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On ageism, it's not just whether programmers work, it is the quality of the work and the independence of the workers. Where might that matter? Consider the democratic need for programmers to follow ethical standards about privacy and democracy and openness and user empowerment (in their designs) that much centralized proprietary behind-closed-doors big data CS just ignores.

As I found in academia (for example in the PU CE&OR department in the late 1980s), when half or more of the graduate students in an academic department are foreign nationals being paid by their governments to get degrees, where when going back home without a degree would be a huge disgrace and maybe loss of career, the atmosphere of the place changes. That might explain why dealing with systematic financial risk was not a big topic at the time then.

So, if most programmers are nervous about their jobs with tons of H1Bs and cheap young labor, what effect is that going to have on taking a stand for important issues? And these are not just ethical issues, they are even issues like pushing back on inefficient or brittle designs, or designs users won't like, or whatever. It takes a certain level of confidence to do that (a confidence that includes knowing you can always easily get a job elsewhere, which may be true for a fifty year old civil engineer but is less true for a fifty year old programmer). And I'm not talking the brash confidence of youth or even a willingness for self-sacrifice like Snowden or Manning -- which is a different thing. I'm talking about a well-earned confidence in the context of a supportive community which is the basis of day-to-day successes by a democracy accountable to the needs of citizens.

See also:
"Smile or Die" (which discusses the financial crisis in part resulting from no one being able to point out systemic risks without losing their jobs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

And:
http://conceptualguerilla.com/...

And even my other post here mentioning John Taylor Gatto who talks about compulsory schools as being designed specifically to shape compliant workers.

My latest folly is based on remembering what computers and our democratic culture were like in the 1970s and 1980s, is to want to help create software that respects a citizen's needs for private data controlled locally and shared peer-to-peer (like via email) instead of a typical web business' needs (like Slack or gmail) to centralize and control other people's data: :-) Here is that project:
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

I started that with the news that Mozilla, supposedly about internet freedom and privacy and user empowerment, is going to kiss off Thunderbird, meanwhile billions of dollars are poured into the web space to make the opposite of Thunderbird (and some of those dollars are going to Mozilla in a way as a conflict-of-interest). See also my post here:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

The USA should be funding thousands of people to work on such FOSS tools. Meanwhile, Thunderbird suffers for lack of a funding model. Volunteers and open source go together well -- but relying on volunteers is problematical when you have literally one gigabyte of legacy C++ and XUL source code that need to track every security issue in Firefox.

If this was really about increasing interest in computers, just give green cards instead of H1Bs, insist on overtime for programmers, require every employee have a window (like in parts of Europe) and do basic stuff like that. It might also help if we reduced the churn in "new" technologies that are often not as good as the old one (still waiting for something a lot better than 1980s Smalltalk, for example). Getting rid of software patents would a

A mainstream academic economics department is in some ways essentially a modern theocracy.

The book "Disciplined Minds" helps explain the social dynamic behind that (which applies to some extent in most graduate programs, but may be most extreme in some like economics these days):
http://disciplinedminds.com/
"Who are you going to be? That is the question.
In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy.
Schmidt details the battle one must fight to be an independent thinker and to pursue one's own social vision in today's corporate society. He shows how an honest reassessment of what it really means to be a professional employee can be remarkably liberating. After reading this brutally frank book, no one who works for a living will ever think the same way about his or her job."

Supporting examples include "The Market as God": http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...
"A few years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice, vaguely fearful that I would have to cope with a new and baffling vocabulary. Instead I was surprised to discover that most of the concepts I ran across were quite familiar.
Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of deja vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. ..."

And "The Mythology of Wealth": http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
"Justifications for elites and social hierarchy goes all the way back to the pharaohs. For 6000 years, society has organized itself into social classes. The people who do the work are always in the lower classes. The harder and nastier the work, the lower down in the social order you sink. The people who don't do this work must justify their position. They do it by establishing their "worthiness", and a variety of cultural devices have been concocted over the millennia to accomplish this. The pharaohs, you may re

You seem to me to be aiming to imply "involuntary" within an arbitrary legal framework where the person who first twiddled some bits together can control what others later do with that set of bits. I'm assuming you are implying that those other people sharing the original pattern further without permission is "involuntary" sharing by the person who first put the pattern together. I guess I can see that perspective on "sharing", even if it is defining "sharing" in a way that emphasizes (using contract law) the preferences of the original creator over the preferences of any current holders of a copy of the bit sequence.

If you have a digital copy of a recent song released under a typical commercial license, it is illegal in the USA to give a copy of that song to someone else (maybe with some fair use exceptions). You have a local copy of something, but the law says you can't share it with those who want or need it based on the license chosen by the author or the current copyright holder. That is the sharing I'm talking about.

What if it was a song like, say, "Desperado" and you were too poor to buy a copy to give to some young guy like, say, Aaron Schwartz about to do something really alienated and foolish? :-( Thankfully there are still other options:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics...
"And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
[other great parts omitted out of copyright fears]"

It is really a very odd idea though, when you think about it, that some initial distributor of the song (let alone a government-funded research paper) gets to prevent you from copying, modifying, and/or redistributing a pattern of bits stored on hardware in your possession. It seems very undemocratic as it opens up the possibility that on the flimsiest of evidence anyone who claims any sort of copyright on anything can demand an inspection of the contents of any data storage to make sure a crime has not been committed?

In ancient times, someone inspired to write a song might have been seen to have received a transmission from some godly muse. From that perspective, by what right can such a person enter into a contract to restrict the redistribution of that muse's work? Isn't such a restriction imposed by the government an interference with the divine as well as with charitable human society?

I'm not saying I necessarily see it that way myself, but it's an example of how there are all sorts of ways to look at these things. The way that is dominant in the current legal system is the result of past political struggles and is not the only perspective. As is mentioned here:
http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
"Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a "leisure class". As capitalism has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old mythologies - gods, the "great chain of being" etc. - are no longer available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class, something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was needed was a new "rational" world-view that justified the existence of privileged elites. That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as economics, which included a brand new mythology."

Another perspective:
http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs...
"In India, where monopolisation is mostly frowned upon especially with the respect to creative aspects, Creative Commons seems like a fitting option to be adopted."

Or further:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/...
""There is an overall culture of sharing knowledge here, even if this isn't called 'Creative Commons'. We had the laun

"After all, that's what happened to virtually everybody else on Earth. Do you ever wonder why you have to work five days a week, until you're 67, and then you die within a few years of retirement? Who claims to own all the land in your country? When somebody sells a piece of land, how did they claim to own it in the first place? The people of the rainforest are being forced off their OWN land, where they have lived for tens of thousands of years, to be turned into wage slaves, working in factories. Wake up."

Insightful. It has been suggested the "Garden of Eden" story is really about the painful transition from hunting/gathering by tribes to agriculture managed by militaristic bureaucracies. Several groups of people have similar stories, some fairly recently as they were forced to convert to agriculture by being pushed off their native lands. This happened also in England with the "Enclosure acts".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Various pushed to "privatization" in the USA are the same old thing... And it is expanding to water rights, spectrum rights, endless copyrights, overly broad patents, and so on...

Related:
http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
http://www.whywork.org/rethink...
http://www.primitivism.com/ori...
http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
http://www.basicincome.org/bie...

And the amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Sle...
"A riveting account of the astonishing experiences and discoveries made by linguist Daniel Everett while he lived with the Piraha, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil. Daniel Everett arrived among the Piraha with his wife and three young children hoping to convert the tribe to Christianity. Everett quickly became obsessed with their language and its cultural and linguistic implications. The Piraha have no counting system, no fixed terms for color, no concept of war, and no personal property. Everett was so impressed with their peaceful way of life that he eventually lost faith in the God he'd hoped to introduce to them, and instead devoted his life to the science of linguistics. Part passionate memoir, part scientific exploration, Everett's life-changing tale is riveting look into the nature of language, thought, and life itself."

Howard Zinn wrote about what parts of America were like before Columbus began the conquest (backed by profiteering organizations run for "the love of money"):
http://www.historyisaweapon.co...
"The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask." He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities." Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim

See Dan Pink's presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

So, much of the premise of differential rewards to spur innovation is flawed (even though it does apply to some extent for hard manual labor not involving much creativity). What Dan Pink says motivates people most to work in creative innovative directions is a sense of purpose, a sense of autonomy, and an increasing sense of mastery.

Also on that theme by Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
http://www.amazon.com/No-Conte...

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
"The book argues that there are "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption".[5] It claims that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.[1] The book contains graphs that are available online.[6]"

And see also, on how the logic of diminishing returns in economics got replaced by the concept of "Pareto efficient":
"Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal"
http://www.amazon.com/Economic...

Also on the social dynamics and mythology related to all this: http://conceptualguerilla.com/...

