14 ms·

> When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. Western society is inefficient at a macro level, even

> When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. Western society is inefficient at a macro level, even though it may seem efficient from the financial perspective of a single company or an individual. People cover huge distances to work. Companies are moving goods, components and people from all over the world. People change jobs (losing focus) and their residence often, companies go bankrupt because of competitive market forces. This means a lot of wasted resources and duplication. You can decrease the energy consumption significantly without affecting the quality of life in case of adopting a new political philosophy which considers these realities.

izend 4y ago
Europe has the resources to produce cheap energy they just decided to not exploit it and import their energy from Russia and others.
- bluetomcat 4y ago
  The conflict between Russia and the west is deeply rooted on the hegemony of rampant worldwide liberalism which creates the problems I described. It's a meat grinder which consumes not only excessive energy but people's livelihoods, too. It is certainly not a world I would want my son to live in.
  - goatlover 4y ago
    What's the better alternative?
    - bluetomcat 4y ago
      A better alternative would be to have localised production and localised consumption of food and most basic goods. Stuff like not having foreign-cuisine restaurants and not buying salmon from thousands of kilometers away. Cloth production should follow the same idea. People should feel more attached to their birthplace and the goal should be to develop their skills locally with one company preferably. Strong bonds with the local extended family which provides an additional safety net. If your region produces cars, you should be more likely (through education and culture) to become an automotive engineer and live there for your life. Trade for more advanced goods should still be there, but it would be more inter-region and less inter-global.
      - nickpp 4y ago
        You are describing a world of slaves. How many people are you willing to sacrifice to achieve you vision?
        rglullis 4y ago
        Is participating jn an Amish village "slavery"? An Israeli Kibutz?
        michaelmrose 4y ago
        An amish village is a laughable anachronism that only exist in the context of a much larger whole that is antithetical to the very values and way of life it practices because no larger scale society so constructed could exist or compete with other societies practicing opposing values. It's not a healthier better way to build a city its a tiny park on a corner lot surrounded by pollution and traffic.
        rglullis 4y ago
        First: yes, it is healthier for those living inside the park, compared to the alternative. Second: the point is not to build "a larger scale" version of those societies, but actually to replicate the idea of localism in many different places. Less EU and one-world government and more independent nation-states, if you will. Third: you can oppose the lifestyle and philosophy all you want, but it still is not slavery.
        ericd 4y ago
        Can it survive against a larger-scale opponent that wants to take its resources, though? Without a friendly superpower enforcing peace with an extraordinarily powerful military, that is.
        rglullis 4y ago
        Switzerland managed to do it for centuries already.
  - ptsneves 4y ago
    I guess the world you want your son to live in is one of planned economies and great leaps forward. I for one do not. I would rather that innovation and competitive forces lead into the future of societies. As Stalin used to say: no people no problem.
    - II2II 4y ago
      The options are not as pure as you make it sound. There is a considerable amount of planning in the free market economies. This ranges from developing transportation networks to deciding upon funding for scientific research. Businesses that control a disproportionate amount of the market also make planning decisions to shape the market. When they make the wrong decisions, there are negative consequences. Arguably, that is what we are seeing at the moment with the supply chain problems. The question is how do you ensure that no single actor gains too much control over a segment of the economy? In many cases, the fallback is central planning. For example: one of the greatest reasons for public highway networks was to diminish the role of railway barons. In other words, centrally planned infrastructure supported a less centralized economy.
    - bluetomcat 4y ago
      It’s not a planned central economy. It is self-reliant local communities within regional bounds, like a fault-tolerant distributed system. They would trade primarily with adjacent regions stuff that they don’t or can’t produce locally. Knowledge, information and education should flow freely everywhere, enabling peace. People should feel comfortable living in their birthplace and should have no motivation for economic migration.
      - michaelmrose 4y ago
        How do you produce airplanes and silicon chips exactly?
        imtringued 4y ago
        Why do you need an airplane in a local community? Also, silicon chips aren't exactly the type of thing that you constantly need to buy every single day nor are they expensive to ship. Using the same phone or laptop for years instead of buying a new one every single year is highly viable.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    The interesting thing isn't even your assesment of "west", but what values you assign to russia. They are absolutely wrong. It's (for someone, paradoxically) extremely individualistic slave nation with very deep hierarchies of power.
    - bluetomcat 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory
      - eli_gottlieb 4y ago
        >He refers to this ideology as a 'timeless, non-modern theory' valid for all time. Rubbish.
      - danbolt 4y ago
