Finally, my dream society is one where the people working for the company (of any size) own it and participate in the management of it to some degree, where quality of service and product are still worth putting your name on what you do (as I do), and where 'shareholder value' and executive greed don't take precedence over the well being of the employees of the company.
Hey, at least you're one party ahead of the commies!
Or the fascists.
Many people here in Europe are completely disappointed with democracy and political parties. They look at the "democratic" political parties and are disgusted by the festering pits of incompetence, greed, self-indulgence and nepotism they have become.
It's ironic (and scary) that people are sighing for a mythical "glorious past" when they were ruled by fascist oligarchies that crushed all dissent with extreme violence. People just had to do their day-to-day lives and everything was simple: The rich were rich, the poor were poor, nobody had to know anything about politics.
Of course this is all bullshit, the "glorious past" was horrible, but the ones that lived it are dead or too old. However the current system is so corrupt that it's hard to imagine a way out.
It's really idiotic that our productivity has never been so high, yet employed people are being forced to work more and more hours but getting paid less and less. Meanwhile there is a growing mass of unemployed and the social benefits are being cut really hard throughout all the developed world. It just doesn't make sense and it can't end well. It's unsustainable.
It all comes down to the ownership of the means of production. If they're privately owned, the robots will work to make a few people very very rich while the rest of the populace lives in a Mad Max wasteland. If the ownership is socialised, the benefits of the increased productivity will be shared by every one. People can work less hours, or not work at all, and still be able to make a living.
And before people start ranting about "nobody will want to do anything, then", I call your attention to some examples: In Ancient Greece, the slaves did all the work. That's when unoccupied citizens created Democracy and made great advancements in human knowledge, like Mathematics and Philosophy. Most of the great scientists and philosophers up until the XX century were rich heirs that had nothing to do and didn't want to manage their family businesses. They ended up advancing the human knowledge. Sure, when machines do all the work, lots of people will choose to indulge in sex and drugs, but lots of them will work hard in whatever field they like, be it philosophy, politics, history, science and technology, medicine, arts, music, whatever makes us humans and not just animals. And they will compete among each other, not for a piece of bread, but for glory, fame, babes, whatever. Merit will not suddenly vanish.
Wow, I never though about it. Who needs developed economies when we have such a bright example? Afghanistan, that beacon of civilisation. They really got it. Craftsman shops everywhere is what we need for success!
It's funny that, while people are less and less protected from being exploited, here comes the hero wanting to give rights to... robots. Wrong priorities?
If everybody is a business man, who is left to do the work?
OK, not everyone will succeed. In fact, the vast majority will fail. So, in your dream society there's a little bunch of successful business men and a vast majority of frustrated, miserable losers who hate what they do because they all wanted to be business men. And they receive shit pay because they have "failed". Can't you see a systemic problem with this model?
You can't have it both ways, man. Don't make the argument that Africa is "very developed,"
Straw man. When did I exactly did say that?
then try to keep hold on your self-righteousness with the "poor villagers are suffering why do you only care about rich city folk" argument.
I'm sorry you didn't understand my original post. I'll try to dumb it down a little bit for you:
Your point was that Africa is full of poor people who can't do planned parenthood. I wrote that Africa is not in the Stone Age, implying that they have contraceptives just like the rest of the world. I also made a remark about Africans being homo sapiens which means that they're perfectly able to reason, just like anybody else. If they are able to reason, they are able to give planned parenthood a try. Also, they are as much capable of being civilised as any other human beings and deserve a little more respect from you.
Now, about the other post, the most part of it you conveniently ignored because it doesn't suit your trolling intents:
In response to your rant about the lack of planned parenthood in the USA (ignoring the offtopic stuff) I wrote that it's possible to implement effective public policies to prevent unwanted births. People are not condemned to have children as you seem to imply all the time. And I proved that, contrary to your claims, people in Africa have the desire to not have so many children, as can be seen by the huge abortion rate. Given appropriate public policies, people would have less children.
Then, given another (mostly offtpic) rant you wrote about there being big cities in Africa along with rural places, I failed to understand what exactly you propose to tackle the problems in Africa. I got the impression that your whole point was that malaria is only a problem in the rural areas where we shouldn't end it because it would cause overpopulation, because peasants will always be too stupid to control the number of births. This seems outrageous to me, and I pointed it out to you.
And then proceeded to explain pretty reasonably why the claim you made about ending malaria causing overpopulation is fallacious. But you conveniently ignored this part.
