Thread: a society changing idea...for the better?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I agree, it's a very dangerous system. I'm not sure where you're going with the sun's output thing, though.

Well, if the source of pretty much all energy in the biosphere ultimately originates with the sun, then it seems pretty silly to think that we would be any exception. It's concrete energy. When I put $100 in the bank, and the bank loans out $90, then I have (or will behave as if I have: same thing) $100 and somebody else has $90 dollars. So now we are all magically behaving as if there is $190 dollars. It's usual to think about these things in terms of calories. Let's assume that before the bank loaned out the $90, one dollar represented one calorie of energy. After the loan, either a dollar is worth 10/19 calories (an inflation of 48%) or an additional 90 calories are fictitiously accounted for in the system. Given that inflation seldom reaches above 3%, I think it would be fair to say that our system is assuming that more calories are available to it than actually are.

This is a bad idea.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And what do you mean money does not have any rightful claim to exist in the first place? Money is a medium of exchange in the market. How could it have and claim to exist?

It was a figure of speech I suppose. Translate it as: Anybody that believes money exists is insane. Granted a dollar bill exists. I can burn it for heat or eat it or in some other way extract caloric value from it and its natural worth is precisely that. Given a hundred dollar bill which is purportedly worth 100 times as much, I can also burn it for heat or eat it and extract precisely the same caloric value from it.

So why is it regarded as being worth 100 times as much? Simply because it is more scarce than the one dollar bill. But this is ridiculous. Surely it's no more expensive to manufacture a 100 dollar bill than a one dollar bill! So it is a manufactured scarcity that has no connection to any physical reality.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

What do you mean they're fictitious? Define your terms.

How would I interact with the Bank of America? I could interact with one of its employees, I could see its buildings, I could visit its website but in no way does the Bank of America actually exist in anything other than the collective imagination of human beings. It's every bit as real and not one iota more than unicorns, dragons and faeries.

Likewise for money. While paper and metal representations of it exist, it's value above and beyond its caloric content exists only in the imagination and it having anything approaching a consistent value is the result purely of manufactured scarcity.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

We should be careful to note the dichotomy between market banks and government banks, as I feel you're about to head into anti-market territory (which would be ridiculous since we don't have any sort of free market at the moment). What we have now, by and large, are government banks. They may be privately run, but they all operate under the Federal Reserve and the fractional reserve system.

I see no relevance of the distinction to the present discussion. Perhaps you would care to illuminate it for me. As near as I can tell a free market would be an even more Darwinian system than what we currently 'enjoy' and would only select more efficiently for fictitious entities that survive at any cost to their surrounding environment (generally at the expense of real ones).

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

One should also learn what profit is and note that "excessive wealth" cannot be determined by any objective measure, and that violently attacking people in order to bring about some form of wealth redistribution makes one no better than mass murderers like Mao or Stalin.

Profit is the surplus value that is created by an economic transaction and which is appropriated by the rich right? That's why the rich get rich and the poor get poorer? Excessive wealth would then be wealth above the level which one needs to live a comfortable life and in proportion to the amount of people living below that level. Seems pretty simple to me.

Also I was not advocating any form of abstract redistribution of wealth by some massive and totalitarian system but at a very real and personal: "You have all this loot laying around and don't seem to be using it. Best learn to share suckah!" level. The bottom line is that these billionaires exhibit almost none of the traits which are so often brought up when one wants to demonstrate the superiority of our species over other animals and, quite frankly, deserve what they get. I certainly wouldn't be shedding any tears for them.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Well, if the source of pretty much all energy in the biosphere ultimately originates with the sun, then it seems pretty silly to think that we would be any exception. It's concrete energy. When I put $100 in the bank, and the bank loans out $90, then I have (or will behave as if I have: same thing) $100 and somebody else has $90 dollars. So now we are all magically behaving as if there is $190 dollars. It's usual to think about these things in terms of calories. Let's assume that before the bank loaned out the $90, one dollar represented one calorie of energy. After the loan, either a dollar is worth 10/19 calories (an inflation of 48%) or an additional 90 calories are fictitiously accounted for in the system. Given that inflation seldom reaches above 3%, I think it would be fair to say that our system is assuming that more calories are available to it than actually are.

This is a bad idea.

To be honest I still have no idea what your point is.

It was a figure of speech I suppose. Translate it as: Anybody that believes money exists is insane. Granted a dollar bill exists. I can burn it for heat or eat it or in some other way extract caloric value from it and its natural worth is precisely that. Given a hundred dollar bill which is purportedly worth 100 times as much, I can also burn it for heat or eat it and extract precisely the same caloric value from it.

So why is it regarded as being worth 100 times as much? Simply because it is more scarce than the one dollar bill. But this is ridiculous. Surely it's no more expensive to manufacture a 100 dollar bill than a one dollar bill! So it is a manufactured scarcity that has no connection to any physical reality.

Well surely money exists. Gold exists, silver exists, and dollars exist. I think your concern is that the value behind the dollar is arbitrary. And I would have to agree. It's called fiat money. It is a medium of exchange decreed by the government instead of the market.

[quote]How would I interact with the Bank of America? I could interact with one of its employees, I could see its buildings, I could visit its website but in no way does the Bank of America actually exist in anything other than the collective imagination of human beings. It's every bit as real and not one iota more than unicorns, dragons and faeries.

Ah, so you're going from the abstraction angle. I see. And I agree. Collectives cannot act, only individuals can act.

