[ExI] Be nice to leftists

[Omar Rahman]

> Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 09:49:08 -0700
> From: "tokenpike" <spike66 at att.net>
> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> Message-ID: <041b01cf7c27$1465ac10$3d310430$@att.net>
> 
>> . On Behalf Of Omar Rahman
> 
>> .I can see the positive potential in well regulated capitalism, can you see
> this negative potential in unregulated capitalism?
> 
> 
> 
> Ja.  The real problem is that the term regulation assumes government
> intervention, and all governments are for sale.  Humans have never invented
> a form of government that was anything other than Plutocracies in various
> disguises, completely without exception.  Marx theorized a hypothetical
> alternative.  Humanity experimented with his notions at enormous cost in
> human suffering.  We should go ahead and rip away the masks; recognize that
> all governments everywhere run on gold, at every level everywhere and
> everywhen.  It's the most universal truth of human behavior.  All efforts to
> defeat that observation have merely reinforced it.
> 

"All governments run on gold, at every level everywhere and everywhen." - Spike 

That is quotable in my opinion because it is so very very broad and almost certainly true. By gold I take it you mean money, and by money I take it you mean trust tokens. Governments run on trust. When that trust is broken (i.e. corruption) government has problems.

We currently live in a democratic society where we give large numbers of trust tokens, votes, to other people so that they are delegated to act in government on our behalf. Lobbyists are currently giving lots of 'dollar' trust tokens to our delegates to betray us. Others are giving lots of 'dollar' trust tokens to taint the public discourse with attack ads, misinformation and fear.

These people are reducing the level of public trust in a way that impoverishes society's integrity so as to add more 'dollar' trust tokens into their account books.

We should be mad at this betrayal of our trust. We need to clean up the system so that it functions better. Failure to do so will eventually result in a collapse.

> 
>> . A lot of 'western' thought is influenced by Calvinist/protestant thought
> which basically states that financial or worldly success is a tangible sign
> of 'God's blessing'. 
> 
> 
> 
> Hmmm, Calvinism.  From my own view, religions are equivalent in that they
> are superstitions.

Yes.

> Of those, assuming you don't embrace the superstition but must live in a
> society shaped by those religions, which do you choose? I would choose to
> live among Calvin's mind-children.

We are influenced by or at the very least have been exposed to Calvinist thought. I only want us to recognise this for what it is....and then reject it.

I'll spare you long quote from Wikipedia but: Calvinism ---> Puritanism ---> Salem Witch Trials

Something similar could be done for almost any religion. The Quakers and Sufis might not have any blood on their hands. 


>  The Mormons make good neighbors, as do
> the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, etc.  They tend to
> have small well-fed and well educated families, they keep their yards clean
> and their houses neat, they keep their children home at night.

You mean western people in western countries are living western lifestyles, yes? There is a global trend towards small well fed and educated families. Yard hygiene via NIMBY policies is being increased for some and worsened for others. Home-at-nightedness is still seems highly variable.

> Buddhists would be OK too, ending at mostly the same place from a different path.

Except if they are from 'Bodu Bala Sena'.

>  If societies are shaped by their superstitions, which do you choose?

We never had a choice; we were born into the societies we were born into and went through the educations we went through. The only choice we have now is to find the superstitions embedded in our thought processes and root them out.

> 
>> .Does money have any moral value in itself?...
> 
> 
> Calvin's legacy is to have societies that value having money in the hands of
> good guys rather than in the hands of bad guys.
> 

Calvin's legacy is very mixed, and that the 'good' are predestined by God.

> 
>> .Spike, to pretend that violence in Chicago is linked positively with
> stricter gun registration is ludicrous. Ever heard of a guy named Al Capone?
> That was significantly before Chicago's attempts to control gun ownership.
> Also, at no point were all guns completely illegal in Chicago. (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois )
> 
> 
> 
> Al Capone is an example of what happens when governments are corrupt.  The
> city government of Chicago and even the state of Illinois has been corrupt
> since the days of Al Capone.  Of the last seven Illinois governors, four
> have served time for corruption.  Capone was in bed with the politicians.
> He is a perfect example of bad guys with money and bad guys with political
> power.
> 
> 
>> .For the record I am a 2nd amendment supporter as stated in the
> constitution.
> 
> Me too.  More guns equals less gun crime.  Bad guys get shot.
> 

Nope. Lots of evidence to the contrary. For example, by your hypothesis Detroit should be paradise as there are 'more guns than people'.

> 
>> . This is not an unfettered right as many supreme court decisions have made
> clear. The framers intention was to provide the population with the legal
> framework to form militias capable of resisting the state if a tyranny
> should form. Capitalism is fully able to form a tyranny, please refer to the
> history of the East India Company for one (but not the only) example. Best
> regards, Omar Rahman
> 
> 
> 
> Agreed with part of it.  The big difference is companies cannot force you to
> buy its products.  

Companies can force you to buy their product if they form a monopoly on some staple good. They are motivated to this by the doctrine of maximising profits. I'm not speaking theoretically here. The British East India Company is a really good example of this. Also read a little about the Opium Wars; those are the wars Britain fought to ensure its traders a monopoly in the Opium Trade in China. The drug trade that China was trying to eliminate. Yes folks, before there was a war on drugs, the was a war FOR drugs.

> 
> Conclusion: better to have corporations with the power of wealth; if they
> are evil, you buy from their competitors.  If their competitors are evil,
> you give up cola for coffee.
> 
> 

And if there is an 'evil' monopoly on (salt)/(longevity drugs)/(air in the space station) or whatever else? There are lots of chemical compounds that are technically salts, but I'd prefer to stick to good old NaCl if you don't mind.

Please google 'salt monopoly', there are numerous examples and none of them make capitalism look appealing.

> 
> Capitalism is the way.
> 

To where? 

Capitalism is a system for maximising 'profits' as measured by trust tokens such as the Canadian, American, or Zimbabwean dollars. Capitalism hasn't cared if it was trading in slaves, drugs, weapons for a nation's enemies (i.e. Iran-Contra), etc. etc. etc. You need something else to guide a society.

Social-environmentalism would have as its core the value of protecting our shared physical environment and providing a social environment which enables members to to prosper. These are real measurable things.

Much of the world is already in a post-scarcity economy; my evidence for this is the spreading pandemic of obesity. Much of economic theory has 'scarcity' imbedded in it so that while most of the time we talk about the 'winners' in an economy there is the built in idea that there MUST be losers. Why? Because if someone doesn't lose then there won't be enough to go around. If you start to look at the manipulation of social programs from my sort of perspective it seems that these policies are enacted to create losers. Scarcity will happen by itself whenever nature exceeds our ability to plan for the future, there's no need to create an underclass.

Environmentalism is the way, because it is real and measurable.

Best regards,

Omar Rahman

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