People went from 90% agriculture workers to about 2% agriculutre workers over the past two hundred years in the USA. Of the current agriculutral production, 75% of the effort goes to meat production which is not strictly needed and in general is harming people's health, and otherwise people eat too much of the wrong foods and are obese (see Dr. Fuhrman). Why is agriculture still not using 90% of the labor force? Automation and limited demand.
Compulsory schools were created to keep kids off the street and train them to be soldiers and factory workers. Working hours went down from 12 hours 6 days a week to 8 hours five days a week, and only for adults. Child labor was outlawed. So, much of the working force was freed.
In 1950, about 30% of the workforce was in manufacturing. Now it is more like aroung 12%, and the same amount of stuff is still produced (plus some is imported from China). Why? Increasing automation, better design, and limited demand. Many people are drowning in junk that clutters their homes and lives.
Granted, in the USA, women have gone into the work force and there are other confounding factors.
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/
As I explain at the knol and elsewhere, that assumes a few things: * People in general will not continue a move towards environemntal consciousness, voluntary simplicity, spiritual gorwth, and moving up malsow's heierarchy of needs to more social interaction and self actualization which generally is fairly cheap to do. * Virtualization using computers won't meet these needs (so, owning a big mansion, but in Second Life where it is cheap to have one); * Productivity will not continue to rise faster than any ncrease in demand; * Most human labor will remain valuable because robotics and other automation, better design, and/or voluntary social networks will never be able to do most jobs (or avoid the need to do them) better than most paid labor can do the work; and * There will not be increasing concentration of wealth through low barganining power for labor as ever more peoeple are put out of work, where at best workers need to take on debt leading to bubbles to continue to consume.
If any one of those assumptions prove false, an income-through-jobs link can't work, as productivity will outpace demand. It seems like all of them are becoming false in our current economic system.
At some point, excessive greed and financial obesity may be seen as a sign of mental illness, not a sign someone should be a leader...
See also my comments here in response to Martin Ford's blog post: http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/ "In brief, a combination of robotics and other automation, better design, and voluntary social networks are decreasing the value of most paid human labor (by the law of supply and demand). At the same time, demand for stuff and services is limited for a variety of reasons -- some classical, like a cyclical credit crunch or a concentration of wealth (aided by automation and intellectual monopolies) and some novel like people finally getting too much stuff as they move up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or a growing environmental consciousness. In order to move past this, our society needs to emphasize a gift economy (like Wikipedia or Debian GNU/Linux or blogging), a basic income (social security for all regardless of age), democratic resource-based planning (with taxes, subsidies, investments, and regulation), and stronger local economies that can produce more of their own stuff (with organic gardens, solar panels, green homes, and 3D printers). There are some bad "make work" alternatives too that are best avoided, like endless war, endless schooling, endless bureaucracy, endless sickness, and endless prisons. Simple attempts to prop things up, like requiring higher wages in the face of declining demand for human labor and more competition for jobs, will only accelerate the replacement process for jobs as higher wage requirements would just be more incentive to automate, redesign, and push more work to volunteer social networks. We are seeing the death spiral of current mainstream economics based primarily on a link between the right to consume and the need to have a job (even as there may remain some link for higher-than-typical consumption rates in some situations, even with a basic income, a gift economy, etc)...."
In another comment I there I summarize these four progressive approaches in a bit more detail.
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html "Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change.... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery "This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
Roy Amara first said Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
I sent Ray Kurzweil some emails on why he gets evolution wrong and why uploaded minds will be eaten by digital pirahna (someone else put up copies): http://heybryan.org/fernhout/
Another key point is here by me: http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/1f6bb622cafc8c29?hl=en "Is the Singularity like Harry Potter's "Mirror of Erised"? ("Erised" is "Desire" spelled backwards.) What would we see in the mirror if we are a financially successful capitalist (hint, hint)? Does capitalist ideology dominate "mainstream" singularity thinking? What is the danger of seeing capitalism and competing over scarce resources as the way to build the future of abundance? Or could we see cooperation, or at least, balance, as a better way forward to a world that works for everyone, and where the capacity to collectively create, monitor, and respond outweighs the individual or collective ability to destroy and harm? "
There is a low-tech way to prevent cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses now, and that is to be sure to get enough vitamin D and to eat lots of vegetables and fruits. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html Although it is true that it has taken modern science and technology to prove why that works and to communicate that finding. Kurzweil is probably taking too many potions for his health, sadly. He should check out Dr. Fuhrman's January retreat in Princeotn, NJ on health.
With all that said, I still have a lof respect for Ray Kurzweil's accomplishments and predictions and his efforts to help humanity with technology. I just think some of his pedictions show some of the limts of his perspective based on who he has been, which is true for any of us.