You made a good presentation of the roots of the better ideas behind capitalism. But somehow along the way, as power accumulated and corrupted our main social institutions in the USA and elsewhere, those ideas got stretched into neoliberalism... Here is a conceptual video on what happens as those neoliberal ideas expand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

For some comic relief (and a bit more insight), the first novel in a futuristic sci-fi series featuring cybertanks fighting against neoliberalism (especially in the third novel in the series started by the Chronicles of Old Guy by Timothy Gawne):
http://www.amazon.com/The-Chro...

As long as we have an economy based mostly on exchange and capitalism, and as automation takes more and more jobs, it seems like we would need a basic income to make the system more humane and also keep it going by creating demand. So, to do that, we can just reduce the age of the first Social Security payment from age 65 to age 0, and fund that via taxes and fees royalties on use of government assets (like the Alaska Permanent Fund) and so on. However, long term, as I say on my website, we will likely see a mix of advanced subsistence production (3D printers, solar cells, Mr. Fusion), an expanded gift economy (FOSS, Freecycle), better democratic planning (like via the internet), and an exchange economy softened by a basic income.

http://www.basicincome.org/bie...

Not because my kid is a dummy (far from it), but because I know becoming and staying an "owner" in the 1% is like winning the lottery. And societies with big rich/poor divides are less happy to live in -- even for the 1%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08...
"Stiglitz and his allies argue that a free and competitive market is highly beneficial to society at large, but that it needs government regulation and oversight to remain functional. Without constraint, dominant interests use their leverage to make gains at the expense of the majority. Concentration of power in private hands, Stiglitz believes, can be just as damaging to the functioning of markets as excessive regulation and political control. "

See also on how aspiring millionaires are used to keep everyone down:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://conceptualguerilla.com/...
"But here's something I'll bet the dittoheads haven't thought of. Maybe they're the chumps. Maybe they've been sold a bogus "American dream" that never existed. Maybe "the rules" they play by were written by the people who have "made it" -- not by the people who haven't. And maybe -- just maybe-- the people who have "made it" wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that's a mirage."

I wrote an essay on why even rich people should support a basic income:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basi...

The fact is, most paid jobs are going away as robots and AIs become cheaper to employ than humans for more and more jobs -- even "creative" ones, like I discuss here
http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyo...

Preparing your kid to win the 20th century economic rat race leaves him or her a rat on a sinking economic ship in a 21st century economy...

That said, independence when needed, cooperation when needed, hard work, prudence, saving, frugality, investing in the future -- in broad sense, these are all good things to learn however a kid applies them later in life.

On code, the free code and content I write now and in the past like our free garden simulator and other tools has helped (a teeny tiny bit, I hope) to help bring about a 21st century transformation to a bigger gift economy, to better planning, to a more informed and enlightened and empowered citizenry. For example, this freely usable software someone else lets me reformat my slashdot posts to remove smart quotes from quotations in the above that display wrong:
http://dan.hersam.com/tools/sm...

So, free code and free content can make a difference in the world by making the world a better place in various ways. And then, such a society can hopefully do a better job of taking care of old farts like I will be soon enough -- if I am not already. :-) As well as doing a better job of taking care of the next generation which is much more important than taking care of the previous generation -- although you would not know that looking at who gets "Social Security" and Medicare in the USA -- the old, not the young). As Daniel Moynihan said, "the young don't vote, and it shows".

Kids grow so fast. Enjoy them while you can! See also:
http://www.katsandogz.com/onch...
----
On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

American laborers can't compete with labor from China, India, Vietnam, etc.

That's what the big corporations want you to believe, anyway, but there's no real evidence that it's true.

In the real world, workers have to eat. The caloric demands of an Indian or Malay family do not differ radically from those of an American family (which probably has fewer children). In the real world, goods have to be sent to market. The further the distance traveled, and the less polluting the method of transport, the more it costs.

Thus locally produced goods always outcompete foreign goods, unless foreign workers and the environment are both being abused.

So, right now, the big corps are abusing foreigners and the environment in order to drive local labor costs down and solidify their hold on political power.

It's all about pulling the rug out from under the US working class.. There's no truth in the idea that American labor can't compete in a fair market; that's a toxic meme.

To start with the bottom line: the very computers that make the new NSA facilities possible mean that the NSA's formal purpose is essentially soon to be at an end. Nothing you or I say here will reverse that trend. The only issue is how soon the NSA as a whole recognizes that fact, and then how people there choose to deal with that reality.

Overall, you make some great points about social dynamics and changing the system vs. changing your place in the system. That is all very insightful. It is also true that young men tend to focus more on competition (making it in the system) and older men on cooperation (making the system keep working) - and our youth-oriented US culture tends to celebrate the competition side publicly more. I'd have to agree that, in general, someone overall much above average in abilities that are currently in demand is individually usually better off investing their personal efforts in changing their place in the system in the short term (rather than trying to change the system) as far as access to resources that they can then use for personal ends (like to have a prosperous family) -- especially when they are young (part of this is also female preference and standing out). In the short term, narrow selfishness often pays off (and even sometimes in the long term, too).

That is pretty undeniable -- although there are a few caveats even then. Not all women want the same thing in a man (contrast with the Haudenosaunee culture and the women's choice of Tadodaho, like someone more compassionate and philosophical like Leon Shenandoah). There is also the issue of what values are you teaching you kids who will care for you in your old age. There is the issue of what friends you keep and how likely they may be to stab you in the back if they are also extreme social climbers. Too many "pleasure trap" rich foods (or drugs) are bad for the health. There also seems to be a law of diminishing returns to more stuff, beyond which doing good deeds and giving gifts and so on is probably going to bring you more overall happiness; see:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/07/1519221/Researchers-Say-Happiness-Costs-75k

Probably there is even a law of diminishing or even negative returns to more "social power", although we could debate that.

There is also a sense in which many people who engage in a certain kind of economic race are statistically being "chumps" according to this:
http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47/
"And maybe - just maybe - the people who have "made it" wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that's a mirage."

Trying to change the system (at least as an individual) can for most people be a guarantee of heartbreak, loneliness, poverty, having few kids, and so on. Not that nature probably really cares about the suffering if one person succeeds though. A salmon may lay a thousand eggs to see just one survive to adulthood.

Ultimately, we may well see a newer type of economy simply because the old one is just looking so ugly these days and dysfunctional these days, although some say that has been true for a century:
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014

And in general, some people are seeing the value of increased cooperation, even in the USA:
"No contest: the case against competition"
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
"Alfie Kohn, author of No contest: the case against competition, disagrees completely. He argues that competition is essentially detrimental to every important aspect of human experience; our relationships, self-esteem, enjoyment of leisure, and even productivity would all be improved if we were to break out of

Thanks for the reply. One can wonder sometimes if there are other factors like ideology or a current relative distribution of power that some people think more important than either happiness or material productivity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA
http://web.archive.org/web/20110425153540/http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm

But, it may overall just be more easily explained by ignorance. Or possibly because what plutocratic management is so often about is not encouraging high absolute levels of productivity or creativity in a society but in getting productivity and creativity focused on narrowly defined business objectives -- objectives that benefit those who already socially have control of a lot of resources and claim rents from them? So, even if absolute productivity is lower with "carrot and stick", it is productivity those who claim rents can benefit from... Of course, that explanation would not sit well with the high priests of unfettered capitalism or their most devout followers:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47/

Thanks for the reply. One can wonder sometimes if there are other factors like ideology or a current relative distribution of power that some people think more important than either happiness or material productivity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA
http://web.archive.org/web/20110425153540/http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm

But, it may overall just be more easily explained by ignorance. Or possibly because what plutocratic management is so often about is not encouraging high absolute levels of productivity or creativity in a society but in getting productivity and creativity focused on narrowly defined business objectives -- objectives that benefit those who already socially have control of a lot of resources and claim rents from them? So, even if absolute productivity is lower with "carrot and stick", it is productivity those who claim rents can benefit from... Of course, that explanation would not sit well with the high priests of unfettered capitalism or their most devout followers:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47/

"Money is not the enemy, it is a tool for managing a large group of people. The legal structure that surrounds money, its distribution and its use are how that tool is used, and determine whether money will free people and empower or if it is will trap people and enslave them. The far-right has worked hard in America to turn money into a tool for controlling people, trapping them in their position in society and enforcing a rigid social structure; that is what needs to be attacked."

I just wanted to add that this is a very insightful point, thanks. It reminds me a bit of this:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Lawrence Lessing writes in "Code 2.0" that there are at least four ways to control people's behavior: rules, norms, prices, and architecture. One of the big problems in the USA today is that it is so market driven, but there are many externalities (like pollution from coal burning) that are not priced into the cost of things up-front.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I might add that the left has some of its own version of using money to control as well though through government programs. The right often celebrates self-reliance while accusing the left that they cultivate dependency.

Also, it's possible that sometimes artifacts (including the idea of money) have implicit politics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon_Winner
"In 1980 Winner proposed that technologies embody social relations i.e. power. To the question he poses "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", Winner identifies two ways in which artifacts can have politics. ..."

"The main thing is the solutions are there, the problem can be solved."

