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> In North-Western Europe? It's good enough for everyone, more than good enough, it's too much, we're suffering the illnesses of abundance, not of scarcity, we'

> In North-Western Europe? It's good enough for everyone, more than good enough, it's too much, we're suffering the illnesses of abundance, not of scarcity, we're obese, not starving, we're bored, not busy. That's an extreme exaggeration. Sure, I, and possibly you, are experiencing this. But still here, there are people who are not. Doesn't matter though. Even if everyone here had it good, we do so because of the exploitation of others in different parts of the world. It's all connected, and we have to fix it all, to fix anything. > The lowest 10% has never lived a better life, objectively. I assume your issue isn't objective measurements but relative qualities? I.e. how good is the poorest person's life compared to the richest? It's still pretty damn great. We do have a class-gap in life expectancy, but it's small, much, much smaller than it was a hundred years ago and let's not talk about any time before that. Objectively? If you mean having more materialistic stuff than ever before? Sure. But what about life quality? Being able to relax, not having so many concerns, and so on. Sure, we have Netflix now, but we have also have for one a huge amount of mental illness. There are so much more about well-being than just having Netflix and a warm bed. > First of all that's inaccurate because you're counting "work" as in "work for money". A subsistence farmer has never worked 15 hours/week, and even someone who has worked in some form of employment has had a lot more home-work than they do now. Specialization means everyone works more in one thing but doesn't have to work a little bit in everything. I'm talking before there were farmers. Before it was possible to exploit others, because humans could only survive by caring for each other, because the tripe lived and died according to their team work. Surplus of food was not a possibility, so there was no way for anyone to hoard stuff, so compassion and sharing were the overall way of life for the most part because that gave the best chances of surviving. Back then, people surely hunted and gathered food, but it was in total hours not more than about 15 hours a week, sometimes less. That's the current consensus on the matter. Then agriculture happened and few other technologies were developed, and suddenly surplus was a possibility, and then some wanted to keep the surplus for themselves, and work hours increased for everyone else. > Second: they've lived very simple and quite short lives. We can have that as well, but we don't. We want to live healthy and long and have retirements where we don't work at all that span 10-20% of our adult life span. That's unprecedented on a large scale. We still produce many times more than we need. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't work a lot less and still produce all that's needed for all that. The only problem is that a few people keep such a big part of the wealth for themselves. > What's necessary? Should they have a purse for a rainy day? Then they'll have to work more than what's strictly necessary for today's survival. Should they have retirement? Well, add another 20% and so on. They should have all that, and they could and still only work say 15 hours a week. We still produce way too much of which too much of the wealth go to a few hands instead of being more evenly distributed. > I absolutely agree, but that's not going to happen. Sure it can, I don't see why not, and at least I'm gonna do whatever I can to fight the fight. > UBI may well be the fuel you need for the acceleration of society's splintering. Maybe you can try the small commune afterwards, if anyone is still alive. I think climate change, corvid-19 and all the next pandemics that are coming, are the fuel. > Right, but we're talking about modern societies, not the situation in the third world, aren't we? How many people in Denmark aren't able to meet their basic nutritional needs? I'm talking about all people in the whole wide world. I don't see why I shouldn't care for other people just because they are not part of my world directly, and I don't believe you can fix something, like climate change, or inequality, or a pandemic, without fixing it everywhere. Gresham's law; if bad things exist, they spread until there is nothing good left. > Oh, I'm sure we could. It's just that we'll have to wade through rivers of blood and endure unimaginable amounts of human suffering. We do not just stand on the shoulders of giants, we stand on the bones of the many that lived and died before us to bring about the world we have today. If we get thrown back a few hundred years, we'll probably get back here again, but it'll take a while, and it will take a lot of blood, sweat and tears. > It's easy to speak from the privileged position of wealthy peacefulness about how easy it was achieved and to wager it on a coin flip. It's a different story for those that achieved it, much like the politicians that send soldiers to war and the soldiers that do the dying and the killing. I'm convinced that if we don't do these things, it will be much worse. Climate change and future pandemics is not something our capitalist, oligarchical civilization are gonna fix, so if we don't fix it ourself, we will be much worse off.

