Should the reactor core control itself?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
For the sake of texture (ATY, please read):

" ... the idea that banks and building societies could lend out of all proportion to real economic growth was bound, one day, to come crashing to the ground. If illness is nature's way of telling you to slow down, then a credit squeeze does the same for an economy. Once in a while we all need to slow down. e.co.uk/personal/-/news/markets-companies-and-funds/content.aspx?ID=302149&re=2945&ea=170211

I agree. Many people spent stupidly and are now paying for it. Every time I go on the freeway and see it clogged with traffic - half of that traffic being monster SUVs - I think of the housing crisis and the gas prices and grin. These fools did it to themselves. Maybe I'll get to own the house that the douchebag chick in the Forerunner who just smashed the trunk on my car can no longer afford. Her insurance claimed it wasn't worth fixing my car; they gave me a thousand bucks and let me keep it. I am going to try to find a way to make it drivable for cheap.

I don't have a social life because everyone insists that "going out" is what one does socially. Well, seven dollar drinks are a luxury that I can't afford; I choose other luxuries, or when I have to, I go without. I've lost a ton of weight recently because I'm often too cheap (and honestly, I don't have time) to eat more than once a day. None of my clothes fit. My shoes have holes. My belt has new holes because I lost so much weight (I keep adding new ones as my waistline shrinks), and I cut it short with a cleaver. It looks terrible, but I'm spending like 600 bucks a month on paying back debts.

Originally posted by FMF
Hypothetical, naive codswallop.

As is your idea of a world without poverty. At least my codswallop leads to greater wealth as a whole, with the poor having free food and medical care (churches, profitable begging, L.A. Free Clinic). Yours leads to poverty across the board.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
As is your idea of a world without poverty.

Not once have I expressed such a naive idea. But if it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend that I have, go for it. Your usual enormously sophisticated you-disagree-with-me you-must-be-a-commie insinuation in an earlier post rather undermines the attempted heft of what you say anyway.

Originally posted by FMF
Hypothetical, naive codswallop.

Give an example of "violent coercion" and I'll give it back to you as an example of - Not a free market.

Prior to Nike or Adiddas or whoever coming to Indonesia your friend had one less choice. Why don't you convince her to give up the job.

Originally posted by FMF
Not once have I expressed such a naive idea. But if it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend that I have, go for it. Your usual enormously sophisticated you-disagree-with-me you-must-be-a-commie insinuation in an earlier post rather undermines the attempted heft of what you say anyway.

Yes you have.

There are clearly enough wealth and resources in the world to support all the people living in it and much more.

When did I call you a commie? You have attacked capitalism over and over, but you don't provide any alternatives for discussion. I chose to address the alternative that I find is most commonly offered by critics of capitalism - communism - since you have a problem with capitalism and are unwilling to suggest an alternative. I did not call you a communist. However your arguments do seem consistent with a communist approach. Have you ever actually denied being a communist? If you're not a capitalist, and you're not a communist, then what are you? Simply a hater and a critic with no ideas of your own about how to solve the problems you perceive? All you do is lash out. You don't suggest anything to make the situation better.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Have you ever actually denied being a communist? If you're not a capitalist, and you're not a communist, then what are you?

I am somebody whose mind map is clearly located in a world that's somewhat more complex than the world you perceive and the humanity you sneer at from your taco-crumbed armchair.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Prior to Nike or Adiddas or whoever coming to Indonesia your friend had one less choice. Why don't you convince her to give up the job.

Wouldn't it be easier and more effective for you, and people like you, to pressure U.S. corporations that use sweatshop economics, to pay her more than $6.25 for a 10 hour working day? What about $10 a day? Or $12.50? That would make an appreciable difference and it wouldn't make a dent on the corporate profits (their payroll burden in Indonesia is negligible, clearly). Or are you satisfied that the $6.25 a day/$200 shoe thing represents economic justice?

If it's justice, then what makes it so? Is it because it has been "decreed" by a 'market mechanism' that exclusively serves the people who sell a pair of shoes for $200 and marginalizes and intimidates the people who receive $6.25 a day for producing 8 pairs of shoes?

The market pays people with no political voice as little as it can. In many cases it pays less than a living wage for 60 hours of highly productive labour. You're always harping on about how productive people should be rewarded. Why does this 'principle' of yours suddenly evaporate as soon as it's not you or your own economic class that we're talking about.

Why don't you add your voice in support of these powerless hard working people - maybe in some small way - in an effort to foster justice. Wouldn't that be more effective and more decent than your smug and trite suggestion that she give up her job?

Originally posted by FMF
Not once have I expressed such a naive idea. But if it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend that I have, go for it.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Yes you have. This:

[FMF said] There are clearly enough wealth and resources in the world to support all the people living in it and much more.

