[ExI] The system

[Antonio Marcos]

--- Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> escreveu:

> People have made various comments about "the system"
> (in its many varieties) and whether they hope it
> will
> change, or whether the system is fact amazing. I
> apologise in advance for the length of my post -
> however, given the entire news articles and pages of
> James Joyce people have been quoting, I feel in good
> company. Because I've got a fair bit to say, I'm
> breaking what follows into three parts:
> 

hahaha :) i dont know if its apropriate, but somehow i
found that amusing.

> This has
> caused many of my generation to be a little cynical
> about politics

Thats probably everyone..

> and whether anyone without the cash
> to
> bribe - sorry, effectively lobby - politicians could
> do a thing.

.. and I think its probably on purpose, so you install
the belief that "you're impotent to change anything"
in people.


> 
> 2) The system: we all like to visualise "the system"
> as the way the world works, in ways that our society
> is familiar with. However, "the system" does change
> over time. I may be a subject of Queen Elizabeth the
> Second, but she doesn't lead our armies into battle
> like monarchs of old,

Yet, more people have died in wars lately than ever
before summed up (dont know the exact numbers, but i
would guess from 1950 against all wars from ever
before.. not counting indirect effects, like if the
resources was spent actually doing something good)

> and I get a vote in our
> elections while she doesn't.

Which seconds ago you admitted dont make a difference
anyway.. 

> The Tsars were swept
> away
> by communism, which went through Stalinism and
> finally
> faded away with perestroika, to be replaced by
> unfettered go-go capitalism for a few years, now to
> be
> replaced by autocratic Putinism. France has had
> several republics in the same period of history that
> the USA has only needed one to fill.
>  In the 1930s, FDR's "New Deal" made America more
> socialist than it had been previously, and Britain's
> "Welfare state" wasn't invented until after 1945.
> Our
> grandparent's "system" and ours are radically
> different.

but better?

>  Now, people have been posting about whether "the
> system" works in several areas. With respect to
> healthcare, many deplore how the USA has so little
> care for the poor while spending so much on
> healthcare
> overall, while Spike admires the amazing technology
> developed by the profit motive.

Which I gave up to insist that it wont solve
anything.. if you pay someone -- who consider money
all that important, let me add -- "TO solve" a
problem, they are forever going "TO solve" it.. Until
of course, you open your eyes, and pay for "THE
solution". OR use a system that dont create a conflict
of interest between survival(which most people
associate with money, but let us not get too
philosophical whether is ethical to eat brand new
cars) and righteousness. Being teaching it since
childhood or dissociating truth from any kind of
reward outside of itself(like happiness against
money).. probably many systems might work, even inside
the capitalist mindset.

>  For everyone in Europe, while it is a shame that so
> many individual Americans have to suffer, we should
> appreciate the free ride we get.

I wonder to where?

> US drug companies
> research a lot of drugs.

Which are the 3rd killer of their country, i would
actually say the 1st, but lets stick with the facts
that THEY THEMSELVES admit.. lol, let alone they ALSO
ADMIT they dont count everything in that figure.. so
how many are going to the first 2 other causes of
obit? And since most drugs dont kill immediately this
is pretty easy to do. Yes, dont forget the misery they
cause all the way until they are (NOT)counted..
hahahahaha... (which, btw, i find worse than death,
but thats me, im not THAT obsessed with life i guess
^^ specially when its surrounded by people that
actually do that on purpose)

> For a few years, American
> consumers are milked for all they're worth until

oh yes, i forgot that :)

> another company discovers a similar enough compound

which is probably a lot of time, since they must be
very careful not to bankrupt the competition AND
themselves, by curing anything.. no "friendly" motive
anymore after that. Hopefully find a dependency drug:
take-> get "fairly" well(how good is your wellness
fair to them btw?), stop taking-> back to sickness..
How many drugs you know that have already arrived at
this point? oh, they can still improve on that, cant
they? they can always make you better quicker? or,
maybe not.. let us just change the side effects,
hopefully you will want to buy another drug then! yey
\o/