Likewise for money. While paper and metal representations of it exist, it's value above and beyond its caloric content exists only in the imagination and it having anything approaching a consistent value is the result purely of manufactured scarcity.

What do you mean "manufactured scarcity?" And again, I'll agree with you. The value of money is purely subjective. If humans were not around, there would be no value in money (or anything, for that matter).

I see no relevance of the distinction to the present discussion. Perhaps you would care to illuminate it for me. As near as I can tell a free market would be an even more Darwinian system than what we currently 'enjoy' and would only select more efficiently for fictitious entities that survive at any cost to their surrounding environment (generally at the expense of real ones).

You began to speak of profit negatively and "sharing the wealth." In any sort of economic discussion, this sets off a red flag in my mind. Typically people conflate our current system with the free market, and they're dead wrong. Now, this isn't a thread about the free market (there have been many, many threads) so I don't feel like we should go into it further. However there is a vast literature addressing your points, which are fairly common objections, although misguided.

Profit is the surplus value that is created by an economic transaction and which is appropriated by the rich right? That's why the rich get rich and the poor get poorer? Excessive wealth would then be wealth above the level which one needs to live a comfortable life and in proportion to the amount of people living below that level. Seems pretty simple to me.

The common definition of profit is similar to how you described it: revenue - expenses = profit (or loss). But it is a little more complicated than that. Profit is the positive benefit from any transaction, but it is also a signal used in the marketplace to show success or failure. And profit is not necessarily appropriated by the rich. Anyone who engages in a voluntary transaction comes out profitably, rich or not. We mustn't assume that because Person A benefited from a transaction that someone was exploited or hung out to dry.

As for "excessive wealth," how does one measure the correct level of wealth? For one, a comfortable level of wealth may be living out in the boonies in a mud hut. For another, it may be in a million dollar apartment in New York. Unless you possess magical powers, there is no way to measure the "correct level." Most attempts to find the correct level have ended up killing millions, or driving more people into poverty.

Also I was not advocating any form of abstract redistribution of wealth by some massive and totalitarian system but at a very real and personal: "You have all this loot laying around and don't seem to be using it. Best learn to share suckah!" level. The bottom line is that these billionaires exhibit almost none of the traits which are so often brought up when one wants to demonstrate the superiority of our species over other animals and, quite frankly, deserve what they get. I certainly wouldn't be shedding any tears for them.

How do you know the person is not utilizing their "loot?" What is loot? And if your attitude is "best learn to share," there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But when you begin to force people to share, well, I refer to Milton Friedman: "Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us."

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Such is fractional reserve banking, and central banking in general.

Such is called double leeching.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Right. It's owned by shareholders which, as keepers of wage slaves, are very low down on my list of priorities. Honestly if I saw the typical billionaire burning I wouldn't piss on him to put it out.

The shareholders could be normal people like you and me that own some stocks. Then there are all the employees than don't make 6+ figure salaries that would suffer. Lastly everybody that has money in the bank (from 8 year olds to retired pensioners) would also suffer. The richest members of the organization would probably retain a lot of their wealth while everybody else would be financially destroyed. It's not like all the top executives' wealth is tied up with the bank's performance.

This is true but given that this is likely to happen with the collapse of the oil economy anyways, I'm not sure that it constitutes a large enough negative to detract from the overall worth of the proposal.

What is the worth of this proposal, to go back to barter?

Civilization in general is founded on delusions to numerous to discuss in this format. The delusion that we can grow at a rate faster than the sun feeds energy into the ecosystem is one. Another, more directly related to the topic at hand, is that ownership exists. If some billionaire wants to tell me that I have to pay for access to land that that slimy motherfucker's never even looked at then I call that delusion. Granted, it's written into our laws that he has the right (another questionable notion) to do this sort of thing but there is neither a mandate from nor a god to mandate that this is the way it is supposed to be. It's essentially feudalism and I see no reason to accept it.

So if you, an average person, bought a cottage out in the woods with your hard-earned money that you only use for a few months a year, you'd be OK with people living in it illegally while you weren't there? How often do billionaires bully you like this, usually they have better things to do.

Although you may not like the concept of ownership through law, it sure as hell beats its predecessor, the rule of the strongest. Would you prefer that people take what they want by force?

Originally Posted by poopman

such as? we are all open to ideas.

Live within your means. Don't take out loans that you won't be able to pay back. Don't pay with credit if you don't have the money. If you car/house payments are too expensive, get a smaller car/house. Avoid debt like the plague and stop consuming like Godzilla on a rampage, save money instead.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

To be honest I still have no idea what your point is.

My point is that it's delusional to create value from nothing. There's only ever 100 dollars. Where does the extra 90 come from? It's incredibly dangerous to act as if you have more resources than you actually do and the only actual source of non-nuclear calories in the world is the sun. That's our asymptotic cap on long term growth growth.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Well surely money exists. Gold exists, silver exists, and dollars exist.

I wasn't talking about gold and silver although their value is even more fictitious then that of money. Can I eat them? can I burn them for heat or make clothing out of them? At least I could shred up a hundred dollar bill and use it for insulation in clothing.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I think your concern is that the value behind the dollar is arbitrary. And I would have to agree. It's called fiat money. It is a medium of exchange decreed by the government instead of the market.

No, the market has no business setting the value of a dollar. The value of a dollar is precisely the amount of calories that can be extracted from it or saved by using it as a source of heat or insulation.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

What do you mean "manufactured scarcity?" And again, I'll agree with you. The value of money is purely subjective. If humans were not around, there would be no value in money (or anything, for that matter).