I'd second this; from: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml "We predict that treatment with physiological doses of vitamin D3 (between 4,000–10,000 IU/day from all sources, including sun, food and supplements) along with periodic monitoring of blood calcidiol and calcium levels will become routine. [Zittermann A. Vitamin D in preventive medicine: are we ignoring the evidence? Br J of Nutr. 2003;89:552–572. Holick M. Vitamin D: A Millennium Perspective. J Cell Biochem. 2003;88:296–307.] Research indicates it will help several vitamin D deficiency-associated diseases such as: autism, autoimmune illness, cancer, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperparathyroidism, hypertension, influenza, myopathy (neuromuscular disorders), and osteoporosis.
At this time, we advise even healthy people (those without the diseases of vitamin D deficiency) to seek a knowledgeable physician and have your 25(OH)D level measured. If your levels are below 50 ng/mL you need enough sun, artificial light, oral vitamin D3 supplements, or some combination of the three, to maintain your 25(OH)D levels between 50–80 ng/mL year-round. How Much Vitamin D?
If you refuse to see a physician, or can't find a knowledgeable one, purchase the 1000 IU/day vitamin D3 cholecalciferol pills that are available over-the-counter in North America or a 5,000 IU capsule. Take an average of 5,000 IU a day, year-round, if you have some sun exposure. If you have little, or no, sun exposure you will need to take at least 5,000 IU per day. How much more depends on your latitude of residence, skin pigmentation, and body weight. Generally speaking, the further you live away from the equator, the darker your skin, and/or the more you weigh, the more you will have to take to maintain healthy blood levels.
For example, Dr. Cannell lives at latitude 32 degrees, weighs 220 pounds, and has fair skin. In the late fall and winter he takes 5,000 IU per day. In the early fall and spring he takes 2,000 IU per day. In the summer he regularly sunbathes for a few minutes most days and thus takes no vitamin D on those days in the summer. The only way you can know how much you vitamin D you need to take is by repeatedly getting your blood tested—known as a 25(OH)D test—and seeing what you need to do to keep your level around 50 ng/mL."
Eating a lot of vegetables and fruits can help too, as can other good lifestyle things like exercise and sleeping well and thinking positive, having friends, having a sense of humor, communing periodically with nature and the inifinite, and so on. Example on food, related to Dr. Joel Fuhrman: http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
That was what I was told around 1992 by someone who studied bacterial genetics. In just a couple of weeks, some new gene that showed up in bacteria in one place (say, a mutation producing a better way to process some compund in a patch of mud somewhere) could be found in bacteria on the other side of the planet. Which made me realize (in theory) then that coding information into bacteria could be like a low bandwidth internet, by just sequencing packets of data into bacteria that were released, and elsewhere devices would continually sequence the genes of bacteria looking for data packets. I can't say I really like the risk of creating all that new random genetic material though. Also, that timescale is maybe only for genes with selective value (not random ones). Essentially, this researcher told me that bacteria formed a huge supercomputer covering the entire planet.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html "The period 1950-1970 was a true golden age for American science. Young Ph.D's could choose among excellent jobs, and anyone with a decent scientific idea could be sure of getting funds to pursue it. The impressive successes of scientific projects during the Second World War had paved the way for the federal government to assume responsibility for the support of basic research. Moreover, much of the rest of the world was still crippled by the after-effects of the war. At the same time, the G.I. Bill of Rights sent a whole generation back to college transforming the United States from a nation of elite higher education to a nation of mass higher education. Before the war, about 8% of Americans went to college, a figure comparable to that in France or England. By now more than half of all Americans receive some sort of post-secondary education. The American academic enterprise grew explosively, especially in science and technology. The expanding academic world in 1950-1970 created posts for the exploding number of new science Ph.D.s, whose research led to the founding of journals, to the acquisition of prizes and awards, and to increases in every other measure of the size and quality of science. At the same time, great American corporations such as AT&T, IBM and others decided they needed to create or expand their central research laboratories to solve technological problems, and also to pursue basic research that would provide ideas for future developments. And the federal government itself established a network of excellent national laboratories that also became the source of jobs and opportunities for aspiring scientists. Even so, that explosive growth was merely a seamless continuation of a hundred years of exponential growth of American science. It seemed to one and all (with the notable exception of Derek da Solla Price) that these happy conditions would go on forever.
By now, in the 1990's, the situation has changed dramatically. With the Cold War over, National Security is rapidly losing its appeal as a means of generating support for scientific research. There are those who argue that research is essential for our economic future, but the managers of the economy know better. The great corporations have decided that central research laboratories were not such a good idea after all. Many of the national laboratories have lost their missions and have not found new ones. The economy has gradually transformed from manufacturing to service, and service industries like banking and insurance don't support much scientific research. To make matters worse, the country is almost 5 trillion dollars in debt, and scientific research is among the few items of discretionary spending left in the national budget. There is much wringing of hands about impending shortages of trained scientific talent to ensure the Nation's future competitiveness, especially since by now other countries have been restored to economic and scientific vigor, but in fact, jobs are scarce for recent graduates. Finally, it should be clear by now that with more than half the kids in America already going to college, academic expansion is finished forever....
