A thought experiment prompted by recent threads on education and health care.

[nobodyknows]

Who said anything about manners and compassion? Redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with either.

LOL, you're not quite ready for prime time, are you.

 

[drebo]

LOL, you're not quite ready for prime time, are you.

You're delusional if you think this thread is about anything but the redistribution of wealth. And, no, compassion and manners have nothing to do with it.

Compassion and manners start free clinics, shelters, and soup kitchens. They don't take from some people to give to others.

 

[nobodyknows]

It seems to me that regardless of how distasteful it may be the answer is BACON!

My thoughts exactly. String them up and smoke them!! LOL!!

 

[nobodyknows]

You're delusional if you think this thread is about anything but the redistribution of wealth. And, no, compassion and manners have nothing to do with it.

Compassion and manners start free clinics, shelters, and soup kitchens. They don't take from some people to give to others.

Blow it out your ass. How's that for "delusional"?

 

[nobodyknows]

It certainly would be a Cannibal, but how could it possibly not fall to that temptation?

Pigs will eat most anything, but in defense of the pig, how would it know that the sweet smelling morsel of meat he is eatng was from another pig? It would still be a cannibal, but unkowingly. However it's is my belief that if the pig knew it was from another pig it would still "fall to that temptation" and eat it. That is just the nature of a pig.

 

[drebo]

Blow it out your ass. How's that for "delusional"?

Well, at least you're showing your true colors. More than I can say for most people here and in Washington.

Next time, though, try and construct a position that you can actually defend instead of just name-calling and strawman.

 

[nobodyknows]

Well, at least you're showing your true colors. More than I can say for most people here and in Washington.

Next time, though, try and construct a position that you can actually defend instead of just name-calling and strawman.

I'm proud of my colors and have never tried to hide them. I can defend my position but you're too delusional and your poor logic cuts against the grain so hard that I can see there is little to no point in wasting my time talking with you. Please continue on in your little fanatsy world where you know everything and everbody else is an idiot. I'll try not to disturb your "thoughts" again.

 

[sandorski]

You're delusional if you think this thread is about anything but the redistribution of wealth. And, no, compassion and manners have nothing to do with it.

Compassion and manners start free clinics, shelters, and soup kitchens. They don't take from some people to give to others.

This thread is not about Redistribution. It is about Distribution. A big difference.

 

[drebo]

This thread is not about Redistribution. It is about Distribution. A big difference.

Who hunted the meals? The hunters. Is that not, then, their wealth? Who is deciding who gets that wealth? Everyone else.

That's forced redistribution of wealth.

If everything sprung out of the ground and took no work to harvest, prepare, hunt, or cook, then yes, it would be DISTRIBUTION of wealth. However, nothing is like that. Everything takes time to gather, prepare, hunt, and cook. Thus, those who are doing the gathering and hunting and preparing and cooking are having the wealth that they earned for themselves given to everyone else.

It is naive to think otherwise. The wealth had to come from somewhere--someone had to earn it. Thus, there is never a case of "distribution" of wealth. Well, unless you count the "bailout package" where the government decides to print more money, which litterally takes 0 effort. But, as far as I've experienced, you can't will a roasted pig into existence.

 

[sandorski]

Who hunted the meals? The hunters. Is that not, then, their wealth? Who is deciding who gets that wealth? Everyone else.

That's forced redistribution of wealth.

If everything sprung out of the ground and took no work to harvest, prepare, hunt, or cook, then yes, it would be DISTRIBUTION of wealth. However, nothing is like that. Everything takes time to gather, prepare, hunt, and cook. Thus, those who are doing the gathering and hunting and preparing and cooking are having the wealth that they earned for themselves given to everyone else.

It is naive to think otherwise. The wealth had to come from somewhere--someone had to earn it. Thus, there is never a case of "distribution" of wealth. Well, unless you count the "bailout package" where the government decides to print more money, which litterally takes 0 effort. But, as far as I've experienced, you can't will a roasted pig into existence.

Again with the Strawmen. I need to call my Broker in Chicago.

 

[Moonbeam]

daishi5: The problem of scarcity is not increasing production until things are no longer scare. The problem of scarcity is taking a limited resources and assigning them for the best possible outcome, such as lowest number of people starving. The argument between all different forms of economic controls is what produces the best outcome. The "problem" of scarcity will be fixed when we reach a level of economic distribution that makes everyone in the world as well of as they can possibly be without harming another person to make their lives better. Honestly, if we actually get there, it won't be solved because everyone's version of "fixed" will be different, but when we get close we will hopefully be arguing over if we can give the poorest people another car, rather than struggling to save them from starvation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity
(basic synopsis, human desires are seemingly infinite, resources are not, we cannot meet all human desires, but there should be some allocation of resources that produces a maximum level of satisfied desires)

I also had a long response to sandorski, but apparently it was lost, and I don't have the time to rewrite it now. I will probably have time much later today.

