Forum Post: Can we all agree on the following things?
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 6, 2011, 9:39 a.m. EST by EdmondSeymore
(101)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
1) Everyone should make decisions in their own best interest 2) The rule of law is how society manages interactions among people 3) No one should be encouraged to harm another by the rule of law 4) The rule of law should prevent one person from harming another 5) Free Market Capitalism is the most efficient way to allocate capital and labor 6) We should use insurance to protect against risk 7) People should be responsible citizens
Create sign and send petitions. The more inputs we have the better. http://occupywallst.org/forum/create-sign-and-send-petitions/
A site to submit issues have them collected, collated and submitted. www.lobbydemocracy.com
OUR BANNER/OUR CAUSE
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. July 4, 1776
I agree with all of the above. However, does you definition of "free market" mean that the government has no role in regulating business. On that I would disagree.
Absolutely not. There are many things the free market cannot accomplish since many things do not generate profit. An unfettered free market also causes adverse conditions such as pollution which government needs to limit. Now, we are making progress. While we have a base, many, many more things are needed to establish a just society.
"The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." This statement is taken from the popular Forum site with a list of "ideas" This statement perfectly addresses why we need to Occupy the White House now! Some of these ideas are good, some miss the point, yet they are a coherent start.. But the Occupation does not need specifics handed down from the so-called "General Council" in order to do what is so specifically clear in the above statement>.. I quote it again: "The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." The time is today!! Occupy the White House. Tell the President, this is the peoples house. Tell Congress< they all work for us. OWH begins today at 2:00..See you at the Gates!!!
The condition has been created. Now is the time for dialog to generate a process, a plan and get general agreement in my opinion.
It is difficult to get consensus without getting agreement. Is there anything that the people on this forum can agree with?
Or, is the war just too much fun to consider trying to negotiate a peace treaty?
4) The rule of law should prevent one person from harming another
No. The rule of law is mute. The inalienable individual right to Life is responsible.
Life, Liberty and Property. Then we can start talking about rule of law ...
Sorry, I do not understand your statement.
An example of what I am saying: It is illegal to steal. There are sanctions if you are convicted.
But we are not in the Economic System Olympics. We are in the real world where systems have to cope with anomalies and human frailties.
So, without the fine print, I doubt you will get agreement from everyone but me. We have been sold pigs in pokes before.
All marketplaces are socially constructed: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
So we can talk about the rules and goals that govern a marketplace: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_market.html
We don't have to accept "The Market as God": http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
How about a basic income to deal with the fact that most human labor is getting less and less valuable with more automation and AI? http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
See also: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
Also, a lot of goods and services just can't be purchased or decided on individually, like a healthy community: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
At this stage we do not need to expand the discussion. First, we need a strong base upon which to build. I have an extensive list of problems and possible solutions in mind. First, we need to get everyone on the same page. Please just address my question. Is there a problem with my list in the "real" world in which we find ourselves?
"At this stage we do not need to expand the discussion."
What makes you say that? A big part of what is going on with OWS right now is a lot of people discussing things and a lot of collective learning going on.
As for the list, as I pointed out, to begin with #5 is very questionable, even as we can construct useful markets by appropriate regulation.
Just look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
And: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
And on a variety of interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, and planned, each of which might be best for different goods and services) see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
To your first point, yes, there is a lot of discussion. But, we need a plan. We do not want to talk this revolution to death. OWS is not the 99%. They are trying to speak for the 99%. But, the other 98% is waiting for a coherent plan to emerge.
To your second point, in the USA, I think most economists will agree that of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism; Capitalism wins out as the most efficient.
Capitalism is most efficient at what? And what sort of capitalism? People in Western Europe are generally happier and healthier than people in the USA, and they manage to do that in much more crowded conditions with much less resources (and after recovering from a terrible WWII that left the USA mostly unscathed). Does that make the Western European version of capitalism a lot more "efficient" than the US version?
Also, on the purpose of economics and "efficiency": http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html "The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."
One thing often forgotten is the joy of the work itself and the happiness of the workplace. People spend the biggest chunk of their waking hours at work. What good is a consumer heaven when the workplace is a living hell for many people?
Also on rethinking work: http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
And: "Human Resources" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA
There was a time in America, when all voluntarily lived without hierarchy; when by mutual agreement there was no attempt to place one above the other; and there was no government, no body politik to govern them, either here or on the other side. They believed themselves to exist in a "state of nature," as living outside all law. You would do well to skip the white sheets on the net and take an in depth, unbiased, and serious look at American history.
What we are talking about is a vision of the future. And there was far less tension prior to the industrial revolution.
I tend to agree with Manuel De Landa here: http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm "Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."
The Native Americans had various levels of collective decision making (depending on the culture, the Haundenosaunee were more like what you say, but the Aztec, Maya, and Inca down south were not).
Different groups coming to the Americas had various forms of governance both during the passage to America and when they got here (much of it run by big corporations like the Hudson Bay Corporation). I guess I'm not sure what part of American history in time and place you are talking about? Can you give some specific examples?
