X-Message-Number: 28081
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:36:07 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: cryonics and economics

> Message #28075
> From: "John de Rivaz" <>
> Subject: economics
> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:47:03 +0100
>

> (lynching/scapegoating) seems to be the underlying supposition of your thesis.

Please quote where I state that the super-rich should be killed off.

I do not see this as being the "underlying supposition of my thesis".
Please read my latest response to John K Eggplant regarding the "human
marketplace".

No-where do I imply that the super-rich should be killed off. Not only
is this contrary to point of my complaint (i.e. current economics are
increasingly injust), but it would be futile to attempt to kill such
powerful people because they have better weapons.

Nevertheless, the super-rich are killing the poor, simply by hording
their wealth - this is the real "class war".

I can see that they share some of it, do charitable things, create
more wealth - yet they cling to a massive surplus of which only 1%
could educate every child on Earth. You talk of education in another
post, yet you defend those who with-hold the very means by which the
minds of people could be raised a little higher.

Your suggestions that I want to "exterminate", or "delete" the
super-rich is part of the on-going process of characterising me as
some neo-Bolshevik psycho. I've noticed that you are usually calm and
reasonable, so I don't really mind that you cast these aspersions -
though I am moved to point them out.

> After all, the "legal process" is just
> the lynch mob that has greatest numbers and the greatest power.

Indeed. In which case you can see that the super-rich who have the
greatest power are the current lynch-mob and the lazy stupid
over-reproducing poor are the scapegoats. Usually these poor are black
or female - sort of ties in with all the other bullshit.

> Sometimes
> after regime changes another "lynch mob" (ie legislature) takes over and
> eliminates those that ran the previous system.

The differences is that the legal process can be improved - we have
indeed moved from lynch-mobs to law courts - an improvement in most
minds. If such advances are possible, perhaps a new regime would make
the legal process even better (and of course, perhaps not).

> This difficulty lies when the super rich are deleted

No need to delete them. Instead let's re-distribute some of that extra
fat - call it a diet. Would you be against a super-rich tax that
skimmed off 1.5% of the 200 richest people's income which then went on
to pay for world-wide primary education (& the process of reaping and
sowing the cash)? Would you wail that the super-rich are being slowly
"deleted", or would you be glad that more people will have a better
understanding of our world, thus raising the bar of civilisation and
most probably furthering progress in technology, medicine, and
culture?

> and the new regime has
> it, and the money runs out.

How would the money run out? It has simply been moved from 200
individuals to, say, 2,000,000. Do the unclean masses just make it
vanish?

> Then there are the next 200 richest people and
> so on.

Quite so. They could be taxed 1% of their combined income to pay for
the secondary education of the worlds new students. The next 200 rich
could be taxed .5% to pay for the tertiary education of the world's
qualifying students. Or whatever - name your own hypothetical plan. To
me this kind of redistribution looks much better then the richest top
600 buying new boats, mansions, etc. And before John Eggplant
complains that the super-rich have all their money invested in
companies which keep people employed etc., let's just remember that
the super-rich also tend to be super-consumers of super-expensive
super-useless goods.

Oh I forgot, the super-rich have an inviolable right to live in
excessive luxury while so many others don't have a home. This is
because the super-rich are better is it not? Unfortunately, they are
no better than anyone else except at making money (putting aside all
those who, like Bill Gates, inherited wealth in the first place) - but
making money is a greater good than healing the sick in the capital of
social Darwinism.

> Eventually it gets down to millions of people who
> have slightly more than the rest,

One need not slip down this slope.

> > I'm sorry, but a powerless group or individual is more likely to be a
> > scapegoat - almost by definition.
>
> The rich become powerless once the finance police break down their doors and
> drag them off.

The only people breaking down their doors should be tax collectors. Or
maybe Bill Gates could fly in some starving, disease racked children
to try to move the heart$ of hi$ friend$? Do you think they will be
moved? If they are already doing charity work, they obviously need to
do more. (There is an irony regarding the charitable outreach to
economies that some of them have helped to hinder.) There is also a
difference between being so rich you can give lots of money away and
still afford sybaritic luxury and influence, and doing charity work at
the cost of your own "creature comforts".