luckylion 6y ago
> Even if everyone here had it good, we do so because of the exploitation of others in different parts of the world. It's all connected, and we have to fix it all, to fix anything. Oh, I absolutely agree with you that we should fix it. But I also believe that you're fundamentally wrong about why we have it good over here. It's institutions and culture that brings about this quality of life, not exploitation. The exploitation helps, don't get me wrong, but it's the cherry on the top. If everything but the First World was swallowed by the oceans, our life style would change and the quality of life would drop somewhat, but not by that much. We don't depend on cheap labor in China to produce goods, but we'll gladly use it to produce even more goods so everyone can have five pairs of shoes and a big screen TV. Those aren't quality of life issues though, they are a luxury. A luxury that many would miss, but a luxury nonetheless. It's like if you have a billion dollars and the next day you lose 99% of your wealth. That's quite the catastrophic loss - but you still have ten million dollars, which is more than enough to live a luxurious life. Maybe not quite the 300ft yacht, but the 30ft yacht is included. If you want to fix "it", fix institutions and culture and traditions. And, of course, increase efficiency. The scientist that develops a new way to plant and harvest rice that produces a higher yield will have much more impact than all the political activists. > But what about life quality? Being able to relax, not having so many concerns, and so on. Even then, yes. The worries in NW Europe today may seem terrible to you, but they'd be a joy for a 15th century peasant during a famine or a war, or on any given day that his local lord is in a bad mood. That's not to say that they're not real, but to worry about whether you can keep that nice apartment now that you're unemployed is not the same as worrying about whether you'll manage to find some food so your children won't starve. > Back then, people surely hunted and gathered food, but it was in total hours not more than about 15 hours a week, sometimes less. They lived to be 25, maybe 30, and often fell to a violent death because it wasn't all solidarity and peaceful happiness. Half of them didn't make it through puberty. And if you consider 15 hours per week of "work" to feed yourself little, then I've got some news for you: depending on your job, you can do it in far less. 7kg of rice will provide the calories you need and set you back about 7 Euros. Figure out how much you have to work to make 7 Euros and you have your answer. Remember, Hunter-Gatherer tribes didn't have houses, cars, health insurance or phones. If you want to go really basic, we've got you covered. > Then agriculture happened and few other technologies were developed, and suddenly surplus was a possibility, and then some wanted to keep the surplus for themselves, and work hours increased for everyone else. And, more importantly, population growth happened, and life expectancy grew, and life became more predictable and societies were created. > We still produce many times more than we need. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't work a lot less and still produce all that's needed for all that. Absolutely, I 100% agree. Here's the issue: we don't know what we want. Again, if you're solely going by basic needs, we have you covered. We can trivially supply enough calories and plain water to our citizens, even without imports. But we don't want that, we don't want to limit ourselves to the basic necessities. And as soon as we go beyond that, individuals want different things. If we had a perfect system that accurately predicted and aggregated what everyone wanted, we could provide it without excess, without waste and highly efficient. But we don't. And the chaotic and terribly wasteful mechanisms of the free market are the best system we have. > I'm talking about all people in the whole wide world. Give them Danish culture and their suffering will decrease until it is no more. If that doesn't sit well with you because "all cultures are equal" and what not, don't fight the fight. Become an engineer or a scientist in applied sciences, you'll move the needle for worldwide well-being much more. I don't share your bleak outlook at all. Human ingenuity is a super power, technology and science are how we overcome obstacles, not by falling back into a status quo ante. We want to hasten our way to the 22nd century, not go back to the 14th.

luckylion 6y ago

> Even if everyone here had it good, we do so because of the exploitation of others in different parts of the world. It's all connected, and we have to fix it all, to fix anything. Oh, I absolutely agree with you that we should fix it. But I also believe that you're fundamentally wrong about why we have it good over here. It's institutions and culture that brings about this quality of life, not exploitation. The exploitation helps, don't get me wrong, but it's the cherry on the top. If everything but the First World was swallowed by the oceans, our life style would change and the quality of life would drop somewhat, but not by that much. We don't depend on cheap labor in China to produce goods, but we'll gladly use it to produce even more goods so everyone can have five pairs of shoes and a big screen TV. Those aren't quality of life issues though, they are a luxury. A luxury that many would miss, but a luxury nonetheless. It's like if you have a billion dollars and the next day you lose 99% of your wealth. That's quite the catastrophic loss - but you still have ten million dollars, which is more than enough to live a luxurious life. Maybe not quite the 300ft yacht, but the 30ft yacht is included. If you want to fix "it", fix institutions and culture and traditions. And, of course, increase efficiency. The scientist that develops a new way to plant and harvest rice that produces a higher yield will have much more impact than all the political activists. > But what about life quality? Being able to relax, not having so many concerns, and so on. Even then, yes. The worries in NW Europe today may seem terrible to you, but they'd be a joy for a 15th century peasant during a famine or a war, or on any given day that his local lord is in a bad mood. That's not to say that they're not real, but to worry about whether you can keep that nice apartment now that you're unemployed is not the same as worrying about whether you'll manage to find some food so your children won't starve. > Back then, people surely hunted and gathered food, but it was in total hours not more than about 15 hours a week, sometimes less. They lived to be 25, maybe 30, and often fell to a violent death because it wasn't all solidarity and peaceful happiness. Half of them didn't make it through puberty. And if you consider 15 hours per week of "work" to feed yourself little, then I've got some news for you: depending on your job, you can do it in far less. 7kg of rice will provide the calories you need and set you back about 7 Euros. Figure out how much you have to work to make 7 Euros and you have your answer. Remember, Hunter-Gatherer tribes didn't have houses, cars, health insurance or phones. If you want to go really basic, we've got you covered. > Then agriculture happened and few other technologies were developed, and suddenly surplus was a possibility, and then some wanted to keep the surplus for themselves, and work hours increased for everyone else. And, more importantly, population growth happened, and life expectancy grew, and life became more predictable and societies were created. > We still produce many times more than we need. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't work a lot less and still produce all that's needed for all that. Absolutely, I 100% agree. Here's the issue: we don't know what we want. Again, if you're solely going by basic needs, we have you covered. We can trivially supply enough calories and plain water to our citizens, even without imports. But we don't want that, we don't want to limit ourselves to the basic necessities. And as soon as we go beyond that, individuals want different things. If we had a perfect system that accurately predicted and aggregated what everyone wanted, we could provide it without excess, without waste and highly efficient. But we don't. And the chaotic and terribly wasteful mechanisms of the free market are the best system we have. > I'm talking about all people in the whole wide world. Give them Danish culture and their suffering will decrease until it is no more. If that doesn't sit well with you because "all cultures are equal" and what not, don't fight the fight. Become an engineer or a scientist in applied sciences, you'll move the needle for worldwide well-being much more. I don't share your bleak outlook at all. Human ingenuity is a super power, technology and science are how we overcome obstacles, not by falling back into a status quo ante. We want to hasten our way to the 22nd century, not go back to the 14th.