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What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize productivity

by waps 12y ago

What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize productivity and consumption. I think it's probably the one thing all economic systems agree on. Hell, even natural selection agrees on that. So is sleep an affront to them all ?

zenogais 12y ago
I was gonna try, but it's a lot of work to even begin deconstructing all the parts of this that are simply incorrect or ahistorical.
crpatino 12y ago
> What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize productivity and consumption. Yes, a hundred times yes!!! > I think it's probably the one thing all economic systems agree on. There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to all systems. > Hell, even natural selection agrees on that. Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to European diseases. > So is sleep an affront to them all ? In a way, yes. At the end of the day, power means access to limited resources. Besides the obvious cases (access to actual raw materials), time is a limited resource for every human being. But you can expand in a way your life span by having other people do what you want instead of what they want. Ultimately, there is a hard limit on how much this vicarious life extension is available: Num_people_under_your_control * 24_hrs_per_day / biological_needs_factor. Given than people usually need in the ballpark or 8 hrs of sleep per day, this is the single largest component of biological_needs_factor. Be it a capitalist robber baron, a communist dictator, or a mercantilist king, they get more power by having their people sleep less and work more... up to a point.
- waps 12y ago
  > There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to all systems. I'd like to know a few examples of that. You know, a long time ago I visited one of the interior countries in Africa, and got an up-close experience of what's probably the closest thing to original human settlements I'm going to see in my lifetime. They know about the modern world, and they've got some kids that left for the city and learned French. So you can talk to them. When you look at these people, you would swear that "laid back lifestyle" doesn't quite cover it. They do the bare minimum necessary to survive, and a little bit to get comfortable. As the locals say, they will never amount to anything. And, frankly, these people are right. They will never build (granted, maybe not never ever, but ...). So you might think. No economy ... no pressure, right ? Wrong. You see, they are acutely aware of the land's carrying capacity. So they have a choice : 1) don't have kids (or not more than their group can take). Result : neighbouring tribe that didn't see the light comes over, kills all the men, and uses the women and children to expand. Besides, you may have noticed, sex is fun. Kids are fun. And I guarantee that any argument for abstinence will fall on deaf ears. 2) Have kids, and while they don't know the math behind it, they are aware that they'll exceed the carrying capacity of their land in a matter of time (incidentally, you may want to avoid visiting tribes that are close to this limit, don't worry, they'll place markers at the edge of their territory and tell you. Don't ignore them, and if you suddenly see a number of people appear on a ridge, turn fucking back). BTW: the problem with option 2 is that destructive behaviour can delay the point where they do run out of resources, at a great cost. You see, when the land can't normally support them anymore, they can burn it, which gives them access to a great amount of meat. It's simple : you burn a piece of forest (surprisingly, doing this well takes a surprising amount of skill). You have archers cover the sides of it. Animals who are normally unreachable either try to escape, taking their chances with the archers, or they burn. In both cases : Food ! Of course, at some point, everything is burned. The next step : war (if successful : the tribe splits up, because social structures don't last when groups are 50+ kilometres apart, if unsuccessful, well, we all know what happens in that case). So truth be told, that system is absolutely trying to maximize productivity and consumption. > Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to European diseases. This is not true. You forget how natural selection works. There's lots of different tactics. Take rabbits for example. No biologist ever is going to call any rabbit population anywhere on the planet balanced. And you do have a point, rabbit populations breed themselves into extinction daily. Cats do the same. In theory the whole thing should end in a "natural balance", somehow it never does. The way life survives is simple. Natural selection : 1) multiply, and use it to try a million new things 2) 99.99% of them die off 3) use the remaining 0.01% to GOTO 1 So the purpose of natural selection most definitely is to use bubbles to their maximum advantage. Yes, some species have a slowdown factor built in, but not a very big one. The reason nature uses bubbles ? If you don't someone else will. And then, you get to deal with all the after effects of strip-mining the bubble, yet you did not get the advantages during the strip-mining that could have allowed you to expand into areas that aren't so heavily effected by the after-effects of the bubble.