Yes, that is my key point. Solutions exist even if we may choose collectively not to pursue them. Thanks for the summary and insights into issues of power. A related item:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Whether we decide to solve these problem is getting to be more a social issue than a technological one. A related essay I wrote:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/a7abadb8867dae79?hl=en
"One can think of it this simplified way. Imagine abundance for all takes a society earning 100 "social-technical" points. :-) These points come from the multiplication of the "social" points times the "technical" points.
So, 50 * 2 = 100.
Or, 2 * 50 = 100.
or, 10 * 10 = 100."

One big problem is that every day it gets easier and easier for fewer and fewer people to wipe out all of humanity. For example, the genetic code was like a lock that prevented designer plagues (or attempts at them). Now that that code has been "broken", we are all at extreme risk of plagues created for whatever reasons. And it is not as easy to change your DNA as it is to change your ssh key.

As Bucky Fuller said decades ago, whether it will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end...

I find this 1950s story called "The Skills of Xanadu" inspirational about the possible power of the internet for social change, but even then, the internet could be used for a crackdown too:
http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false

So, I don't know what will happen. I only can see from everything I've read on slashdot and elsewhere what could possibly happen in terms of solutions.

Likely we may get a range of outcomes in different places. India actually seems to me a place that may get it together best -- a culture of villages, a culture of sharing, a common knowledge of English, a youthful population, and so on...
http://p2pfoundation.net/Creative_Commons_-_Critiques#The_perverse_effects_of_CC_in_the_developing_world
"There is an overall culture of sharing knowledge here, even if this isn't called 'Creative Commons'. We had the launch of CCIndia in early 2007, but there seems to be little activity there... I think CC is a bit too conservative and too respectful of copyright issues. Copyright has not worked for us (in the developing world) for generations. Generally speaking, copyright in any form, including CC, doesn't fit in too well with Asian ideas of knowledge, since it enables those controlling knowledge and information over the rest, and we find it impossible to emerge winners in this game. It is a colonial law, not meant to serve the interest of the people of those parts of the globe that are not ahead in the information race! Why should we be as respectful to it, as, say, Lawrence Lessig is?"

Maybe we'll see more good things from Skikshantar?
http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/udaipur.html

I found the article you pointed to at the Conceptual Guerilla to be an interesting piece at a site devoted to cutting edge progressive thought and politics. I think I've found a companion piece of similar gravitas over at The People's Cube.

Of course no web article is going to cover material like this in any real depth. Anyone wishing to explore related themes may want to consider some of the following books by prominent African American economist Thomas Sowell:

Marxism: Philosophy and economics
Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study
Race and Culture: A World View
Intellectuals and Society
Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Economic Facts and Fallacies: Second Edition
The Housing Boom and Bust, Revised Edition
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell will never have the following of a Chomsky, but then he doesn't have Chomsky's genocide denier problem. (Cambodian genocide)

Politics vs. Economics - Short-term decisions have long-term effects
Evil-Man Economics

I found the article you pointed to at the Conceptual Guerilla to be an interesting piece at a site devoted to cutting edge progressive thought and politics. I think I've found a companion piece of similar gravitas over at The People's Cube.

Of course no web article is going to cover material like this in any real depth. Anyone wishing to explore related themes may want to consider some of the following books by prominent African American economist Thomas Sowell:

Marxism: Philosophy and economics
Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study
Race and Culture: A World View
Intellectuals and Society
Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Economic Facts and Fallacies: Second Edition
The Housing Boom and Bust, Revised Edition
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell will never have the following of a Chomsky, but then he doesn't have Chomsky's genocide denier problem. (Cambodian genocide)

Politics vs. Economics - Short-term decisions have long-term effects
Evil-Man Economics

... through arguing over resource allocation. According to "Conceptual Guerilla", mainstream economics is just mainly a mythological cover story to justify elites:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Example:
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
"The authors of this appeal are deeply concerned that more than three years since the outbreak of the financial and macroeconomic crisis that highlighted the pitfalls, limitations, dangers and responsibilities of main-stream thought in economics, finance and management, the quasi-monopolistic position of such thought within the academic world nevertheless remains largely unchallenged. This situation reflects the institutional power that the unconditional proponents of main-stream thought continue to exert on university teaching and research. This domination, propagated by the so-called top universities, dates back at least a quarter of a century and is effectively global. However, the very fact that this paradigm persists despite the current crisis, highlights the extent of its power and the dangerousness of its dogmatic character. Teachers and researchers, the signatories of the appeal, assert that this situation restricts the fecundity of research and teaching in economics, finance and management, diverting them as it does from issues critical to society."

Other ways to look at economics:
http://debunkingeconomics.com/

And also the similarly named:
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014
"Why do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the "science" of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny. Filled with lively examples--from food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry Summers--Economics for the Rest of Us shows how today's dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they're not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinking--and why it is dead wrong--Economics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system."

I also mention three other aspects that are important too besides a basic income (a gift economy, improved subsistence, and improved planning). More on all that by me:
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

If you look at the hard data yourself, you will see that US governments (federal, state, local) together spend about US$600 per month per capita on welfare, unemployment, and schooling. If that money was given directly to every citizen, a family of four would be getting US$2400 per month (tax free) which for many would be enough to live on and homeschool in an area of the country with a low cost of housing (especially as both parents could still do additional work or subsistence gardening activities and would have time to be frugal and would have less stress leading to recreational shopping therapy).
http://www.whywork.org/action/lifestyle/jobfree.html

With more involved parenting, and more neighbors with free time for being involved in their communities, most neighborhoods will be much better place to grow up in, and there will be less juvenile delinquency and fewer kids wanting to act out by hurting others. See also:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

The graph you point to, indicating rising government over the next few decades up to about one-half the GDP, is pretty meaningless in the sense that it must depend on a lot of unstated assumptions all subject to political action. Also, some things like health spending may drop greatly as people understand health better; see the links I assembled here:
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

Besides, what is wrong with redistributing one half the GDP as a basic income (and health insurance)? That would amount to about US$2000 per month as a right of citizenship right now (more if the economy grew more), and to make up for the effective enclosure of the land and of the copyright commons and for pollution suffered from industry and so on. I think that could make a lot of sense, and so do many others:
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

The remaining half of the GDP would be about as big as the total US GDP around 1995, which seemed big enough to motivate anyone who needed motivating by money back then. :-)

Alaska has something called a Permanent Fund that is somewhat like that (Sarah Palin helped grow it):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

Also, right now the US governments spend more per capita for medical care than other countries require to give all their citizens generally better health care outcomes than in the USA.

So, the numbers easily work out. It is the ideology that is the problem. See:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"Justifications for elites and social hierarchy goes all the way back to the pharaohs. ..."

The fact is, our current socioeconomic system is falling apart (see other links I've posted in this thread) -- and one consequence of that is increased domestic violence and increased warfare. I have collected more details here:
http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

So, the status quo is failing, and increasingly at risk from WMDs from alienated people. We ne

Sadly, I have to agree that the issue you raise is a big potential problem (especially that those with power and wealth often use that first and foremost to preserve their relative privilege), and it is very much what the USA is already struggling through. For example, real wages have been essentially flat in the USA for the past thirty to forty years, while productivity has doubled or tripled and the money has gone to the workers not as wages but as loans:
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/

Things may well get much worse before they get better, before people (OWS etc.) eventually confront "the mythology of wealth":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"In fact, the cheap-labor conservatives have counter-attacked with their own “rational” theory to justify their hierarchical world-view. Some call it “Social Darwinism”, though more politically savvy cheap-labor conservatives avoid that term. The purpose of this “rational theory” is to establish that the existing social order is the “natural order”. Elites enjoy wealth, privilege and status because of their inherent superiority. The place where this natural hierarchy is established, is that mythical place known as the “market”."

And:
"The Market as God"
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/

Marshall Brain talks about that general issue here:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
"With the rank and file employees gone, all of the money in the corporation flows upward to the executives and shareholders. The concentration of wealth will accelerate dramatically because robots allow real automation in the service sector for the first time in history. The amount of money paid to executives and shareholders will be remarkable. Meanwhile, the one million displaced employees will flow into a job market that is flooded by robotically-displaced workers. Since all major corporations with large numbers of employees will be doing the same thing, it is difficult to imagine the economy suddenly creating enough jobs to absorb all of the displaced workers. If the economy does not create new jobs for them, they will be living in government welfare dormitories. "

And also in his story "Manna":
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

This is starting to happen even in China. See, for example:
"Foxconn to replace workers with 1 million robots in 3 years"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-07/30/c_131018764.htm
"Foxconn, the world's largest maker of computer components which assembles products for Apple, Sony and Nokia, is in the spotlight after a string of suicides of workers at its massive Chinese plants, which some blamed on tough working conditions."