I mean that a hundred dollar bill is only more valuable then a one dollar bill because it is designated that less of them are made (or put into general circulation). Other than that, they have precisely the same inherent value.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

The common definition of profit is similar to how you described it: revenue - expenses = profit (or loss). But it is a little more complicated than that. Profit is the positive benefit from any transaction, but it is also a signal used in the marketplace to show success or failure.

Positive for whom?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And profit is not necessarily appropriated by the rich. Anyone who engages in a voluntary transaction comes out profitably, rich or not. We mustn't assume that because Person A benefited from a transaction that someone was exploited or hung out to dry.

What about the people that engage in transactions involuntarily? Say somebody working at McDonald's to pay off that mortgage. Is it really voluntary? I say no. Given the stigma associated with being homeless and the powerful (and largely built in) drive to conform to ones culture, I would say that it's involuntary. Some rich banker is going to be making money off of their labor just because he bought a few shares. He will not stand over a fryer, will not be yelled at by rich fuck yuppie customers, will not work in the slaughterhouse that provides the meat or drive the truck the delivers that meat, will not work in the fields bent over all day picking lettuce and yet he will not only be "entitled" to a percentage of the profits which result from such labor but will actually be entitled to vote on decisions pertaining to the governance of the company. All this because 100 calories can, in the right hands, be turned into 190.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

As for "excessive wealth," how does one measure the correct level of wealth? For one, a comfortable level of wealth may be living out in the boonies in a mud hut. For another, it may be in a million dollar apartment in New York. Unless you possess magical powers, there is no way to measure the "correct level." Most attempts to find the correct level have ended up killing millions, or driving more people into poverty.

I'm not too concerned about million dollar apartments. Two houses is excessive though.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

How do you know the person is not utilizing their "loot?" What is loot?

Loot is material possessions. When somebody has rooms in their house that they've never been in, then they are not utilizing it.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And if your attitude is "best learn to share," there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But when you begin to force people to share, well, I refer to Milton Friedman: "Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us."

All of this is very nice including the quote by that thug Friedman but it all falls apart in the face of the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and there is no reason for this to be the case. Friedman was nothing more than a subservient toad of the ruling elite that was (and is) itself organizing society in precisely the manner that his quote advises against. He was a hypocrite. Society will be organized. The question is if we want to leave this organization to natural selection (which is not a kind master) and those bits of scum that seem to be able to naturally float to the top or if we want to take it into our own hands.

The thing about economists is that they don't even understand that they're nothing more than over specialized ecologists (who are tied to real energy) and so they fail to be able to write real equations that actually describe reality and instead work in some abstract theoretical land where 100 calories can just magically turn into 190 and nobody thinks twice about it. They are, as a class, incompetent hacks that have been scamming the world with a complete and utter snowjob to keep their 70,000 dollar a year jobs. In short, they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

My point is that it's delusional to create value from nothing. There's only ever 100 dollars. Where does the extra 90 come from? It's incredibly dangerous to act as if you have more resources than you actually do and the only actual source of non-nuclear calories in the world is the sun. That's our asymptotic cap on long term growth growth.

Then I think we agree...I think.

I wasn't talking about gold and silver although their value is even more fictitious then that of money. Can I eat them? can I burn them for heat or make clothing out of them? At least I could shred up a hundred dollar bill and use it for insulation in clothing.

You keep saying value is fictitious, but don't define what fictitious is. It leads me to assume that your definition means the value does not exist. Where does it not exist? Objectively it does not, but subjectively, in individuals, it does.

Value of money does not necessarily stem from whether you can eat it or use it to keep warm. Money that originates on the market (as it should) starts as a commodity. Let's use gold for example. It is used as jewelry, decoration, and for other practical uses. Eventually it became money because people thought it was easily divisible, easily recognizable, easy to carry around, and had other inherent value in the marketplace.

No, the market has no business setting the value of a dollar. The value of a dollar is precisely the amount of calories that can be extracted from it or saved by using it as a source of heat or insulation.

You're grasping for objective value here, which is impossible to attain. There are no objective values, and you're edging into a belief that has been around for four-hundred years, and has been refuted for about the same time. I suggest looking into Carl Menger's Principles of Economics, where he presents the subjective theory of value.

I mean that a hundred dollar bill is only more valuable then a one dollar bill because it is designated that less of them are made (or put into general circulation). Other than that, they have precisely the same inherent value.

You and I are in agreement here, so I'm not sure why you're pressing the issue (rather, non-issue). You're describing the arbitrary evaluations of government fiat money by the government itself. Just because they slap 99 more dollars onto a piece of paper doesn't mean the paper is any more valuable. But again, remember that values are subjective. To most people it does make the dollar more valuable because they could, say, buy more [insert item/serve here] with it.

Positive for whom?

Positive for all in voluntary transactions (which I advocate), positive for one in involuntary transactions (aka theft). But who what sane person would advocate theft?

What about the people that engage in transactions involuntarily? Say somebody working at McDonald's to pay off that mortgage. Is it really voluntary? I say no.

How is that not voluntary? Were they forced to work at McDonald's?

If a person ends up in an involuntary transaction, they're being stolen from or coerced.