I hate fuse talk. I have lost many posts.

There is a reason for infinite human desire but it is a secret so I will tell you what it is so you will know why it is a secret.

There is an difference between need and desire. We desire what we need and that makes sense. Beyond that we desire what we have been taught to think of as desirable via advertising, for instance. But the root of desire is dissatisfaction with what is. If your needs are met you really need nothing more, and folk like the Buddha and Jesus knew this. Why, because they loved themselves. One was God and the other was, well Transcendent or any other fancy term you want to pick.

Humanity is asleep, in a delusional ego state, the result of self hate. We were all put down as children and made to feel the worst in the world and the pain was so great it had to be suppressed to survive. So we hate ourselves, feel the worst in the world, but we do not know it and the memories of this truth are profoundly buried. It takes dying to remember because to remember is to become aware they we are emotionally dead, that all our self love was buried. So that is the source of our infinite need. We want love and more love and more love because we cannot fill the vacuum created by self hate. We become addicted to temporary satisfactions and stuck on the wheel of Karma.

This will stay a secret because it can't be believed. Nobody wants to face their self hate. All of life happens on the run from just that.

 

[Moonbeam]

Not everyone agrees on what's important but the only way to get around this is by dictating behavior via laws and punishment. So instead of pleading with people's morality to not pollute, for example, you force them not to by motivating them away from the repercussions of their bad behavior.

But it's plainly clear that individuals frequently don't act in the best interest of everyone even when they know they're being naughty.

Yes, self hate impells them to be bad so they can feel how bad they feel. It is an attempt to recover self love without remembering self hate, and doomed to failure, of course.

 

[Moonbeam]

you speak of 'cooperative evolution', but there's no such thing in reality, it was survival of the fittest... when there's 2 organisms and one unit of food one eats, the other dies...

now fast forward to 'thinking' beings...

your scenario is the strawman for a happy commune... as long as everyone is socially oriented all is well... once a non-socially oriented member arises you then band against them and start regulating (actually, you jump straight to killing them, but that just shows your political bent)... once you start regulating you get factions... once you get factions you get battles...

e.g. the members who work in the fields want more potatoes because they use more calories doing work than those sewing... who decides the validity of this claim? the fieldhands unionize and take possesion of the potatoes, becoming the benevolent arbiter of potatoage...

sadly, all systems systems fail once you add the evil homo-sapiens to the mix... they just aren't all genetically 'social'...

This is how it looks on the surface when human nature isn't fully understood.

 

[Moonbeam]

My post, which you so lovingly took out of context, was in direct response to someone who was using the plot of the movie 1 Million BC to justify implementing your commune in real life. I was merely pointing out that in a fiction, anything can happen.

I'm not sure which is more stupid: the idiot who uses the plot of a movie to justify social policy or the idiot who doesn't realize the context of a comment.

Please reread my response. What you say here has nothing to do with what I said. The context was perfectly clear to me.

 

[Moonbeam]

You're delusional if you think this thread is about anything but the redistribution of wealth. And, no, compassion and manners have nothing to do with it.

Compassion and manners start free clinics, shelters, and soup kitchens. They don't take from some people to give to others.

Yes, an ideal answer but one that never fills the bill. Such folk can't fully ameliorate the damage done by pigs any more than living on a reservation is like having a whole continent to call home.

The ultimate question is do you kill a disease before it kills you, no?

Naturally I remain open to the possibility of deeper questions.

 

[Moonbeam]

Who hunted the meals? The hunters. Is that not, then, their wealth? Who is deciding who gets that wealth? Everyone else.

That's forced redistribution of wealth.

If everything sprung out of the ground and took no work to harvest, prepare, hunt, or cook, then yes, it would be DISTRIBUTION of wealth. However, nothing is like that. Everything takes time to gather, prepare, hunt, and cook. Thus, those who are doing the gathering and hunting and preparing and cooking are having the wealth that they earned for themselves given to everyone else.

It is naive to think otherwise. The wealth had to come from somewhere--someone had to earn it. Thus, there is never a case of "distribution" of wealth. Well, unless you count the "bailout package" where the government decides to print more money, which litterally takes 0 effort. But, as far as I've experienced, you can't will a roasted pig into existence.