The crises that face science are not limited to jobs and research funds. Those are bad enough, but they are just the beginning. Under stress from those problems, other parts of the scientific enterprise have started showing signs of distress. One of the most essential is the matter of honesty and ethical behavior among scientists.
The public and the scientific community have both been shocked in recent years by an increasing number of cases of fraud committed by scientists. There is little doubt that the perpetrators in these cases felt themselves under intense pressure to compete for scarce resources, even by cheating if necessary. As the pressure increases, this kind of dishonesty is almost sure to become more commo
Posts I made to the p2presearch list concerning education (it would take years to read through all the embedded links on Gatto, Holt, Goodstein, Schmidt, Honigman, Lewellyn, etc.):
Basically this article show how implicit underlying assumptions the professor is probably making about grading are wrong.
===========
HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE
March 1999
From Degrading to De-Grading
By Alfie Kohn
You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.
Three Main Effects of Grading
Researchers have found three consistent effects of using - and especially, emphasizing the importance of - letter or number grades:
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward (Kohn, 1993). Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that when students are told they'll need to know something for a test - or, more generally, that something they're about to do will count for a grade - they are likely to come to view that task (or book or idea) as a chore.
While it's not impossible for a student to be concerned about getting high marks and also to like what he or she is doing, the practical reality is that these two ways of thinking generally pull in opposite directions. Some research has explicitly demonstrated that a "grade orientation" and a "learning orientation" are inversely related (Beck et al., 1991; Milton et al., 1986). More strikingly, study after study has found that students -- from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures - demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded (Benware and Deci, 1984; Butler, 1987; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Hughes et al., 1985; Kage, 1991; Salili et al., 1976). Thus, anyone who wants to see students get hooked on words and numbers and ideas already has reason to look for other ways of assessing and describing their achievement.
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. Students of all ages who have been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest possible assignment if given a choice (Harter, 1978; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Kage, 1991; Milton et al., 1986). The more pressure to get an A, the less inclination to truly challenge oneself. Thus, students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count. They might well say to us, "Hey, you told me the point here is to bring up my GPA, to get on the honor roll. Well, I'm not stupid: the easier the assignment, the more likely that I can give you what you want. So don't blame me when I try to find the easiest thing to do and end up not learning anything."
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. Given that students may lose interest in what they're learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they're also apt to think less deeply. One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less crea
in some situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment "Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by resistance movements (e.g. destroying whole towns and villages where such attacks have occurred)."
The professor is also trying to get students to mistrust each other with his whole look right, look left, one of these people cheated comment.
Of course, as a professor of management, he probably knows a lot about union busting.
While I don't condone cheating (the students are hurting themselves, to begin with), the students cooperated to do something, and that in itself is a very good thing.
In general, our whole schooling has lots of problems (see John Taylor Gatto and Jeff Schmidt/Disciplined Minds) and more and more students are realizing they are being scammed.
Knowing the names of all donors to a charity would allow a government (or someone else) to profile people. Knowing everyone a charity talks to helps to profile social networks, especially when you can do this or lots of charities. There obviously is interest in profiling all sorts of progressive groups: http://www.democracynow.org/2003/10/9/peace_group_infiltrated_by_government_agent
Can this be done in other ways? Probably. But collecting all this data in Google makes it easier.
Although, I suggest everyone assume eveything they do online is monitored, especially if they are interested in progressive things. Use the channels to communciate indirectly with the watchers, to try to lift their hearts and consciousnesses.:-) I make that point here: http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/ae28e8971f8f9669?hl=en
There may be other concerns. Let's say you were running a shelter for victims of domestic violence, rape, or some other form of abuse. Do you want all those case reports (or even just names) on Google servers? Although, no matter where you put them, there could be a privacy issue, so one might think Google might be better run than some smaller provider or inexperienced in-house IT?
How about homeschooling? That helps people escape the "two income trap". http://motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap "Middle-class parents are stretched thin these days. Between health care costs, child care hassles, looking for a home in a good district, and paying for college, raising a child is becoming increasingly expensive. Little wonder, then, that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts, and 75 percent more likely to have their homes foreclosed. And the danger is growing worse by the year: In 2002 1.6 million people filed for bankruptcy, many of those middle-class parents. a record . As Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi note in their book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke, having a child is now "the single best predictor" of bankruptcy. "
In the face of such hardships, many families have sent both parents into the workforce to try to make ends meet. After all, surely if both parents work full-time it shouldn't be hard to ensure financial security, right? Wrong, say authors Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi, in their book, The Two Income Trap. Two-income families are almost always worse off than their single-income counterparts were a generation ago, even though they pull in 75 percent more in income. The problem is that so many fixed costs are rising -- health care, child care, finding a good home -- that two-income families today actually have less discretionary money left over than those single-earner families did. As the authors write: "Our data show families in financial trouble are working hard, playing by the rules -- and the game is stacked against them.""