Given the stigma associated with being homeless and the powerful (and largely built in) drive to conform to ones culture, I would say that it's involuntary. Some rich banker is going to be making money off of their labor just because he bought a few shares. He will not stand over a fryer, will not be yelled at by rich fuck yuppie customers, will not work in the slaughterhouse that provides the meat or drive the truck the delivers that meat, will not work in the fields bent over all day picking lettuce and yet he will not only be "entitled" to a percentage of the profits which result from such labor but will actually be entitled to vote on decisions pertaining to the governance of the company. All this because 100 calories can, in the right hands, be turned into 190.

Again, was he forced to do all of those things? If not, he is there voluntary.

I'm not too concerned about million dollar apartments. Two houses is excessive though.

Again, grasping for objective qualification.

Loot is material possessions. When somebody has rooms in their house that they've never been in, then they are not utilizing it.

How do you know they're not utilizing it? What if they're storing possessions in there for safe-keeping or storage?

All of this is very nice including the quote by that thug Friedman but it all falls apart in the face of the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and there is no reason for this to be the case. Friedman was nothing more than a subservient toad of the ruling elite that was (and is) itself organizing society in precisely the manner that his quote advises against. He was a hypocrite. Society will be organized. The question is if we want to leave this organization to natural selection (which is not a kind master) and those bits of scum that seem to be able to naturally float to the top or if we want to take it into our own hands.

Focus on the argument and not what Friedman was or was not. I'm not here to debate over Friedman.

I'm speaking of a sort of "gunboat altruism" where people are forced to share. To do it peacefully and, hell, efficiently, would require angels, more or less.

The thing about economists is that they don't even understand that they're nothing more than over specialized ecologists (who are tied to real energy) and so they fail to be able to write real equations that actually describe reality and instead work in some abstract theoretical land where 100 calories can just magically turn into 190 and nobody thinks twice about it. They are, as a class, incompetent hacks that have been scamming the world with a complete and utter snowjob to keep their 70,000 dollar a year jobs. In short, they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

I think you're using "economists" too broadly. Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Bob Murphy, Walter Block, and many, many others don't fit your definition(s) whatsoever.

In fact, I think you're describing Keynesians like Bernanke and Krugman.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Then I think we agree...I think.

I find that hard to belive

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

You keep saying value is fictitious, but don't define what fictitious is. It leads me to assume that your definition means the value does not exist. Where does it not exist? Objectively it does not, but subjectively, in individuals, it does.

I've never said that value is fictitious. I've said that banks, 90 calories that popped out of thin air and the value of money, gold and silver are fictitious. (I know this because I did a ctrl-f 'fictitious' and those were the occurrences [totally OT: try switching out the caps-lock key with the control key in your keyboard bindings. Then you can just hit it with your pinky without scrunching up your hand. Unless you're an idiot that likes to yell a lot (hint: you're not) you probably use the control key more often]) And yes, I do take fictitious to have it's standard meaning of "does not exist."

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Value of money does not necessarily stem from whether you can eat it or use it to keep warm. Money that originates on the market (as it should) starts as a commodity. Let's use gold for example. It is used as jewelry, decoration, and for other practical uses. Eventually it became money because people thought it was easily divisible, easily recognizable, easy to carry around, and had other inherent value in the marketplace.

The value of anything to any living organism objectively stems from either a) it's caloric content, b) its use to prevent the loss of calories or c) it's use for security. All three can either refer to its use for the organism itself or another organism to which it has an altruistic relationship. Which ever one the organism is more in need of will be the favored use. I think that we can explain pretty much any temporary (and believe me, it will be temporary) deviation from this objective measure in terms of run-away sexual selection: this is generally not a good sign for the long term survival of the species in question.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

You're grasping for objective value here, which is impossible to attain. There are no objective values, and you're edging into a belief that has been around for four-hundred years, and has been refuted for about the same time. I suggest looking into Carl Menger's Principles of Economics, where he presents the subjective theory of value.

Is that book based on the same uninformed sense of anthrocentrism which, when dressed up with suitably big words, seems to be taken seriously in some liberal arts circles? For example, would a literal interpretation of it lead one to believe that value is assigned to things purely by humans as you claimed to?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

You and I are in agreement here, so I'm not sure why you're pressing the issue (rather, non-issue). You're describing the arbitrary evaluations of government fiat money by the government itself. Just because they slap 99 more dollars onto a piece of paper doesn't mean the paper is any more valuable. But again, remember that values are subjective. To most people it does make the dollar more valuable because they could, say, buy more [insert item/serve here] with it.

It is precisely because you think that the value of a dollar is subjective that I am pressing the issue. While we both agree that government should not arbitrarily set, you (along with most economists) seem to think that market fluctuations can influence the amount of calories (i.e. the value) in a piece of paper: this is just not so.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Positive for all in voluntary transactions (which I advocate), positive for one in involuntary transactions (aka theft). But who what sane person would advocate theft?

How is that not voluntary? Were they forced to work at McDonald's?

Perhaps not as an individual but, statistically, yes. That's how genes operate, statistically. I would argue that we are genetically programmed to conform to our culture. As individuals, we still have free will of course (in the sense used by Dennet) but as a group, a certain percentage will be forced, if it is available, to seek employment at McDonald's as opposed to accepting homelessness because it is taboo to be homeless in this culture. Were it not taboo, I imagine that the economy would pretty much collapse because many more people would choose it over taking shit from rich yuppies all day and said yuppies would then have to cook their own damn food, fix their own damn houses, and wipe their own damn asses leaving them with less time to drive the economy with their yuppie ways.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

If a person ends up in an involuntary transaction, they're being stolen from or coerced.