The logical disconnect is amazing but the trick doesn't work when someone runs a short line between both ends. (Yes, that's actually a documented logical fallacy, but I don't recall which... basically it involves making one statement, babbling for a while, then making a conflicting statement and hoping nobody notices)
Babbling is pretty much all you do, not only in this thread, but all over the entire discussion of the story, as can be seen by your comments in other threads. You're an aggressive blabbering troll. Go get a cold shower.
Yes and I live in a region in a third world country (called the United States of America, one of the poorest nations in the world with ridiculously high debt and out of control government spending, as well as failing social services) in which people get pregnant all the time when they don't want to. Why just last week some woman was complaining she can't afford an abortion and needs one badly 'cause she skipped a period last month, although she's not sure who the father is (there's a dozen candidates).
Abortion is available for free in public hospitals in my country, and most other developed countries. We also have emergency pills freely sold in any pharmacy.
You could easily solve that problem in the US. And don't even start about the costs. An abortion is infinitely cheaper for the taxpayer than an unwanted child.
You have a serious teenage pregnancy problem in the US, which is quite worse than the other developed countries. You beat my country, Portugal, which already ranks pretty bad. Too much religious conservatism and lack of sexual education may be the causes. In my country, they definitely are.
Do they have abortion in Africa?
Most of Africa is pretty conservative about abortion. But they beat the rest of the world in illegal abortions, which is kind of ironic, in a sad way.
places like Uganda where a month's pay may save up enough to buy a small portion of meat in the poor areas, where people walk 9 miles a day to collect fresh water.
Which is quite good for malaria, since mosquitoes breed in water. No water, no malaria.
Places with running water, super highways, and health care probably count less when it comes to devastating disease and birth rates.
What is your point, then? Villagers must continue to suffer from this terrible disease so their populations don't grow, while city people can live happy? Do you realise how evil that is? Malaria is a major cause for poverty, since it's very debilitating. Sick people can't work and people with sick children have to skip work to take care of their children. Eliminating malaria would be the best thing to take these people out of poverty. Development leads to having less children.
Why don't you try to educate yourself before posting mindless rants like that?
It's hard to provide food and shelter when a significant part of the population is in bed with terrible pain and extreme fever and unable to work. Or their children are, which leads to the same result because they have to stay home to take care of them.
What makes you think you are in any way superior to others? What's about African climate that makes it unfit for human life? Are you really that stupid or you just get off on trolling?
You are right. We shouldn't have invented antibiotics. Now we have all these people in the developed countries dying from old age. What a fucking tragedy.
As long as the fundamentalist Protestant preachers and wacky Catholic missionaries from America and Europe get the fuck out of Africa and leave people alone with their stupid ideas about contraception being a sin and abstinence being the only way.
Those guys should go to jail. Their stupid ideas have probably killed millions of people already. They like to preach in Africa because nobody listens to them in their home countries (well, maybe in the USA).
No, you don't want Dodo-burger. The dutch sailors who first encountered the birds tried eating them, but concluded the birds were barely-edible and taste terrible.
Nothing a few hours of boiling and a shitload of garlic can't fix.
I've seen way to many people living decades of miserable lives because of the abuse of food, alcohol and tobacco and low exercise. You won't be young forever, you know? And you won't die that soon, too.
An thus, the athiest condems the next generation to his own hell... Hard to find something more evil than that... You have my pity but it won't help you. I'd say "see you in hell" but I don't plan on being there. Sadly, with your indoctrination of them
What indoctrination? I just took them to the church.
you're much more likely to meet your children there....
Why not? Our Catholics are just as much worshiping graven images as yours.
I know you have Catholics. But you couldn't say they are a major influence in your culture and traditions, as here.
You can find all kinds of crazy here. I bet you don't have snake handlers.
Protestants take religion as a personal thing, there are thousands of sects with all kinds of different beliefs and rituals. The Catholic Church is very strict about the rituals and the hierarchy. The priests are all employees of the Church and they don't have much room for experimentation.
Someone decided to mod me troll. I was just having a friendly conversation with a Canadian guy. Don't you have better uses for your mod points? Retards.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally, my dream society is one where the people working for the company (of any size) own it and participate in the management of it to some degree, where quality of service and product are still worth putting your name on what you do (as I do), and where 'shareholder value' and executive greed don't take precedence over the well being of the employees of the company.
I raise my glass to that one!
Hey, at least you're one party ahead of the commies!
Or the fascists.
Many people here in Europe are completely disappointed with democracy and political parties. They look at the "democratic" political parties and are disgusted by the festering pits of incompetence, greed, self-indulgence and nepotism they have become.