        I can't tell if this would be the motivation of a Metal Gear Solid villain, or the motivation of a multi-disc JRPG final boss.
  - type0 4y ago
    > It is certainly not a world I would want my son to live in. What world? The one where Russia is shunned?
  - eli_gottlieb 4y ago
    >the hegemony of rampant worldwide liberalism You gonna define "liberalism" precisely? It's overloaded with mutually contradictory meanings.
  - pertymcpert 4y ago
    What does liberalism mean in concrete terms and why is it bad?
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    The conflict between Russia and the West is that once upon a time they represented competing similar power spheres of influence with the most important singular difference being which country would sit at the top and all other ideological differences being secondary. Their ecomic and military power collapsed but their ambitions did not. In a more rational world they would do what other former great powers do and talk shit but actually align their actual behavior with their factual strength because it doesn't pay to pick fights you can't win. Because their leadership has a unrealistic idea of their actual power they are locked in an immoral and unwinnable struggle to subjugate peoples and lands over which they have no moral or legal rights because that is what Moscow does they subjugate people that ethnically aren't Russian enough loot their treasure and use them as cannon fodder to murder other people they would like to subjugate. Making this a response to liberalism is just complete nonsense. It's a last power grab by an immoral and acquisitive power who sees theirs draining away.
  - moistly 4y ago
    The conflict is between one-person/one-vote and a cartel that has hijacked a nation.
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  Shutting down all the nuclear?
- nextos 4y ago
  Exactly, it's not like the energy supply decreased overnight due to natural scarcity. Peak oil might be a reality, but it's not the cause of current problems in the EU. Also, per capita energy consumption in the EU is 1/2 compared to the US due to more efficient commuting and buildings (still far from optimal though).
  - nradov 4y ago
    Per capita energy consumption in the EU is lower than the US mostly because they are poorer (on a GDP per capita basis). Europeans would consume more energy if they could afford it.
    - MagnumOpus 4y ago
      Mostly incorrect take. Two points for your consideration: 1. All European countries tax gasoline far more heavily than the US, usually to the tune of 100-200% of the wholesale price. That is an intentional policy to lower gasoline consumption, governments could easily remove it if they wished for more energy consumption. 2. Not all European countries are "poorer" than the US even by a GDP measure. Norway which is a petrostate has about half the energy consumption of the US (measured by per capita carbon emissions), Switzerland about a quarter! If anything richer countries in Europe are better than the poorer Eastern neighbour as well as better than the US in minimizing energy waste -- better-insulated housing, better rail and subway networks.
tjs8rj 4y ago
The benefit of this political philosophy is its fractally-flexbile. If we've solved every problem and the most efficient of everything is found, then "fully-automated space communism" is the most "efficient" because everything is directed rigidly in exactly the most efficient way. That's exactly its fatal flaw though: it's so rigid (and what you call inefficiency is called autonomy by others). People change jobs for many reasons, often because they want something better. Companies go bankrupt often because they are less effective. On a macro level, when the terrain is unknown (as it is for our reality), more autonomy means more flexibility and finding efficient solutions faster.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> even though it may seem efficient from the financial perspective of a single company or an individual The national highway system and 1950s’ surburbanisation are top-down policy choices, not emergent behaviour.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  The national highway system was a military not economic or social policy designed to allow for easy transport of troops in the event of a way. That is why many cities have large beltways that surround them, the idea being that if a city is nuked the highway is outside the blast radius.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    It can be all of those things. The existence is a military policy. The fact that many of them cut through and decimated minority businesses and neighborhoods rather than just solely going around cities in a beltway fashion (as is done in Europe and was Eisenhower's original intention) was an intentional social policy to remove "blighted" areas.
  - galdosdi 4y ago
    Source? I've heard this, and I've heard it's a common myth / urban legend. There's a lot of similar myths, like that "interstates have a lot of straight sections to allow for an airplane to land in an emergency" I did read a well researched book (The Big Roads by Earl Swift) on the US highway and interstate system's creations, and I don't recall that being mentioned as a primary motivation. The main motivation for beltways and such really was just "alleviating congestion" I didn't bother looking this up yet again to reconfirm I'm not misremembering, but I think the onus is on you here since it's a weird claim even if oft repeated. Edit: I immediately looked it up anyway. Military thinking did factor in in early planning/rabblerousing regarding highway construction, but this was very abstract and DECADES prior to the main effort of highway construction. There is not really a strong historical connection, and the military did not play a leading role or even much of a supporting one, at the time the interstates were actually built much later. At the time most interstates were built, the main justification for Congress to spend the money was civilian use for alleviating congestion, which is why (Eisenhower famously was baffled by this) the focus was on intracity expressways, not intercity ones. