I think PJ is just getting some competition in the ZM en the VP… lol
Peter Joseph is a very nice and gracious speaker, but his arguments amount to trolling. What about wal-mart. What about the rich guy undercutting all the poor people. What about misc farmers in the third world. People will be jackasses in the market but agency problems will disappear under the Venus Project because we’ll program it so that it won’t have any problems. Its a COMPLETELY abusive argument. PJ’s supercomputer is just a fiat-autowin proposition.
Yeah Stefan never really stumbled, but he could have driven home a few points more directly. He had the host on the defensive the whole time while not seeming like an asshole, and both of those call-ins were embarassingly bad.
They keep using the term “science” to refer to central planning. Scientific planning has never lead to a greater efficiency of anything.
- Scientific planning has never lead to a greater efficiency of anything.
Well, I’d dissagree. If you’re manufacturing an object, it’s entirely possible to plan it’s production in a way that is highly efficient, resource wise. However, this relies on prices telling you which are the cheapest goods that can “get the job done”. It also tells you nothing about WHAT you should make, merely HOW you should make it with the given resources.
This is exactly the trap that the systems engineer that called in fell into. He conflates engineering efficiency with economic efficiency. That’s really one of the prime points that Stefan could have made very early on. It’s impossible to quantify human satisfaction or human desires, as they’re not cardinal ideas but rather ordinal ones, and cannot be planned scientifically.
- Well, I’d dissagree. If you’re manufacturing an object, it’s entirely possible to plan it’s production in a way that is highly efficient, resource wise.
I meant scientific planning as a substitute for market processes. In manufacturing a single object there has to be planning involved. But the most efficient way to do that is a private enterprise system. And if manufacturers could somehow evolve an object instead of planning it, it would lead to superior results. Just that it’s usually not feasible to employ market processes in the manufacturing of a single object.
I think it’s not so much that the zeitgeisters are equivocating engineering efficiency with economic efficiency, but that they believe that engineering efficiency can outdo economic efficiency. That of course was the belief behind collectivized agriculture, probably the most deadly idea in human history.
I stopped listening after the kid said that poor people live happier lives relative to wealthy people, and that capitalism can’t work because we have finite resources.
That’s really depressing, these people want to crush dreams. They think just because a “minimalist” life works for them it works for everyone.
I guess they already know what to say to the people of Venus Project when they’ll all starve :“We don’t need food, we’re supreme beings”
Why do they insist on the idea that we are consuming more then we produce. A bussiness that consumes more then it produces will fail lol. That’s elementary economics. We do not cut all the forests without replanting, we need to replant in order to cut more. Duh…
Some say that overpopulation means we have to give up our private property. Removing property is not going to cure overpopulation.
Why do they insist on the idea that we are consuming more then we produce. A bussiness that consumes more then it produces will fail lol. That’s elementary economics. We do not cut all the forests without replanting, we need to replant in order to cut more.
Because to the typical human being socialism is natural and obvious and capitalism is a swear word and an incoherent, arbitrary system.
I’m trying to figure out how a moneyless society can work. If we don’t have money, don’t we trade? We’ll always use some form of currency, after all we do trade everyday.
Say I cut wood, in this society, it’s my wood, I trade it for something. What, the wood I cut belongs to others, they can take it from me as they please. I suppose that in a society where everyone owns everything, theft does not exist.
It will take a lot of brainwashing to make people “understand” that theft does not exist.
I’m trying to figure out how a moneyless society can work. If we don’t have money, don’t we trade? We’ll always use some form of currency, after all we do trade everyday.
The evolution of money is entirely natural and will occur anywhere unless it is prevented. It is nothing but the most generally accepted medium of exchange. There is no thought behind their moneyless society, only mysticism and irrationalist dislike.
From the thread on sociobiology and libertarianism:
One anti-libertarian tendency that I see as highly pronounced is the mistrust money and monetary exchanges; ranging across many political ideologies. Money is the non plus ultra of both indirect coordination and the ‘unseen’. Money’s particular usefulness is almost nil (aside from its non-montary functions) and it only comes into its own in exchange, thus making it seem as people are demanding and accumulating something which is on the face of it useless; that people are starving for want of a commodity that has no obvious function. Likewise money is the prime coordinator of the production processes, making capitalists and financial markets appearing to the layman nothing more than useless shuffling around of a useless commodity.
Notice how they dodge a lot of questions, particularly the “what if I don’t want to join, am I free to be a civilized being?”. None of them ever answer it ,lol.
I noticed… isn’t the zeitgeisters dislike of “consumerism” a lot like the communists dislike of “bourgeoisie society”?
“consumerism”, what does that mean? You pay for what you consume, is there something I’m missing.
I noticed they emphasize on the choices of another person and how everyone except them is irrational, because they live a “minimalist”(poor and lazy) lifestyle. So that everyone may survive and be happy,
They also don’t buy from sweatshops, even though you remind them that if the factory doesn’t sell, factory closes, children prostitute.
I personally like how they are honest, unrealistic but sincere.
Cultural programming Mind-Lok is preventing you guys from seeing the obvious benefits of the Resource-Based Economy…
Wow that’s amazing, I’m certainly going to join now. O_O
I can’t own that I imagine?