It's ironic (and scary) that people are sighing for a mythical "glorious past" when they were ruled by fascist oligarchies that crushed all dissent with extreme violence. People just had to do their day-to-day lives and everything was simple: The rich were rich, the poor were poor, nobody had to know anything about politics.
Of course this is all bullshit, the "glorious past" was horrible, but the ones that lived it are dead or too old. However the current system is so corrupt that it's hard to imagine a way out.
Nice post you wrote there. I think the same.
It's really idiotic that our productivity has never been so high, yet employed people are being forced to work more and more hours but getting paid less and less. Meanwhile there is a growing mass of unemployed and the social benefits are being cut really hard throughout all the developed world. It just doesn't make sense and it can't end well. It's unsustainable.
It all comes down to the ownership of the means of production. If they're privately owned, the robots will work to make a few people very very rich while the rest of the populace lives in a Mad Max wasteland. If the ownership is socialised, the benefits of the increased productivity will be shared by every one. People can work less hours, or not work at all, and still be able to make a living.
And before people start ranting about "nobody will want to do anything, then", I call your attention to some examples: In Ancient Greece, the slaves did all the work. That's when unoccupied citizens created Democracy and made great advancements in human knowledge, like Mathematics and Philosophy. Most of the great scientists and philosophers up until the XX century were rich heirs that had nothing to do and didn't want to manage their family businesses. They ended up advancing the human knowledge. Sure, when machines do all the work, lots of people will choose to indulge in sex and drugs, but lots of them will work hard in whatever field they like, be it philosophy, politics, history, science and technology, medicine, arts, music, whatever makes us humans and not just animals. And they will compete among each other, not for a piece of bread, but for glory, fame, babes, whatever. Merit will not suddenly vanish.
Wow, I never though about it. Who needs developed economies when we have such a bright example? Afghanistan, that beacon of civilisation. They really got it. Craftsman shops everywhere is what we need for success!
Well, you know what they say: "two parties is enough for anyone"!
It's funny that, while people are less and less protected from being exploited, here comes the hero wanting to give rights to... robots. Wrong priorities?
Well, I like pork better.
If everybody is a business man, who is left to do the work?
OK, not everyone will succeed. In fact, the vast majority will fail. So, in your dream society there's a little bunch of successful business men and a vast majority of frustrated, miserable losers who hate what they do because they all wanted to be business men. And they receive shit pay because they have "failed". Can't you see a systemic problem with this model?
You can't have it both ways, man. Don't make the argument that Africa is "very developed,"
Straw man. When did I exactly did say that?
then try to keep hold on your self-righteousness with the "poor villagers are suffering why do you only care about rich city folk" argument.
I'm sorry you didn't understand my original post. I'll try to dumb it down a little bit for you:
Your point was that Africa is full of poor people who can't do planned parenthood. I wrote that Africa is not in the Stone Age, implying that they have contraceptives just like the rest of the world. I also made a remark about Africans being homo sapiens which means that they're perfectly able to reason, just like anybody else. If they are able to reason, they are able to give planned parenthood a try. Also, they are as much capable of being civilised as any other human beings and deserve a little more respect from you.
Now, about the other post, the most part of it you conveniently ignored because it doesn't suit your trolling intents:
In response to your rant about the lack of planned parenthood in the USA (ignoring the offtopic stuff) I wrote that it's possible to implement effective public policies to prevent unwanted births. People are not condemned to have children as you seem to imply all the time. And I proved that, contrary to your claims, people in Africa have the desire to not have so many children, as can be seen by the huge abortion rate. Given appropriate public policies, people would have less children.
Then, given another (mostly offtpic) rant you wrote about there being big cities in Africa along with rural places, I failed to understand what exactly you propose to tackle the problems in Africa. I got the impression that your whole point was that malaria is only a problem in the rural areas where we shouldn't end it because it would cause overpopulation, because peasants will always be too stupid to control the number of births. This seems outrageous to me, and I pointed it out to you.
And then proceeded to explain pretty reasonably why the claim you made about ending malaria causing overpopulation is fallacious. But you conveniently ignored this part.
The logical disconnect is amazing but the trick doesn't work when someone runs a short line between both ends. (Yes, that's actually a documented logical fallacy, but I don't recall which ... basically it involves making one statement, babbling for a while, then making a conflicting statement and hoping nobody notices)
Babbling is pretty much all you do, not only in this thread, but all over the entire discussion of the story, as can be seen by your comments in other threads. You're an aggressive blabbering troll. Go get a cold shower.