Or from a couple years ago:
http://www.plasticsnews.com/china/english/headlines2.html?id=1278958338
"In the wake of labor unrest, Chinese factories are adding automation to control rising labor costs. It was bound to happen. China, once considered one of the lowest-cost automotive producers because of its supply of cheap labor, is becoming another example of rising expectations as workers demand their share of the country's growing industrial prosperity. The rash of strikes at Honda and Toyota parts factories and assembly plants in southern China this year -- with demands for substantially higher wages at the Japanese-owned companies

"It's been shown over and over that giving out hand-outs encourages abuse and laziness."

What would you say if someone said you had to start paying $10,000 a month for breathable air supply? You'd say that was not fair, right? You would question the "mythology" behind that enclosure of the atmospheric commons you depend on, right?
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
So, why should you have to pay for access to the fruits of industrial commons and agricultural commons given the government has said all the land has been privatized (or is government owned and effectively off-limits for personal use)?

This doesn't really counter my assertion at all. Also your link sounds like a lot of anti-capitalism stuff I've read; it even calls property rights and contract rights "mythology", but never backs up these claims with anything other than a vague "society is unfair!" cry, and doesn't propose any actual ways to fix the problems that society and our current economic system do have. If you don't have property rights, then how do you determine who can do what with what resources? Have a giant totalitarian government make all the decisions using a command economy? We've already seen that that doesn't work at all.

So, sure, some of wealth is work. But most is not. So, one half the GDP could be a basic income, and the other half would motivate those who needed motivating by money. That would be a basic income of US$2000 per month per citizen, leaving a GDP from 1993 or so to motivate those who needed motivation. Weren't people motivated enough to do a lot of stuff in 1993?

$2k per month is poverty income. It might keep people from starving, but that's about it. But this still doesn't answer why anyone should continue to work if they're going to get paid whether they work or not. We're nowhere near the point where robots can mop the floors and clean the toilets everywhere. Now if this income were a base level, and anything more you earned was on top of that (and didn't reduce it, as it does in most welfare situations, encouraging people to not work), this might be useful; it seems to work ok for Alaskans and Norwegians after all. Instead of having a welfare system with the attendant bureaucracy and effort spent looking for cheaters, just give everyone a flat $2k per month, no questions asked, and at least everyone would have enough to eat and pay for rent in some craphole.

Our society is becoming so productive that it only takes a very few to provide for the many, given technology is an amplifier. It may take thousands of people to contribute to Debian GNU/Linux, but it provide software for billions of people.

Society can't run on people sitting around just writing software. Physical work has to be done at some point: bathrooms need to be cleaned, buildings need to be built, cars need to be repaired, factories have to be run, food needs to be cooked, etc. Automation has indeed done amazing things in some factory operations, where the work is extremely repetitive. But I don't see any robots able to clean bathrooms, either now or in the next 100 years. Someone has to do the crap jobs.

On how robots (or AI or better design or voluntary social networks) are going to take your job most likely pretty soon anyway:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm

As an engineer, I think this guy's predictions are about 50-100 years too optimistic. He talks about fully-automated retail checkout in 3 years, which is total BS. I used to work at a company making retail payment terminals; they're no different now than they were 10-15 years ago, except that now everyone uses debit transactions instead of credit (and which requires far more security), and they're switching from boring-looking old terminals to ones with bigger, fancier touchscreens so they can show video ads on them. Huge improvement there.... Robotic

Thanks for the challenging reply. And you indeed have a good point about cells and gravity, although mammals spin around so much, it's not clear how essential that is. More research is needed.

I think you have not yet gotten the mindshift about post-scarcity though, sorry. Even regular economics can take us very far with enough cheap energy, that we almost certainly will have soon from fusion or thorium power if nothing else:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR06.txt

"It's been shown over and over that giving out hand-outs encourages abuse and laziness."

What would you say if someone said you had to start paying $10,000 a month for breathable air supply? You'd say that was not fair, right? You would question the "mythology" behind that enclosure of the atmospheric commons you depend on, right?
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

So, why should you have to pay for access to the fruits of industrial commons and agricultural commons given the government has said all the land has been privatized (or is government owned and effectively off-limits for personal use)?

A basic income is a right, not a hand-out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
"Douglas disagreed with classical economists who divided the factors of production into only land, labour and capital. While Douglas did not deny these factors in production, he believed the âoecultural inheritance of societyâ was the primary factor. Cultural inheritance is defined as the knowledge, technique and processes that have been handed down to us incrementally from the origins of civilization. Consequently, mankind does not have to keep âoereinventing the wheelâ. âoeWe are merely the administrators of that cultural inheritance, and to that extent the cultural inheritance is the property of all of us, without exception.â"

So, sure, some of wealth is work. But most is not. So, one half the GDP could be a basic income, and the other half would motivate those who needed motivating by money. That would be a basic income of US$2000 per month per citizen, leaving a GDP from 1993 or so to motivate those who needed motivation. Weren't people motivated enough to do a lot of stuff in 1993?

Also, when welfare is only for the sick and disabled, you get "jurisgenic disease" from only getting money when you seem sick or disabled, so you have an incentive to think that way. It's very sad.

On motivation in the information age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

On moving beyond money:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

People help children. Does that destroy them? Eventually, they want to contribute to their communities (most of them, eventually, if they are not sick physically or mentally in some way).

Our society is becoming so productive that it only takes a very few to provide for the many, given technology is an amplifier. It may take thousands of people to contribute to Debian GNU/Linux, but it provide software for billions of people. Related by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html

On how robots (or AI or better design or voluntary social networks) are going

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The right likes to think that every Leftist "hates" the "rich". I suppose there are those on the Left who hate the rich, but if they do, their anger is misplaced. It's the "wannabe's" you have to watch out for. ..."

"Yes because food, shelter and medical care are not enough. The safety net should include PS3s and 50" flat panels like those the rioters are carrying off"

Two ways your sarcasm misses the point:
* Advanced 3D printers could print out PS3s and flat panels someday, probably sooner than you think (say, twenty to thirty years, maybe sooner).
* A basic income is not a "safety" net; it is about human rights, and the right of a citizen to make a claim on the industrial commons as a right of citizenship and having some equity in the land the government is the ultimate owner of.
    "The Mythology of Wealth"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Already in the USA, the old have a basic income (called social security) and the young get money spent on their behalf (problematically) in schools. With unemployment and some other things, that averages out to about US$700 per person per month. Why not just give everyone that much money directly at any age (and take it away again when they are in jail, so, an incentive not to riot)?

Really, how expensive are PS3s and Flat Panels, anyway? They are getting cheaper all the time. It is a lot cheaper even for the government to give such things away then pay for face-to-face education or entertainment or deal with civil unrest. Not saying drugging the country with PS3s is an optimum strategy for social health though (it's fairly Brave New World-ish).

Seriously, if someone has been so disadvantaged in our society by not being able to find meaningful work, or not having great friends and family to help them out when they are down, then you begrudge them a home entertainment system to hide away from that painful reality with? These rioters are essentially stealing (computerized) painkillers.

The USSR had to guard its borders against potential escapees who hated it there; it seems the USA (and UK etc.) needs to guard its medicine cabinets for the same reasons. What does that tell you about a society?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
"In economics, an externality (or transaction spillover) is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices,[1] incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit. A benefit in this case is called a positive externality or external benefit, while a cost is called a negative externality or external cost."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
"The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit. This created a landless working class that provided the labour required in the new industries developing in the north of England. "

Anyway, AC, so that is the kind of reasons you got screwed by the system, and why you are poor when your current birthright is currently about 1/7-billionth of the Earth and ultimately the same percentage of the solar system or beyond. You have a right to part of our cultural and technical capital, but you deny that right for yourself, and for everyone else. See also, on why wealth comes from more than present-day labor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit

And that is why the first part of this "Manna" story by Marshall Brain may well be your future (and for the rest of us, too):
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

The problem in the USA, which has been pursuing regressive neoliberalism for decades, is that the US Republicans are the worst sort of Socialists, who privatize profits (Enclosure) while socializing costs (Externalities). A truly socialist country would not do that. As for your suggestion of "America, love its regressive neoliberalism or leave it", well, people can't move as easily as capital encoded in internet packets -- they have family issues, language issues, cultural issues. So most people are stuck in the USA as it goes down the toilet. The USA may well take the whole world with it too, given all its stockpiled WMDs (which is another reason to stay and try to reform it, since where are you gonna hide from widespread US-originated plagues, nuclear fallout, and killer robots?). See also:
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
"Neoliberalism As Water Balloon"
http://vimeo.com/6803752

Meanwhile, you are just defending your own assailants because they have misled you with their self-serving "mythology of wealth":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

That said, local subsistence is one way forward, but so is a basic income, a gift economy, and better democratic planning at all levels of our society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

See also: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
""Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell ..."

Well, not quite, since as you point out, a certain group line their own pockets, too (see also Smedly Butler).

And also related:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

Alternatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

See also: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
""Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell ..."

Well, not quite, since as you point out, a certain group line their own pockets, too (see also Smedly Butler).

And also related:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

Alternatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

See also: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
""Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell ..."