I think that that's something we can agree on.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Again, grasping for objective qualification.

No, not grasping. Holding it firmly in my hand. Available resources are appropriated by the ecosystem. This is a fact. Hermit crabs don't put no trespassing signs up on their summer shell and bears don't have two dens because they're busy using the first one for hibernation. That is the way things work. The bear is free to think that it has two dens all it wants but when it shows up, someone else is going to be using it. All available unused resources are exploited in the ecosystem. Why are we any exception?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

How do you know they're not utilizing it? What if they're storing possessions in there for safe-keeping or storage?

That is a lulzy statement. I suppose they would have had their house slaves carry their stolen loot up into their unvisited room for safekeeping.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I'm speaking of a sort of "gunboat altruism" where people are forced to share. To do it peacefully and, hell, efficiently, would require angels, more or less.

And I'm speaking of the sort of "gunboat civility" where people for forced to live in a feudal system. To do it peacefully and hell, willingly, would require domesticated animals, more or less.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I think you're using "economists" too broadly. Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Bob Murphy, Walter Block, and many, many others don't fit your definition(s) whatsoever.

In fact, I think you're describing Keynesians like Bernanke and Krugman.

My understanding was Keynesians believed that it was necessary for the government to counteract the short-sighted decisions of ruthless profiteers by spending public money, in some sense, direct the markets. That's not what I'm talking about at all.

My friend Google leads me to the conclusion that the names you list are mostly (first and only three I checked) associated with the Austrian School which was at its heyday when robber barons were massacring (or, more in character, paying their thugs to massacre) people for trying to demand fair pay.

What I'm referring to is the across the board assumption that economics is anything other than a subbranch of ecology and their acceptance of the confusion (value is subjective, 100 calories can turn into 190, etc) that this brings about. The technical term for this sort of thing is gobbledygook. If their are economists which carry out their calculations in calories, and are predicting the extinction of our species if it doesn't drop this mess which has resulted from divorcing our sense of value from reality, then I would love to read them. The ones that you listed are not among them and I can smell them coming (along with the rest of economics) from a mile away.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I find that hard to belive

I think we agree that arbitrarily making "money" out of thin-air is a bad thing.

I've never said that value is fictitious. I've said that banks, 90 calories that popped out of thin air and the value of money, gold and silver are fictitious. (I know this because I did a ctrl-f 'fictitious' and those were the occurrences [totally OT: try switching out the caps-lock key with the control key in your keyboard bindings. Then you can just hit it with your pinky without scrunching up your hand. Unless you're an idiot that likes to yell a lot (hint: you're not) you probably use the control key more often]) And yes, I do take fictitious to have it's standard meaning of "does not exist."

Mkay, so I was a bit mistaken. Regardless, you're operating under a deluded definition of value, which you elaborate on below.

The value of anything to any living organism objectively stems from either a) it's caloric content, b) its use to prevent the loss of calories or c) it's use for security. All three can either refer to its use for the organism itself or another organism to which it has an altruistic relationship. Which ever one the organism is more in need of will be the favored use. I think that we can explain pretty much any temporary (and believe me, it will be temporary) deviation from this objective measure in terms of run-away sexual selection: this is generally not a good sign for the long term survival of the species in question.

This is not true. For example, I value my computer. I couldn't care less about its caloric content. It has no bearing on any loss of calories. And it's not useful for security. I could find thousands of other examples that refute your objective theory of value. Seriously, read through Menger's Principles of Economics, available here: http://mises.org/books/mengerprinciples.pdf.

Is that book based on the same uninformed sense of anthrocentrism which, when dressed up with suitably big words, seems to be taken seriously in some liberal arts circles? For example, would a literal interpretation of it lead one to believe that value is assigned to things purely by humans as you claimed to?

Your condescending language is unneeded, but I linked to it above. I believe chapters 2 and 3 pertain to our conversation.

It is precisely because you think that the value of a dollar is subjective that I am pressing the issue. While we both agree that government should not arbitrarily set, you (along with most economists) seem to think that market fluctuations can influence the amount of calories (i.e. the value) in a piece of paper: this is just not so.

I didn't say the market could influence the amount of "calories" in a piece of paper, or anything else for that matter.

Like I said before, just because Item X has Y amount of calories and Item A has B amount of calories, that does not mean Item X (which, let's say, has more calories than Item A) is more valuable. That is a completely ridiculous notion.

Perhaps not as an individual but, statistically, yes. That's how genes operate, statistically. I would argue that we are genetically programmed to conform to our culture. As individuals, we still have free will of course (in the sense used by Dennet) but as a group, a certain percentage will be forced, if it is available, to seek employment at McDonald's as opposed to accepting homelessness because it is taboo to be homeless in this culture. Were it not taboo, I imagine that the economy would pretty much collapse because many more people would choose it over taking shit from rich yuppies all day and said yuppies would then have to cook their own damn food, fix their own damn houses, and wipe their own damn asses leaving them with less time to drive the economy with their yuppie ways.

If being homeless is so taboo, why are there homeless people? Don't you think people take jobs at McDonald's because they prefer having shelter, a source of income, and food? I think you're just grasping at straws here to formulate an argument.

No, not grasping. Holding it firmly in my hand. Available resources are appropriated by the ecosystem. This is a fact. Hermit crabs don't put no trespassing signs up on their summer shell and bears don't have two dens because they're busy using the first one for hibernation. That is the way things work. The bear is free to think that it has two dens all it wants but when it shows up, someone else is going to be using it. All available unused resources are exploited in the ecosystem. Why are we any exception?