On math, see:
"When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools: In an experiment, children who were taught less learned more." http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools "The school that Kenschaft visited happened to be in a very poor district, with mostly African American kids, so at first she figured that the worst teachers must have been assigned to that school, and she theorized that this was why African Americans do even more poorly than white Americans on math tests. But then she went into some schools in wealthy districts, with mostly white kids, and found that the mathematics knowledge of teachers there was equally pathetic. She concluded that nobody could be learning much math in school and, "It appears that the higher scores of the affluent districts are not due to superior teaching but to the supplementary informal 'home schooling' of children."
You and hundreds of millions of others (plus me for a long time) have been scammed about schooling.:-)
But sure, a rural lifestyles has its pros and cons.
From: http://www.google.com/nonprofits/operations.html "Using Google Apps saved us tens of thousands of dollars and enabled us to get off the ground really quickly at a time when it was difficult to start a nonprofit."
I have no personal experience with it myself (yet), but I've been looking into it for a small nonprofit.
A 501(c)3 organization gets various extra freebies as Google Apps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Apps "Education Edition same as Premier Edition except for: * Free for "accredited not-for-profit 501(c)(3) entities 3,000 users, K-12 schools, colleges, and universities""
It's also an ethical tradeoff between feeding the centralization beast (making privacy invasion easier) versus helping an organization have a stronger community and focus more on its mission which is good for society and democracy.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/burdened-by-bags-of-sand.html "This ironic story is about trying to talk the USA out of collective suicide stemming from scarcity fears and misunderstandings when the USA and the world otherwise has so much potential for abundance."
I saw a British video about obesity where they took an obese woman who claimed to have tried every diet and to have a slow metabolism, and they actually tested her in a hospital with a special test for that (respiration rate), and she had an average metabolism.
As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says inhis book "Eat To Live", tryng to control portion size breaks down eventually because no one can deny themselves foods they crave forever.
What works, reliably, is to switch ot a diet emphasizing vegetables fruits, and beans, where your stomach fills up with only 200 to 400 caloires of nutrient-dense plant matter, as opposed to, say, 3500 calories to fill your stomach with essentially phytonutrient-deficient cheese.
Most medical intervention in industrialized countries is unneeded and just covers up the symptoms of malnutrition (not lack of calories, but lack of phytonutrients and fiber). There are of course some other lifestyle issues (smoking, stess, lack of sleep, lack of exercise) as well as exposure to human-made toxins, so diet is not everything. But diet is still a really big thing for preventing (or in some cases, treating) chronic disease like much heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, and others.
The problem is, there is very little profit in telling people to eat more vegetables, get enough vitamin D, exercise more, and so on. The money is in things like (totally unneeded in most cases it turns out) heart operations like angioplasty for conditions more safely and more effectively treated with dietary changes.
So you are right to suggest the possibility there is a broad social problem, with profits to be had in harming people or endlessly treating them, but little profits to be had in prevention or cure. With more grassroots information, hopefully we can move past this medical problem of US malnutrition and free up a lot of resources and create a lot of positive energy to then address other unmet social needs.
Slashdot Mirror
You're welcome.
Manna and other stuff by Marshall Brain was part of the inspiration for it.
"But obviously that hasn't happened, "
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/11/17/why-the-triple-revolution-memorandum-was-ahead-of-its-time/
Related to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_hypothesis
People went from 90% agriculture workers to about 2% agriculutre workers over the past two hundred years in the USA. Of the current agriculutral production, 75% of the effort goes to meat production which is not strictly needed and in general is harming people's health, and otherwise people eat too much of the wrong foods and are obese (see Dr. Fuhrman). Why is agriculture still not using 90% of the labor force? Automation and limited demand.
Compulsory schools were created to keep kids off the street and train them to be soldiers and factory workers. Working hours went down from 12 hours 6 days a week to 8 hours five days a week, and only for adults. Child labor was outlawed. So, much of the working force was freed.
In 1950, about 30% of the workforce was in manufacturing. Now it is more like aroung 12%, and the same amount of stuff is still produced (plus some is imported from China). Why? Increasing automation, better design, and limited demand. Many people are drowning in junk that clutters their homes and lives.
Granted, in the USA, women have gone into the work force and there are other confounding factors.
What happens when services go the same way through robotics and other automation, better design, voluntary social networks, and limited demand?
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery/
Consider also that unlike food and some basic goods, most services are optional.
It turns out even most medical care is probably harmful and unneccesary, compared to just eating better and getting adequate vitamin D.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
The entire economy is poised to implode.
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
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
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html
http://www.bluezones.com/
http://books.google.com/books?id=hM_JDjq6V-kC
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
See also my comment here on how it's all about our social paradigm:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1883960&cid=34448172
"We will find other unmet wants to work on."