Well, not quite, since as you point out, a certain group line their own pockets, too (see also Smedly Butler).

And also related:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

Alternatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

"Now the bloodbath that is happening in Mexico makes sense. We are the human sacrifices to the almighty Market."

Good point. And also, just like some Aztecs thought the sun would come up without human sacrifice, many economists might argue production won't come up without the poor and unemployed as human sacrifices too in a way, the argument being that poverty (including lack of access to health care) creates a willing labor pool:
"Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16

See also "The Mythology of Wealth":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"According to the new mythology, human beings are economic competitors. The "marketplace" is the new "Valhalla", where "economic man" frolics. The "market" we are told, contains its own "rationality". It rewards the efficient. It rewards that list of virtues George Will cites, like "thrift", "delayed gratification" and of course, "hard work". Free competition in the market place "rationally" selects the more "worthy" competitor. Thus, the wealthy are the superior competitors who have "earned" their elite status. If you haven't succeeded it can only be because of your "inferiority".
    Before debunking this whole ideology, a few observations are in order. First of all, notice that the hierarchical social order is back. It has a new veneer of "rationality", but it is the same old ugly reality. Elites are "better" than you. The non-elites who do the work have "earned" their position, and are proper objects of scorn. Thus, we have a handful of haves, worthy of admiration and respect, and a large class of industrial serfs who own nothing but their bellies. The theory has changed, but the reality is just the same. Not surprisingly, cheap-labor believers in the "rational" hierarchy are hostile to democracy. In fact, they have decided that democratic government is an enemy to "market efficiency". What Thomas Jefferson won through debunking the old forms of social hierarchy, today's cheap-labor conservative is busy taking back through his new "rational" form of the same old sh*t. ..."

"Now the bloodbath that is happening in Mexico makes sense. We are the human sacrifices to the almighty Market."

Good point. And also, just like some Aztecs thought the sun would come up without human sacrifice, many economists might argue production won't come up without the poor and unemployed as human sacrifices too in a way, the argument being that poverty (including lack of access to health care) creates a willing labor pool:
"Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16

See also "The Mythology of Wealth":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"According to the new mythology, human beings are economic competitors. The "marketplace" is the new "Valhalla", where "economic man" frolics. The "market" we are told, contains its own "rationality". It rewards the efficient. It rewards that list of virtues George Will cites, like "thrift", "delayed gratification" and of course, "hard work". Free competition in the market place "rationally" selects the more "worthy" competitor. Thus, the wealthy are the superior competitors who have "earned" their elite status. If you haven't succeeded it can only be because of your "inferiority".
    Before debunking this whole ideology, a few observations are in order. First of all, notice that the hierarchical social order is back. It has a new veneer of "rationality", but it is the same old ugly reality. Elites are "better" than you. The non-elites who do the work have "earned" their position, and are proper objects of scorn. Thus, we have a handful of haves, worthy of admiration and respect, and a large class of industrial serfs who own nothing but their bellies. The theory has changed, but the reality is just the same. Not surprisingly, cheap-labor believers in the "rational" hierarchy are hostile to democracy. In fact, they have decided that democratic government is an enemy to "market efficiency". What Thomas Jefferson won through debunking the old forms of social hierarchy, today's cheap-labor conservative is busy taking back through his new "rational" form of the same old sh*t. ..."

By me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
"This video presents a simplified education model about socioeconomics and technological change. It discusses five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and how the balance will shift with cultural changes and technological changes. It suggests that things like a basic income, better planning, improved subsistence, and an expanded gift economy can compensate in part for an exchange economy that is having problems. The text for the presentation is here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/media/FiveInterwovenEconomies.pdf "

I've been wondering if I should include attention and reputation in there too?

So, there are alternatives to the exchange economy. Also"
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6928744.ece
"Former teacher Heidemarie Schwermer has lived without money in Germany for 13 years. Our writer finds out how she does it."

Think also about did people live before money existed?
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html

But back then not all land was "privatized" and hoarded and rented for money... So people could hunt and gather.

Note also that "money", like fiat dollars, is essentially imaginary.
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

To agree with you: http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html
"The Original Affluent Society... Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. ... The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

And "The mythology of wealth"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"All of the "laws, ordinances, customs and usages" that regulate control over resources and relationships between people -- including their business relationships -- are nothing more than a set of rules invented by the imagination of some human being -- frequently one who has been dead since the middle ages. Those rights are frequently exchanged for -- get this -- printed pieces of paper with pictures of dead people on them. Where is the value of those pieces of paper? The answer is in your mind, in the mind of the person you are "bargaining" with -- and nowhere else. Itâ(TM)s all a big game. It is our mythology, and it is no more real than belief in Zeus, Hera and Aphrodite."

On the wheels coming off our system (scary, but incomplete as it ignores automation and the general decline of the paid value of most human labor, so it will be worse):
http://www.aftershockeconomy.com/
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/aftershockb/video.cfm

On moving beyond that (by me):
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

I agree with you on banks, but as for "voluntary trades", if all the land was enclosed through military force (see the enclosure acts or the hisotry of displacing natives in the Americas), preventing people from hunting and gathering or eventually using advanced nanotech to make solar panels and food in their self-replicating 3D printers from local raw materials, then what is voluntary about having to become a wage slave in order to get food and other goods? That is an argument for a "basic income" as a human right to redress the enclosure and privatization of most public resources.

Also, when one party is at a huge finanical or informational or legal disadvantage to another, including by being pushed to try addictive products like the original "Coca-Cola", it is hard to consider any trade "voluntary", as huge concentrations of wealth tend to reshape the legal-socioeconomic landscape in their favor (including by advertising and lobbying). Related:
    "Cheap-Labor Conservative Issues Guide"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16

There are other types of economic transactions, too, beyond exchange and subsistence, like gift giving, planning, and theft -- the last being something the US banking industry seems good at, as in, "give us trillions of dollars or we break-a your economy"). See also on the five economies:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

Local solar panels are at least a step to breaking out of that.

"Our current notions of property exist because they benefit enough of society that people have approved the appropriate force required to enforce those notions."

For more on that theme, see:
    "The Mythology of Wealth"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"... The first thing they teach you in law school -- and I mean the first thing-- is that "property" is a collection of legal rights. They are mental abstractions. They were created in more or less their present form in the middle ages by common law judges. ... Under our system of laws, the ultimate owner of all "property" is the sovereign -- the government. That is who originally granted your "rights". Our system of laws and government defines your rights, and creates an entire infrastructure to regulate them. There are courts that will "enforce" your rights â" that is send out the local muscle man known as the "sheriff" to chuck "squatters" off your property. Every state in the union has a system of publicly recording the documents that establish your "title" in order to put the world on notice of exactly "owns" what. So, how are these "property rights" created? That's easy. They are created the same way all mythological realities are created -- with a little mumbo-jumbo. ..."

* Subsistence ("There are some lovely berries here")
* Gift ("This deer is too big to eat before it spoils, so let's share it, and others will share next time")
* Exchange ("You give me some meat, and I will give you fruit").
* Planned ("You over there will hunt the meat and you over there will gather the fruit and we will divide it up")
* Theft ("Give me your fruit and meat because I'm stronger or cleverer than you")

The balance shifts with technological and cultural changes.

Theft is, sadly, a form of self-employment, or even subsistence in a sense, for desperate people, even if it is illegal (although privatizing profits and socializing costs by big companies often is not, as what is theft and what is legal is relative to cultural norms).

Other options would be improved subsistence through 3D printing and solar panels and local gardening, a bigger gift economy like more of Freecycle and food banks, a basic income to soften the exchange economy, or better planning like to have quality local free-to-the-user public housing and cafeterias and workshops. Each state chooses what balance it is going to have based on culture and ideology and existing power centers.

More on this here:
    http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation
(But the "theft" part was insightfully suggested to be added by someone else on slashdot after I wrote that.)

See also:
    "The Mythology of Wealth"
  http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization#Fall_of_civilizations
"Joseph Tainter in "The Collapse of Complex Societies" suggested that there were diminishing returns to complexity, due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this figure in the 2nd Century AD."

The suggestion is that civilizations tend to refuse to accept going down any path to a more sensible solution than collapse because every move towards better social health would be more painful than just business-as-usual. Of course, ideally, that is what political leadership (not political followership?) is for, to get people to make the hard choices and improve overall social health.