Comparing apples to oranges...

That is a lulzy statement. I suppose they would have had their house slaves carry their stolen loot up into their unvisited room for safekeeping.

Focus on my statement and leave out the unnecessary crap.

[quote]And I'm speaking of the sort of "gunboat civility" where people for forced to live in a feudal system. To do it peacefully and hell, willingly, would require domesticated animals, more or less.

What?

My understanding was Keynesians believed that it was necessary for the government to counteract the short-sighted decisions of ruthless profiteers by spending public money, in some sense, direct the markets. That's not what I'm talking about at all.

Or the decision of ruthless regulators and federal reserve chairman which cause the misallocations/malinvestments of labor and capital in the marketplace...

My friend Google leads me to the conclusion that the names you list are mostly (first and only three I checked) associated with the Austrian School which was at its heyday when robber barons were massacring (or, more in character, paying their thugs to massacre) people for trying to demand fair pay.

Relevance to my statement?

What I'm referring to is the across the board assumption that economics is anything other than a subbranch of ecology and their acceptance of the confusion (value is subjective, 100 calories can turn into 190, etc) that this brings about. The technical term for this sort of thing is gobbledygook. If their are economists which carry out their calculations in calories, and are predicting the extinction of our species if it doesn't drop this mess which has resulted from divorcing our sense of value from reality, then I would love to read them. The ones that you listed are not among them and I can smell them coming (along with the rest of economics) from a mile away.

So basically, you're willing to accept long-refuted objective theory claims. What's the point in debating with you anymore?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

This is not true. For example, I value my computer. I couldn't care less about its caloric content. It has no bearing on any loss of calories. And it's not useful for security. I could find thousands of other examples that refute your objective theory of value. Seriously, read through Menger's Principles of Economics, available here: http://mises.org/books/mengerprinciples.pdf.

I'll check it out. Your computer is a bad example though: You value it subjectively but there is very little inherent objective value in it. A mouse could sleep in it I suppose.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I didn't say the market could influence the amount of "calories" in a piece of paper, or anything else for that matter.

You said that the value of a dollar could and should be set by the market. I'm conflating the two because I think that that's the correct definition.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Like I said before, just because Item X has Y amount of calories and Item A has B amount of calories, that does not mean Item X (which, let's say, has more calories than Item A) is more valuable. That is a completely ridiculous notion.

No it is not. It is pretty much the definition of value that is in currency throughout all forms of life. I would say (again) that it is incredibly anthrocentric to assert that we can somehow magically violate that rule.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

If being homeless is so taboo, why are there homeless people? Don't you think people take jobs at McDonald's because they prefer having shelter, a source of income, and food? I think you're just grasping at straws here to formulate an argument.

If fucking goats is taboo than why do people fuck goats? Most people don't look homeless people in the eyes, don't talk to them and generally don't behave towards them as if they are a member of their own species. There are exceptions to be sure but the general attitude is that homeless people are inferior to others. I would say that this, while not meeting the literal definition, qualifies in essence as a taboo (kapu here in hawaii).

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Comparing apples to oranges...

In what way? I'm comparing animals to animals. A little closer to home, a chimpanzee doesn't claim two nests and no self respecting hunter-gatherer claims to huts.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Focus on my statement and leave out the unnecessary crap.

For you to imply that storing unused volumes of crap in otherwise unused space constitutes legitimate use of that space warrants the response.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And I'm speaking of the sort of "gunboat civility" where people are (fixed in edit) forced to live in a feudal system. To do it peacefully and hell, willingly, would require domesticated animals, more or less.

What?

The fundamental role of the state is to have poor people pay taxes to protect the possessions of the rich from being appropriated by the poor people. It is a feudal system because nobody really owns land but pays rent to the government (which is largely in the pocket of the banks) and/or the banks. You then go to work for a company that the bank is invested in and generate profit for them. You then go to the store (that the bank is invested in) and spend some percentage of the money that you don't give to the bank on food (produced by other wage slaves). You then drive your car (purchased or rented from a company that the bank is invested in) to the gas station (that the bank is invested in) and purchase gasoline (manufactured by a company that the bank is invested in) and hope that your car doesn't break down so that you don't have to take it to be repaired by a company that the bank is invested in. etc. etc. Doesn't it just sound simpler to live on their land and slave in their fields directly? I really don't see what the progress is. I'm disagreeing with Marx here, I know. He thought that capitalism represented progress and was a necessary first step away from feudalism and towards communism. Stalin banned that part of his writing of course.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

So basically, you're willing to accept long-refuted objective theory claims. What's the point in debating with you anymore?

There was a lot more to the statement than that. Specifically, I reiterated my statement, which you still have not responded to, that economics can only be sanely understood as a subbranch of ecology. Trying to understand a field without even knowing what it is leads to confusion.

1) What is this obsession with national debt? We both agree that it's largely imaginary money. What about a "reality debt?" That is, how much of the money in circulation is real (in the sense that it represents an actual unit of energy) and how much if it is just imaginary?

2) What percentage (if any) of imaginary energy will cause an ecological subsystem to collapse?


seem to be two particularly burning questions for a legitimate theory of economics to address. So that leaves the question. If you are going to completely disregard one of my two main points, then what's the point of debating with you?

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I'll check it out. Your computer is a bad example though: You value it subjectively but there is very little inherent objective value in it. A mouse could sleep in it I suppose.

