I don't believe many people (besides Google) have the same view of utopia as you (how is a person withholding their credit card information or banking data harming you?), but that's a different topic.Originally Posted by JJMcClure
I don't believe many people (besides Google) have the same view of utopia as you (how is a person withholding their credit card information or banking data harming you?), but that's a different topic.
Last edited by benitez17; April 29th, 2011 at 6:50 AM.
It's a topic I don't mind discussing and since I started the thread I guess it's ok for me to run with it (I wouldn't mind if anyone else had though, I like organic threads that go wherever the discussion takes them). I have no idea how many people share my view and I don't think you do either although I guess it's fair to say it's not a majority view, but then most people don't question the way we live and rarely look beyond the humdrum matters of human society, it's everything to them.
People withholding their credit card data from me doesn't affect me one way or the other. The fact that we live in a society that has an economy that in turn requires privacy and hording of information for competitive adantage does affect me greatly in almost every aspect of my life. We consider ourselves advanced but we're still quite a primitive species at the mercy of our evolved behaviours, competing with each other for economic gain because greed used to have a survival benefit, disagreeing over various spiritual belief systems in our anthropocentric view of the universe, completely oblivious to our fragile reality and hampered in our long term survival prospects because of it all. Imagine where we could be if we focussed our energy on less insular and trivial issues like who has my email address or which company owns which politican and which war needs to happen to maintain that. Privacy is just another symptom of the general problem.
I don't want to have to protect my credit card information, I want to not need it in the first place.
Last edited by benitez17; April 29th, 2011 at 6:51 AM. Reason: Cleaning up thread
Clinton (April 28th, 2011)
Until all humans are altruistic, or at least have no malicious intent at any time, individuals will have to protect themselves at some level (which is what privacy is really about).
How do you intend to remove all possibility for individual harm from society?
Last edited by benitez17; April 29th, 2011 at 6:51 AM.
By removing the need. Humans don't need to be altruistic for us to stop fighting over everything, they just need to have everything provided for them. At the moment we scrabble around on the surface of our planet spending bazillions on wars over mythical beliefs or who owns the energy supplies the use of which poisons the very air that we breath and many other totally useless efforts (like marketing) intended only to make a small minority even richer and more powerful.
Because I have a requirement to feed, clothe and house myself and my family I go along with it all but what we should to do is pool our incredible collective potential and work out a way to provide enough room and resources for the entire human race to never have to lift a finger to provide for themselves. There'd be no need for privacy or the collection of wealth, it wouldn't mean anything. Power would be a moot point, you basically wouldn't have any unless people vountarily submitted themselves to you which they could if they wanted to. If we conquered the technical obstacles we could move out into the galaxy where there are literally infinite resources for the taking. We've made adaptations to survive and evolve for this long, we can make them again.
Last edited by benitez17; April 29th, 2011 at 6:52 AM. Reason: Cleaning up thread
What evidence do you have that human demand is finite, and that greed, envy, and anger are solely created by unmet physical needs or desires?
Also, there are some things that just can't be provided to everyone.
Last edited by benitez17; April 29th, 2011 at 6:52 AM.
The utopia sounds great - in theory. But we all have different needs and wants. I wear old clothes, rarely wear proper shoes, and don't wear jewellery. Yet I spend a small fortune on food and drink. I don't have children (expensive!). How can you fairly distribute the resources so I get my "fair" share of gourmet treats? Maybe someone with 10 kids would want (demand?) them too. I suppose it could be done via a system of tokens - everyone gets so much to spend as they wish. How could that work? Money, perhaps?
Also, by removing the need to "earn" a living, you'd get a lot of hangers-on who would contribute nothing. Life's takers. I think that you have to earn/make your own tokens to spend as you wish by providing something that people want and which they'll reward you for.
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Let me know when that happens and I'll sign up.but what we should to do is pool our incredible collective potential and work out a way to provide enough room and resources for the entire human race to never have to lift a finger to provide for themselves.
When moving out into the galaxy becomes a reality I can see the blog postsIf we conquered the technical obstacles we could move out into the galaxy where there are literally infinite resources for the taking.
"Top 10 Ways to Find Yourself a Planet with the Most Resources"
and the ebooks
"Planetary Real Estate - The New Gold Rush"
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Utopian ideas are great so long as no one actually tries to implement them
As far as I can see nobody is hording information at all. Quite the opposite - it seems like the moment anybody figures out anything "new" they can't wait to shout it from the rooftops or get it on the Internet. I just typed in "secrets" in G and got 217,000,000 results in o.11 seconds.
My email address? If my email address was a girl she'd be called anything but a "proper lady".
Tell you what. You want information? I give you all the knowledge in the English language right now - no charge. Here ya go. Have at it. All you gotta do now is organize it.
