The Glade 4.0

I'm a ranger, man, not an economist.

Children are required for the propagation of the species. Nobody is denying or refuting that. What is being disputed is idea that your child is of value to the species. That's a general you, by the way. Hell, we can remove the child qualifier, except that the conversation is specifically about kids on a bus.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

This is going to appear pretty hostile, and I apologize for that in advance, but I have some questions ...

1. Where did you come up with that notion of capitalism?

2. What would you say if I told you that you just presented me with a very concise definition of a "controlled economy" -- i.e. the actual economy your politics ostensibly support and want?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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And when everyone is special... Noone will be.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Heh. Ditto actually, and based on Khross' post, I think I'm about to get schooled by one.

Sorry if my post came across like arrogant windbaggery. I don't actually know what the economist's answer to my question would be. Really, the point I was trying to make was just that the modern economy is so mind-bogglingly complex that the link between how much a person gets paid and how much value they contribute to society isn't entirely clear or necessarily proportional.

Actually, that didn't strike me as hostile, but I appreciate the preface.

To your first question, I was using the word "capitalism" in a loose, colloquial sense to mean a system centered on voluntary, market-based transactions among self-interested, largely private actors. No particular source for that notion; just my own impression of the general understanding of the word.

As to your second point, I'm curious to hear where you're going with it. For my part, the scope and complexity of the modern, globalized economy and the large-scale businesses and transactions it engenders, have really solidified two core attitudes about how to approach issues of political economy: (1) micro-managing the economy is flatly impossible, so market-based transactions among private actors as described above really are the least-worst way of linking value creation with value capture, but (2) that linkage will, nevertheless, be tenuous at best and can be manipulated by powerful actors, so clear and robust rules, coupled with some macro-management and a strong safety net are still necessary to keep things operating in a sustainable manner and to make sure people don't get too badly mauled along the way.

The very short answer is that things are complex largely because of the reification of the human being; that is to say, we have commodified and monetized our very persons in extremely convoluted and dangerous ways. RD's position is largely based on a world view entirely dependent on the presence of a time clock and wage-an-hour laws. It is decidedly first world and necessarily post-industrial. It Materialism writ in the very social DNA of our world. That frame is only available when one intrinsically accepts that human beings are fungible.

Capitalism is about capital. Human capital is a very different thing at very different places in history. Materialism (and just to be clear, we're talking Hegel, Marx, Eagleton, Jameson, et al.) is harmful to humanity. It does not recognize the human element and leads to all sorts of nonsensical thought and logic systems. Materialism reduces human capital to fungible lines on giant spreadsheets and in databases managed by some very curious big data groups. This is fundamental, too, even before economy. This at some level before individual; it exists at societal level is some manifest way that strips individuals of their ability to function autonomously. The very transactional nature of thought and decision is compromised by Materialism and the fiat currency; the managed economy does not manage money or wealth or economic power; it manages behavior and thought.

A perfect economic science would be the perfect science of human behavior, because you would know why human beings choose; you would grasp the transactional mechanisms that drive human decision. We can't do that; we can only look at input and output patterns using individuals and groups and various arbitrary associations as filters. We have to guess based on a variable medium we only partially understand at the individual component (single human being) or aggregate (pick your scale) level. What we can do, and have done through things like "managed economies" and "regulated education" is produced a system in which thought economies are manipulated and certain thoughts or thought variants become less and less probable. We do that, because we can control to some degree situational modifiers to the input and output phases. A fiat currency and fixed, regionally adjusted pricing does not actually do anything except removing individual choice. You can either buy it or not; you cannot negotiate. The human element has been removed from commerce. You do not bargain with individuals; you bargain with alien entities comprised of monolithic hiveminds.

Well, guess what, you are not that smart. No one is. Not me, not you, not anyone. It's kind of disturbing.

Capitalism is, at its heart, the use of capital for exchange and the accumulation of resources. Materialism and commodification allow state level and corporate level entities to manipulate human behavior and thought by directing their impulses and transactional modeling. Capitalism allows for individual agency; Materialism denies the individual everything in favor of the collective. Materialism with capitalist tools and a managed economy? Why, whether you know it or not, the wealth redistribution mechanisms are so vast and complex it's not even funny. And I think you know it ...