Right, I value it subjectively. That is the only way to value something.

You said that the value of a dollar could and should be set by the market. I'm conflating the two because I think that that's the correct definition.

We're reaching an impasse because you think value stems from how many calories you can get out of something, and I think value stems from humans evaluating what is most useful to them at a given time, or what they prefer the most.

Let's say we can get X amount of calories out of one item, and X+5 amount of calories out of another. The second item has more calories, right? What if I value the second item more?

No it is not. It is pretty much the definition of value that is in currency throughout all forms of life. I would say (again) that it is incredibly anthrocentric to assert that we can somehow magically violate that rule.

Maybe I'm not following you. First you said I stated the market could influence the amount of calories in a dollar. I never said that, I said it influences the value of a dollar. We're not following each other due to conflicting definitions of value...Sort of makes them subjective huh?

If fucking goats is taboo than why do people fuck goats? Most people don't look homeless people in the eyes, don't talk to them and generally don't behave towards them as if they are a member of their own species. There are exceptions to be sure but the general attitude is that homeless people are inferior to others. I would say that this, while not meeting the literal definition, qualifies in essence as a taboo (kapu here in hawaii).

Again, maybe I'm not following your use of taboo. If taboo is something so awful that they have to avoid whatever is taboo, why do people still do the taboo things?

And your statement of whether people act like homeless people are inferior isn't relevant. Honestly what are we even talking about anymore? You keep going on these tangents like "rich asshole yuppies this, rich asshole yuppies that."

In what way? I'm comparing animals to animals. A little closer to home, a chimpanzee doesn't claim two nests and no self respecting hunter-gatherer claims to huts.

Your statements are similar to mutualism, I think.

For you to imply that storing unused volumes of crap in otherwise unused space constitutes legitimate use of that space warrants the response.

Do you have an attic or basement, or a closet?

The fundamental role of the state is to have poor people pay taxes to protect the possessions of the rich from being appropriated by the poor people. It is a feudal system because nobody really owns land but pays rent to the government (which is largely in the pocket of the banks) and/or the banks. You then go to work for a company that the bank is invested in and generate profit for them. You then go to the store (that the bank is invested in) and spend some percentage of the money that you don't give to the bank on food (produced by other wage slaves). You then drive your car (purchased or rented from a company that the bank is invested in) to the gas station (that the bank is invested in) and purchase gasoline (manufactured by a company that the bank is invested in) and hope that your car doesn't break down so that you don't have to take it to be repaired by a company that the bank is invested in. etc. etc. Doesn't it just sound simpler to live on their land and slave in their fields directly? I really don't see what the progress is. I'm disagreeing with Marx here, I know. He thought that capitalism represented progress and was a necessary first step away from feudalism and towards communism. Stalin banned that part of his writing of course.

I may just be dull, but I'm not grasping the point of this section of your post. Could you be more succinct or get to the point?

And what's the use in mentioning Marx?

There was a lot more to the statement than that. Specifically, I reiterated my statement, which you still have not responded to, that economics can only be sanely understood as a subbranch of ecology. Trying to understand a field without even knowing what it is leads to confusion.

1) What is this obsession with national debt? We both agree that it's largely imaginary money. What about a "reality debt?" That is, how much of the money in circulation is real (in the sense that it represents an actual unit of energy) and how much if it is just imaginary?

2) What percentage (if any) of imaginary energy will cause an ecological subsystem to collapse?

seem to be two particularly burning questions for a legitimate theory of economics to address. So that leaves the question. If you are going to completely disregard one of my two main points, then what's the point of debating with you?

Then explain to me how it is a sub-branch of ecology so I can have an actual understanding of whatever the hell it is you're saying.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

We're reaching an impasse because you think value stems from how many calories you can get out of something, and I think value stems from humans evaluating what is most useful to them at a given time, or what they prefer the most.

I've been a little sloppy in my statements due to repetition and speaking off the cuff. The value of an object is either the amount of calories that can be derived from it, the amount of lost calories that its use can prevent or the amount of calories that can be acquired from its use. (and I've been clear about the first two at least once¹) For a given object, this will vary from one organism to another but it is an objectively available quantity for any combination of organism A and object x. There is nothing subjective about it.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Let's say we can get X amount of calories out of one item, and X+5 amount of calories out of another. The second item has more calories, right? What if I value the second item more?

Barring the second two conditions in my definition, you are behaving in a maladaptive manner. Nothing personal, I do it all the time.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Maybe I'm not following you. First you said I stated the market could influence the amount of calories in a dollar. I never said that, I said it influences the value of a dollar. We're not following each other due to conflicting definitions of value...Sort of makes them subjective huh?

No. It makes the definition of value subjective ironically enough.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Again, maybe I'm not following your use of taboo. If taboo is something so awful that they have to avoid whatever is taboo, why do people still do the taboo things?

I have no idea. They manifestly do. You'll have to ask an ethologist.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And your statement of whether people act like homeless people are inferior isn't relevant. Honestly what are we even talking about anymore? You keep going on these tangents like "rich asshole yuppies this, rich asshole yuppies that."