More on social pyramids and economics:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

As long as there is a huge and growing rich/poor divide in this world, driven in part by increasing automation decreasing the value of most human labor, and we fail to do anything about that overall situation (like institute a basic income), our country will be at increasing risk for all sorts of different directions, of which cyber threats are only one set of issues. Here is a document prepared for President Kennedy and delivered to President Johnson in 1964, that is only more and more true in some ways:
"The Triple Revolution Memorandum: Cybernation, Weaponry, Human Rights"
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird people's rights as consumers. Up to this time economic resources have been distributed on the basis of contributions to production, with machines and men competing for employment on somewhat equal terms. In the developing cybernated system, potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings. As machines take over production from men, they absorb an increasing proportion of resources while the men who are displaced become dependent on minimal and unrelated government measure -- unemployment insurance, social security, welfare payments. These measures are less and less able to disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S.
The existence of this paradox is denied or ignored by conventional economic analysis. The general economic approach argues that potential demand, which if filled would raise the number of jobs and provide incomes to those holding them, is underestimated. Most contemporary economic analysis states that all of the available labor force and industrial capacity is required to meet the needs of consumers and industry and to provide adequate public services: Schools, parks, roads, homes, decent cities, and clean water and air. It is further argued that demand could be increased, by a variety of standard techniques, to any desired extent by providing money and machines to improve the conditions of the billions of impoverished people elsewhere in the world, who need food and shelter, clothes and machinery and everything else the industrial nations take for granted.
There is no question that cybernation does increase the potential for the provision of funds to neglected public sectors. Nor is there any question that cybernation would make possible the abolition of poverty at home and abroad. But the industrial system does not

Problems: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,347726,00.html
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Solutions?
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

Good points, and thanks for the kid words about the article.

I feel lack of universal health coverage, for example, is one thing holding back more entrepreneurship in the USA. I've known several people who said they can not change jobs or try something different over health insurance worries.

But, that is in some sense by design; from "Conceptual Guerilla":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
"When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just âoedime-store economicsâ â" intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly donâ(TM)t. It all gets down to two simple words.
"Cheap labor" Thatâ(TM)s their whole philosophy in a nutshell -- which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives"
Once you understand the general concept, you will frequently find yourself in debate over specific issues, like healthcare, social security privatization, public school vouchers, the "war on drugs" and of course the war in Iraq. What better way to put your conservative opponent on the defensive than by exposing the true motivation for his position -- "cheap labor". Can you really find the "cheap labo"â angle in every conservative policy initiative, and every conservative position on any particular issue?
Yes, you can. Here is a catalogue of some of the major issues on the national agenda. In every single one of them, the conservative position advances the cause of "cheap labor". I defy any conservative reading this to show me one single conservative position, belief, principle or policy that has any tendency to boost the earning power of labor. ,,,"

Of course, the ultimate in "cheap labor" is "no labor" -- replacing labor by a machine, a computer, better design, cheap energy, or volunteers, or something else. Technology is making that all possible, and even easier. For example, cloud computing makes it easier to get rid of system administrators.

So, in general, the bargaining power of most labor is eroding, because productivity is rising but demand is limited (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)..

I'm not saying the bargaining power of all labor is eroding, just most labor. Some people are still in demand, generally those with certain combinations of rarer skills combined with social connections. But all that contributes to an increasing rich/poor divide. More and more people are finding that a highly automated industrial system just does not need them. And that is bad news in the absence of some sort of social safety net, or better, some sort of social security as a human right as a citizen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms

You used the word "competitive", but the fact is, cooperation is more what we need.
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm

Why should US citizens have to be "competitive" with wage slavery or full automation because of an income-through-jobs link?
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm

People saw this was going to happen even in the 1960s, but sadly the Democrats ended up pushing for full employment rather than social equity as a right to access the fruits of the industrial commons:

And the Republicans became the party of technological progress in some ways (but co

I do talk about escapism and drug addiction in passing here:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery/38e2u3s23jer/2

Summarized in a new way here:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360&cpage=6#comment-20270

As I say there, after talking about positive alternatives of a a basic income, a gift economy, democratic resource-based planning, and local subsistence: "There are some bad "make-work" alternatives also that could prop up the status quo for a time and are best avoided, like endless war, endless schooling, endless bureaucracy, endless sickness, and endless prisons. All of those just keep people busy in an addictive or destructive or mindless way to little good end and to little human happiness. Unfortunately, people turn all too quickly to those bad alternatives sometimes to deal with social problems related to abundance or uneven wealth distribution. I outline that in more depth in the knol."

So, I might consider drugs part of the "endless sickness". But maybe it deserves its own category for the reason you outline? Thanks for the suggestion. It also feeds into the prison "solution", too, as you point out. And, as you say indirectly, it connects to the notion of being a "Millionaire Wannabee" as well:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"But here's something I'll bet the dittoheads haven't thought of. Maybe they're the chumps. Maybe they've been sold a bogus "American dream" that never existed. Maybe "the rules" they play by were written by the people who have "made it" - not by the people who haven't. And maybe - just maybe - the people who have "made it" wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that's a mirage."

BTW, here is a way to break out of food-related "drug" addiction, in the sense that refined sugar and cheap salt and excessive refined-oil/factory-farmed-animal fat are all drugs in a way too:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm
Combined with this or something similar:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

This 1970s study (ignored and terminated) showed that addictive behavior may be mainly a response to environmental stress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
"To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, an 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16-20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters.[3] The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment."[1] Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments."

A claymation about that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3swVNAaoDgw

Could that go for computer addiction and workaholism and so on, too?

Its ironic how the totalitarian USSR needed to guard its borders to keep people from escaping, and we in the USA rightly said that was awful, but the USA is finding it ne

The Chinese have long been dumping their dollars as fast as they feasibly can. Go look at some market graphs for chrissakes, you can see the cycle everywhere as they slowly crash-land the US economy in the wake of the demise of the petro-dollar. Dump, market crash, wait for recovery, repeat.

They aren't doing it slowly because they love us, they are doing it slowly because that's the best strategy for them. They want to get as much iron, copper, and petroleum from their titanic dollar reserve as they can, and if they crashed us fast it's likely they would no longer be able to obtain those commodities with dollars. We have a window of opportunity to get our economy off the petroleum base, but we may miss it since we have a certain major faction that wants massive poverty in order to keep the Mexicans out while keeping labor cheap.

Nuclear option, schmuclear option. Dumping their entire cash reserve at once would be a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot option. Especially since most of it only exists as electronic pulses in banking systems. The Chinese will do almost anything to prevent a US economic doomsday, and they are one of the major forces preventing home-grown cheap labor conservatives from instigating one.

Manuel De Landa talks about how all real systems are meshworks and hierarchies. I suggest the future will be a mix of a gift economy, a basic income, stronger local economies with improved local subsistence, and democratic resource-based planning.

Markets can be good when eveyone has about equal purchasing power and when things cost their true costs, accounting for externalities like pollution or the cost of enforcement or systematic risk. But in order to do that often takes some demoncratic resource-based central planning using taxes, subsidies, income transfers, investments, and regulation.

All economies are socially constructed thing in practice.
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Consider how false most mainstream economic assumptions are about motivation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel

We need as a society to move beyond simplistic and black/white conditioned-by-political-parties reflexive thinking on these themes.

The following is derived from what I say here:
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-402

There are four interwoven good ways forward (basic income, gift economy, democratic resource-based planning, and local subsistence) and at least five bad ways to go backward (endless war, prisons, schooling, sickness, and bureaucracy). Here are some more details on these choices.

One way forward is a "basic income" where some percentage of the GDP (half?) is distributed equally to every citizen with no requirements related to age, disability, or willingness to work. That is not entirely about "need" (even as that is true for the reasons you mention that people need access to the fruits of industry -- see "The Triple Revolution Memorandum" from 1964). A basic income is IMHO mostly about the fact that every citizen has some moral claim on the industrial commons as a human right. This claim is for all sorts of reasons. Part of it is the same as people having some claim on breathing air by right of existence (and depriving people of air would be considered murder). And people have some claim in a democracy on the government to consider their interests through government programs, regulations, and taxation. And, there is the fact that any system of private property still has to begin with the arbitrariness of the original land distribution, which generally comes down to "finders keepers" or "might makes right" which are both problematical morally (like in the dispossession of any natives from the land, or in the slavery often used to work it -- whether chattel slavery or wage slavery). The USA already has aspects of a basic income with "Social Security" for the old or disabled (though it is age or needs based), and the USA has school taxes and college aid that pay a lot of money for young people (but not directly, only through a problematical public works jobs program called school).

A second positive solution is stronger local economies with local currencies and more local compassion and improved local subsistence (like using advanced robotics and advanced materials science to have cheap 3D printers that can print most of what people want, or cheap agricultural robots that allow people to easily produce food locally, or cheap solar panels printed in those 3D printers that make for cheap local power, or cheap recycling and resource extraction using nanotech). The town of Ithaca, with Ithaca HOURs and a town-wide focus on environmentalism has aspects of this.

Marshall Brain's Manna, at the end, had a solution that had aspects of both a basic income and stronger local economies (although the economy he had in Australia was still much larger than a local economy focused on a street or a village).

A third positive solut

Yes, being able to produce energy at home with reneables like solar panel,s and being able toprint your own stuff in a 3D printer (and even recycle stuff back into raw materials) is a form of capitalims that connects with the locaism solution I mention (among others of a gift economy a basic income, and democratic resource-base plannin).

