Is Privacy Holding Back Humanity?

[grynge]

Who said so? What is trade? It's exchange of value. Even in collectivist society trade still exists. Even if some members of the family did nothing and still got the food, it's because they were somehow valuable to the family, even if that value is no more than mother's love for her child. That's trade.

TRADE: the act or process of buying, selling, or exchanging commodities.

Not sure how your family works but I don't trade my love for anything of value from my wife or kids I give it freely and without condition.

[JJMcClure]

So where did the cook get the food to cook and how did the witch doctor get food to eat? They must have traded their specialisation with the other specialists so they could all survive.

Specialists in a family group didn't trade, they did what they had to so that group could survive. Trade as we know it started when people began swapping items with other independent groups. A son catching a fish and giving it to his father to cook and who gave his son some leather shoes to wear isn't trade. The son meeting a member of another tribe and swapping the fish for some shoes IS trade.

Also you talk about corrupt politicians. I've already made the point in this thread that the pertinent question with politicians isn't what they believe but who owns them. Then take that step further, where did the people who own the politicians get the power to do it, oh yeah, it's money and that money came from our system of trade for reward. There isn't much that's wrong in our society that can't be traced back to trade at some point. Trade or resource control, whatever you want to call it, brings out the worst in us.

[tke71709]

You can thank the government for giving us Tang.

MMMM Tang...

But you're wrong, trade brought us Tang, not government. Government just made it popular

Originally formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, it was first marketed in powdered form in 1959.
Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight, and subsequent Gemini missions. Since then, it was closely associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, leading to the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program.

[tke71709]

There isn't much that's wrong in our society that can't be traced back to trade at some point.

There isn't much in our society period that can't be traced back to trade. Good and bad.

[tke71709]

Heck no and to do that would be a step backwards. We'd rely on adavnced technology because we'd have advanced technology.

Which we wouldn't have without trade... sigh

It would if the weak existed. We're already at a stage in our technolofy where we can influence how embryos develop and select for preferable genetic development.

Now we're moving from sounding like Pol Pot to eugenics. Hey let's influence embryos to get rid of homosexuality, make everyone nice and white. But that would never happen because the AI wouldn't let it happen you say. Why wouldn't it? If the AI determined that homosexuality caused conflict or that it was a waste of breeding material would it not be best for humanity to eliminate it? It certainly wouldn't break the prime rule of AI, it wouldn't "harm" the person. The same for race or any other "undesirable" quality.

we were so good at collecting food (except in exceptional circumstances) that there was plenty of time for leisure, there's archeological evidence of that.

Source?

Life was simpler and easier, populations were under control, people were stronger and fitter and had a healthier diet than the crap we eat now.

Simpler, maybe.
Easier, doubtful.
Stronger and fitter, yes
Healthier diet, doubtful or at least doubtful that they could have as healthy a diet as you can have now if you choose to do so. Trade has given us a myriad of choices, not all of them are great but I'd rather have the choice than not.

Put Austrolapithicus into a 100m race and he'd kick the ass off any current Olympic sprinter

As much as I enjoy your completely unfounded statements I'll have to call you on this one as well. Can you let me know what his time was in the 100m so I can compare it to people who train constantly, get a caloric surplus, and have the benefits of modern science.

we've devolved in many ways. Our brains got bigger, our bodies got weaker.

That's darwinism at work.

I do have to admit that your opinions disturb me, or they would if you had clout in the world. You really seem to skirt the lines of eugenics, how brutal times were better because it weeded out the weak, how trade and religion should be abolished so that a benevolent dictatorship could take care of all of our needs.

[JJMcClure]

There isn't much in our society period that can't be traced back to trade. Good and bad.

Which is a great argument to support why trade has been discussed so much in a thread about improving our society, I guess trade would be a good place to start then.... Thanks.

[Saul]

TRADE: the act or process of buying, selling, or exchanging commodities.

Not sure how your family works but I don't trade my love for anything of value from my wife or kids I give it freely and without condition.

That's trade in economics. Trade in general is exchange of value. We can't talk about trade by taking it just in some context while ignoring everything else.

A son catching a fish and giving it to his father to cook and who gave his son some leather shoes to wear isn't trade.

Then what is it?

Which is a great argument to support why trade has been discussed so much in a thread about improving our society, I guess trade would be a good place to start then.... Thanks.

Which is to remove it? Ridiculous.

It's obvious we don't agree on some core values, so that will be all I have to say in this discussion, arguing it is futile.

[grynge]

That's trade in economics. Trade in general is exchange of value. We can't talk about trade by taking it just in some context while ignoring everything else.

So in a family situation when I feed my family, what am I trading it for? I give them the food with no consideration of anything in return.

[Saul]

So in a family situation when I feed my family, what am I trading it for? I give them the food with no consideration of anything in return.

I don't know. What makes you care for them?

[JJMcClure]

Which is to remove it? Ridiculous.

Keeping it is ridiculous, there, I win

Come on, stay with it. You agree that scarcity is what caused the behavioural adaptation we call trade to develop, so why is solving the problem of resource scarcity ridiculous? I think it's a goal worthy of the efforts of all of humanity. To erradicate disease, poverty, wars over resources or ideologies based on ownership and greed, pollution, land shortages, hording of resources like information, devastation of the environment...... etc etc etc As tke says, "There isn't much in our society period that can't be traced back to trade" so we solve the problem not by alleviating the symptoms by removing the disease.

How could that be a bad thing?

To do it though, we have to get off planet to where the resources are. I hope my perspective is becoming more clear.