> There are two basic problems.
>
> 1. Should something be done? Many think it should.
> 2. how would it be done? Assassination? Mass show trials followed by
> execution? Just have a gang of legislators and lawyers chuck them out on the
> street with a basic package of state aid for the vagrant?

I've offered different solutions to the ones you and Lenin came up
with when he asked question number 1.

> If any possible solution to 2 would reduce the wellbeing of all, then the
> number of people supporting 1 will diminish and be reduced to a few lunatics
> and criminals who just want the power for their own self aggrandisement.

What is more self-aggrandising than being super-rich!? The lunatics
and criminals are following the example of the rich, powerful, and
"successful", along with all the other worshippers of wealth.

> admiring wealth has nothing to do with it. Admiring progress and the best
> way to achieve it is what this is about.

I appreciate you faith in progress and I share it. You think we need
super-rich people to move it along as fast as possible - and those
millions impoverished are meanwhile sacrificed for the Singularity (or
whatever high-tech fantasy world you want). I think we need educated
and motivated people to move progress along, and that super-wealth is
not necessary to that process, and that the wealth held in the hands
of so few could be spread out to educate all of the minds in the
world, so full of potential, which instead atrophy along with their
starving bodies. If you want progress, get as many well-fed minds as
possible thinking about it.

> > (E.g. Bill Gate's monopoly
>
> It won't last forever any more than the USSR or the Roman Empire for that
> matter.

Does that mean you would happily tolerate the USSR if it were still around?

> People use Windows(R)(TM) because it is more effective than any other OS,
> despite the fact that it is never perfected and burden of periodic upgrades
> is very time consuming and costly.

I know programmers who would laughingly disagree.

The best products are not the most popular. This is the same
free-market bullshit which imagines only the best is bought.

> If an African nation spent as much effort
> of creating a better one as they spend on wars, then the Internet as a means
> of distribution already exists.

And why are they involved in so many wars?
And what patents are stopping them from dealing with their own
software (& drugs)?
Why are so few Africans knowledgeable with regards to programming
compared to the US?
Is it because the West stole so much from these countries in the past,
and keeps stealing today?
Is this progress?

> > It is unsurprising that (once again) my concerns about massive
> > centralisation of wealth/power have been hushed with talk of socialism
> > and Bolsheviks.
>
> They are the only alternatives that anyone has ever offered.

You know better than that. The choice is not the status-quo vs.
Bolshevism, regardless of what neo-con historians might write about
the end of history.

> A better
> alternative would have to be offered if your concerns are to get any serious
> consideration, even if only in discussion.

Then feel free to discuss what I wrote to John Eggplant, i'm
interested in your thoughts.

> The difference is that the megarich have got that way because they have
> given the world something that a lot of people value.

This is the assumption I have been trying to invalidate. The
super-rich often inherit their wealth - they do not necessarily gain
because they have spread sweetness and light through the world. It
might be inspiring to read that the world's other richest man used to
sell matches from his push-bike, but not every super-rich is Kamprad.
Indeed, Kamprad was a one-time Nazi, and had history gone a little
differently, Kamprad might have used his wealth and talents to aid the
Nazi cause even further.

The super-rich have not necessarily given anything of value, but they
might have made a lot of money by pushing something of PERCEIVED
value. Unless of course consumers are always buying rationally.

> If one
> individual gives the world Windows,

BG didn't do it all by himself. He owes Windows to GUIs, the BASIC
programming language, etc. who received no payment, which is why
Microsoft is so often in court.

Do you think Bill might aquired his wealth through means other than
his own work-ethic and brains? It seems that most of the super-rich
are luckily born into it, or they are thieves.

> Legislators and their minions - ie despots - get the trapping of wealth (ie
> power) by taking it from other people.

And the wealth aquire wealth how? Ex nihilo?

BTW, I appreciate Henry Hirsch's remarks about the cryonics family. I
don't feel any ill-will to John R or John Egg, and I remain open to
the possibility that I'm full of shit.

Please pass the salt.
Anthony

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28081