[extropy-chat] Re: riots in France

[Fred C. Moulton]

If we are considering "riots in France" as the subject line says then I
suggest caution in focusing primarily on the religion of the rioters.
The reason that I say this is that there are obvious counter examples.

For example, I live in the Silicon Valley (San Jose specifically) and
there are many Muslims here.  They are not rioting and burning cars.
They have jobs and families and homes just like everyone else.  And they
are not isolated in public housing as I read is the case in much of
France.  This is not say that there is no racism here in Silicon Valley
and certainly there are poor people here.  But there appears to be a
difference in levels and concentration and in the possibility of change
based on individual and family initiative.  Based on what I have read a
key difference is that here in the Silicon Valley there are fewer
government regulations and impediments for economic dynamism as compared
to France.  The levels and patterns of unemployment are different
between Silicon Valley and France.  So you do not have young Muslim (or
other) males rioting and burning cars here, instead most of them are
either in school or working.  And many have good jobs in the local tech
industry.

Thus my point is that to continually focus primarily on Muslim in the
analysis of the French riots is overly simplistic.  Particularly when by
every report that I have read the vast majority of Muslims are not
rioting.

I would also like to recommend the book The Future and its Enemies by
Virgina Postrel.  It is a popular level look at differences between
dynamism and stasis in looking at social and cultural issues.  For more
info see: http://www.dynamist.com/tfaie/index.html  Perhaps it will help
clarify the thought processes of some on this list.

Fred

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 12:45 -0500, John K Clark wrote:
> "Jack Parkinson" <isthatyoujack at icqmail.com>
> 
> > Presumably, you will be impressed when this (silly riots in France)
> > directly degrades the quality of yours and your families lives
> 
> Anything that directly degrades the quality of my life or that of my family
> impresses me; but a bunch of ignorant kids in France pretending to be
> American gangster rappors is unlikely to do that.
> 
> > Some of the richest countries are also Muslim.
> 
> A few Muslim countries through a lucky geological break happen to be sitting
> on top of a lake that contains 2/3 of the world's oil and so are rich, but
> that hasn't stopped Nigeria, a Muslim country with lots of oil, from being
> the second poorest country on Earth, beaten only by Mozambique, another
> Muslim country.  Continuing on our list of the poorest countries in the
> world we have Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, The Congo, Bangladesh, Angola and
> Afghanistan, all are predominantly Muslim countries.
> 
> Let's look at a subset of the Muslim world, the Arabs. There are over 250
> million Arabs and they have most of the world's oil, but nevertheless the
> GNP of the entire Arab world is less than that of Spain, a country with no
> oil and a population of only 40 million. One reason for this may be that the
> number of books translated into Arabic over the past thousand years is about
> the same as the number of books translated into Spanish just last year.
> 
> > Poverty is the root cause of discontent.
> 
> No, if everybody is poor you're not angry, just sad. Envy is the root cause
> of discontent.
> 
> > Spoilt rich kids always praise their own benevolence
> 
> I may be spoilt but I make no claims of benevolence, I make no claim that I
> earned the right to be born in a western non Muslim culture, I was just
> lucky.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> >They want a house with a manicured lawn, a membership of the
> > golf club and an SUV.
> 
> The people of South Korea have all that now, but 50 years ago they were on
> that infamous list of the poorest countries on the planet. Things changed
> when the Korean's complained about the injustice of it all so the rich
> countries piled gold onto huge cargo ships and sent it to Korea until
> everybody was equal. No wait, I misspoke that's not how it happened, now I
> remember: The Korean workers said they'd rather not work for 7 cents an hour
> and would prefer 70 dollars an hour and their employers said sure no
> problem.
> 
> Or maybe it was because the Korean people valued education in things other
> than in a book of superstitions written 1500 yeas ago, and they had a very
> strong work ethic, and they embraced capitalism with a vengeance. Maybe
> that's why South Koreans were issued 15,000 patents over the last 20 years
> while the entire Arab world had fewer than 400.
> 
> The contrast between North and South Korea is also interesting, both started
> with the same culture and the same language, but one had a tightly
> controlled economy "to help the common people" and one did not.
> Look at them now!
> 
> Me:
> >> would it be more moral of me to fire 99 workers out of 100 and pay the
> >> remaining ones 7$ an hour
> 
> You:
> > Yes.
> 
> Your position is indefensible morally and economically.
> 
> Moral nonsense:
> For every person I can hire there are a thousand lined up outside the gates
> of my factory begging for chance to make the huge sum of 7 cents an hour;
> and you, allegedly an advocate of more equality, advise me to make things
> even more unequal by firing 99 out of 100 of my employs and give the
> fortunate survivor the ridiculous salary of 7 dollars and hour.
> 
> Economic nonsense:
> Now that I have taken your advice my expenses are the same as before but my
> output is only 1% of what is was, so I must charge 100 times more than what
> I did before for my product, but at that price nobody at Wal-Mart will buy
> it. Thus whatever my intentions I no longer have the money to pay my single
> remaining employee 7 dollars an hour, or even 7 cents an hour, he now makes
> zero cents an hour and I'm dead broke too.  And this is the way to cure
> world poverty?
> 
> > 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 don't think this free market creature does exists and even doubt
> >  that it really can exist.
> 
> Any particular reason?
> 
> > Current 'free markets' are simply manipulated, tightly controlled
> > strategies
> 
> Yes, most markets are controlled by governments much more than is rational,
> without that interference there would be far fewer poor people, perhaps none
> at all.  The freest of all free markets is the black market and that's why
> it thrives.
> 
> > to put the power and profits into corporate HQ's in the US and Europe.
> 
> You almost make that sound like a bad thing.
> 
> > Japan is in deep economic trouble now
> 
> Trouble is a relative term. Japan is in economic trouble compared to the USA
> perhaps, but compared with any Muslim country it most certainly is not, it
> is in hog heaven because despite its difficulties Japan still has the second
> largest economy in the world.
> 
> > India is riding an economic boom
> 
> Yes, India has improved in the last few years after it started to back away
> a bit from decades of socialistic laws, regulations, and other brakes on its
> economy.
> 
> > China is likely to take the top spot as world number 1 economy within the
> > next ten years
> 
> Perhaps, but I don't see the point you're trying to make, it certainly can't
> be that capitalism is a bad way to make the economy grow and the population
> of a country rich.
> 
>       John K Clark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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