needs of people (and who gets to define basic, by the way? Prison seems to meet all of your requirements) with only 15% of them working, or each of them only working 15% of the time, without the backbone of modern technology and our globally-integrated specializing capitalist economy to drive it.

pai mei · 03-23-2010, 01:33 PM

Look around. Probably, if I said : let's make a society that has everything we have now, and changed everything once a year, you would say it's impossible, we need millions of workers. Yet - we have unemployment.
All the service sector is gone. For my society from the miners, to the builders of the machines, to the ones operating them, you don't go over 15%. No more cars, airplanes, nothing. Some main roads - maintained, some secondary roads, all for distribution of stuff everywhere, and that's all there is. Maybe some railroads. People free to travel without carrying everything, just move and supply on the road, and - free to move and settle wherever they want. There will be enough land left, besides the system's agriculture, for people to have some small farms or whatever they want.

Look at how much junk food is produced today. And you say we need more workers ?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

Quote:

America's biggest crop, grain corn, is completely unpalatable. It is raw material for an industry that manufactures food substitutes.

rahl · 03-23-2010, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

Look around. Probably, if I said : let's make a society that has everything we have now, and changed everything once a year, you would say it's impossible, we need millions of workers. Yet - we have unemployment.
All the service sector is gone. For my society from the miners, to the builders of the machines, to the ones operating them, you don't go over 15%. No more cars, airplanes, nothing. Some main roads - maintained, some secondary roads, all for distribution of stuff everywhere, and that's all there is. Maybe some railroads. People free to travel without carrying everything, just move and supply on the road, and - free to move and settle wherever they want. There will be enough land left, besides the system's agriculture, for people to have some small farms or whatever they want.

Look at how much junk food is produced today. And you say we need more workers ?

The oil we eat: Following the food chain back to Iraq?By Richard Manning (Harper's Magazine)

This mythical society has never and will never exist. Current unemployment in America is 10%. I don't get where your "we only need 15% of the population to work" theory comes from. It can't work. Maybe if you lived in a village of about 30 people, but it can't work in a city of about 30,000 let alone a nation of 300+million.

pai mei · 03-23-2010, 11:24 PM

It works only on a big enough territory. That has all the resources needed for everything. In a village you can't have everything you need to build the machines for yourself and everything else.

YouTube - The Story of Bottled Water (2010)

Dolores Haze · 03-24-2010, 06:31 PM

People need to have a basic understanding of the chemical processes involved in metabolizing starch before throwing around terms like "food substitute." Unless you're talking about the yellow clay that peasants would dig out of riverbeds in China to ease the agony of a slow death from starvation, there's no such thing as a "food substitute" - if starch goes in and calories come out, you've got an energy source. End of story.

If we're talking about the quality of your gastronomic experience, the vicious vagaries of market capitalism beat out a barter system any day. Sure, people are shooting each other over their stakeouts in the Alpes-Maritimes, but it puts truffles on the market in a different time zone. Nobody would remember how to dice a fucking onion after three generations of pai mei's ideal society, much less what goes in a basic bouquet garni. Haute cuisine would only be one of the things that went down the toilet - goodbye fine art, goodbye advanced mathematics, goodbye space exploration.

The simple things are great; don't get me wrong - but nobody would pause to enjoy a plain apple and glass of water if that was all they had access to. This "back-to-the-basics" fetishization of primitive cultures is just another side effect of the culture-of-excess that it tries to condemn.

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 01:30 AM

No. The system is basic because it has to be. To free people's time, and let them do what they want. My idea is not to have people working for what they don't want to have just so they can access the basics.

You will have a list of foods being produced. No chips or coca cola. You want these - you make them. Gather other interested people. You have time, if that is what you really want. Also - you will not be able to involve other people that don;t care about coca cola. This is real progress - people working only for what they want. There will be enough land left for you to grow a garden and have everything you want. If people like "fine cuisine" they will have it.

Where did I say you have to be content with only what the system gives you ? Nobody reads this topic ?
And - you could add modules to the system. Meaning - there is a group of people who want to go to the Moon. They will not have to mine the iron for their machines themselves. Iron is already being mined - for the machines that produce basic stuff. So - they go there and expand the system. No need to start from the stone age.