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Plan... I would guess the biggest reason for this myth is they were built under the executive sponsorship of Eisenhower, who at some point mentioned the anecdote that as a young man he had coincidentally been involved as a junior officer in an experimental military convoy from coast to coast in the 1910s. Ironically, Eisenhower's connection to both was peripheral. In one he was just one of many cogs in the machine, in the other, decades later in life, he was just the guy who did the politically expedient thing and signed on the dotted line for plans that had been developed and advocated by others. But there was no causal relationship between these two events. Of course, people love a good story, so this quickly mutated into "General-turned-President Eisenhower remembered how bad the roads were for the military and masterminded the interstate system to fix that problem" which is a complete mischaracterization. He was a very, vey popular figure in his day so modest mistakes like that that made him look better were not likely to be corrected. For one of the main generals who "won world war two" it would have been a believable claim, as well as something one would _want_ to believe. The reality is the big roads came about for the boring reason that cars were becoming more popular.
Aperocky 4y ago
> adopting a new political philosophy No thanks, I'd rather let market forces make that decision eventually. All imposed political philosophy that run contrary to market forces and human desires will run into massive inefficiency and grift.
- imtringued 4y ago
  The market forces won't make many nice decisions if you don't let them. No negative interest rates mean companies and workers need to create artificial scarcity to pay the artificially high costs of financial capital.
6figurelenins 4y ago
> wasted resources and duplication This is 19th century zeitgeist. It failed to recognize fulfillment of human needs as an evolutionary process. "Waste and duplication" -- trial and error -- is necessary. You can't design for what you haven't discovered. Here's a picture that always humbles me, representing one infinitesimal aspect of human thriving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#/media/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline_21_10_2021.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#/m... > You can decrease the energy consumption significantly without affecting the quality of life in case of adopting a new political philosophy Does it involve telling people what constitutes "quality of life?" Why does this "new" political (in fact: economic) philosophy so often devastate so many lives? Even if you presume to run human civilization as an ant colony (How dare you?), even with honest intentions, centralization is a bad idea. It lets you pretend you're making informed decisions based on a complete model, and not just running an experiment with global risk.
- imtringued 4y ago
  >Does it involve telling people what constitutes "quality of life?" Why does this "new" political (in fact: economic) philosophy so often devastate so many lives? No it doesn't. It involves abolishing inflation and unemployment, inequality and endless runaway debt growth while simultaneously increasing wages, lowering the cost of living, discouraging corruption and rewarding long term thinking and human effort. >Even if you presume to run human civilization as an ant colony (How dare you?), even with honest intentions, centralization is a bad idea Well, good thing the solution doesn't require more centralisation but rather the opposite, extreme decentralization of power and decision making in the hands of everyone rather than the privileged and special interests groups. > It lets you pretend you're making informed decisions based on a complete model, and not just running an experiment with global risk. We've been running the same failed experiment over and over again and it has always resulted in the same predictable outcome. We should instead face reality instead of sticking our heads into the sand.
  - nradov 4y ago
    How would you propose to realize that utopian vision? And please don't waste our time with any cryptocurrency BS.
tomp 4y ago
Let me guess what your alternative proposal is: everyone should live how you want them to live. Thanks but no thanks. Even ignoring the untold riches & quality of life improvements that free market capitalism has produced, it's just a more free and thus moral system. Edit: also you don't need to be a philosopher or genius to see that. Pretty much everyone moving out of free Western societies is rich or getting rich (e.g. paid well tax free in Dubai), and most of them keep a backup plan (Western citizenship to be able to come back).
- imtringued 4y ago
  Don't call it a free market. It is anything but free.
wruza 4y ago
By simply knowing in advance what to do and how to do it, and what will come, we could make a fortune of all fortunes, outcompete everyone and create a perfect utopia. Good to know!
TaXaZ 4y ago
Ha? This is even dangerous! You're basically yearning for an authoritarian regime. With simplistic argument and some false assumptions you conclude it's more efficient bcz it does not waste basically trial/error. However, this has been proven times after time that such "alternative political philosophy" will defeat its purpose and become highly corrupt. Furthermore, we're in a incomplete information game, evolution is a must, and you can not 'design' things apriori. Western societies, at least when it comes to political philosophy, are far more efficient than their eastern counterparts if you meant it.
nradov 4y ago
That is a very naive viewpoint. You might think that economic central planning could allow us to maintain quality of life while increasing efficiency, but in reality that approach failed everywhere it was tried. That is historical reality, not mere political philosophy.

