Capitalism vs. Sustainability

Yes, there is a difference between enslaved and intertwined. We are intertwined with things because they FUNCTION for us. I am being enslaved is having something imposed on you against your will. We choose to have certain things in our life because it is functional to have them nearby rather than not. Thats not slavery.

McLeod, how do you suppose your manager pay you in beer? With the porcelain pottery that his customers paid him in? And how is he going to tailor his payroll to his staff, by talking to 100 different merchants?

What about the 100 people who put effort towards making your house? Do they not get any sort of benefit from all their hard effort? Or are you going to forge metal tools by yourself? Cut down trees with a little crude axe? Plow the foundations, make the nails, make the stove, etc. You make it sound like a sin to reward somebody for their work.

And dude.. .FEEDER INSECTS, not insect feeder u numbnut. Like feeder mice, feeder fish???? What you use to feed animals.... I promise you there are people who have jobs raising feeder insects (crickets?? grasshoppers??) Are they going to pay you in crickets?

And... um... "The problems is definately stupidity, the whole idea of an abstract value system was very stupid in the first place". Unless you mean "value" as in an economic sense than my bad. But thats me quoting you buddy.

And sure Mcleod, value is NOT INTRINSIC. Plutonium has no value outside of humanity, and a car's only value to a animal is maybe a home. So obviously value is decided within the brain. And in an economic system, a value is derived from the value's decided upon by 2 different people.

 

Semantics.

Think of it this way: if I am a tanner, then I have a large amount of leather to trade, and nothing else. Some people need leather; some do not. The man I get my grain from may need leather - great. My tailor, however, may not. Having nothing of value to trade for his effort, I cannot get any new clothes.

With money, however, I can sell all of that leather to one person (or many, if I wish), and get money in return. Since money is a universal standard of value, I can give it my tailor, and my butcher, and my barber, and everyone else, and they will always have a use for it. There is no other way of getting around this problem: we cannot have a modern economy without money, and I for one do not relish the prospect of returning to a primitive barter system.

Why?

 

There are people who are possessed by their possessions.

And, we are slaves.

You don't get to reap the full bounty of your efforts.

You get paid a wage to sit in a box and stare at a computer screen...


For the rest of your life.

Does that sound like freedom to you?

Here's a quote!

The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves. -Dresden James

 

Oh right well I'm glad you do at least have the brain capacity to understand that.

Didn't say there was.

Unless you happen to be human, in which case you are only allowed to adopt practises that are wholly ineffective, destructive and counter-productive.

So let's do it then.

Anyone up for abandoning capitalism?

 

Why are you so bitter?



Its overwhelming.

 

It really is. I've tried to be pleasant in these debates - why can't you?

 

I'm talking to Drew5147. Put those quotes towards him, not me.

And Drew, you oversimplify it. What people do is called WORK, and it does provide benefit to society in one way or another.

Sure, thats not the only way to go through life. But are YOU going to try to go out in the woods and catch a deer with ur hands to live? Are you going to pick berries during the summer to survive? Build a shelter by hand? You wanna bet your odds soloing some debilitating disease in the wild, or surviving a harsh winter?

You know how many hours of work it takes to run a solo homestead? From scratch, I promise you you'll be working your whole life from dusk till dawn trying to reach society's current comfort level. As fucked up as the world is, 8 hours in front of a computer isn't bad.

Other than that. You gotta find calories and nutrients just to survive. Then you gotta get calories to actually do WORK. And I doubt you know how hard that is in the wild, without this "mind-numbing" slavery.

And McLeod, not EVERY human lives a counter-productive lifestyle. Many may by a definition set by ecological sustinability, but dont' blanket everyone.

Capitalistic concepts (free market) are about the best thing that we got. I'm not saying that private ownership, patents, etc. is the way to go. But allowing people to decide what the value of their work is. That is the only way to go.

 

Eh, I was responding you your post.

 

No mate. That's the reality of the situation.

I never said a system of bartery would be perfect.

But a system of bartery alone was not what I was suggesting as the ideal back-bone of society.

How about trading valuable things like compassion for each other.

Suppose your tanner does not have enough customers to trade food for leather. Maybe there would be an excess of food left over in the village then, and maybe just maybe if people weren't so fucking selfish, like they are now, they'd just give it to the poor tanner, if even for nothing in exchange but the warm feeling of helping a fellow human being.

Maybe the tanner can return the favour one day.

And there we have the foundations of a healthy, self sustaining society, without even the need for a single dime.

Perhaps the romantic ideas of bartering systems are clouded by the reality that in the old days bartery used to exists between peasants, who lived outside of the safety and warmth of the castle, whilst inside the castle they feasted on banquets and wine.

There was nothing to barter in there, because they had more than enough to go round anyway.

Not entirely dissimilar to what we have to today.

 

So, why are you so bitter and quick to fly off the handle?


Did something happen?


I'm not trying to be condescending or anything...


I honestly want to know...

Because its literally oozing out of your words.

The bitterness, that is.

 

That's the whole fucking reason why we are still in this state or enslavement.

Because we can't just go out and live in the wild, there is no wild left. It's all guarded by the police.

So it's capitalist enslavement, or life on the streets of the urban jungle, and both in their own ways will contribute to poor health in one way or another.

..

And I'm not blanketing anyone, I'm talking GENERALLY!

Look it up in the dictionary.

 

And we can definately go live out in the wild. And I do agree its much harder in the West because everything has to be bought, property taxes have to be paid, or else your squatting. So I do understand that. Yet I guarantee that 99.9% of people would not want to truly live in the wild. It is unbelievably harsh, unforgiving, and cruel. Have you ever tried to survive in the wild? I"m talking no knives, no technology. I've had to live temporarily as the life of a peasant farmer. No oil, no plumbing, no electricity, no work animals. Picking wild edibles from the ground when you see it, killing .25lb birds when you can, foraging. And I tell you its not some fairytale of freedom and wonder.