I think deep down in the back of your mind, the liberal ideologue is challenged by his employment. After all, look at your post, RD ...

You just abstracted a significant number of people into their billable hours.

That said, a safety net is impossible. It's also a delusional drain on real resources that provides no benefit overall. Society has bad money habits, RangerDave. And if Money, when we really want to get down to it, because of Materialism, is human beings ...

What do you think that says about you or me or anyone else?

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There's a lot of interesting stuff to process in that post, but as a start, let me ask a few questions:

1. Doesn't capitalism, as you describe it, also involve wage labor (both explicitly for services and implicitly for goods in the sense that labor cost is rolled into the price of the goods)?

2. Isn't labor (of roughly equivalent skill) as inherently fungible as any other input to production?

3. Given modern technology, wouldn't even a truly capitalist system involve large-scale production and distribution, giving rise to the same fungible lines in spreadsheets, regional pricing, and monolithic bargaining units that your ascibing to managed economies?

What is value to "the species"? Why is that even an important qualifier?

People were talking about value to society, which isn't quite the same thing. Most people here are American and this incident happened in America so the most pertinent society is that of the U.S.

Even then, value to Society is no measured exclusively in terms of production or dollars. We are a society that values the individual. There is endless concerns here over the rights of the individual. Individuals have value over and above their work that has been accounted for in terms of currency; the happiness they bring to family and friends and the good that most people do, no matter how occasionally, for their fellow man.

The average person is of value to society by being valuable to the individuals around them in some way. Even people who are criminals are almost always valuable enough that we do not execute them or imprison them for life.

This idea that not helping a child is somehow justified because that child might grow to be a net drain on society, or there are too many people in the world, or people suck, or the wrong people are breeding, or **** is totally asinine. No one is in any position to determine that. We have a society of individual rights, and we don't assign those based on a determination of merit; least of all such a determination made by a self-appointed guru with no qualification to do so other than how impressed they are with their own intelligence and edgy internet philosophy.

If one wants to argue that society penalizes intervention too heavily, or that other risks are too great, or that one simply has a right not to intervene, there's merit there. There's also merit in the idea that one should intervene. There is no merit whatsoever in people thinking they get to decide their fellow citizen, or their fellow citizen's child is a drain on society and unworthy of help.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Here let me help you move the goalposts.

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No goalposts have been moved, but your distraction technique is noted. You've now met the quota.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Let's see how this conversation started shall we?

Arathain: Save the childrens because they are valuable!

Hopwin: You can't make a blanket statement like that. Here are examples of children who not only weren't valuable but were net detractors.

DE: Hilter and Dahmer are strawman arguments!

Hopwin: Here is a common example that I think everyone can relate to (me)

DE: They are vaulable because society needs them to continue existing!

Hopwin: Existing does not add value

DE: Changes argument *existence of society in and of itself does not constitute value* Calls Hopwin ridiculous

Hopwin: Accuses DE of being annoyed for getting caught in a bald assertion

DE: Changes argument to philosophical, "What is value really?" People are now valuable because "people around them" say they are valuable or because we don't take their lives as punishment for crime. Calls Hopwin internet hipster. Starts arguing about societal penalities for intervening.

Hopwin: Posts picture of moving goalposts

DE: Tells Hopwin he met a "quota" that apparently has been set in prior conversations that Hopwin is unaware of.

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There is not enough /facepalm in the world to deal with this thread.

Some of you seem to be trying to decide IF society SHOULD value its children and as a result, whether these children should be protected.

We don't need to determine if society should value its children. It does. How do I know? Because I'm not **** retarded.

Society values its children so much, that caring for them is pretty much near (I would argue at) the top of it's core functions. Look at the resources, time, energy, etc. put into this.

Hopefully that's understood - if you don't think society values it's children, please come out and say so directly, I could use a laugh.

Now, if an individual refuses to protect a child based on his own selfish reasons, he is not helping to forward that basic societal function.

Therefore (inc Arathain's opinion now), he's a useless, cowardly piece of ****.

Might want to rethink your stance that children are valued:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-birth-r ... d=18465281

Just because you are all about the chillren doesn't mean me or even a plurality of society gives two **** about them.