Yes and I live in a region in a third world country (called the United States of America, one of the poorest nations in the world with ridiculously high debt and out of control government spending, as well as failing social services) in which people get pregnant all the time when they don't want to. Why just last week some woman was complaining she can't afford an abortion and needs one badly 'cause she skipped a period last month, although she's not sure who the father is (there's a dozen candidates).
Abortion is available for free in public hospitals in my country, and most other developed countries. We also have emergency pills freely sold in any pharmacy.
You could easily solve that problem in the US. And don't even start about the costs. An abortion is infinitely cheaper for the taxpayer than an unwanted child.
You have a serious teenage pregnancy problem in the US, which is quite worse than the other developed countries. You beat my country, Portugal, which already ranks pretty bad. Too much religious conservatism and lack of sexual education may be the causes. In my country, they definitely are.
Do they have abortion in Africa?
Most of Africa is pretty conservative about abortion. But they beat the rest of the world in illegal abortions, which is kind of ironic, in a sad way.
places like Uganda where a month's pay may save up enough to buy a small portion of meat in the poor areas, where people walk 9 miles a day to collect fresh water.
Which is quite good for malaria, since mosquitoes breed in water. No water, no malaria.
Places with running water, super highways, and health care probably count less when it comes to devastating disease and birth rates.
What is your point, then? Villagers must continue to suffer from this terrible disease so their populations don't grow, while city people can live happy? Do you realise how evil that is? Malaria is a major cause for poverty, since it's very debilitating. Sick people can't work and people with sick children have to skip work to take care of their children. Eliminating malaria would be the best thing to take these people out of poverty. Development leads to having less children.
Why don't you try to educate yourself before posting mindless rants like that?
It's hard to provide food and shelter when a significant part of the population is in bed with terrible pain and extreme fever and unable to work. Or their children are, which leads to the same result because they have to stay home to take care of them.
What makes you think you are in any way superior to others? What's about African climate that makes it unfit for human life? Are you really that stupid or you just get off on trolling?
No problem. It's a medicine, not a vaccine. We don't want all those poor Africans suffering from autism, do we?
You are right. We shouldn't have invented antibiotics. Now we have all these people in the developed countries dying from old age. What a fucking tragedy.
Have you ever been in Africa?
I have a clue for you, it's not in the Stone Age, and it's inhabited by homo sapiens, you know, that same species you belong to (I guess).
As long as the fundamentalist Protestant preachers and wacky Catholic missionaries from America and Europe get the fuck out of Africa and leave people alone with their stupid ideas about contraception being a sin and abstinence being the only way.
Those guys should go to jail. Their stupid ideas have probably killed millions of people already. They like to preach in Africa because nobody listens to them in their home countries (well, maybe in the USA).
No! Just think about all the price hike for chilli. Chilli will be more expensive than gold!
No, you don't want Dodo-burger. The dutch sailors who first encountered the birds tried eating them, but concluded the birds were barely-edible and taste terrible.
Nothing a few hours of boiling and a shitload of garlic can't fix.
If I were the UK, I would not want to model anything after California
Come on. Maybe the weather. Or the food.
I've seen way to many people living decades of miserable lives because of the abuse of food, alcohol and tobacco and low exercise. You won't be young forever, you know? And you won't die that soon, too.
Maybe your kids are monkeys, but mine are people.
Right, because perpetual growth is not the Holy Graal of every capitalist corporation.
I can already hear the advertising executive: "We have enough money already, no need for more ads".
Comparing apples and oranges. A church is a place for the public to attend, not professionals.
Now, if we take them to an exhibition about evolution, I'm pretty sure they'll love it.
An thus, the athiest condems the next generation to his own hell... Hard to find something more evil than that... You have my pity but it won't help you. I'd say "see you in hell" but I don't plan on being there. Sadly, with your indoctrination of them
What indoctrination? I just took them to the church.
you're much more likely to meet your children there....
Well, families should be together...
Why not? Our Catholics are just as much worshiping graven images as yours.
I know you have Catholics. But you couldn't say they are a major influence in your culture and traditions, as here.
You can find all kinds of crazy here. I bet you don't have snake handlers.
Protestants take religion as a personal thing, there are thousands of sects with all kinds of different beliefs and rituals. The Catholic Church is very strict about the rituals and the hierarchy. The priests are all employees of the Church and they don't have much room for experimentation.
Someone decided to mod me troll. I was just having a friendly conversation with a Canadian guy. Don't you have better uses for your mod points? Retards.