As I explain at the knol and elsewhere, that assumes a few things:
* People in general will not continue a move towards environemntal consciousness, voluntary simplicity, spiritual gorwth, and moving up malsow's heierarchy of needs to more social interaction and self actualization which generally is fairly cheap to do.
* Virtualization using computers won't meet these needs (so, owning a big mansion, but in Second Life where it is cheap to have one);
* Productivity will not continue to rise faster than any ncrease in demand;
* Most human labor will remain valuable because robotics and other automation, better design, and/or voluntary social networks will never be able to do most jobs (or avoid the need to do them) better than most paid labor can do the work; and
* There will not be increasing concentration of wealth through low barganining power for labor as ever more peoeple are put out of work, where at best workers need to take on debt leading to bubbles to continue to consume.
If any one of those assumptions prove false, an income-through-jobs link can't work, as productivity will outpace demand. It seems like all of them are becoming false in our current economic system.
At some point, excessive greed and financial obesity may be seen as a sign of mental illness, not a sign someone should be a leader...
See also:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel
See James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear for a story about a better future...
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
More by me on ways forward:
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-402
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA
I made that to address the issues you raise...
Which are also addressed in the knol, too.
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives
See also my comments here in response to Martin Ford's blog post: ..."
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/
"In brief, a combination of robotics and other automation, better design, and voluntary social networks are decreasing the value of most paid human labor (by the law of supply and demand). At the same time, demand for stuff and services is limited for a variety of reasons -- some classical, like a cyclical credit crunch or a concentration of wealth (aided by automation and intellectual monopolies) and some novel like people finally getting too much stuff as they move up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or a growing environmental consciousness. In order to move past this, our society needs to emphasize a gift economy (like Wikipedia or Debian GNU/Linux or blogging), a basic income (social security for all regardless of age), democratic resource-based planning (with taxes, subsidies, investments, and regulation), and stronger local economies that can produce more of their own stuff (with organic gardens, solar panels, green homes, and 3D printers). There are some bad "make work" alternatives too that are best avoided, like endless war, endless schooling, endless bureaucracy, endless sickness, and endless prisons. Simple attempts to prop things up, like requiring higher wages in the face of declining demand for human labor and more competition for jobs, will only accelerate the replacement process for jobs as higher wage requirements would just be more incentive to automate, redesign, and push more work to volunteer social networks. We are seeing the death spiral of current mainstream economics based primarily on a link between the right to consume and the need to have a job (even as there may remain some link for higher-than-typical consumption rates in some situations, even with a basic income, a gift economy, etc).
In another comment I there I summarize these four progressive approaches in a bit more detail.
"Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help."
Mostly due to schooling...
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change.
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
Then see if the training budget will cover this: :-)
http://www.humorproject.com/conference/
See also:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/30vitamin.html?permid=196#comment196
By the way, as an alternative to working:
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html
And, consider:
The US currently spends as much on schooling, social security, and welfare to give every citizen about US$800 a month.
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
And it spends enough on Medicare/Medicaid to cover everyone with good health care if it was managed better.
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/
And the US spends more than twice as much on "defense" in a year than it would take to change the entire country over to using renewable energy and no longer need much of a defense department.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
It's all about the paradigm and a global mindshift beyond narrow vested interests.
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
Yes, S-curves are common in nature. Although we are stil facing discontinuities in our economics. By me on that:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/0061.html
http://dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/0126.html
Roy Amara first said Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara
"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
I sent Ray Kurzweil some emails on why he gets evolution wrong and why uploaded minds will be eaten by digital pirahna (someone else put up copies):
http://heybryan.org/fernhout/
Another key point is here by me:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/1f6bb622cafc8c29?hl=en
"Is the Singularity like Harry Potter's "Mirror of Erised"? ("Erised" is "Desire" spelled backwards.) What would we see in the mirror if we are a financially successful capitalist (hint, hint)? Does capitalist ideology dominate "mainstream" singularity thinking? What is the danger of seeing capitalism and competing over scarce resources as the way to build the future of abundance? Or could we see cooperation, or at least, balance, as a better way forward to a world that works for everyone, and where the capacity to collectively create, monitor, and respond outweighs the individual or collective ability to destroy and harm? "
There is a low-tech way to prevent cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses now, and that is to be sure to get enough vitamin D and to eat lots of vegetables and fruits.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
Although it is true that it has taken modern science and technology to prove why that works and to communicate that finding. Kurzweil is probably taking too many potions for his health, sadly. He should check out Dr. Fuhrman's January retreat in Princeotn, NJ on health.
With all that said, I still have a lof respect for Ray Kurzweil's accomplishments and predictions and his efforts to help humanity with technology. I just think some of his pedictions show some of the limts of his perspective based on who he has been, which is true for any of us.