No, it is one hundred percent relevant. You made the claim that people voluntarily work at McDonald's. I made the claim that this is not quite correct because being homeless is essentially taboo in our culture. You seemed to question this and so I illustrated how the homeless are treated for the purpose of making the point it is, at least in effect, taboo. Given the fact that we are genetically programmed to recognize and avoid taboo (genetic programming is always a statistical phenomenon: let's say 75% in this case [number pulled out thin air]) and the the fact that, oftentimes, the alternative to working at McDonald's is homelessness, I concluded that if one does not genuinely enjoy working at McDonald's, then one is, in effect being coerced to do so.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Your statements are similar to mutualism, I think.

Yes, I'd forgotten Proudhon. I have a lot of sympathy with his ideas. Thanks for the reminder.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Do you have an attic or basement, or a closet?

I have had all three at various times and at those times, I had been in all of them. We were discussing a residence so large that the 'owner' had not been in some of the rooms. That was the original example.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I may just be dull, but I'm not grasping the point of this section of your post. Could you be more succinct or get to the point?

I did post something more succinct. You made the statement:

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I'm speaking of a sort of "gunboat altruism" where people are forced to share. To do it peacefully and, hell, efficiently, would require angels, more or less.

to which I replied:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

And I'm speaking of the sort of "gunboat civility" where people for forced to live in a feudal system. To do it peacefully and hell, willingly, would require domesticated animals, more or less.

Your reply:

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

What?

So I clarified (or at least elaborated upon) my statement. It seemed at the time that the only reasonable sticking point was the part about the feudal system (it being conventional knowledge that this ended centuries ago) so I sought to illustrate that we quite literally live on land owned by one economic class and that the vast majority of our labor goes into the hands of that same class.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

And what's the use in mentioning Marx?

I'm not sure but it had about the same use as you listing half of the Austrian School after conflating my attack on economics as a whole with an attack on the Keynesian kind.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Then explain to me how it is a sub-branch of ecology so I can have an actual understanding of whatever the hell it is you're saying.

Honestly, I'm not up for it at the moment although it seems like an incredibly basic point. I might, within the next few days, start a thread to discuss it as this has gone far enough off topic. Briefly though, it boils down to the fact ecology is essentially the study of how energy moves through the ecosystem. As part of the ecosystem, our behavior as regards acquiring and distributing energy is, properly speaking, part of the study of ecology. The flip side to this is that a pride of lions acquiring and dividing energy in the form of a gazelle is an economic endeavor on the same footing as any voodoo high finance that you can think of. Just because one species of old world monkey² does some things in a different way (every species does to some extent), I see no reason to consider it a separate field. The interesting questions in the field are all along the lines of explaining the deviation rather than taking it as a given. My personal opinion is that the root cause of the distinction is that the work of Darwin has still not genuinely sunk in and so most people don't fully realize (and certainly hadn't when these distinctions were drawn) that we are, in the most literal sense of the word, just monkeys. Another case of the same phenomenon is that you can specialize in the study of the behavior of any other animal and be an ethologist but as soon as you study that one magic species of monkey, you're a "psychologist."

To bring my point back OT, If OP thinks that it would be a good idea to "rip off" a bunch of non existent "energy" from a non-existent "entity" and thus precipitate yet another in a long list of collapses of a maladaptive, fragile and rapacious system, then I for one have no qualms about that. Were it a system with any sign of evolutionary stability then my view might be different. But given that the foundation of the whole thing rests quite solidly upon mere fantasy, all I can say is, who knows? It could just end up being another market "correction".

¹ The point is that the value of an object to an organism is the difference between the amount of calories available to it before and after optimal use as been made of it. This is the point that I was trying to make by including references to e.g. burning a hundred dollar bill for heat or shredding it to use for insulation.

² I differ with the editors of Wikipedia on this point. They use the term "Old World Monkey" to refer to the superfamily Cercopithecoidea whereas I use it to refer to the entire clade Catarrhini which is where the both the superfamilies Hominoidea and Cercopithecoidea lay. The point of this is to serve as a disclaimer and for completeness. So they would say that humans are apes within old world primates and I would say that humans are apes within old world monkeys within old world primates. I think that this is necessary unless one wants to postulate that apes split off from the old world monkeys at the same time that the new world monkeys did. Otherwise one has two distinct branches of monkeys that evolved independently (that is, the new world monkeys were the only monkeys for a while until the apes split off from the rest of the old world primates and only then do you actually have new world monkeys and old world monkeys which makes the term meaningless. It seems simpler to just refer to the whole infraorder Simiiformes as "monkeys." There are professional biologists that advocate this same view, I'm too lazy to look up a reference for such a small point.)

Banks are a business. Their means of income is debt. Hey, kind of like slavery?

Banks are big slaveholders(shareholders), and corporations are sharehorders(controlling of job market, a vast majority).

So in an essence. Slavery still exists. It just got a hell of a lot worse.

Originally Posted by RealWorldDreamer

So in an essence. Slavery still exists. It just got a hell of a lot worse.

Yeah, I liked it better when instead of getting paid we didn't get paid.

Originally Posted by Mark75

Yeah, I liked it better when instead of getting paid we didn't get paid.

You did back then whether you're black or white.

Originally Posted by RealWorldDreamer

You did back then whether you're black or white.

I really don't like you.

Originally Posted by RealWorldDreamer

Banks are a business. Their means of income is debt. Hey, kind of like slavery?

Uh, but... nobody is forcing you to use their services? If you do then that's your choice.

Originally Posted by Mark75

Yeah, I liked it better when instead of getting paid we didn't get paid.

Slaves got paid room and board which is essentially all that low-income workers get paid today. I think the bigger difference between the two forms of slavery lies in the type of punishment meted out for not playing their games.