Yup, the last time I went boar hunting the moment I walked in the door, there were her Mom and Uncle and Aunts, with pitchforks to relieve me of my kill. All I was given was a pig knuckle that somebody had already sucked to get the juices. And it's been that way for millions of years.

 

[Moonbeam]

Again with the Strawmen. I need to call my Broker in Chicago.

Investing in pork bellies or hay?

 

[Zorkorist]

daishi5: The problem of scarcity is not increasing production until things are no longer scare. The problem of scarcity is taking a limited resources and assigning them for the best possible outcome, such as lowest number of people starving. The argument between all different forms of economic controls is what produces the best outcome. The "problem" of scarcity will be fixed when we reach a level of economic distribution that makes everyone in the world as well of as they can possibly be without harming another person to make their lives better. Honestly, if we actually get there, it won't be solved because everyone's version of "fixed" will be different, but when we get close we will hopefully be arguing over if we can give the poorest people another car, rather than struggling to save them from starvation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity
(basic synopsis, human desires are seemingly infinite, resources are not, we cannot meet all human desires, but there should be some allocation of resources that produces a maximum level of satisfied desires)

I also had a long response to sandorski, but apparently it was lost, and I don't have the time to rewrite it now. I will probably have time much later today.

I hate fuse talk. I have lost many posts.

There is a reason for infinite human desire but it is a secret so I will tell you what it is so you will know why it is a secret.

There is an difference between need and desire. We desire what we need and that makes sense. Beyond that we desire what we have been taught to think of as desirable via advertising, for instance. But the root of desire is dissatisfaction with what is. If your needs are met you really need nothing more, and folk like the Buddha and Jesus knew this. Why, because they loved themselves. One was God and the other was, well Transcendent or any other fancy term you want to pick.

Humanity is asleep, in a delusional ego state, the result of self hate. We were all put down as children and made to feel the worst in the world and the pain was so great it had to be suppressed to survive. So we hate ourselves, feel the worst in the world, but we do not know it and the memories of this truth are profoundly buried. It takes dying to remember because to remember is to become aware they we are emotionally dead, that all our self love was buried. So that is the source of our infinite need. We want love and more love and more love because we cannot fill the vacuum created by self hate. We become addicted to temporary satisfactions and stuck on the wheel of Karma.

This will stay a secret because it can't be believed. Nobody wants to face their self hate. All of life happens on the run from just that.

You are wrong, Moonbeam. Plenty of people live happy and joyous lives, and only feel love for their fellow man.

You and I may not be able to do it, but plenty of folks do.

-John

 

[daishi5]

I hate fuse talk. I have lost many posts.

There is a reason for infinite human desire but it is a secret so I will tell you what it is so you will know why it is a secret.

There is an difference between need and desire. We desire what we need and that makes sense. Beyond that we desire what we have been taught to think of as desirable via advertising, for instance. But the root of desire is dissatisfaction with what is. If your needs are met you really need nothing more, and folk like the Buddha and Jesus knew this. Why, because they loved themselves. One was God and the other was, well Transcendent or any other fancy term you want to pick.

Humanity is asleep, in a delusional ego state, the result of self hate. We were all put down as children and made to feel the worst in the world and the pain was so great it had to be suppressed to survive. So we hate ourselves, feel the worst in the world, but we do not know it and the memories of this truth are profoundly buried. It takes dying to remember because to remember is to become aware they we are emotionally dead, that all our self love was buried. So that is the source of our infinite need. We want love and more love and more love because we cannot fill the vacuum created by self hate. We become addicted to temporary satisfactions and stuck on the wheel of Karma.

This will stay a secret because it can't be believed. Nobody wants to face their self hate. All of life happens on the run from just that.

Unless a person who gives up his self hate has no sense of compassion or kindness to his fellow man, he will still have desires. For example, he would desire that a starving child be fed, he would desire that a person who has cancer receives treatment. Desire or needs, are anything that when fulfilled make a person more happier then they were without that desire or need filled. You can't escape the constraint of limited resources through an attempt to blame it on the human condition.

Sorry for being short and to the point. I made no nefarious appeals, I merely failed to "show my work". For that I'm truly sorry.

The problem with your arguments is basically because you are using Strawmen. Moonie layed out a scenario, you called it Communism, then attacked Communism. Unfortunately that's not what Moonie was suggesting.