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The ultimate question is: define "valued."

Children hold only potential future value, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective. This cannot be refuted using logical arguments.

Now, are children valued based on sentimental or abitrary metrics? Sure, most definitely. Additionally, are humans "wired" to protect children, in general? Yes, not disputed.

Should a person risk their own life, limb, or property for children who are not theirs? Possibly, it depends on a lot of factors.

However, calling somebody a coward for failing to do so? Absurd, unless one is also claiming a positive duty or obligation exists to defend all children, which I'd dispute on multiple levels.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

In what way does people choosing to have fewer children relate to their, or society's view of the value of children? If I don't own any gold, does that mean I think gold has no value?

Hopwin, you're smarter than this. First, children are citizens, and are thus valued highly by society anyway (note that if you failed to intervene to protect an adult for selfish reasons, you'd also be a coward). However, children have been granted a special status by society, and given further benefits and protection beyond what adults receive. Child labor laws, additional product safety requirements, free public education, child services, tax breaks for parents, additional background check requirements for people working with children - the list goes on and on.

The fact that people still buy and sell children destroys this argument.



Any act or lack of action that is based on fear is, by definition, a cowardly act. If someone fails to protect a child in need out of fear of physical or financial harm, they are a coward by definition. Now, I have granted special consideration to people who just cannot hope to succeed in protecting such a child, as logic may dictate their action rather than fear.

Now, I suppose there may be a sociopath somewhere that is not afraid, but instead says something to the effect of "kid may deserve it", but I'm not really considering sociopaths in my thought process here.

If you're refusing to act because somehow you are concerned about what will happen to you, you're a coward, because you are basing your decision on fear.

Valued items are sought after, not avoided.

Here you start making two arguments:

If you want to say children as valuable as an adult, OK. That means I get to weight my personal safety and well being on par with theirs which I would agree with.


The same applies to the mentally handicapped. Being afforded special provisions and protections does not mean you are more highly valued, just more vulnerable.

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If we're going to continue this comparison....Children are a raw ingredient.

Like... say flour. You can make a whole lot of cruddy product and get ...not much. Low quality bread for example. Or you can put tons of effort into them and make... say a ornate decorated cake which could be sold at a higher price than a ton of low quality bread.

Just because there is more of something doesn't mean its of higher value. (note that I don't buy into the children-as-a-good argument in the first place, but if you want to use that metaphor, it needs to hold up)

Now historically, children WERE an asset in that they provided labor in the labor intensive farming industry. But since we rarely if ever (in this society) have children produce anything, they only provide an economic drain-- obviously we get some other value from them.

As an aside, studies have shown children don't increase happiness, so their value is not there either.

FTFY

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More /facepalm

From YOUR link, the "historic low" birthrate indicates a general fertility of 6.32% PER YEAR for fertile women. The article at the link below states:



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/us/19census.html?_r=0

So 80% of women having children is the lowest rate ever. Yeah, Hopwin, people are definitely avoiding having children....



Let me ask you this: Do YOU think more, less, or equal numbers of people would put themselves at risk to save a child, or another adult of their age and sex? In order for there to be equal value for adults and children, there would need to be an equal number of people that would put their lives on the line for a child, and for an adult.

I don't buy it for a second.



Is this relevant? I disagree with you, but here we agree that children are provided a PROTECTED STATUS by society. Therefore, society is taking responsibility for their protection, which is the whole crux of the discussion.

It seems you agree with me then.

Wrong. Totally wrong.

Children are a raw ingredient of what product? Productive members of society? Nonsense.

Why do people make flour? So that they can turn it into other products.

Why do people make children? To create productive members of society? Bull ****. The child IS the product, in this stupid scenario. I had children because I wanted CHILDREN, not because I wanted to help society by creating workers or some dumb ****. I'm educating my child for HIS benefit, not society's. Society protects children in the aggregate to help them become contributing members of society and because they are vulnerable as Hopwin said, but I know of NO children that were created for that reason.

Individuals are not society. Collectivist thinking is bad.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

What are you talking about? INDIVIDUALS have children, not society. The reasons for protecting them are thus different, but they are protected by both nonetheless.

Or are you saying you agree?