I'd second this; from: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
"We predict that treatment with physiological doses of vitamin D3 (between 4,000–10,000 IU/day from all sources, including sun, food and supplements) along with periodic monitoring of blood calcidiol and calcium levels will become routine. [Zittermann A. Vitamin D in preventive medicine: are we ignoring the evidence? Br J of Nutr. 2003;89:552–572. Holick M. Vitamin D: A Millennium Perspective. J Cell Biochem. 2003;88:296–307.] Research indicates it will help several vitamin D deficiency-associated diseases such as: autism, autoimmune illness, cancer, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperparathyroidism, hypertension, influenza, myopathy (neuromuscular disorders), and osteoporosis.
At this time, we advise even healthy people (those without the diseases of vitamin D deficiency) to seek a knowledgeable physician and have your 25(OH)D level measured. If your levels are below 50 ng/mL you need enough sun, artificial light, oral vitamin D3 supplements, or some combination of the three, to maintain your 25(OH)D levels between 50–80 ng/mL year-round.
How Much Vitamin D?
If you refuse to see a physician, or can't find a knowledgeable one, purchase the 1000 IU/day vitamin D3 cholecalciferol pills that are available over-the-counter in North America or a 5,000 IU capsule. Take an average of 5,000 IU a day, year-round, if you have some sun exposure. If you have little, or no, sun exposure you will need to take at least 5,000 IU per day. How much more depends on your latitude of residence, skin pigmentation, and body weight. Generally speaking, the further you live away from the equator, the darker your skin, and/or the more you weigh, the more you will have to take to maintain healthy blood levels.
For example, Dr. Cannell lives at latitude 32 degrees, weighs 220 pounds, and has fair skin. In the late fall and winter he takes 5,000 IU per day. In the early fall and spring he takes 2,000 IU per day. In the summer he regularly sunbathes for a few minutes most days and thus takes no vitamin D on those days in the summer. The only way you can know how much you vitamin D you need to take is by repeatedly getting your blood tested—known as a 25(OH)D test—and seeing what you need to do to keep your level around 50 ng/mL."
Another site with somewhat lower recommendations:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/
Eating a lot of vegetables and fruits can help too, as can other good lifestyle things like exercise and sleeping well and thinking positive, having friends, having a sense of humor, communing periodically with nature and the inifinite, and so on. Example on food, related to Dr. Joel Fuhrman:
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html
That was what I was told around 1992 by someone who studied bacterial genetics. In just a couple of weeks, some new gene that showed up in bacteria in one place (say, a mutation producing a better way to process some compund in a patch of mud somewhere) could be found in bacteria on the other side of the planet. Which made me realize (in theory) then that coding information into bacteria could be like a low bandwidth internet, by just sequencing packets of data into bacteria that were released, and elsewhere devices would continually sequence the genes of bacteria looking for data packets. I can't say I really like the risk of creating all that new random genetic material though. Also, that timescale is maybe only for genes with selective value (not random ones). Essentially, this researcher told me that bacteria formed a huge supercomputer covering the entire planet.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html ...
"The period 1950-1970 was a true golden age for American science. Young Ph.D's could choose among excellent jobs, and anyone with a decent scientific idea could be sure of getting funds to pursue it. The impressive successes of scientific projects during the Second World War had paved the way for the federal government to assume responsibility for the support of basic research. Moreover, much of the rest of the world was still crippled by the after-effects of the war. At the same time, the G.I. Bill of Rights sent a whole generation back to college transforming the United States from a nation of elite higher education to a nation of mass higher education. Before the war, about 8% of Americans went to college, a figure comparable to that in France or England. By now more than half of all Americans receive some sort of post-secondary education. The American academic enterprise grew explosively, especially in science and technology. The expanding academic world in 1950-1970 created posts for the exploding number of new science Ph.D.s, whose research led to the founding of journals, to the acquisition of prizes and awards, and to increases in every other measure of the size and quality of science. At the same time, great American corporations such as AT&T, IBM and others decided they needed to create or expand their central research laboratories to solve technological problems, and also to pursue basic research that would provide ideas for future developments. And the federal government itself established a network of excellent national laboratories that also became the source of jobs and opportunities for aspiring scientists. Even so, that explosive growth was merely a seamless continuation of a hundred years of exponential growth of American science. It seemed to one and all (with the notable exception of Derek da Solla Price) that these happy conditions would go on forever.
By now, in the 1990's, the situation has changed dramatically. With the Cold War over, National Security is rapidly losing its appeal as a means of generating support for scientific research. There are those who argue that research is essential for our economic future, but the managers of the economy know better. The great corporations have decided that central research laboratories were not such a good idea after all. Many of the national laboratories have lost their missions and have not found new ones. The economy has gradually transformed from manufacturing to service, and service industries like banking and insurance don't support much scientific research. To make matters worse, the country is almost 5 trillion dollars in debt, and scientific research is among the few items of discretionary spending left in the national budget. There is much wringing of hands about impending shortages of trained scientific talent to ensure the Nation's future competitiveness, especially since by now other countries have been restored to economic and scientific vigor, but in fact, jobs are scarce for recent graduates. Finally, it should be clear by now that with more than half the kids in America already going to college, academic expansion is finished forever.