izend 4y ago

Europe has the resources to produce cheap energy they just decided to not exploit it and import their energy from Russia and others.

bluetomcat 4y ago
The conflict between Russia and the west is deeply rooted on the hegemony of rampant worldwide liberalism which creates the problems I described. It's a meat grinder which consumes not only excessive energy but people's livelihoods, too. It is certainly not a world I would want my son to live in.
- goatlover 4y ago
  What's the better alternative?
  - bluetomcat 4y ago
    A better alternative would be to have localised production and localised consumption of food and most basic goods. Stuff like not having foreign-cuisine restaurants and not buying salmon from thousands of kilometers away. Cloth production should follow the same idea. People should feel more attached to their birthplace and the goal should be to develop their skills locally with one company preferably. Strong bonds with the local extended family which provides an additional safety net. If your region produces cars, you should be more likely (through education and culture) to become an automotive engineer and live there for your life. Trade for more advanced goods should still be there, but it would be more inter-region and less inter-global.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      You are describing a world of slaves. How many people are you willing to sacrifice to achieve you vision?
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Is participating jn an Amish village "slavery"? An Israeli Kibutz?
        michaelmrose 4y ago
        An amish village is a laughable anachronism that only exist in the context of a much larger whole that is antithetical to the very values and way of life it practices because no larger scale society so constructed could exist or compete with other societies practicing opposing values. It's not a healthier better way to build a city its a tiny park on a corner lot surrounded by pollution and traffic.
        rglullis 4y ago
        First: yes, it is healthier for those living inside the park, compared to the alternative. Second: the point is not to build "a larger scale" version of those societies, but actually to replicate the idea of localism in many different places. Less EU and one-world government and more independent nation-states, if you will. Third: you can oppose the lifestyle and philosophy all you want, but it still is not slavery.
        ericd 4y ago
        Can it survive against a larger-scale opponent that wants to take its resources, though? Without a friendly superpower enforcing peace with an extraordinarily powerful military, that is.
        rglullis 4y ago
        Switzerland managed to do it for centuries already.
- ptsneves 4y ago
  I guess the world you want your son to live in is one of planned economies and great leaps forward. I for one do not. I would rather that innovation and competitive forces lead into the future of societies. As Stalin used to say: no people no problem.
  - II2II 4y ago
    The options are not as pure as you make it sound. There is a considerable amount of planning in the free market economies. This ranges from developing transportation networks to deciding upon funding for scientific research. Businesses that control a disproportionate amount of the market also make planning decisions to shape the market. When they make the wrong decisions, there are negative consequences. Arguably, that is what we are seeing at the moment with the supply chain problems. The question is how do you ensure that no single actor gains too much control over a segment of the economy? In many cases, the fallback is central planning. For example: one of the greatest reasons for public highway networks was to diminish the role of railway barons. In other words, centrally planned infrastructure supported a less centralized economy.
  - bluetomcat 4y ago
    It’s not a planned central economy. It is self-reliant local communities within regional bounds, like a fault-tolerant distributed system. They would trade primarily with adjacent regions stuff that they don’t or can’t produce locally. Knowledge, information and education should flow freely everywhere, enabling peace. People should feel comfortable living in their birthplace and should have no motivation for economic migration.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      How do you produce airplanes and silicon chips exactly?
      - imtringued 4y ago
        Why do you need an airplane in a local community? Also, silicon chips aren't exactly the type of thing that you constantly need to buy every single day nor are they expensive to ship. Using the same phone or laptop for years instead of buying a new one every single year is highly viable.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  The interesting thing isn't even your assesment of "west", but what values you assign to russia. They are absolutely wrong. It's (for someone, paradoxically) extremely individualistic slave nation with very deep hierarchies of power.
  - bluetomcat 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory
    - eli_gottlieb 4y ago
      >He refers to this ideology as a 'timeless, non-modern theory' valid for all time. Rubbish.
    - danbolt 4y ago
      I can't tell if this would be the motivation of a Metal Gear Solid villain, or the motivation of a multi-disc JRPG final boss.
- type0 4y ago
  > It is certainly not a world I would want my son to live in. What world? The one where Russia is shunned?
- eli_gottlieb 4y ago
  >the hegemony of rampant worldwide liberalism You gonna define "liberalism" precisely? It's overloaded with mutually contradictory meanings.
- pertymcpert 4y ago
  What does liberalism mean in concrete terms and why is it bad?
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  The conflict between Russia and the West is that once upon a time they represented competing similar power spheres of influence with the most important singular difference being which country would sit at the top and all other ideological differences being secondary. Their ecomic and military power collapsed but their ambitions did not. In a more rational world they would do what other former great powers do and talk shit but actually align their actual behavior with their factual strength because it doesn't pay to pick fights you can't win. Because their leadership has a unrealistic idea of their actual power they are locked in an immoral and unwinnable struggle to subjugate peoples and lands over which they have no moral or legal rights because that is what Moscow does they subjugate people that ethnically aren't Russian enough loot their treasure and use them as cannon fodder to murder other people they would like to subjugate. Making this a response to liberalism is just complete nonsense. It's a last power grab by an immoral and acquisitive power who sees theirs draining away.
- moistly 4y ago
  The conflict is between one-person/one-vote and a cartel that has hijacked a nation.
texasbigdata 4y ago
Shutting down all the nuclear?
nextos 4y ago
Exactly, it's not like the energy supply decreased overnight due to natural scarcity. Peak oil might be a reality, but it's not the cause of current problems in the EU. Also, per capita energy consumption in the EU is 1/2 compared to the US due to more efficient commuting and buildings (still far from optimal though).
- nradov 4y ago
  Per capita energy consumption in the EU is lower than the US mostly because they are poorer (on a GDP per capita basis). Europeans would consume more energy if they could afford it.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    Mostly incorrect take. Two points for your consideration: 1. All European countries tax gasoline far more heavily than the US, usually to the tune of 100-200% of the wholesale price. That is an intentional policy to lower gasoline consumption, governments could easily remove it if they wished for more energy consumption. 2. Not all European countries are "poorer" than the US even by a GDP measure. Norway which is a petrostate has about half the energy consumption of the US (measured by per capita carbon emissions), Switzerland about a quarter! If anything richer countries in Europe are better than the poorer Eastern neighbour as well as better than the US in minimizing energy waste -- better-insulated housing, better rail and subway networks.