Not exactly the height of wit and integrity to take one sentence out of context, I'm afraid. The above sentence of mine, as you well know, was written when tackling you over your ludicrous suggestion that poverty was some kind of biological phenomenon unrelated to and unaffected by politics. I argued, then, that with changes to the unjust and entirely politically rigged distribution of wealth, the world would not have a problem with supporting its population now, or in the future.

Only an incorrigibly dim or perhaps mischievous debater would seek to equate this with saying that a more just distribution of wealth is going to eradicate poverty. I do not envisage a world free of poverty. And I never said I did.

I work in poverty alleviation. My 'vision', such as it is, is a concrete one that extends only a little bit beyond hands-on initiatives aimed at mitigating the effects of poverty (especially in the most marginalized communities), empowering people to lift themselves out of it, whether it be in cooperation with civil society organisations, local or central governments, or the private sector.

You have made it quite clear that you are utterly scornful of people doing work of this kind. That is your right. Your most recent pearl of wisdom was that people who disagree with you about poverty, cause poverty. Well. Good for you. Lucky for me, it all comes across as snide, unsubstantial duckspeak. So I remain unaffected.

Originally posted by FMF
Not exactly the height of wit and integrity to take one sentence out of context, I'm afraid. The above sentence of mine, as you well know, was written when tackling you over your ludicrous suggestion that poverty was some kind of biological phenomenon unrelated to and unaffected by politics. I argued, then, that with changes to the unjust and entirely politicall for me, it all comes across as snide, unsubstantial duckspeak. So I remain unaffected.

that with changes to the unjust and entirely politically rigged distribution of wealth, the world would not have a problem with supporting its population now, or in the future

I rest my case. "With changes", poverty would not exist by your analysis. Everyone could have as many babies as they wanted, be as lazy as they feel like, and would be free of apprehension about their financial security. That apprehension is one of the things that drives productivity and keeps down costs, though, which would, under your "changes", lead to inefficiency in peoples' personal lives. The resources we have available would diminish, because human labor, ingenuity, desire for material gain and ego are intimately tied into every step of attaining every resource. The peope ARE a resource, and redistribution cripples that resource by destroying motivation and the connection between work and reward.

I work in poverty alleviation. My 'vision', such as it is, is a concrete one that extends only a little bit beyond hands-on initiatives aimed at mitigating the effects of poverty (especially in the most marginalized communities), empowering people to lift themselves out of it, whether it be in cooperation with civil society organisations, local or central governments, or the private sector.

What's concrete about it? What hands-on initiatives? How far is "a little bit"? What are the "most marginalized communities" and how do you determine if a particular population belongs to that group? How do you "empower people to lift themselves out of poverty"? How do you know if you're succeeding?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What's concrete about it? What hands-on initiatives? How far is "a little bit"? What are the "most marginalized communities" and how do you determine if a particular population belongs to that group? How do you "empower people to lift themselves out of poverty"? How do you know if you're succeeding?

Look it up, AThousandYoung. Look it up for yourself. There's a whole load of stuff going on out here in the world beyond America's shores. Your interest is feigned and your concern is bogus, so I have no reason to waste time explaining myself to you. Honestly, your disdain for the poor, and for those who work with the poor, is of no importance to me.

If you don't know anything about what governmental and non-governmental organizations (as well as 'corporate responsibility initiatives' in the private sector) are engaged in, all around the world, to try to mitigate or alleviate poverty, then go look it up for yourself. There's loads of information available. There are probably web sites out there that advocate against alleviating poverty too. Look at them if you want. You might be able to freshen up your flippant, misanthropic mantra.

I have tried to imagine you coming to Jakarta to speak at a seminar or workshop attended by grown up people from civil society organisations, local or central governments, the private sector, the Asian Development Bank and so on... smart, committed, grown ups one and all. I am trying to picture you up there on the rostrum with your powerpoint presentation and you presenting your case. You'd be a laughing stock.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Everyone [...] would be free of apprehension about their financial security. That apprehension is one of the things that drives productivity and keeps down costs....

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Everyone [...] would be free of apprehension about their financial security. That apprehension is one of the things that drives productivity and keeps down costs, though, which would, under your "changes", lead to inefficiency in peoples' personal lives. The resources we have available would diminish, because human labor, ingenuity, desire for material gain and ego are intimately tied into every step of attaining every resource. The peope ARE a resource, and redistribution cripples that resource by destroying motivation and the connection between work and reward.