The crises that face science are not limited to jobs and research funds. Those are bad enough, but they are just the beginning. Under stress from those problems, other parts of the scientific enterprise have started showing signs of distress. One of the most essential is the matter of honesty and ethical behavior among scientists.
The public and the scientific community have both been shocked in recent years by an increasing number of cases of fraud committed by scientists. There is little doubt that the perpetrators in these cases felt themselves under intense pressure to compete for scarce resources, even by cheating if necessary. As the pressure increases, this kind of dishonesty is almost sure to become more commo
A book that discusses how police get people to do that: http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/
Among other things...
So yes, it is possible a lot of these "confessions" were false, with students just playing it safe.
That book indirectly helps explain why school cling to grades and homework when it has been shown they don't work very well.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
And it helps explain why competition is still so celebrated in schools when there are better ways of helping people learn together:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/icccr/index.asp?Id=About+the+ICCCR&Info=Founder%3A+Morton+Deutsch
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/9448_AFrameworkforTeachingConflictResolutionintheSchools1987.pdf
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm
Posts I made to the p2presearch list concerning education (it would take years to read through all the embedded links on Gatto, Holt, Goodstein, Schmidt, Honigman, Lewellyn, etc.):
* [p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
* [p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
* [p2p-research] Rebutting Communique from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
Someone citing something else I wrote on schools and information technology:
http://purdueetech.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/why-educational-technology-has-failed/
I sent the professor this: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
Basically this article show how implicit underlying assumptions the professor is probably making about grading are wrong.
===========
HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE
March 1999
From Degrading to De-Grading
By Alfie Kohn
You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.
Three Main Effects of Grading
Researchers have found three consistent effects of using - and especially, emphasizing the importance of - letter or number grades:
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward (Kohn, 1993). Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that when students are told they'll need to know something for a test - or, more generally, that something they're about to do will count for a grade - they are likely to come to view that task (or book or idea) as a chore.
While it's not impossible for a student to be concerned about getting high marks and also to like what he or she is doing, the practical reality is that these two ways of thinking generally pull in opposite directions. Some research has explicitly demonstrated that a "grade orientation" and a "learning orientation" are inversely related (Beck et al., 1991; Milton et al., 1986). More strikingly, study after study has found that students -- from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures - demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded (Benware and Deci, 1984; Butler, 1987; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Hughes et al., 1985; Kage, 1991; Salili et al., 1976). Thus, anyone who wants to see students get hooked on words and numbers and ideas already has reason to look for other ways of assessing and describing their achievement.
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. Students of all ages who have been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest possible assignment if given a choice (Harter, 1978; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Kage, 1991; Milton et al., 1986). The more pressure to get an A, the less inclination to truly challenge oneself. Thus, students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count. They might well say to us, "Hey, you told me the point here is to bring up my GPA, to get on the honor roll. Well, I'm not stupid: the easier the assignment, the more likely that I can give you what you want. So don't blame me when I try to find the easiest thing to do and end up not learning anything."
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. Given that students may lose interest in what they're learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they're also apt to think less deeply. One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less crea
in some situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
"Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by resistance movements (e.g. destroying whole towns and villages where such attacks have occurred)."
The professor is also trying to get students to mistrust each other with his whole look right, look left, one of these people cheated comment.
Of course, as a professor of management, he probably knows a lot about union busting.
While I don't condone cheating (the students are hurting themselves, to begin with), the students cooperated to do something, and that in itself is a very good thing.
In general, our whole schooling has lots of problems (see John Taylor Gatto and Jeff Schmidt/Disciplined Minds) and more and more students are realizing they are being scammed.
Just take the whole grading thing to begin with -- it is a terrible idea, as explained here by Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
Knowing the names of all donors to a charity would allow a government (or someone else) to profile people. Knowing everyone a charity talks to helps to profile social networks, especially when you can do this or lots of charities. There obviously is interest in profiling all sorts of progressive groups:
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/10/9/peace_group_infiltrated_by_government_agent
Can this be done in other ways? Probably. But collecting all this data in Google makes it easier.
Although, I suggest everyone assume eveything they do online is monitored, especially if they are interested in progressive things. Use the channels to communciate indirectly with the watchers, to try to lift their hearts and consciousnesses. :-) I make that point here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/ae28e8971f8f9669?hl=en
There may be other concerns. Let's say you were running a shelter for victims of domestic violence, rape, or some other form of abuse. Do you want all those case reports (or even just names) on Google servers? Although, no matter where you put them, there could be a privacy issue, so one might think Google might be better run than some smaller provider or inexperienced in-house IT?
So, one must weigh the pros vs. the cons.