You want to go to the Moon - you join them. Of course - their ego will probably grow a lot and they will say : "useless people spending their lives playing or whatever, they must serve us ! Going to the Moon is progress !!" And so- "civilization" begins.
But I am sure people will not accept anyone touching the basic system. After only a few years of this, a culture of not telling another what to do will develop (because there is no need). The same way nobody could "civilize" the Indians. They had something more than we have. Free access to the basics they needed, meaning you could not make one of them a seller at Mc Donalds and "happy". Also - it was very rude in their society to tell another what to do with his life. Exactly what I am talking about. This culture of respect does not appear in a slave society - where people are used to do stuff they don't care about. "That's how things are" they say. Of course. "Civilization".

Growing trough the asphalt: Prisoner Exchange

rahl · 03-25-2010, 07:16 AM

you continue to blatantly ignore the fact that the indians used forms of currency. They would trade things they did have for things they didn't. Even in those most basic and primitive societies, civilization and currency still existed. Your system, while it may be a nice dream, can not and has never existed in any human reality.

I don't understand how you can say "if you want something then make it yourself". Without education people can't do the most basic things. Without higher education people can't do the more complicated things.

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 09:37 AM

They never traded food (the basics). They had no homeless, and no people without food. You would be free to trade as long as you don't touch the system, to create artificial shortages, to profit. There are too many of us to access the basics as the Indians did. So we need that system.

Quote:

Crazy Horse, Tashunkewitko of the western Sioux, was born about 1845. Killed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1877, he lived barely 33 years.

As a boy, Crazy Horse seldom saw white men. Sioux parents took pride in teaching their sons and daughters according to tribal customs. Often giving food to the needy, they exemplified self-denial for the general good. They believed in generosity, courage, and self-denial, not a life based upon commerce and gain.

One winter when Crazy Horse was only five, the tribe was short of food. His father, a tireless hunter, finally brought in two antelope. The little boy rode his pony through the camp, telling the old folks to come for meat, without first asking his parents. Later when Crazy Horse asked for food, his mother said, "You must be brave and live up to your generous reputation."

It was customary for young men to spend much time in prayer and solitude, fasting in the wilderness --typical of Sioux spiritual life which has since been lost in the contact with a material civilization.

And a prediction for the year 2100: population from 700 million - to 1 billion. Barely surviving. Camps like the one in "Mad Max", or "Escape from Abssolom". Most of the planet is a wasteland covered with trash. Clean water or fertile soil - very hard to find. I could be wrong. By then we could also have a world like "Soylent Green" + "Brazil"
People will dream about a society like I described. Maybe they will be smart enough - not to recreate this madness...

Why ? Open all the links to the right here : Growing trough the asphalt

YouTube- HOME (English with subtitles)

rahl · 03-25-2010, 10:51 AM

They had no homeless? Are you serious? they lived in wooden huts or animal skin tents. And the prediction of a mad max type future, while anything is possible I suppose, isn't really very probable.

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 11:29 AM

Adopt an Adult Orphan, by Jean Liedloff

Quote:

Many customs of the Yequana are directed toward meeting the requirements for emotional well-being that will keep people feeling social. Their maintenance of what we call law and order does not include law, only internal, individual order, based on the assumption that man only becomes anti-social when deprived of the support appropriate for all humans.

Illness, pain, bereavement, hunger, isolation or humiliation, if allowed to become too intense or too enduring, can exhaust a person's powers of adaptation, of resilience. The result is a measure of bitterness, resentment, jealousy, frustration, anger, despair or loneliness. The natural inclination to protect and further the interests of one's people will become strained and distorted. A sense of natural justice will suggest that a person withdraw his endeavors from the common cause and put them toward his own interests, as the support of others is withdrawn from him.

