[ExI] Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/11/10  <natasha at natasha.cc>:
>> I don't have your location on the political spectrum Natasha.. is that
>> because you are eclectic or eccentric in your political beliefs, or
>> just that you haven't said?
>
> I was a Liberal, Democrat, then an elected Green Councilperson for LA
> County. ...  Then I started thinking.  ... Now "I am neither right nor left"
> (Esfandiary).

Not familiar with Esfandiary...

> I tend to be more of an insightful Dennis Miller type than a
> biased Laura Ingraham type. I am not interested in blame and hate against
> those who own companies and provide jobs to others.

It is silly to blame the problems in society on those who provide the
money that lubricates the entire system. As an entrepreneur myself, I
do understand that there is a degree of luck in the system, and that
Bill Gates isn't ALL THAT more competent than I, but also benefited
from being in the right place at the right time, working on the right
stuff.

> Nor do I think it
> is okay for shareholders to give ridiculous bonuses to themselves and also
> take money from the government.

I'm with you on that one.

> And I do not respect presidents to vacation
> in Martha?s Vineyard or Tim Buck Two, when people are jobless.

Here I'm not so sure... being President has to be pretty stressful,
and they never stop working, even while on vacation. I don't begrudge
the President a little R&R... It's important to his functioning well.
I would respect a president that did more of his R&R at Camp David...
I think Carter did that, and he did some things that I respect, but
was mostly an idiot.

> And I
> certainly do not think that people should be receiving unemployment payout
> for an extended period of time.

Yes, 99 weeks is ridiculous. The belief that it is the government's
job to provide jobs is even more ridiculous.

> But I do think that one thrives when one
> cares for others.

Altruism for it's own sake has evil components, but if you run a
company that provides a needed good or service, and you are customer
oriented, then that will certainly lead towards prosperity.

> Narratives (TV, film, books or whatever) that make money
> off of dumbing down society are a terrible crime against humanity.

Do the masses need an opiate??? Since religion no longer fills that
void for many people, do we need the NFL, NBA and comedy shows and
other television (as well as video games, the Internet LOL cats, etc.)
to provide the drug for the masses? Does this prevent mass revolt in
the street? I often think that if we cancelled all major sports for a
year, and only had reruns on TV, we would have bonfires in the
streets...

> My ideological position is as a designer.  I think about socio-economics and
> biopolitics as a design problem. My political leaning: "locate the problem,
> find the most effective way to resolve it, and get going."  This has to be
> done with an unbiased, logical methodology for seeing what is most workable,
> doable with the most amount of thought/knowledge and the least amount of
> waste.  It is a formula to resolve rather than to label.

That's all well and good. I think we all view ourselves in this
manner. It's just that most people tend to settle into a mode that
they think accomplishes this in the most effective manner. Perhaps if
you gave an example of a real world problem with it's real world
solution that you admire, that would give some insight...

I tend to be most enthusiastic about technical solutions to real
problems, and view the government as mostly getting in the way of more
of that sort of thing happening. Thus I come down mostly on the
libertarian way of thinking, though I get really confused when people
state that libertarianism is left of the current left... I don't get
that one at all.

So as an example of something I'm enthusiastic about was the thing we
noted a few weeks back about putting day light to use in slums and
favelas... or the TED talk on replacing indoor use of charcoal with
another fuel, or the Gates foundation work on zapping mosquitos with
lasers. Those are REAL solutions. Public health care is just another
government boondoggle and power grab.

-Kelly