> that gets around the original patent, and then
> competition brings down the price a little.
>  Meanwhile, the Canadians and europeans with their
> big
> healthcare systems negotiate a price they think is
> reasonable. The big drug companies can either agree
> a
> price, or they can face having very few customers in
> a
> given country. The cost to people outside the US is
> a
> good degree less. Our new drugs are subsidised by
> our
> US friends worrying about the huge premiums on their
> health insurance.

and they probably take stress reducing pills :)
mwahaha

>  We also get other free rides

to where again? you better start asking before you get
the wrong bus.. again.. 

> - everyone who's
> wearing
> cotton clothes, thank Uncle Sam for his generosity.
> Huge subsidies paid to US cotton farmers make the
> world price of cotton ridiculously low. Farmers in
> west africa, trying to pay people a dollar a day,
> have

that makes me want to burn my shirts.. 

> difficulty competing with American farmers who get
> bribed by US politicians hoping for a friendly vote.
> Thank you for my cheap T-shirts, American taxpayers.

hehehe, nice quote for a T-Shirt ;) .. made in Africa!
huahahaha priceless.. err pun intended :D

> Of course, sometimes this works the other way -
> subsidies for bioethanol from corn has driven US
> maize

oh.. now you're getting interesting.. there is always
the downside =/ they never seem to lose, do they? arg!
:)

> prices up, which in turn increases the costs of
> tortillas in Mexico and corn meal across the world.

BTW im making some tomorrow, everyone's invited. they
are cheap here.. i guess, could probably be much
cheaper, i agree with you..

> Still, we should be thankful that the US's
> experiments
> in unrestrained healthcare capitalism can provide us
> with useful products.
> 

indeed...

:) lol.. ok, there are plenty of good things.. but
they wont get much of a solution, unless they can
"compensate" somehow.. =/

> 3) A radical change in "the system": looking about
> transhumanist websites, you get to see many
> viewpoints
> on the world.

Yes, im giving up talking about this, it wont get us
anywhere, and there are already much talk from
immemorial times. There is too much fundamental work
to be done before anything past the basics of those
talks can actually be put to test, and most everyone
know what those(fundamentals) are.. so no point going
further before the basic is done, those talks can be
done after that (if we ever get there, so its a waste
of time anyway, even worse if we dont, and as it
seems.. we wont)

> citizens so they can all have an income from the
> state. The idea when extended to western
> civilisations
> is to give everyone a handout sufficient to cover
> their basic needs. This replaces welfare, pensions
> schemes, sickness benefits, etc.
>  The combination of the two has been advocated by
> some
> libertarians as allowing people to earn what they
> want, while also given people freedom from being
> forced to work. If someone's idea of life,liberty
> and
> the pursuit of happiness is sitting down watching
> soap
> operas all day, they can. This combination also
> works
> from a socialist view - "From each according to
> their
> earnings;to each to cover their basic needs", while
> allowing eager capitalists to earn extra cash and
> allowing the profit motive to exist.
>  Say this particular innovation gets adopted by a
> political party in a developed economy, and is
> implemented one day. What will happen?

We will see in the next chapter! Stay tuned! (got to
the bottom to answer, and look at that!)

>  People will probably do one of three things: some
> may
> want to earn as much as possible to add to their
> minimum income. In the US, people work more hours
> than
> they did in the 1970s, but the amount of stuff they
> own is much greater than their 1970s predecessors.
> In
> France, they've achieved a 35 hour working week, and
> people working longer hours each week get time off
> in
> lieu. The French equivalent of the wall street
> banker
> gets 45-50 days paid leave a year in return for
> working so hard during the week.
>  A second group of people will give up working. As
> Spike said, there's many people in the US motivated
> by
> 
=== message truncated ===

MESSAGE TRUNCATED!! F***!!! Stupid yahoo.. =/
See you next week in this same hour, and in this same
channel! yey \o/  \o> *shoots head*



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