The Yequana are careful not to allow this to happen by providing for any eventuality that puts a strain on the individual's ability to take such stresses in stride. For instance, the best hunters and fishermen share their catches with everyone so that hunger and jealousy cannot build up in their neighbors. Grief is mitigated by appropriate demonstrations of solidarity. People do not ever try to persuade one another to change their minds by using emotional pressure. Humiliation is sensitively precluded, and no one is expected to live alone. Thus, the "adoption" of orphaned adults.

In this rich atmosphere of respect and provision for these human needs, not just the gross ones of food and shelter but the complex social requirements, the Yequana enjoy their high state of well-being.

Whoever said that "greed" is an evolutionary trait of survival, was wrong. Or just "civilized". Imagining only slaves and slave masters. Imagining a big brute eating everything and having others serve him...
People lived in groups tribes, it was better than living alone, people are social beings, and greed in such conditions works against the greedy.

rahl · 03-25-2010, 11:38 AM

A perfect example of currency. These hunters are the best at what they do, so their currency(or exchange of goods and services)is to provide food. They in turn receive other goods from those with who'm they provide food. Very primitive and basic, but still a form of currency.

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 12:20 PM

Nobody does nothing because he feels like it ? Only for "trade" ?

rahl · 03-25-2010, 01:31 PM

Of course people do things because they feel like it. But those things they do because they feel like it are made possible by the things they do for trade.

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 02:20 PM

Straw man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

rahl · 03-25-2010, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pai mei

Straw man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you kidding me? You continue to ignore human history, then accuse me of using strawmen when I point out the fact that you are ignoring it? m'kay

pai mei · 03-25-2010, 02:57 PM

What am I ignoring ?

Amazon.com: Columbus and Other Cannibals (9781583227817): Jack D. Forbes: Books

Quote:

What Forbes tells us is that there is this negative consciousness, this spiritual sickness called "The Wetiko Psychosis" that gets passed on from being to being. It's an inherited twisted perspective on life, and feeling about life.. The bestowers for the last 500 years of the Wetiko disease have come from the European culture, although he mentions that many cultures through out history have endulged in Wetiko behavior, from Egypt, to Rome, to Russia, China. He's also mentioned that the once oppressed may carry on this mentality, this lunacy to a higher degree sometimes then the original oppressors/ colonizers.

03-16-2010, 10:31 PM	#1 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	Domesticating humans "Domestication (from Latin domesticus) or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. " What's the difference between this : Miami Seaquarium Education or Exploitation "At the Miami Seaprison, we teach children that it is okay to break animals of that silly habit of "being wild" by kidnapping them away from their families, forcing them kicking and screaming into a chlorinated concrete tank, and making them perform ridiculous circus tricks for food (we call it training). All in the name of exploitation and profit. Oh, and education…of course" and what we do to humans , in this "civilization" ? This Frankenstein monster, in danger to disintegrate at the first power failure : New York City blackout of 1977 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The difference is : the machine has covered the world, and most people do not know anything else, or do not have the chance to experience anything else. If they knew, or had the chance, 90 % of people would leave this madness , never to return: Prisoner Exchange We are told that without education we would be savages, killing each other for food... We perform all kinds of tricks to get food. We don't care why we do it, or what's the result. It's not our problem. We don't think, we don't care, we don't need to think. We are trained not to think. China : Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China \| ChinaHush Look here : cryptogon.com Recession Drives Surge in Youth Runaways “We keep running into this,” said one of the boys, Clinton Anchors, 18. Over the past year, he said, he and five other teenagers living together on the streets had taken under their wings no fewer than 20 children — some as young as 12 — and taught them how to avoid predators and the police, survive the cold and find food. What is going on there ? Is education to blame ? Crazy children helping each other. Why ? Why are they not killing each other ? I mean they are not "educated", why are they what we call "good" ? A tribe is the natural way people organize when free. Everywhere around us - incipient tribes, groups of friends. Quickly erased by the machine. Or reduced to something with no real substance. Still - at the edge of the machine, where the system is crumbling, wild things start to grow again. Gangs. See Rio de Janeiro. Yes they do not look pretty and still have some machine inside them. Their environment - also is different. But there are some free people, thinking for themselves, and organizing to survive... The "machine" : The Machine in our Heads--Glenn Parton ---------- From "Columbus and other cannibals": "The Pawnee : They were a well-disciplined people, maintaining public order under many trying circumstances. And yet they had none of the power mechanisms that we consider essential to a well-ordered life. No orders were ever issued...Time after time I tried to find a case of orders given and there were none. Gradually I began to realize that democracy is a very personal thing which like charity, begins at home. Basically it means not being coerced and having no need to coerce anyone else. The Pawnee learned this way of living in the earliest beginning of his life. In the detailed events of every day as a child, he began his development as a disciplined and free man or as a women who felt her dignity and her independence to be inviolate" ---------------- "The Creeks are just honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers; considerate, loving and affectionate to their wives and relations; fond of their children; industrious, frugal, temperate and persevering; charitable and forbearing. I have been weeks and months among them and in their towns, and never observed the least sign of contention or wrangling: never saw an instance of and Indian beating his wife, or even reproving her in anger. In this case they stand as examples of reproof to the most civilized nations . . . for indeed their wives merit their esteem and the most gentle treatment, they being industrious, frugal, loving and affectionate . . .Their internal police and family economy. . .incontrovertibly place those people in an illustrious point of view: their liberality, intimacy and friendly intercourse with one another, without any restraint of ceremonious formality; as if they were even insensible of the use of necessity of associating the passions of affections of avarice, ambition or covetousness. . . How are we to account for their excellent policy in civil government; it cannot derive its influence from coercive laws, for they have no such artificial system." __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game" Last edited by pai mei; 03-17-2010 at 11:53 AM..