I'd certainly agree a lot of different things have been tried. And also I'd agree that when 90% of workers were working on farms (not sure what percent farm owners -- 50%?) we had something more of a "Jeffersonian ideal". But even then, there were things like regular church going on Sundays for many that helped created some common ways of behaving through a common culture. And that society was often very partriarchal and so on. And there were slaves...
Anyway, who would you recommend reading besides Zinn http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html and Gatto http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm and Loewen? http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/
And in any case, now we have robotics, AI, better design, and the internet, so things have changed. What we do with that potential abundance is up to us collectively (however we decide that).
I bookmarked your last few links so I can look at them later.
I wasn't speaking of the Native Americans because I get the distinct impression from the written accounts of those Europeans that lived among them in the northeast, that they were a people without any law whatsoever. If one wanted to decapitate someone, for example, and throw them into the stew, this was perfectly acceptable as long as one could bear the community censure. It was a world of collective decision making ruled not so much by law as by mores, and community censure; led by an extensive network of chiefs assigned to very specific minor tasks. In reference to the territorial state, though, there was a tremendous level of politics that existed in an effort to negotiate boundaries, rights, and the acquisition of resources.
They were also a people capable of extreme brutality which served to totally incense, as a literal shock to the sensibilities, the average European, many of whom, had never before either witnessed or participated in such extreme acts of violence. The brutality, even when ceremonial, existed for a reason. I find this is a rather interesting element that developed amongst these people as relative to their isolation.
What I was speaking of specifically was our early colonials. Their words and compacts have been preserved in many of our town records. They were certainly "enlightened," possessed of an egalitarian communal idealism. To understand these records, one must be fully possessed of the vernacular though because many of the words then carried an entirely different connotation.
Slavery still exists in the world because we are a communal species very similar to the bee colony; our very existence demands that we extract labor from others as a communal effort. The indentured slave (there were many forms of indenture) and the African slave have merely been replaced by the wage slave - we serve the exact same evolutionary purpose; wage slavery is far more efficient because we require less care. It's merely evolution in the form of memes at play here, for an obvious reason.
In reference to Al, it is a cyber fantasy, conceived by those who would prefer to never leave the comfort of their monitor. This is not a real world, its a manifestation of mind. In the real world, the immediate impulse would be to destroy the machines. The world will always be determined by men.
To approach solution with fanciful ideas that will never see fruition is... well, great for some but a total waste of time for me. There are two types of people in this world and this applies to absolutely everything - those that do and those that don't; which are you? Because it determines your place in this world as either one who provides care or one who requires care. And those that require our care comprise 2/3s of our population.
Again, "efficient" is always relative to some goals, values, or priorities. And those connect to our culture and politics.
Lawrence Lessig in the book "Code" has talked about how there are four ways to organize society, rules, norms, prices, and architecture. So, yes, one can see in different native and colonial societies different mixes of those four things as they shaped behavior (including whether slavery of various sorts was possible or profitable).
When people came to the Americans, their lives were shaped by all sorts of forces (whether the price of fur pelts in Europe which drove much of the economics of New York, or the need to repay investors in Europe for passage and supplies). It is also hard to talk about free people in the Colonies being egalitarian when they were busy exterminating the natives to take their land and often looked down on them as lesser beings.
Still, I don't totally disagree with your point. I do agree one can look to the past, including aspects of the history of North American, and find things worth emulating today. I think the fact that economic self-reliance on farms lead to some level of political independence is an important point. I hope we can return to some of that as costs continue to fall for solar panels and 3D printers and agricultural robotics and people can more easily be more self-reliant but with more material goods and services.
On AI and robotics, well, you're welcome to your opinions. But here are some things to consider: http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/more-on-the-future-implications-ibm-watson-technology/
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445
Various AI examples: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/cra/ai.html "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the key technology in many of today's novel applications, ranging from banking systems that detect attempted credit card fraud, to telephone systems that understand speech, to software systems that notice when you're having problems and offer appropriate advice. These technologies would not exist today without the sustained federal support of fundamental AI research over the past three decades."
The US military has big plans for AI and robotics and will drive this even if industry was not also racing forward with it to replace workers and cut costs.
Do you use Google? Then you are essentially using AI to do what just three or four decades ago would have been called a "cyber fantasy". As Roy Amara and Ray Kurzweil have both said: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns "Most technology forecasts ignore altogether this “historical exponential view” of technological progress. That is why people tend to overestimate what can be achieved in the short term (because we tend to leave out necessary details), but underestimate what can be achieved in the long term (because the exponential growth is ignored)."
We are seeing just the beginning of this so far. And already much of our lives is not determined by people but by systems of bureaucracy in which people are interchangeable parts who are replaced if they do not perform to specification (Langdon Winner's book Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought" develops that idea). But, I'd agree it would make a lot of sense to think deeply about what kind of society we want and work to shape our society in those directions.
