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Scare City

Started by P3nT4gR4m, January 06, 2014, 07:13:12 PM

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P3nT4gR4m

There's tons of food.
People are starving.
There's tons of medicine.
People are dying from curable diseases.
There's millions of empty houses.
People are homeless.
Shit needs done.
People are unemployed.
There's a reason for this.
A perfectly simple reason.

We, both collectively and individually, are still stuck in a mindset that's a throwback to the first time two of our single-celled ancestors both tried to engulf the same particle - scarcity.

Yeah, I know - sacred cow but, fuck it, I went there. So, yeah, maybe our whole lives are centred around trying to collect whole bunch of rare and shiny metal and paper or (more recently) imaginary ones and zeros and, yeah, we use these to exchange for a whole bunch of "while stocks last" goods and services. It's been wired into our DNA since the very first cell division but, lets face it, it's bullshit.

Nature pitted us against ourselves and we evolved into insane, bald talking monkeys and, sure, back at the start beating the shit out of our fellow creatures and taking the food was the best way to proceed but, back then, historically speaking, we were competing with the likes of zebras and t-rex for a slice of the pie.

Not so much nowadays. Now the pie is sliced automatically, using solar powered uranium, all computer controlled and smart-phone friendly. Nowadays we're so efficient that we're producing surpluses of pretty much everything and then it has to be destroyed at the end of the day, just in case those differently coloured bald talking monkeys notice it's there and try to take some of their own, because we all know it's better to set perfectly good shit on fire than handing it out to people in desperate need of it.

FUCK 'EM - THEY DON'T HAVE THE BENJAMINS!

It's important that those people starve and those people die of curable diseases and it's important that those other people sleep in cardboard boxes. It truly is. Our government, our economy our very way of life depends on it. Because all of those things are based on scarcity. Limited resources. The whole thing would cease to make sense if it was glaringly fucking obvious that there is enough food for everyone.

Problem is, it IS glaringly fucking obvious. :argh!:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

But we're all individuals now.

And everyone knows how individuals do against a system.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m


I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Pretty much, yep.

We are members of a toxic form of society that has prospered due in part to its destructiveness and opportunism. There are other forms, and some of them are thriving, but we choose not to see those because we're so stuck on WE'RE #1!
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Salty

Just 'cause the trains run on time doesnt mean we get the privilige to ride them.

Just 'cause we build the machine that builds the empire which centers around the trains running on time doesnt mean we are allowed the privilige to do more than look at them with wanton desire, flummoxed by their pristine and immaculate beauty.

The world is a car and you're the crash test dummy.

Ben Shapiro

Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 06, 2014, 07:21:44 PM
But we're all individuals now.

And everyone knows how individuals do against a system.

I take it you hate freedom?

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Alty on January 07, 2014, 12:03:08 AM
Just 'cause the trains run on time doesnt mean we get the privilige to ride them.


This needs something, Alty, and it will be the perfect newsfeed item.

Can't put my finger on it.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: 375 lbs of twisted steel and sex appeal on January 07, 2014, 01:37:47 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 06, 2014, 07:21:44 PM
But we're all individuals now.

And everyone knows how individuals do against a system.

I take it you hate freedom?

And I spend all my discretionary income on communism.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 07, 2014, 08:08:46 PM
Quote from: Alty on January 07, 2014, 12:03:08 AM
Just 'cause the trains run on time doesnt mean we get the privilige to ride them.


This needs something, Alty, and it will be the perfect newsfeed item.

Can't put my finger on it.

Spellcheck?

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 07, 2014, 08:15:15 PM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 07, 2014, 08:08:46 PM
Quote from: Alty on January 07, 2014, 12:03:08 AM
Just 'cause the trains run on time doesnt mean we get the privilige to ride them.


This needs something, Alty, and it will be the perfect newsfeed item.

Can't put my finger on it.

Spellcheck?

No, no, Alaska gets a pass on that.  It just needs some tweaking.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m


I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

whenhellfreezes

Of course scarcity isn't entirely gone. Though that's part of the problem. Our monkey minds can't handle the idea that somethings are near infinite while simultaneously other things aren't.

Then since we think it makes sense to have systems for things that are scarce we then push the same model onto things that aren't.

Penumbral

If it weren't for scarcity and the ability to gather more monies would all these diseases be curable? Without profit would there be empty homes? Without ones and zeros floating from account to account would we have the technology to feed all these people?

The problem you describe could also be the cause of such surplus.

Would communists ever invented a computer? Even if they had what piss poor software would it have?   

P3nT4gR4m

It's a valid question. My best guess (and that's all anybody's opinion is) is no.

I'm wondering if that's still the case. We're more sophisticated in this day and age. I reckon enough scientists might still want to science and enough mathematicians would still want to math.

Never know unless we try.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Penumbral on January 09, 2014, 10:50:59 PM
If it weren't for scarcity and the ability to gather more monies would all these diseases be curable? Without profit would there be empty homes? Without ones and zeros floating from account to account would we have the technology to feed all these people?

The problem you describe could also be the cause of such surplus.

Would communists ever invented a computer? Even if they had what piss poor software would it have?   

Throughout most of history, it was not scarcity economics or capitalism which drove scientific innovation and invention. "Money" is merely a shorthand for "trade", not a shorthand for "Capitalism".
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."