How about homeschooling? That helps people escape the "two income trap".
http://motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap
"Middle-class parents are stretched thin these days. Between health care costs, child care hassles, looking for a home in a good district, and paying for college, raising a child is becoming increasingly expensive. Little wonder, then, that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts, and 75 percent more likely to have their homes foreclosed. And the danger is growing worse by the year: In 2002 1.6 million people filed for bankruptcy, many of those middle-class parents. a record . As Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi note in their book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke, having a child is now "the single best predictor" of bankruptcy. "
In the face of such hardships, many families have sent both parents into the workforce to try to make ends meet. After all, surely if both parents work full-time it shouldn't be hard to ensure financial security, right? Wrong, say authors Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi, in their book, The Two Income Trap. Two-income families are almost always worse off than their single-income counterparts were a generation ago, even though they pull in 75 percent more in income. The problem is that so many fixed costs are rising -- health care, child care, finding a good home -- that two-income families today actually have less discretionary money left over than those single-earner families did. As the authors write: "Our data show families in financial trouble are working hard, playing by the rules -- and the game is stacked against them.""
So, you can live somewhere cheap to live where you can work less and homeschool.
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
We do that ourselves.
On math, see:
"When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools: In an experiment, children who were taught less learned more."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools
"The school that Kenschaft visited happened to be in a very poor district, with mostly African American kids, so at first she figured that the worst teachers must have been assigned to that school, and she theorized that this was why African Americans do even more poorly than white Americans on math tests. But then she went into some schools in wealthy districts, with mostly white kids, and found that the mathematics knowledge of teachers there was equally pathetic. She concluded that nobody could be learning much math in school and, "It appears that the higher scores of the affluent districts are not due to superior teaching but to the supplementary informal 'home schooling' of children."
You and hundreds of millions of others (plus me for a long time) have been scammed about schooling. :-)
But sure, a rural lifestyles has its pros and cons.
http://www.google.com/nonprofits/
http://www.google.com/nonprofits/allproducts.html
From:
http://www.google.com/nonprofits/operations.html
"Using Google Apps saved us tens of thousands of dollars and enabled us to get off the ground really quickly at a time when it was difficult to start a nonprofit."
I have no personal experience with it myself (yet), but I've been looking into it for a small nonprofit.
A 501(c)3 organization gets various extra freebies as Google Apps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Apps
"Education Edition same as Premier Edition except for:
* Free for "accredited not-for-profit 501(c)(3) entities 3,000 users, K-12 schools, colleges, and universities""
It's also an ethical tradeoff between feeding the centralization beast (making privacy invasion easier) versus helping an organization have a stronger community and focus more on its mission which is good for society and democracy.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/burdened-by-bags-of-sand.html
"This ironic story is about trying to talk the USA out of collective suicide stemming from scarcity fears and misunderstandings when the USA and the world otherwise has so much potential for abundance."
I agree. See also: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
"The Food Pyramid of the Insane"
I saw a British video about obesity where they took an obese woman who claimed to have tried every diet and to have a slow metabolism, and they actually tested her in a hospital with a special test for that (respiration rate), and she had an average metabolism.
As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says inhis book "Eat To Live", tryng to control portion size breaks down eventually because no one can deny themselves foods they crave forever.
What works, reliably, is to switch ot a diet emphasizing vegetables fruits, and beans, where your stomach fills up with only 200 to 400 caloires of nutrient-dense plant matter, as opposed to, say, 3500 calories to fill your stomach with essentially phytonutrient-deficient cheese.
You may also need specific supplements, like vitamin D and DHA and B12 and some others.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
See Dr. Fuhrmans' presentation:
"Nutrient Density is the Key to Good health "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGgeGHU1Bs
Or also:
"Eat For Health"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
Such a diet can cure most Type 2 diabetes too in a few weeks:
"Dr. Fuhrman Cures Diabetes - But Drug Companies Object "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU
And he is not the only one who says that:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
And Herbet Shelton said it decades ago.
Most medical intervention in industrialized countries is unneeded and just covers up the symptoms of malnutrition (not lack of calories, but lack of phytonutrients and fiber). There are of course some other lifestyle issues (smoking, stess, lack of sleep, lack of exercise) as well as exposure to human-made toxins, so diet is not everything. But diet is still a really big thing for preventing (or in some cases, treating) chronic disease like much heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, and others.
The problem is, there is very little profit in telling people to eat more vegetables, get enough vitamin D, exercise more, and so on. The money is in things like (totally unneeded in most cases it turns out) heart operations like angioplasty for conditions more safely and more effectively treated with dietary changes.
Another part of the puzzle:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/the-pleasure-trap
So you are right to suggest the possibility there is a broad social problem, with profits to be had in harming people or endlessly treating them, but little profits to be had in prevention or cure. With more grassroots information, hopefully we can move past this medical problem of US malnutrition and free up a lot of resources and create a lot of positive energy to then address other unmet social needs.