03-18-2010, 12:44 PM	#3 (permalink)
Ourcrazymodern? still, wondering. Location: South Minneapolis, somewhere near the gorgeous gorge	As much as I feel like a natural thing, I don't fail to appreciate the benefits of domestication. I think you don't, either. The "we" exists, whether or not we feel comfortable with it. I'm pretty sure (we) can't imagine living outside of our systems. Bridging the gaps between what we are and what we want have always been cooperative ventures. Help me to understand. __________________ BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

03-19-2010, 02:14 PM	#8 (permalink)
Ourcrazymodern? still, wondering. Location: South Minneapolis, somewhere near the gorgeous gorge	I don't even doubt that what we like has been shaped by our domestication. Is our spirituality lessened by our entrapment? __________________ BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

03-21-2010, 02:21 PM	#11 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	Yes people would be happier. Nobody would stop you from doing what you say you like to do. You don't need a boss for that ? Maybe you do something complex that need all this ? Good for you - but you understand, there are people out there, maintaining all this just to survive. Do you still like what you do if you know they exist ? __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game"

03-21-2010, 02:38 PM	#12 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	pai mei I'm curious, are you for an anarchal society/tribal society? If so, don't you think without some form of govn't we would revert back to every man for himself/only the strong survive? __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-18-2010, 03:43 PM	#4 (permalink)
Dolores Haze Upright	I agree with the above - and I also wonder if domesticated animals can be fairly compared to humans stuck in a system. I don't think animals in a zoo sit there pining for the great outdoors and that fresh, wild-caught, hormone-free antelope they could expend hours and thousands of calories running down. But then, those don't necessarily count as domesticated - if you want domesticated animals, think livestock or pets. This process alters them - generation by generation - to the point where the puppy in the parlor is not the same as a wolf cub in the parlor (wolves and domestic dogs belong to the same species, by the way, if we're talking in Linnean terms). Since domestication involves artificial selection of the most docile, "attractive" and useful specimens, eventually we wind up with a variety of creature that we've created - a creature whose environment is that which humans raise it in. People will tell you that certain animals, no matter how well trained or accustomed to humans, remain unpredictable and wild - this is what separates a jackal or coyote from a Labrador. You can't tame a killer whale any more than you can "tame" a grizzly. You can become part of its frame of reference in such a way that it isn't prone to be hostile or fearful, but that's it. It can change its mind with the right stimuli. Domestication is just guided adaptation - and humans have the curious trait of being able to direct the adaptation of themselves and one another consciously. Sure, I think a lot of the crap society makes you do is a waste of time - and there's an understandable note of frustration in your post that I would sympathize with. But there is no sinister subversion of humanity's "natural" state going on here, as I see it.

