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"everyone lives" will only work if we continue to produce enough food and if the population growth does not exceed that food supply. You say capitalism is wron

"everyone lives" will only work if we continue to produce enough food and if the population growth does not exceed that food supply. You say capitalism is wrong because it does not allow "everyone lives". Why is "everyone lives" an option? If everyone lived we would run out of space ... We are not past that question in the U.S. Unchecked population growth is not sustainable. How do we check that growth?

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Unchecked population growth is not sustainable. How do we check that growth? By making people rich enough that they stop having so many damned babies because they can soundly expect the first one or two to survive infancy, and because they don't need seven children for farm labor.
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
In 1st-world economies (the only ones suggesting a basic income) its checking itself. Germany, Japan, France, the USA have negative population 'growth'
- proksoup 12y ago
  Why do citizens of those countries deserve basic income when the rest of the world does not? What did they do to deserve that? Why do they have negative population growth ...
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Oh get off your high horse. Because, by definition, they have the economies that can afford it. You can't just have whatever you wish for; it has to be practical and achievable.
    - proksoup 12y ago
      That's all I'm saying. It seems unrealistic.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        I see it as a progression of technology. We used to see a bright future of automation, robots and leisure. Now we label it unemployment and call it a problem.
        proksoup 12y ago
        I was not witness to that "used to see a bright future" ... I have been worried about the machines replacing us for some time myself. Not because I'm worried about being bored, but because I'm worried about who controls the finite resources. >>>> We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. Darwin among the machines in 1863
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Emotional pseudo-scientific claptrap. You don't like your robot, you get a better one. Who cares about inferior or superior? Different is good enough. One built to serve the other.
Frondo 12y ago
Well, of course if suddenly farms stopped producing (they won't), or the population exploded (it isn't), then suddenly we'd have food scares again. That's not happening now, and it seems unlikely it will happen again. As for running out of space...no. Just, no. In the U.S.? Run out of space? I don't even know how to make sense of that. And one quick note--I didn't say capitalism is "wrong," just that it isn't doing a very good job at being an economic system that supports life, though some like its liberty (e.g. those who don't have to worry about food and shelter) and some like how it lets them pursue happiness (e.g. those in a position to pursue it, instead of having to work 3 minimum-wage jobs). (Though, in fairness, if you read my other comments here, you'd see that I don't have a particularly charitable view of capitalism--like one of those old guys said, useful servant, destructive master, or something like that.)
- proksoup 12y ago
  In other parts of the world people are killing each other over land and space to live. The U.S. prevents people from using it's land and space with violent force. I suppose if it continues to do that, the U.S. specifically won't have a problem ... as long as it keeps doing that?

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Unchecked population growth is not sustainable. How do we check that growth? By making people rich enough that they stop having so many damned babies because they can soundly expect the first one or two to survive infancy, and because they don't need seven children for farm labor.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

In 1st-world economies (the only ones suggesting a basic income) its checking itself. Germany, Japan, France, the USA have negative population 'growth'

proksoup 12y ago
Why do citizens of those countries deserve basic income when the rest of the world does not? What did they do to deserve that? Why do they have negative population growth ...
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Oh get off your high horse. Because, by definition, they have the economies that can afford it. You can't just have whatever you wish for; it has to be practical and achievable.
  - proksoup 12y ago
    That's all I'm saying. It seems unrealistic.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      I see it as a progression of technology. We used to see a bright future of automation, robots and leisure. Now we label it unemployment and call it a problem.
      - proksoup 12y ago
        I was not witness to that "used to see a bright future" ... I have been worried about the machines replacing us for some time myself. Not because I'm worried about being bored, but because I'm worried about who controls the finite resources. >>>> We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race. Darwin among the machines in 1863
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Emotional pseudo-scientific claptrap. You don't like your robot, you get a better one. Who cares about inferior or superior? Different is good enough. One built to serve the other.

Frondo 12y ago

Well, of course if suddenly farms stopped producing (they won't), or the population exploded (it isn't), then suddenly we'd have food scares again. That's not happening now, and it seems unlikely it will happen again. As for running out of space...no. Just, no. In the U.S.? Run out of space? I don't even know how to make sense of that. And one quick note--I didn't say capitalism is "wrong," just that it isn't doing a very good job at being an economic system that supports life, though some like its liberty (e.g. those who don't have to worry about food and shelter) and some like how it lets them pursue happiness (e.g. those in a position to pursue it, instead of having to work 3 minimum-wage jobs). (Though, in fairness, if you read my other comments here, you'd see that I don't have a particularly charitable view of capitalism--like one of those old guys said, useful servant, destructive master, or something like that.)

proksoup 12y ago
In other parts of the world people are killing each other over land and space to live. The U.S. prevents people from using it's land and space with violent force. I suppose if it continues to do that, the U.S. specifically won't have a problem ... as long as it keeps doing that?