See writings by Kevin Carson for more ideas on how we might all become capitalists in that sense, even as we move beyond other aspects of capitalism.
    http://mutualist.blogspot.com/

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Albus#Peoples.27_Capitalism

A basic income could also be seen as a claim on our global capital as a right of citizenship:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit
    http://www.basicincome.org/bien/

But it is a different paradigm for the mythology of wealth:
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

You're right, I see that it was someone else originally wrote:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1779942&cid=33503164
"I have to agree here. I was forced to go the H1B route at my last job to hire an entry level applications engineer."

And then I had misinterpred the first three words of this point you made, as I think a few other people who replied did as well: "From his comment, we wanted anyone with a EE degree, but would have been willing to pay an extra $20k if needed to hire someone with a PhD, rather then the normal rejecting of that candidate for being overqualified/too expensive."

So, that may explain all the replies you think did not read your comments, people interpreting when you wrote "we wanted" not in quotations to mean you were talking about your own company.

So, that first post, mixed with your later items, was what I was mostly responding to, not the internship point. Sorry for the confusion on my end.

Still, I sincerely tried to help as best as I could. And you reject that and call it a rant and a dump. Ask yourself, is that possibly in any way connected to even just internship hiring issues? :-)

Do you not care about vitamin D deficiency, caused in part by too much indoors work, making your workers sicker and less productive?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml

Do you not care that I even agreed with the difficulty you raise about finding qualified interns and quoted a reputable person in CA you could easily go talk to if you wanted to do something big about the problem finding US citizens who know a lot about math and science? Someone who testified to Congress on this trend as far back as the 1990s?

Still, is declaring something an "internship" itself just another way to save money? Are you really, sincerely, setting up that "internship" just out of the goodness of your heart to help others and give back to the industry? Or is in just another way to get cheap labor? Or in other ways save money on hiring costs (like profiling candidates as to a work ethic or fitting into your company culture before you permanently hire them)?
"Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16

Anyway, the ironic thing is an entire computer industry trying to automate jobs away to save money is caught up in a sort of either ignorance or denial of what it is doing... Why can not everyone just accept that, and say, as a business person, you want to get the most work for the least money? That's another part of the H1B problem, because it may force otherwise honest people to start skirting the truth in order to justify and then stand by the paperwork that there were no possible US candidates (even if they might cost a lot more or you would have to pay relocation to CA, so hundreds of thousands of dollars up front perhaps to buy someone an equivalent house to a Midwest one).

So, is the H1B program in part just to deal with crazy CA property values? :-) Or similar programs for importing guest workers? A truly free market would say, look if the people in CA can't raise salaries enough to deal with a crazy property market they helped cause, then tech investment dollars should flow to the Des Moines, or Pittsburgh, or Albany, or Raleigh (or abroad) rather than stay in CA where it is too expensive to buy a house... And some of them are... But the H1B system just papers over that fundamental problem. It says, well, we can get someone overall for less by importing an indentured servant for a few years, skimming the cream off of some other country's crop. Anyway, discussing the strengths an

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

How are people burned by a "lifetime" warranty? Lifetime warranties are for the lifetime of the PRODUCT, not YOUR lifetime.

So BFG is not going to honor their warranty for (as you say) the "lifetime of the product".

Thus, they are getting burned by BFG. Or is the "lifetime of the product" for a video card now considered to be 1 year? Or is it "as long as I've got that card in my computer"?

The fact is, BFG entered into a contract with its customers. Because they have decided to "liquidate" they are breaking the contract with those customers. By the way "liquidate" does not mean "file bankruptcy". It means, "sell off all the assets and put the money in your pocket". There's nothing in TFA about "BFG declaring bankruptcy". Maybe they just decided that they've sold enough video cards and have decided to tell their customers "too bad" and go into some other business because video cards have gotten too competitive.

It amazes me that people are so willing to let corporations get away with stuff that would cause individuals shame, loss and penalties. When a corporations files bankruptcy, it's considered a smart business move and the principles walk away and can start a new business the next day. If a person declares bankruptcy, there's all this "moral hazard" and years of not being able to get decent credit. For god's sake, there are people in the US who are going to jail for their debts in 2010. For companies, it's just business. No "moral hazard" at all.

Except that the problem is not solved if (and I say if, since it is controversial) violent games contribute to broader social violence and dysfunction.

We do know for sure that spending too much time indoors leads to vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight that leads to grumpy people with lots of health problems. Of course, reading anything too much indoors (even sacred texts) can do that too. So, if you are an indoor gamer or a reader of any sort, please at least get vitamin D from supplements of some sort:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

There is also the bigger issue that advertising creates demand for these violent products. And like cigarettes, violent games and toys are often targeted to very young children in various ways (Joe Camel, etc.). As talked about here:
"The War Play Dilemma: What Every Parent And Teacher Needs to Know"
http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X
their is an unhealthy alliance between toy makers, fast food makers, video game makers, media makers, and licensed product makers to bombard young boys 24X7 with violence-related images to sell product. So, for example, a ten year old boy gets a Star Wars "Happy" meal at McDonalds, watches Star Wars cartoons at home, sleeps under Star Wars blankets, buys Star Wars lightsabers, plays Star Wars video games, sees Star Wars related commercials at random times even when watching other things on TV, has Star Wars pictures on their school notebook covers, and so on. This is 24X7 infiltration of the kid's mind with the implicit suggestion that violence and wars are the best way to solve conflicts, and that there are clearly defined good guys (us) and clearly defined bad guys (by whatever means, color, shape, speech, dress, etc.), and that military robots are a good idea (rather than using technology to bring abundance to all). Rather than define the Emperor as a mentally ill and financially obese person needing help, he is just "evil" and only killing him is the solution. And kids get locked in a cycle of endless tightly scripted play at home, at school, outdoors -- anywhere, where there is only one solution to a conflict -- killing. There are a lot of other reasons kids are hurting, but this continual onslaught by for-profit companies 24X7 just adds to it.

For girls, it is even worse: :-(
http://www.amazon.com/So-Sexy-Soon-Sexualized-Childhood/dp/0345505077

Though some of that is also from environmental toxins (estrogen mimics) and poor nutrition heavy on fats connected especially to fast foods; see:
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X

So, while it is easy to blame the parents for not regulating everything a child engages in, clearly the job of parenting has become much harder over the last few decades in this regard (even since the "family values" Reagan Administration gave this alliance their blessing), and parents are not getting much help in general. It takes a village to raise a child.

Everyone acts so concerned about physical predation by strangers on a child (which very rarely happens even if it is a tragedy when it does). But people in the USA just accept mental predation on young children as a given in our society through the logic of profit-making and an unregulated "free market". But the fact is, any marketplace is a social construction:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
Venezuela has decided to change the nature of that social construction. I don't agree w

To turn that around, advanced technology, sir, is walking a line dangerously close to communism! :-)

That's because we are seeing the value of most human labor slowly plummeting to zero (one reason why no one can afford health insurance anymore except the doctors and medical equipment manufacturer owners. :-) See:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So, as Marshall Brain suggests, the end point of capitalism is the starvation of all people who do not have a lot of capital (because, when their labor is worthless, they will not be able to pay for food, clothes, rent, medical costs, etc.). Everything from milking cows to doing genetic research is being automated:
"VMS robotic milking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqWpOxQmIs
"Robot Scientist Makes Discovery"
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html

Robots are making the leap from less coordinated than humans to more coordinated than humans:
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

More links to robot videos here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The thing is, "ownership" is ultimately a political construction:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Propped up by millionaire wannabees and slightly privileged guards:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Coming Revolt of the Guards"
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html

Are you a billionaire? Otherwise, by capitalist standards, if your work can eventually be automated, your life will then be worthless in their eyes, and you should then logically starve once everything you can do of value to billionaires has been automated. And don't say you'll just get another job, because as Marshall Brain suggests, that one will be automated too once we pass some critical thresholds in AI and robotics. That's like saying you will hide under a tree to stay dry in a rainstorm and when that tree gets wet through you will go find another.

The only question is, do we put in place social reforms now, or do we wait until even more people are starving? Well, there's an obvious answer to that in a capitalist society, and as American financier Jay Gould said after hiring strikebreakers, it is "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

So, ideally, we need to find alternatives to a society build around a conception of work:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The real reason why violent (and other) games are evil in a way is just that they are a distraction from dealing with that very serious issue of rethinking our society on some better ba

To turn that around, advanced technology, sir, is walking a line dangerously close to communism! :-)

That's because we are seeing the value of most human labor slowly plummeting to zero (one reason why no one can afford health insurance anymore except the doctors and medical equipment manufacturer owners. :-) See:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So, as Marshall Brain suggests, the end point of capitalism is the starvation of all people who do not have a lot of capital (because, when their labor is worthless, they will not be able to pay for food, clothes, rent, medical costs, etc.). Everything from milking cows to doing genetic research is being automated:
"VMS robotic milking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqWpOxQmIs
"Robot Scientist Makes Discovery"
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html

Robots are making the leap from less coordinated than humans to more coordinated than humans:
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

More links to robot videos here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The thing is, "ownership" is ultimately a political construction:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Propped up by millionaire wannabees and slightly privileged guards:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Coming Revolt of the Guards"
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html

Are you a billionaire? Otherwise, by capitalist standards, if your work can eventually be automated, your life will then be worthless in their eyes, and you should then logically starve once everything you can do of value to billionaires has been automated. And don't say you'll just get another job, because as Marshall Brain suggests, that one will be automated too once we pass some critical thresholds in AI and robotics. That's like saying you will hide under a tree to stay dry in a rainstorm and when that tree gets wet through you will go find another.