03-19-2010, 07:08 AM	#6 (permalink)
Stare At The Sun Eh? Location: Somewhere over the rainbow	What about the fact that animals in captivity are bred and released back into the wild to repopulate endangered species? Seems like a noble cause to me.

03-19-2010, 11:16 PM	#10 (permalink)
Dolores Haze Upright	Eh, I do. I do actually enjoy doing what I do, most of the time. Do you claim that if your proposed solution were implemented, people would be any happier with their lives and daily routines than they are now? I'm not somebody who believes in linear progress - and, as a corollary to that, I don't believe in linear regress...at least in terms of the relative "goodness" or "badness" of the world. I don't think that the average person today is any happier than the average person before plumbing, or penicillin, or all the rest of modern medicine, sanitation and the other social services enhanced by scientific progress. Nor do I think that they were any happier than us. There never were any "good ol' days" -- at least in terms of individual contentment. "The human condition" is always in the singular for a reason. It stays the same. So, if we aren't getting any happier, what the hell have we accomplished as a species? If you value intellectual growth (which, given your disdainful treatment of education, you don't seem to), then we can definitively say that the general corpus of knowledge increases as mankind experiences and discovers new things over the passage of time. In recent years, capitalism facilitated that (in part). Did it have to be capitalism? Of course not. Any system that could concentrate resources in order to conduct the kind of inquiry and scholarship necessary for the expansion of knowledge would have accomplished it just as well (let's all give a nod to the Sputnik). Try building a space shuttle in an egalitarian hunter-gatherer society. Or a submarine. Or a pacemaker. Or, for that matter, an online discussion board.

03-21-2010, 02:54 PM	#13 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	This is what I am for : Growing trough the asphalt: Why capitalism can never work Very limited government. Nobody receiving more than the basics. This means - no corruption. I mean how much can you eat, how many clothes and useful items can you stockpile ? And after that work period - free humans. __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game"

03-21-2010, 02:58 PM	#14 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	ok. But what gives you the right to tell me what I can and can't buy with the money that I earn? Why can't I work hard for the things that I want, not just the basic things that I need? A world without money(currency) has never existed for a reason...it doesn't work. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it" Last edited by rahl; 03-21-2010 at 03:00 PM..

03-21-2010, 05:14 PM	#15 (permalink)
Zeraph Banned Location: The Cosmos	It's not so cut and dry. Haven't you noticed many people that retire (and by that I mean truly, like they have tons of money to do whatever) are mostly bored out of their minds? Personally I'm poor and don't give a shit. I live free. Anyone can. But there's always a price. For anything. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's ever a free lunch: TANSTAAFL.

03-22-2010, 03:11 PM	#19 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	pai mei, you continue to ignore against the well-known facts of the historic record. The Chocktaw, Aztec and Inuit didn't practice any sort of "gift economy". The Aztec especially had a very vibrant and powerful money-based economy. You're also arguing that all tribal cultures are monolythic in belief systems, when that's patently offensive to pretty much all of them. The Pawnee are NOT indicative of all Native American cultures. There's a Cherokee who's laughing at you now. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

