[ExI] OWS Rolling in the Mud

[Kevin G Haskell]

Giovanni Santostasi's first reply to Kevin G Haskell, and Kevin's response:

Message: 12
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:29:52 -0600
From: Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] OWS Rolling in the Mud
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(Giovanni): >>"Kevin,
OWS is not against productions of goods in general.
Goods can be produced in many different ways. Capitalism is not necessary.
I have posted videos showing that creativity in his highest form is not
motivated by money.
In the lab were I work people do very creative work, putting hours at night
and the weekend without making millions of dollars out of this.
A lot of creative people work without the motivation of money. What is
important is to have enough money not to have to think about money.
The super-rich ARE NOT THAT CREATIVE at all. It is a myth, a lie. There are
very few Steve Jobs over there. And most of the products are anyway created
not by CEO or board members but scientists, engineers, designers that are
not paid enormous quantity of money.
Why are gong back to the same trite arguments to support capitalism?
People could come together, create wonderful things and share them as it is
done in many creative commons projects.
It is just a question of imagining new forms of organization that are not
inevitably producing few people that are ruling over everybody else.
Giovanni"<<

(Kevin replied):  There are different ways to produce wealth, yes, but all
involve some form of underlining force, by threat, actual use, and both.
But Capitalism with limited laws to maintain structure requires the least
form of force, allows for the most individual freedoms, and maximizes
wealth creation for all classes of people.

There is never enough money to not think about it, because at anytime,
radical events can happen to make us lose all of our money.  Just look at
what started happening in 2008 and since then.  Anyone can find themselves
out on the street at any time, and this is when community and individual
charity comes into play, and that is to help the afflicted get the help
they need.  In a system that practices the maximum amount of rational
Capitalism, the amount of wealth produced would allow most people not to
fall into hard times with creating their own support system, and for those
who don't, there would be so much societal and individual wealth, their
would be more than enough people with money to assist those in need.

Even Ayn Rand, who hated the idea of most altruism, realized that there
were occasions when some would be necessary.  (Yes, I agree with quite a
bit of what Ayn Rand said and wrote, but I'd like to take this opportunity
so say that I am not a purest "Randian," although she nailed down quite a
bit of things quite nicely.)

Who pays those scientists and engineers that are not the captains of
industry other than the captains of industry?  As technological society
advances, the skills that scientists and researchers are going to become
increasingly crucial for companies, and they 'will' pay them more and more
as time goes by in order to be competitive and grow.  What's more, many of
these same scientists and researchers are the same people that go on to
produce our most important, value producing, wealth producing, job
producing benefits for themselves, their employees, and all of society.
This happens, yes, because some want to 'help' people, or because they
enjoy what they do, but this is also heavily motivated by the idea by
creating great profit in 'money.'  Money is the number one reward for a
person to survive, and survival for most people in the most important
motivation there is.

There would be a lot more types of people like Steve Jobs if people were
properly educated in our public schools on how to start and effectively run
businesses.  They don't, so most creative people feel confined to
practicing within the career they were were trained within, and not taking
those skills to a higher level to expanding it.

Discussions of Capitalism are not "trite," but 'core.'  It is time to start
moving our societies away from destructive Socialism, and toward
Capitalism.  Until we find that 'perhaps' if we become Transhuman, or
evolve under the permission of the AGI species that we create (or,AGIans as
I like to coin a name,) Capitalism is an absolute must for us to uphold and
train for all classes for people.

Kevin
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