I do not believe it was a strawman at all. Moonie's description of his "thought expirement" is almost identical to the description of a Jewish Kibuttz, except while they all eat from a communal food supply, they don't all sit at one table. The kibbutz even suffered the exact problem Moonie describes, some people ate too much, depriving others. I cannot see anything else in Moonies description that is not a good match to a Kibbutz besides the lack of a single communal table. Although if the communal table is a symbol for a communal resource such as food or electricity, then even that difference is gone. Honestly, if he is not actually referencing the Kibbutz, I would be amazed.

Heh, on further reading, they had communal dining rooms, which eliminates the last difference.

The Kibbutz were a socialist/communist society. Do statements such as " we thought that there shouldn't be employers and employed at all" sound like something other than communism? (wikipedia) They used to own the property and the land as a community, they were all paid the same according to their needs. The line between communism and socialism in many of them is vague, but the difference is minor.

I think my attack on communism is valid. If you still disagree, can you please show me how I set up a straw man when I compared it to communism?

 

[Fear No Evil]

Yup, the last time I went boar hunting the moment I walked in the door, there were her Mom and Uncle and Aunts, with pitchforks to relieve me of my kill. All I was given was a pig knuckle that somebody had already sucked to get the juices. And it's been that way for millions of years.

The last time I checked out a book at the library the librarian said to me, "Sir - Do you realize that if you purchased your pig in alternator sized chunks you would save a considerable amount of money?" I broke down in tears. I had never looked at things in such a way before. I've never seen the big picture. I've always purchased my pig in 16oz packs, pre-sliced, usually with maple flavoring added. I was completely floored by his wisdom. I turned around to thank him and he was gone. When I asked the next librarian I could find where the man went, they told me that there were no men working as librarians there.

Think about it.. perhaps if you too purchased your meat in alternator sized chunks you wouldn't have so much self hate. I cried a lot that day. Its tough to even talk about it, but I felt such a deep emotional thread such as this would benefit from it.

 

[Moonbeam]

You are wrong, Moonbeam. Plenty of people live happy and joyous lives, and only feel love for their fellow man.

You and I may not be able to do it, but plenty of folks do.

-John

I told you it was a secret.

 

[sandorski]

Investing in pork bellies or hay?

I was thinking straw, but not sure if it's a Commodity.

 

[Nemesis 1]

daishi5: The problem of scarcity is not increasing production until things are no longer scare. The problem of scarcity is taking a limited resources and assigning them for the best possible outcome, such as lowest number of people starving. The argument between all different forms of economic controls is what produces the best outcome. The "problem" of scarcity will be fixed when we reach a level of economic distribution that makes everyone in the world as well of as they can possibly be without harming another person to make their lives better. Honestly, if we actually get there, it won't be solved because everyone's version of "fixed" will be different, but when we get close we will hopefully be arguing over if we can give the poorest people another car, rather than struggling to save them from starvation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity
(basic synopsis, human desires are seemingly infinite, resources are not, we cannot meet all human desires, but there should be some allocation of resources that produces a maximum level of satisfied desires)

I also had a long response to sandorski, but apparently it was lost, and I don't have the time to rewrite it now. I will probably have time much later today.

I hate fuse talk. I have lost many posts.

There is a reason for infinite human desire but it is a secret so I will tell you what it is so you will know why it is a secret.

There is an difference between need and desire. We desire what we need and that makes sense. Beyond that we desire what we have been taught to think of as desirable via advertising, for instance. But the root of desire is dissatisfaction with what is. If your needs are met you really need nothing more, and folk like the Buddha and Jesus knew this. Why, because they loved themselves. One was God and the other was, well Transcendent or any other fancy term you want to pick.

Humanity is asleep, in a delusional ego state, the result of self hate. We were all put down as children and made to feel the worst in the world and the pain was so great it had to be suppressed to survive. So we hate ourselves, feel the worst in the world, but we do not know it and the memories of this truth are profoundly buried. It takes dying to remember because to remember is to become aware they we are emotionally dead, that all our self love was buried. So that is the source of our infinite need. We want love and more love and more love because we cannot fill the vacuum created by self hate. We become addicted to temporary satisfactions and stuck on the wheel of Karma.

This will stay a secret because it can't be believed. Nobody wants to face their self hate. All of life happens on the run from just that.

Moonie your mind is intriguing to say the least. I am going to post this here but I very much liked the strawberry story as well .

Heres how I see it Kinda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2zyeVRcbs&feature=related

 

[Moonbeam]

Moonie your mind is intriguing to say the least. I am going to post this here but I very much liked the strawberry story as well .

Heres how I see it Kinda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2zyeVRcbs&feature=related

Thanks, that was nice.