[extropy-chat] Re: riots in France

[Jack Parkinson]

"John K Clark" <jonkc at att.net> said:
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: riots in France

Jack Parkinson wrote:
>> No one is ever delighted at earning 7
>> cents an hour.

>Quite untrue. If everyone you knew was making zero cents an hour and was 24
>hours away from starvation and you were making 7 cents an hour and was a
>full 48 hours away from starvation you would feel like Rockefeller.

This is not 'quite untrue.' So far as I know there is no country on earth 
where 7 cents an hour is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs. Yes, a 
desperate person will accept your 7 cents (in much the same way that 
drowning men are supposed to clutch at straws). However, you can be assured 
that they will not be delighted with you.

>> There is plenty of wealth in the world.

>Baloney. There is no way the wealth of the world could be divided up among 
>7
>billion people so everyone has a decent lifestyle, and you and I, the
>pampered product of rich western culture, would be among those howling in
>pain the loudest. However this need not always be true because Extropians 
>do
>not think the economy is a zero sum game, in fact it's about as far from a
>zero sum game as you can get.

I didn't suggest dividing the wealth of the world. I pointed out that 
international aid agencies generally say that US $25 billion is adequate for 
basic food, water and medicine for everyone. This is not a lot of money in 
todays terms I think...
Real equality of opportunity in education and employment would be the only 
other essential -people who can better themselves have some incentive to 
knuckle down and try.

And there would suddenly be a much smaller ready-made pool of malcontents 
for the next wave of fundamentalist crazies to exploit in recruiting for the 
cause...
As a strategy for conducting 'war on terror' - it may just be more effective 
than the one we have now. If terrorism (and rioting for that matter) are the 
radical extremes of massive discontent - eliminate the discontent.

Jack Parkinson