I don't think the problem is so much about hording information as it is about properly filtering and utilizing it. Indeed some information, like the source code for Windows 7, is closely guarded. While I'm far from a M$ fan, I absolutely believe they have every right to profit from the enormous effort it took to develop that software. Just like I believe if I published a fictional story that I used my own skills and talent to write, that I should be able to enjoy the right to profit from my efforts. Just like that woman 5,000 years ago had the right to stop collecting firewood in exchange for her pottery. (Sorry, added this later, referenced below.)
Sorry Rich but this just cannot work. It reminds me of the times my kids would say with a sigh - 'Wouldn't be wonderful if everything was FREE?"Humans don't need to be altruistic for us to stop fighting over everything, they just need to have everything provided for them
Well, no, it wouldn't. The problem is if I didn't have to work every day, I probably wouldn't. And I'm sure I'm like a lot of people.
Like the farmers to raise and grow food. Ever been to a dairy farm? Most farmers are up before dawn and put on more work before breakfast than I do all day - and I like to think I'm a hard worker. Cows need to be milked twice a day. Every day. They don't get milked and it hurts. Stop milking them long enough and they stop producing.
Sure I bet a lot of farmers love what they do but what if they didn't have to milk the cows? What if they never needed to pay for a mortgage or electricity? What if clothes were free? What if they didn't HAVE to get up on Christmas morning to milk those cows?
What about all the folks who work at jobs they hate so they can live? Even people who love their jobs don't want to do them some days (ask Mr. Farmer)
How many of those guys working in those stinking oil refineries or coal mines would be there if there were no bills to pay?
Our world is what it is today because we are basically and inherently lazy. In the beginnings of civilization, everybody hunted and farmed in order to live. Eventually some folks found they were really good at making pottery and preferred that to planting potatoes. So they traded pottery for potatoes. Others did likewise because if they got good at something they liked or at least could tolerate, they could avoid doing stuff they didn't like to do.
Some people are really good at organizing and managing things. That's a good thing too because I don't think there is any one person who could've built a Boeing 747 without a helping hand. And if that "dirty-four-letter-word" called "profit" was never invented, well, I don't think anyone would've decided to build it either.
The way I see it, human nature is what it is because that is how it needs to be for us to survive - much less grow and for society to improve. People who would have died 10 years ago because of crappy water (literally) or lack of food are alive today because of the advancements made by industrialized nations. Sure too many people still die for ridiculous reasons. A few years ago I knew of a young Ukrainian orphan who died because she could not have a simple common antibiotic (something that did not exist 100 years ago and would not still if it had not been for some "greedy" pharmaceutical company.) We love to point out all that is wrong in the world today while so often overlooking what is right.
By the way, about the idea of "finite human demand" - it's a fantasy. Another Ukrainian orphan story. To set the stage, when the plight of these children (no worse, and probably better than a lot of other children in the world, but these were the ones I came in contact with) came to my attention, I did a bit of research. One paraphrase I remember is "all their possessions could fit on one small drawer... if they had a drawer." And that was not all "hype" either.
I was at an orphanage when they were treated to some yogurt. A girl I new - about 8 years old - opened hers sniffed the top and reared back. The girl next to her saw it and checked it herself. She brought it to my wife who agreed it was bad. We started to take it to get it exchanged when the 8 year-old waved us off, took the yogurt and ate it anyway.
Believe me, conditions there are terrible by our standards and they have it comparatively good. So what's all this got to do with unlimited human demand?
That same yogurt girl was our guest in the U.S. Her first day here, we took her shopping. Our funds were limited so we took her to some thrift stores. She ended up with a nice selection of clothes. The next day her translator approached us in church and told us we "had" to buy her some warm clothes because she was cold. It was 85 degrees outside and the air conditioning was on.
This is just one small example of many where the more these kids got the more they wanted. I don't blame them but it demonstrates to me that kids from all over are exactly the same - never satisfied. And we never really grow out of it either. It's part of our nature.
As far as disagreeing over various spiritual belief systems is concerned, rest assured, these questions will one day be answered once and for all with absolutely no human intervention.
About privacy... I'm not so sure it's purely a protection mechanism. Rich seems to tend to be naturally unconcerned about privacy. On the other hand, my own nature is to protect my privacy to the extreme. It has nothing to do with feeling "safe". I simply do not want to volunteer any personal information most of the time. Usually, I don't even want to tell my kids what's for dinner. Okay so that may have more to do with not wanting to hear them complain.
And that is just about enough for me and I'm sure for you too.
Andy
Last edited by Andy; April 29th, 2011 at 1:52 PM.
The problem is that everyone's version of utopia is different.
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