by waps 12y ago

zenogais 12y ago

I was gonna try, but it's a lot of work to even begin deconstructing all the parts of this that are simply incorrect or ahistorical.

crpatino 12y ago

> What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize productivity and consumption. Yes, a hundred times yes!!! > I think it's probably the one thing all economic systems agree on. There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to all systems. > Hell, even natural selection agrees on that. Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to European diseases. > So is sleep an affront to them all ? In a way, yes. At the end of the day, power means access to limited resources. Besides the obvious cases (access to actual raw materials), time is a limited resource for every human being. But you can expand in a way your life span by having other people do what you want instead of what they want. Ultimately, there is a hard limit on how much this vicarious life extension is available: Num_people_under_your_control * 24_hrs_per_day / biological_needs_factor. Given than people usually need in the ballpark or 8 hrs of sleep per day, this is the single largest component of biological_needs_factor. Be it a capitalist robber baron, a communist dictator, or a mercantilist king, they get more power by having their people sleep less and work more... up to a point.

waps 12y ago
> There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to all systems. I'd like to know a few examples of that. You know, a long time ago I visited one of the interior countries in Africa, and got an up-close experience of what's probably the closest thing to original human settlements I'm going to see in my lifetime. They know about the modern world, and they've got some kids that left for the city and learned French. So you can talk to them. When you look at these people, you would swear that "laid back lifestyle" doesn't quite cover it. They do the bare minimum necessary to survive, and a little bit to get comfortable. As the locals say, they will never amount to anything. And, frankly, these people are right. They will never build (granted, maybe not never ever, but ...). So you might think. No economy ... no pressure, right ? Wrong. You see, they are acutely aware of the land's carrying capacity. So they have a choice : 1) don't have kids (or not more than their group can take). Result : neighbouring tribe that didn't see the light comes over, kills all the men, and uses the women and children to expand. Besides, you may have noticed, sex is fun. Kids are fun. And I guarantee that any argument for abstinence will fall on deaf ears. 2) Have kids, and while they don't know the math behind it, they are aware that they'll exceed the carrying capacity of their land in a matter of time (incidentally, you may want to avoid visiting tribes that are close to this limit, don't worry, they'll place markers at the edge of their territory and tell you. Don't ignore them, and if you suddenly see a number of people appear on a ridge, turn fucking back). BTW: the problem with option 2 is that destructive behaviour can delay the point where they do run out of resources, at a great cost. You see, when the land can't normally support them anymore, they can burn it, which gives them access to a great amount of meat. It's simple : you burn a piece of forest (surprisingly, doing this well takes a surprising amount of skill). You have archers cover the sides of it. Animals who are normally unreachable either try to escape, taking their chances with the archers, or they burn. In both cases : Food ! Of course, at some point, everything is burned. The next step : war (if successful : the tribe splits up, because social structures don't last when groups are 50+ kilometres apart, if unsuccessful, well, we all know what happens in that case). So truth be told, that system is absolutely trying to maximize productivity and consumption. > Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to European diseases. This is not true. You forget how natural selection works. There's lots of different tactics. Take rabbits for example. No biologist ever is going to call any rabbit population anywhere on the planet balanced. And you do have a point, rabbit populations breed themselves into extinction daily. Cats do the same. In theory the whole thing should end in a "natural balance", somehow it never does. The way life survives is simple. Natural selection : 1) multiply, and use it to try a million new things 2) 99.99% of them die off 3) use the remaining 0.01% to GOTO 1 So the purpose of natural selection most definitely is to use bubbles to their maximum advantage. Yes, some species have a slowdown factor built in, but not a very big one. The reason nature uses bubbles ? If you don't someone else will. And then, you get to deal with all the after effects of strip-mining the bubble, yet you did not get the advantages during the strip-mining that could have allowed you to expand into areas that aren't so heavily effected by the after-effects of the bubble.