The only question is, do we put in place social reforms now, or do we wait until even more people are starving? Well, there's an obvious answer to that in a capitalist society, and as American financier Jay Gould said after hiring strikebreakers, it is "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

So, ideally, we need to find alternatives to a society build around a conception of work:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The real reason why violent (and other) games are evil in a way is just that they are a distraction from dealing with that very serious issue of rethinking our society on some better ba

"There is no confusion here. Those things are support infrastructure that greatly improve the outcome of human work. A "boss" directs the labor to greater result for some useful purpose."

In theory. In practice, the chain of command from a boss on up ensures that resources will be directed to the chain of command, even if the means doing things less efficiently. Anything on management in the real world suggests that compensation of managers is based on how many people they manage. This can lead to vast inefficiencies in any bureaucracy. But the organizations persist because their success is more dependent on things like market position, a concentration of capital, market barriers to entry, and state-granted monopolies than innovation or efficiency.
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/org/hfaw.html

From the last: "This book discusses chronic patterns of organizational malfunction that I have observed personally many times while working for computer firms (4 years at Hewlett-Packard and 6 years at Tandem, among others). "

"A currency system is a very effective means to simplify trade."

As Jane Jacobs suggests, city economies work best when they have their own local currencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

And before the alliance some suggest of the feudal aristocracy with some of the new factory owners,
http://rushkoff.com/
the direct market economy, based on IOUs, even without currency, worked quite well:
http://www.digitalcoin.info/The_Essence_of_Money.html

"A state with police is more infrastructure that supports various economic activities and trade that simply couldn't occur in its absence (such as maintaining a large business or borrowing money)."

As above, neither large businesses or borrowing money are really needed for most people to have a happy life, or for us to have a very productive economy.

"Property rights and enforceable contracts are self-explanatory, allowing for a variety of activities and agreements that would not be possible in their absence."

Sure. Except that what about external costs, both positive and negative?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
What about the question of who gets natural resources or fiat dollars first? What about the costs to society of private property claimed in ideas or digital goods that can be easily duplicated? Those are the sort of questions an emphasis on property rights may miss. And that's why, say, taxes and other cost will go down if everyone got a free luxury electric care and single payer health care:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care

"Rich/poor divides are one of the few things that have always been around and hasn't changed significantly either in its existence or in mechanisms for addressing the imbalance, such as cultural mores, that have the rich in part supporting the poor. Many primitive cultures have rich and poor as well along with some sort of way for the rich to support the poor (eg, gift economies)."

Can you provide examples? If you look at the matriarchal Iroquois, whose constitution provided a model for our own, they had communal land ownership and a mostly egalitarian society. Da

"There is no confusion here. Those things are support infrastructure that greatly improve the outcome of human work. A "boss" directs the labor to greater result for some useful purpose."

In theory. In practice, the chain of command from a boss on up ensures that resources will be directed to the chain of command, even if the means doing things less efficiently. Anything on management in the real world suggests that compensation of managers is based on how many people they manage. This can lead to vast inefficiencies in any bureaucracy. But the organizations persist because their success is more dependent on things like market position, a concentration of capital, market barriers to entry, and state-granted monopolies than innovation or efficiency.
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/org/hfaw.html

From the last: "This book discusses chronic patterns of organizational malfunction that I have observed personally many times while working for computer firms (4 years at Hewlett-Packard and 6 years at Tandem, among others). "

"A currency system is a very effective means to simplify trade."

As Jane Jacobs suggests, city economies work best when they have their own local currencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs

And before the alliance some suggest of the feudal aristocracy with some of the new factory owners,
http://rushkoff.com/
the direct market economy, based on IOUs, even without currency, worked quite well:
http://www.digitalcoin.info/The_Essence_of_Money.html

"A state with police is more infrastructure that supports various economic activities and trade that simply couldn't occur in its absence (such as maintaining a large business or borrowing money)."

As above, neither large businesses or borrowing money are really needed for most people to have a happy life, or for us to have a very productive economy.

"Property rights and enforceable contracts are self-explanatory, allowing for a variety of activities and agreements that would not be possible in their absence."

Sure. Except that what about external costs, both positive and negative?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
What about the question of who gets natural resources or fiat dollars first? What about the costs to society of private property claimed in ideas or digital goods that can be easily duplicated? Those are the sort of questions an emphasis on property rights may miss. And that's why, say, taxes and other cost will go down if everyone got a free luxury electric care and single payer health care:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care

"Rich/poor divides are one of the few things that have always been around and hasn't changed significantly either in its existence or in mechanisms for addressing the imbalance, such as cultural mores, that have the rich in part supporting the poor. Many primitive cultures have rich and poor as well along with some sort of way for the rich to support the poor (eg, gift economies)."

Can you provide examples? If you look at the matriarchal Iroquois, whose constitution provided a model for our own, they had communal land ownership and a mostly egalitarian society. Da

As I point out in other replies, if you look at how hunter/gatherers lived, you will see that people can function quite well among relative affluence.
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

It's true that material affluence by itself can produce problems, as this study shows the general poor mental health of many wealthy families in the USA:
"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/

But, I think that leaves out that our society in the USA has gone too far towards an extreme, and that trend has been amplified by competitive compulsory schooling:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? In a great fanfare of moral fervor some years back, the Ford Motor Company opened the world's most productive auto engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. It insisted on hiring employees with 50 percent more school training than the Mexican norm of six years, but as time passed Ford removed its requirements and began to hire school dropouts, training them quite well in four to twelve weeks. The hype that education is essential to robot-like work was quietly abandoned. Our economy has no adequate outlet of expression for its artists, dancers, poets, painters, farmers, filmmakers, wildcat business people, handcraft workers, whiskey makers, intellectuals, or a thousand other useful human enterprises--no outlet except corporate work or fringe slots on the periphery of things. Unless you do "creative" work the company way, you run afoul of a host of laws and regulations put on the books to control the dangerous products of imagination which can never be safely tolerated by a centralized command system.
"""

And that is reflected in the dominant mythology of the USA:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

And US foreign policy around the world has actively tried to destroy anything that might have emerged as a possible alternative good example. For example, the first September 11, in 1973, in Chile:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-December/006458.html

So, people can live well together in abundance, and we have historical proof of that. Some people, one might even call this mental illness, can not. How to deal with that is an interesting question, but maybe, as a start, we should make sure the lunatics are not running the asylum? :-( And all it takes, in a democratic society, to do that, is to have good candidates and to vote for them, as well as to build positive alternative non-governmental organizations and better businesses.

So, respectfully, if you keep looking for better answers, you may sometimes find them.

As for robots, they

As I point out in other replies, if you look at how hunter/gatherers lived, you will see that people can function quite well among relative affluence.
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

It's true that material affluence by itself can produce problems, as this study shows the general poor mental health of many wealthy families in the USA:
"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/

But, I think that leaves out that our society in the USA has gone too far towards an extreme, and that trend has been amplified by competitive compulsory schooling:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? In a great fanfare of moral fervor some years back, the Ford Motor Company opened the world's most productive auto engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. It insisted on hiring employees with 50 percent more school training than the Mexican norm of six years, but as time passed Ford removed its requirements and began to hire school dropouts, training them quite well in four to twelve weeks. The hype that education is essential to robot-like work was quietly abandoned. Our economy has no adequate outlet of expression for its artists, dancers, poets, painters, farmers, filmmakers, wildcat business people, handcraft workers, whiskey makers, intellectuals, or a thousand other useful human enterprises--no outlet except corporate work or fringe slots on the periphery of things. Unless you do "creative" work the company way, you run afoul of a host of laws and regulations put on the books to control the dangerous products of imagination which can never be safely tolerated by a centralized command system.
"""

And that is reflected in the dominant mythology of the USA:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

And US foreign policy around the world has actively tried to destroy anything that might have emerged as a possible alternative good example. For example, the first September 11, in 1973, in Chile:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-December/006458.html

So, people can live well together in abundance, and we have historical proof of that. Some people, one might even call this mental illness, can not. How to deal with that is an interesting question, but maybe, as a start, we should make sure the lunatics are not running the asylum? :-( And all it takes, in a democratic society, to do that, is to have good candidates and to vote for them, as well as to build positive alternative non-governmental organizations and better businesses.

So, respectfully, if you keep looking for better answers, you may sometimes find them.

As for robots, they