[Recent Suicides] Buying Products which is manufactured under horrible conditions

pibbur said:

I don't think it's possible to obtain absolute equal sharing of resources. But I think it is reasonable and practically possible to reduce the gap. I believe that in the Scandinavian countries the variation in income is generally smaller than in many other countries, and it is possible to go further here as well.

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For sure. It's a balancing act. Bad Things will start to happen if you go too far in either direction; I think the only way to deal with it is to keep your eyes on the road and keep steering. If you drive into the ditch, it doesn't much matter if it's the one on the left or the right.

dteowner said:

And yes, D'Art, some people are born bad, and born bad to privileged/"good" situations, too.

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No, people are not born bad.

Bad is not a concept I agree with, anyway.

Being born into a "good" situation is also dependant on what is good. Being wealthy is good? Not necessarily.

You're thinking in simplistic terms.

People need love and other basic needs AT THE VERY LEAST. Giving them that is not a surefire way of making them "good" - but it's what we could potentially provide, if we put people into situations where love could flourish.

You can't expect people to give love to children if they don't understand the concept, or if they've never been given love themselves.

DArtagnan said:

At the moment, there's really no way of being sure one way or the other.
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I think it is. As Prime Junta said, there have been a lot of attempts in history, and they've all failed. Often with terrible consequences.

So my goal would to get closer.

pibbur said:

I think it is. As Prime Junta said, there have been a lot of attempts in history, and they've all failed.

So my goal would to get closer.

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No attempt has ever been made.

I THINK it's possible, as well.

But I can't be sure, and I would be lying if I claimed to be.

DArtagnan said:

At the moment, there's really no way of being sure one way or the other.

We'd have to set in motion a group of experts determining exactly what is needed for each individual human being, and then we'd have to determine if that's feasible to provide with the current level of population.

If feasible, we'd then need to figure out how to distribute resources and relocate everyone in such a way that they could live as needed.

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A planned economy, eh? Been there, done that, got the hip flask. Didn't work.

We'd most likely need automation in a very big way, so a ton of research into robotics and self-reliant machinery would have to be initiated.

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Like, even more than is being done now? Automation has already eliminated almost all of our industrial production jobs, and is set to eliminate even more. However, the result has been increased concentration of wealth, not increased distribution. To change that, you would have to socialize the means of production.

Oh, wait, that's been tried too. Didn't work.

It would take A LOT of people doing extensive work for many years, before we could even begin to put anything into practice.

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Would three-quarters of a century be about enough, or are you talking even more? Like, 1917 to 1991?

But is it worth the try? I think so.

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*Another* try, you mean. Yes, it would be, *IF* you can first demonstrate that you've resolved the problems that caused Communist systems to fail ever since they were first tried some 300 years ago.

Will it happen? Probably not for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Too many people would have to give up the illusion of true wealth - and those people happen to be the ones in power.

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Amend that, *certainly* won't happen, until and unless we manage to completely overcome the problem of scarcity—IOW, we invent a technological genie that will let anyone have anything they want just by wishing for it. Then, Communism would be possible. However, given the constraints of the physical universe in which we live, I'm not at all convinced that this constraint will ever be lifted. Until then, it is far more productive to try to resolve problems related to the messy world we're living in.

IOW, the social engineering you're proposing is just like a bridge engineer who designs a bridge based on the assumption that someone invents a form of steel that's infinitely strong per unit of weight. I bet you could design some pretty fantastic bridges with that kind of steel, but it will do fuck-all to help us build actual, real bridges with the kind of steel we actually, really have.

DArtagnan said:

No, people are not born bad.

Bad is not a concept I agree with, anyway.

Being born into a "good" situation is also dependant on what is good. Being wealthy is good? Not necessarily.

You're thinking in simplistic terms.

People need love and other basic needs AT THE VERY LEAST. Giving them that is not a surefire way of making them "good" - but it's what we could potentially provide, if we put people into situations where love could flourish.

You can't expect people to give love to children if they don't understand the concept, or if they've never been given love themselves.

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You're assuming my definitions for me and then accusing me of simplistic terms based on the definitions you supplied. Neat trick, that. What's that thingie with the dude and the dried wheat stalks again?

You need to read up on the childhoods of some of the more famous serial killers. Many of them had perfectly normal family situations (basic necessities met, stable family structure for support, ect) and were still killing the neighborhood pets before high school. Your excuses for them simply don't fit. Some people are flat out born bad.

DArtagnan said:

No attempt has ever been made.
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I think it has, but not successfully. Communism, religious or other ideological based societies, small scale or large scale. They all failed because of usurpers, oppression and such.

I understand to you they don't count as attempts. To me they do.

You need to read up on the childhoods of some of the more famous serial killers. Many of them had perfectly normal family situations (basic necessities met, stable family structure for support, ect) and were still killing the neighborhood pets before high school. Your excuses for them simply don't fit. Some people are flat out born bad.

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Are you claiming to actually know if those people were given love?

You've got to be kidding me. Do you think that because a family "claims" to be normal and full of love - it automatically means it's true?

Have you ever experienced a couple claiming to be in love, and yet it being incredibly evident that they're not?

I trust my own experience a lot more than your claims, that you can't possibly know about.

I've been fascinated by the human mind since I can remember, and I've read about pretty much all the famous serial killers. I know that Bundy, for instance, supposedly had a "normal" family, but if you dig deeper - you'll find that "normal" is not measurable and there are reasons for developing into a "sick" person that don't show on the outside at first. Try looking into his relationship with his mother (or was it his father, I forget) and early girlfriend.

You could potentially have the most loving and supportive family in existence, and yet encounter the opposite during school or wherever else you might go. Basically, you will have to know someone REALLY well, before you can begin to determine what kind of upbringing they've had - and you can't go by claims.

Look into what the church has been claiming, or what Scientology is claiming. "We're all happy here" - and bla bla. I'll take my own perception over such things any day.

Besides, I'm not exactly claiming that love and basic needs filled will produce a paradise. I'm saying it will improve the world, that's all.

pibbur said:

I think it has, but not successfully. Communism, religious or other ideological based societies, small scale or large scale. They all failed because of usurpers, oppression and such.

I understand to you they don't count as attempts. To me they do.

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Fair enough

They count as attempts to change the world, sure - but nothing like what I have in mind has ever been attempted.

Certainly the ideas are not new, but there's a huge leap from idea to practice, after all.

The only thing I'm aware of that resembles this, is the venus project - but they seem to be on a different track than I - and they strike me as rather fanatical and off base.

Even so, their ideology can't be called an "attempt" - but rather the beginning of an attempt.