Compassion is the only way to go, and I can agree with you to an extent. I just think the problem is oil. Oil (all that energy!!!!) is what allows some suit and tie guy 1000 miles away to run my life. It's what allows these big corporations to exist, these giant farms, etc. Allows us to set up these empires which people are disassociated with people, and maintaining structural integrity of the empire is more important than anything else.

You get rid of all that free energy, and things go back to local. Instead of having coporate Giant Eagle regulate everything across the U.S., it's local businesses. The owners can put your checkout on a tab because they know you personally. The butcher will butcher your wild game for free because you guys go on charter fishing trips a lot.

Wal-Mart headquarters has no compassion, only the pursuit of profit.

Yet a small local business owner may not have to amass crazy profits to run a global empire. He may need just enough profits for his own family, and then he can use some of his excess profits in a welfarish type of manner.

So I think a big problem with society, and this "lack of humanity", is not business, or capitalism, in itself. But something much greater.

People see the need to maintain the "structural integrity" of society as the prime goal. Yet the very structure of our society hinders us from truly evolving, due to its size.

 

You're getting there.

And could it be this thing, this evil in all of us that has allowed capitalism, and all the ugliness to flourish?

It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, it might be the one thing that led us this far into the new world, perhaps it is all just part of the process of evolution.

And maybe coming to terms with our own failings, and our place in the universe is the next great challenge that we face.

 

Yes, I'm aware that was a gross oversimplification, but that is basically what this reality equates to in my mind.

I don't see any justification in exploiting people.

And capitalism only seems to be the "best thing we got going" because it is the most effective and best suited system to this reality, one of extreme physicality and density.

There are better places, and I'm sure McLeod is so fervent in his defense of his viewpoints because he has once experienced and known what it is he desires so much.


In this realm, the VAST majority of us (including myself) operate with a STS (service to the Self) mentality. There is an oncoming divergence of consciousness, in which each individual will choose whether to follow the path of service to the Self, or whether they will choose to turn around and begin Serving Others (STO.)

For it is only through serving others that we truly and completely serve Ourselves.

And I agree with this!

 

I agree on this serving others thing, pretty much. Yet you guys are talking about an economy that serves to satiate the qualities of the heart.

Most people aren't there yet. Most people are enslaved to paying the bills, 30 year mortgages, etc. They believe that is ultimate reality instead of the quality of heart. The denseness of your happiness. And I agree that ultimately any society rich in heart will also be rich in everything else. You are in the small minority waging this war against ignorance since civilization's conception. But you gotta slowly lead them there along gradual steps of understanding. But I do agree with you 100%.

It's my idea that Capitalism + Oil has mainly ruined the world. Because either they had known of its great potential effects in establishing power and simply chose "evil", or were unaware of its great potential and let free will run free. Yet I choose the former. I think a benevolent gvt. who had foresight about the potentials of oil could have informed the public and therefore shaped the world in a more beneficial way.

 

Exactly! Most people don't, and can't hear what we are saying, because their consciousness resonates with much lower and baser frequencies, so they conceive a different reality.

Its a matter of raising you consciousness above these low frequencies, those of fear and hatred and jealousy and dense materialism.

This is something which can only be accomplished by the individual, and nothing you, nor I could do or say could make anyone change at the soul-level.

You just have to spread knowledge and hope that somebody hears you.

Knowledge protects.

Ignorance endangers.

 

I understand this. Really all it would take it everybody using the current system to manifest your reality. Yet not everyone's on the same page, so the formation of the new is severely hindered in its realization.

Capitalism vs. sustainability? I dunno.

Ignorance vs. sustainability? Ignorance will always win.

 

Real interesting debate!
How about this. "Money" IS a barter tool. Just an easy to carry around and globally recognized REPLACEMENT for beans or corn or eggs.... No "gold standard" added. THAT's one of the things that makes the slavery happen. The whole business is artificially manipulated to line some rich guy's pockets and keep you working.

And yea, I agree that working your whole life doing something you don't particularly relate to for someone else to barely make enough money to survive sounds a lot like slavery to me. Actually, I bet a lot of slaves at least knew they were going to be fed and cared for and they were assured of a job...
No need to live in the wild to keep money out of your life. There are places where you can be pretty self sufficient by mixing wilderness survival skills with farming skills. I won't go into detail, but believe me, I know. And if you are willing to go without some of the modern "conveniences" in order to not be a slave to someone else, it is actually easier to live "simply" (nothing simple about it really) than it is to have that job you so hate. Again, I know this because I'm doing it. Being able to actually HAVE a computer and use it is a total luxury that I am very thankful for, but not necessary for happiness and security. Right alongside indoor plumbing and electricity. Not necessary, but niice if you can swing it.... Which means that the eternal quest for more and more money makes you a slave to your own desires.

 

Well, the new shall be formed, regardless of whether anyone is on the new page.

That is the nature of Creation.

We'll just go our separate ways!

Ciao!


Heres a good quote!

 

I see the disconnect now: I'm an individualist, while you're either a staunch collectivist or a very naive idealist. Your ideas can only take shape if they're either forced on everyone who disapproves (a grievous crime, in my eyes), or in a perfect world, which this surely isn't.

I can't really follow your idea that people 'trade compassion'. Under a barter system, and even in modern society, life is not easy, and no one has a lot of resources to simply give away. Why should someone work all the days of their life only to give it away to someone else because they 'need it'? It might sound heartless, but this is a serious question: is someone else's need a claim on the effort of others? I think not.