tjs8rj 4y ago

The benefit of this political philosophy is its fractally-flexbile. If we've solved every problem and the most efficient of everything is found, then "fully-automated space communism" is the most "efficient" because everything is directed rigidly in exactly the most efficient way. That's exactly its fatal flaw though: it's so rigid (and what you call inefficiency is called autonomy by others). People change jobs for many reasons, often because they want something better. Companies go bankrupt often because they are less effective. On a macro level, when the terrain is unknown (as it is for our reality), more autonomy means more flexibility and finding efficient solutions faster.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> even though it may seem efficient from the financial perspective of a single company or an individual The national highway system and 1950s’ surburbanisation are top-down policy choices, not emergent behaviour.

buscoquadnary 4y ago
The national highway system was a military not economic or social policy designed to allow for easy transport of troops in the event of a way. That is why many cities have large beltways that surround them, the idea being that if a city is nuked the highway is outside the blast radius.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  It can be all of those things. The existence is a military policy. The fact that many of them cut through and decimated minority businesses and neighborhoods rather than just solely going around cities in a beltway fashion (as is done in Europe and was Eisenhower's original intention) was an intentional social policy to remove "blighted" areas.
- galdosdi 4y ago
  Source? I've heard this, and I've heard it's a common myth / urban legend. There's a lot of similar myths, like that "interstates have a lot of straight sections to allow for an airplane to land in an emergency" I did read a well researched book (The Big Roads by Earl Swift) on the US highway and interstate system's creations, and I don't recall that being mentioned as a primary motivation. The main motivation for beltways and such really was just "alleviating congestion" I didn't bother looking this up yet again to reconfirm I'm not misremembering, but I think the onus is on you here since it's a weird claim even if oft repeated. Edit: I immediately looked it up anyway. Military thinking did factor in in early planning/rabblerousing regarding highway construction, but this was very abstract and DECADES prior to the main effort of highway construction. There is not really a strong historical connection, and the military did not play a leading role or even much of a supporting one, at the time the interstates were actually built much later. At the time most interstates were built, the main justification for Congress to spend the money was civilian use for alleviating congestion, which is why (Eisenhower famously was baffled by this) the focus was on intracity expressways, not intercity ones. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Plan... I would guess the biggest reason for this myth is they were built under the executive sponsorship of Eisenhower, who at some point mentioned the anecdote that as a young man he had coincidentally been involved as a junior officer in an experimental military convoy from coast to coast in the 1910s. Ironically, Eisenhower's connection to both was peripheral. In one he was just one of many cogs in the machine, in the other, decades later in life, he was just the guy who did the politically expedient thing and signed on the dotted line for plans that had been developed and advocated by others. But there was no causal relationship between these two events. Of course, people love a good story, so this quickly mutated into "General-turned-President Eisenhower remembered how bad the roads were for the military and masterminded the interstate system to fix that problem" which is a complete mischaracterization. He was a very, vey popular figure in his day so modest mistakes like that that made him look better were not likely to be corrected. For one of the main generals who "won world war two" it would have been a believable claim, as well as something one would _want_ to believe. The reality is the big roads came about for the boring reason that cars were becoming more popular.