03-23-2010, 05:04 AM	#22 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	Well clearly we disagree on history. But back to your cruise ship analogy. There's no way to do it without money and education. Your solution is that if I want a cruise ship I can work to build one. Problem there is I don't know how to build one, nor do I have the materials in order to do so, nor will I have a crew to operate it while I lay back and enjoy the seas. The education part comes into play because I'm not an engineer. I don't know how to build a ship. I also don't know how to mine the iron ore in order to make steel. I also don't know how to make steel. Your society is an impossibility because of no education and no forms of currency. And I never have been, nor will I ever be a slave. I work hard for the things that I both need and want, as well as what my family needs and wants. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-24-2010, 06:31 PM	#29 (permalink)
Dolores Haze Upright	People need to have a basic understanding of the chemical processes involved in metabolizing starch before throwing around terms like "food substitute." Unless you're talking about the yellow clay that peasants would dig out of riverbeds in China to ease the agony of a slow death from starvation, there's no such thing as a "food substitute" - if starch goes in and calories come out, you've got an energy source. End of story. If we're talking about the quality of your gastronomic experience, the vicious vagaries of market capitalism beat out a barter system any day. Sure, people are shooting each other over their stakeouts in the Alpes-Maritimes, but it puts truffles on the market in a different time zone. Nobody would remember how to dice a fucking onion after three generations of pai mei's ideal society, much less what goes in a basic bouquet garni. Haute cuisine would only be one of the things that went down the toilet - goodbye fine art, goodbye advanced mathematics, goodbye space exploration. The simple things are great; don't get me wrong - but nobody would pause to enjoy a plain apple and glass of water if that was all they had access to. This "back-to-the-basics" fetishization of primitive cultures is just another side effect of the culture-of-excess that it tries to condemn.

03-25-2010, 01:30 AM	#30 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	No. The system is basic because it has to be. To free people's time, and let them do what they want. My idea is not to have people working for what they don't want to have just so they can access the basics. You will have a list of foods being produced. No chips or coca cola. You want these - you make them. Gather other interested people. You have time, if that is what you really want. Also - you will not be able to involve other people that don;t care about coca cola. This is real progress - people working only for what they want. There will be enough land left for you to grow a garden and have everything you want. If people like "fine cuisine" they will have it. Where did I say you have to be content with only what the system gives you ? Nobody reads this topic ? And - you could add modules to the system. Meaning - there is a group of people who want to go to the Moon. They will not have to mine the iron for their machines themselves. Iron is already being mined - for the machines that produce basic stuff. So - they go there and expand the system. No need to start from the stone age. You want to go to the Moon - you join them. Of course - their ego will probably grow a lot and they will say : "useless people spending their lives playing or whatever, they must serve us ! Going to the Moon is progress !!" And so- "civilization" begins. But I am sure people will not accept anyone touching the basic system. After only a few years of this, a culture of not telling another what to do will develop (because there is no need). The same way nobody could "civilize" the Indians. They had something more than we have. Free access to the basics they needed, meaning you could not make one of them a seller at Mc Donalds and "happy". Also - it was very rude in their society to tell another what to do with his life. Exactly what I am talking about. This culture of respect does not appear in a slave society - where people are used to do stuff they don't care about. "That's how things are" they say. Of course. "Civilization". Growing trough the asphalt: Prisoner Exchange __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game" Last edited by pai mei; 03-25-2010 at 01:45 AM..

03-25-2010, 07:16 AM	#31 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	you continue to blatantly ignore the fact that the indians used forms of currency. They would trade things they did have for things they didn't. Even in those most basic and primitive societies, civilization and currency still existed. Your system, while it may be a nice dream, can not and has never existed in any human reality. I don't understand how you can say "if you want something then make it yourself". Without education people can't do the most basic things. Without higher education people can't do the more complicated things. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-25-2010, 10:51 AM	#33 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	They had no homeless? Are you serious? they lived in wooden huts or animal skin tents. And the prediction of a mad max type future, while anything is possible I suppose, isn't really very probable. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-25-2010, 11:38 AM	#35 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	A perfect example of currency. These hunters are the best at what they do, so their currency(or exchange of goods and services)is to provide food. They in turn receive other goods from those with who'm they provide food. Very primitive and basic, but still a form of currency. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-25-2010, 12:20 PM	#36 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	Nobody does nothing because he feels like it ? Only for "trade" ? __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game"

03-25-2010, 01:31 PM	#37 (permalink)
rahl Junkie Location: Ohio	Of course people do things because they feel like it. But those things they do because they feel like it are made possible by the things they do for trade. __________________ "Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

03-25-2010, 02:20 PM	#38 (permalink)
pai mei Insane	Straw man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia __________________ Blog One day there will be so many houses, that people will be bored and will go live in tents. "Why are you living in tents ? Are there not enough houses ?" "Yes there are, but we play this Economy game"