The above quote appears to be your response to my suggestion that my friend in the Adiddas factory in Jakarta should be paid more than 60 cents an hour. She works 60 hours a week, 51 weeks a year. And you are saying that the "apprehension" she feels (lovely euphemism, by the way) is good for her, good for the people who buy Adidas shoes, good for the proper maintenance of the human spirit. AThousandYoung, you have a deeply callous and misanthropic attitude towards your fellow human beings. I don't know what's happened to you emotionally and intellectually in your life thus far, but I sincerely hope you pull yourself out of it and find some kind of respite from whatever demons propel you. I'm serious.

Originally posted by FMF
Wouldn't it be easier and more effective for you, and people like you, to pressure U.S. corporations that use sweatshop economics, to pay her more than $6.25 for a 10 hour working day? What about $10 a day? Or $12.50? That would make an appreciable difference and it wouldn't make a dent on the corporate profits (their payroll burden in Indonesia is negligible, c ...[text shortened]... tive and more decent than your smug and trite suggestion that she give up her job?

oooof "smug" uuughh "trite" do these qualify as "zingers"?

It is justice because a position has been offered to your friend, a position which she is free to take up or not. In this case she has chosen to take the position, one would presume because that is her best choice. And as a result, in her own small way she has helped raise the cost of labour in Indonesia. She is no longer available for the $6.00 a day position.

Those numbers you dream up i.e. $10.00 a day or $12.50 a day. Where do they come from? The best you could do would be to start your own shoe company, either selling shoes cheaper or paying more, anything to not make a profit, or make less profit, or make a certain amount of profit within a certain range as certified by yourself.

I don't have any problem with the price of either the shoes or the labour. It's an old business maxim, charge em what they'll pay. Would your friend be better off if they sold the shoes for a 1% profit? She'd still be on $6.25. The free market dosn't have anything to do with political voices, inside your head or out. It is simply two or more parties that recognise a value which is a property unto the other and themselves, they then commence to trade voluntarily.

Nothing has evaporated.

Originally posted by Wajoma
oooof "smug" uuughh "trite" do these qualify as "zingers"?

It is justice because a position has been offered to your friend, a position which she is free to take up or not. In this case she has chosen to take the position, one would presume because that is her best choice. And as a result, in her own small way she has helped raise the cost of labour in ...[text shortened]... and themselves, they then commence to trade voluntarily.

Nothing has evaporated.

I guess you are a big fan of unions, then?

Originally posted by Wajoma
Nothing has evaporated.

Yes it has: any claim you might have to a moral compass in this matter. Your concept of justice is based on a banal business maxim. 'Pay as little as you can'. You harp on about not redistributing wealth from the productive to the unproductive. And yet you advocate withholding a living wage from productive people and letting the threat of starvation and possible violence work its lucrative magic for the wealthy tertiary sector stakeholders (over there in the U.S.) who add costs and produve nothing themselves and with whom you happen identify - politically, racially. Distribute as much wealth to them as we can, is that how it works?

So, another thing that is evaporating is any credibility you might think you have on these forums when you talk about things like 'productivity', 'work', 'justice', 'humanity' in the future. Smug? Trite? Were they zingers? No, just simple descriptions of you and your suggestions. Why doesn't she give up her job? Why don't I start a shoe factory? This is smug, trite stuff.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
That apprehension is one of the things that drives productivity and keeps down costs, though, which would, under your "changes", lead to inefficiency in peoples' personal lives. The resources we have available would diminish, because human labor, ingenuity, desire for material gain and ego are intimately tied into every step of attaining every resource.

I find your twisted neo-Pavlovian nonsense morally disturbing. Your earnestness just makes it worse, to be honest. You endorse sweatshop economics, it seems, because 60 cents an hour keeps "lazy" and "unproductive" 60-hours-a-week Indonesians apprehensive - heaven forbid they might experience any feelings of security or contentment - which in turn keeps the price of sneakers in the U.S. as low as possible, even if a woman who makes eight pairs of those sneakers a day, 7 days a week, can't afford to own a pair of them.

It's as if you read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and somehow managed to take completely the wrong message from it. I sincerely believe that - in this matter - you also have no moral compass - a fact which both you and Wajoma try to disguise with the grotesque so-called "science" of what you advocate.

Any 'analysis' you might offer of the world or politics or economics is, for me, now tainted by the growing suspicion that you feel some sort of faux-free-thinker's glee when "intellectualizing" your profoundly dehumanizing perspective on your fellow human beings.

Originally posted by Nemesio
I guess you are a big fan of unions, then?

Unions are great! Unless they're run by thugs. Same goes for corporations.

Actually Wikipedia calls unions 'cartels' which sounds bad, but everyone else is forming little 'cartels' too...the banks for instance don't seem to compete much. They all do things the same way it seems.