Aperocky 4y ago

> adopting a new political philosophy No thanks, I'd rather let market forces make that decision eventually. All imposed political philosophy that run contrary to market forces and human desires will run into massive inefficiency and grift.

imtringued 4y ago
The market forces won't make many nice decisions if you don't let them. No negative interest rates mean companies and workers need to create artificial scarcity to pay the artificially high costs of financial capital.

6figurelenins 4y ago

> wasted resources and duplication This is 19th century zeitgeist. It failed to recognize fulfillment of human needs as an evolutionary process. "Waste and duplication" -- trial and error -- is necessary. You can't design for what you haven't discovered. Here's a picture that always humbles me, representing one infinitesimal aspect of human thriving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#/media/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline_21_10_2021.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#/m... > You can decrease the energy consumption significantly without affecting the quality of life in case of adopting a new political philosophy Does it involve telling people what constitutes "quality of life?" Why does this "new" political (in fact: economic) philosophy so often devastate so many lives? Even if you presume to run human civilization as an ant colony (How dare you?), even with honest intentions, centralization is a bad idea. It lets you pretend you're making informed decisions based on a complete model, and not just running an experiment with global risk.

imtringued 4y ago
>Does it involve telling people what constitutes "quality of life?" Why does this "new" political (in fact: economic) philosophy so often devastate so many lives? No it doesn't. It involves abolishing inflation and unemployment, inequality and endless runaway debt growth while simultaneously increasing wages, lowering the cost of living, discouraging corruption and rewarding long term thinking and human effort. >Even if you presume to run human civilization as an ant colony (How dare you?), even with honest intentions, centralization is a bad idea Well, good thing the solution doesn't require more centralisation but rather the opposite, extreme decentralization of power and decision making in the hands of everyone rather than the privileged and special interests groups. > It lets you pretend you're making informed decisions based on a complete model, and not just running an experiment with global risk. We've been running the same failed experiment over and over again and it has always resulted in the same predictable outcome. We should instead face reality instead of sticking our heads into the sand.
- nradov 4y ago
  How would you propose to realize that utopian vision? And please don't waste our time with any cryptocurrency BS.

tomp 4y ago

Let me guess what your alternative proposal is: everyone should live how you want them to live. Thanks but no thanks. Even ignoring the untold riches & quality of life improvements that free market capitalism has produced, it's just a more free and thus moral system. Edit: also you don't need to be a philosopher or genius to see that. Pretty much everyone moving out of free Western societies is rich or getting rich (e.g. paid well tax free in Dubai), and most of them keep a backup plan (Western citizenship to be able to come back).

imtringued 4y ago
Don't call it a free market. It is anything but free.

wruza 4y ago

By simply knowing in advance what to do and how to do it, and what will come, we could make a fortune of all fortunes, outcompete everyone and create a perfect utopia. Good to know!

TaXaZ 4y ago

Ha? This is even dangerous! You're basically yearning for an authoritarian regime. With simplistic argument and some false assumptions you conclude it's more efficient bcz it does not waste basically trial/error. However, this has been proven times after time that such "alternative political philosophy" will defeat its purpose and become highly corrupt. Furthermore, we're in a incomplete information game, evolution is a must, and you can not 'design' things apriori. Western societies, at least when it comes to political philosophy, are far more efficient than their eastern counterparts if you meant it.

nradov 4y ago

That is a very naive viewpoint. You might think that economic central planning could allow us to maintain quality of life while increasing efficiency, but in reality that approach failed everywhere it was tried. That is historical reality, not mere political philosophy.