Different people can make all sorts of contributions to society whether they are recognized through the market. Much of the USA is only made possible by volunteers, by gifts, and by good planning. How much does our society depend on the essentially voluntary efforts of good parents? So, what people "do" to contribute to a society like ours, where machines now do much of the hard work of harvesting food or making stuff or providing many basic services like communications or archiving, is a complex topic. This is a great site that has helped me in moving beyond black and white thinking to thinking in color: http://www.anwot.org/
This link maybe both agrees and disagrees with some of what you said: http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html "Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control."
This supports your original point: http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
I'll take a look at your links..
The quest for knowledge is an unstoppable force... and tools will continuously improve. But from a physiological perspective, freeing all of mankind of work is not a good thing. Worse, when there is little need of mindful methodology in the acquisition of resources, far more of the mind will be dedicated to the search for the esoteric. And that, in effect, is exactly what's happening now. Believe it or not, not all wars of the past were territorial as focused on resources.
One minor comment on the colonial; it was never the intent of the few to annihilate, or even engage, the many. It was a self-defense mechanism in light of two entirely incompatible peoples. And there are two very specific reasons for this that have nothing at all to do with the typical textbook explanation of "property." Also... in MA Bay it wasn't furs at all. You're confusing us, somewhat, with the French.
But whatever, and PS: I think robotics is pretty cool, too. Oh, and PSS: all is but a measure of happiness; and perfect happiness is unattainable. That's the reason we continue the search...
There will always be a lot of work to do raising children well, caring for the sick and aged, comforting the dying, contemplating the universe, learning enough to keep big systems from running amok, blogging, and so on.
That last link on the original affluent society shows how little most hunter/gatherers actually "worked" but they still had good societies.
But certainly there are problems with addiction that can come up in stressful circumstances, and for humans, not having a reason to use your mind in a meaningful way may indeed be an unhealthy stress.
Ways to deal with addiction: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
On the early Massachusetts Bay Colony's economy, it says on Wikipedia it was indeed more than furs (also fish, shipbuilding, and lumber): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Colony#Economy_and_trade
Also there: "The colonial government attempted to regulate the economy in a number of ways. On several occasions it passed laws regulating wages and prices of economically important goods, but most of these initiatives did not last very long.[53] Two trades, shoemaking and coopering (barrel-making), were authorized to form guilds, making it possible to set price, quality and expertise levels for their work. The colony set standards governing the use of weights and measures. For example, mill operators were required to weigh grain before and after milling, to ensure the customer received back what he delivered.[54] The Puritan dislike of ostentation led the colony to also regulate expenditures on what it perceived as luxury items. Items of personal adornment, like lace and costly silk outerwear in particular, were frowned upon. Attempts to ban these items failed, and the colony resorted to laws restricting their display to those who could demonstrate £200 in assets.[55]"
On: "It was self-defense as two entirely incompatible cultures." Well, is it self-defense if an invader trespasses onto someone's property and shoots the owner because they were scared of the owner?
The hunter/ gatherer society conserved much it's energy, much like the chimpanzee; we perceive of this as leisure.
Virtually all colonial law focused on the regulation of its economic logic, to the benefit of all. (Call it corporate law. They used other terms to define the various classifications of law.)
Uhh, no... I meant that the initial clashes were self-defense on the part of the colonial. Definitely. This of course introduced other elements. And this was not an invasion in the sense of a military attempt at conquest. It was merely a migration, for reason. In fact, it was not even "colonization"; colonization requires a military force, protection and support services, which were non-existent. The thirteen colonies, by definition, were never colonies.
I don't agree with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7. Other than that it's a good list.
1) Everyone should make decisions based on what furthers spiritual enlightenment for all, 2) The rule of law inevitably supports the selfish bastards who made the laws, 3) We should continually hurt those who are trying to exploit us, 4) The rule of law should demand that we hurt those who exploit us, 5) Compassionate and enlightened capitalism is the way to go; not the greedy, earth fucking crap you believe in, 6) You must be an insurance salesman for something.... 7) People should be responsible by kicking bad government in the fucking ass.
I don't want spiritual enlightenment for me, though.
You will some day, however, evolution moves this way and no force can upset that power.
maybe but what I don't need is a Spanish Inquisition trying to force it on me.
How about an American one :)
I don't have to push you at all. It wouldn't do any good anyway. Pushing just creates resistance. You will go where you want to go. That is fine with me.
I did not ask for a new list. What is wrong with my list?
If you want to make changes you will need to get broad agreement in order to make the changes. Just disagreeing with things the way there are is not going to cut it.
Your list encourages people to suck up to corrupt government, that is what is wrong with it. We need a whole new system to avoid corruption, since they abused the old system. There is broad agreement the two party of corporate lobbyists is corrupt beyond fixing. That is why people are in the streets.
There is not a broad agreement that the current system is corrupt beyond fixing.
I am sorry, you are missing the point. We need to build upon a strong foundation. These statements do not encourage anything. They simply start to lay out a strategy for moving ahead.
I see that, but they limit response to something peaceful that the 1% can brush aside. You are not a good warrior. You fight like a church goer.
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