Unintended Consequences: Swiss Edition

[Steve Ballmer]

Ressources will always be limited in quantity, ergo ressources will always be scarce, ergo there will always be greed, ergo, by your logic, socialism will never be possible.

[Steve Ballmer]

I never said we should abolish the police.

[Machinesworking]

Ressources will always be limited in quantity, ergo ressources will always be scarce.

This is the big fallacy of the scarcity model. Being a private contractor and working with a lot of fabulously wealthy people you see it in their actions. Only those from long standing wealthy families have figured it out, that they aren't in pain or suffering. The rest buy into the scarcity model and use resources like they're going to be gone tomorrow. This makes for poor choices, hiring obviously illegal third world labor in an attempt to save a few thousand dollars when they have millions, suffering through the mostly shoddy quality desperate, poor, barely educated people can produce, and never learning from it.

We have long since in the first world, conquered scarcity, but we now suffer because we choose quantity over quality. The fact that we hard wired ourselves into thinking we still struggle for survival is a big part of the reasons why this world is turning to shit. This isn't off topic; the way we think about our lives is the main reason why your view of society would actually be worse than what we have now. The same applies to Funkens vision, since he ignores the fact that people think like this at all.

[Steve Ballmer]

Quick show of hands, who here has received their Push?

Unless you've found a way around the basic laws of physics, every thing we have is scarce. This is not debatable, this a simple fact that most four year olds can grasp. Once cookie gone, no more cookie. I cannot believe we even have to discuss this.

[Steve Ballmer]

Also, the reason that companies set up production in the 3rd world in the first place is because of government mandated minimum wages and high taxes in the 1st world. Do away with those, as is part of my "plan" (?), and you'll see a lot less 3rd world "exploitation". Lolz.

When y'all understand the basic cause-and-effect relation between policy and reality, everything becomes so much simpler.

Yeah, shitty governments with no respect for their citizens or the environment have it right, that makes sense. Do you really think the USA or Switzerland or any first world nation is going to be OK with working for under the minimum wage, next to rivers were waste from production was dumped?

The cause and effect is there, but your solution is ridiculous. The cause is a lack of ethics on our part. The solution is not to lower our own standards, the solution is to raise them. Though I believe that like all changes made by society that are done to prevent disasters from happening, we have to suffer to the brink of total disaster before doing anything. So whether or not you're thinking it's caused by government intervention or Funken thinks it's by corporations etc. doesn't matter, we have to see the first world fall apart as the rest of the world catches up in their economies, then we might see some changes that make sense.

If you wanted to reduce taxes in the USA anyway the most obvious place is in the military budget, considering it's half and well more than half if you factor in other expenses not counted but obviously linked. We exist on a war time economy though, and we're addicted to it. A far bigger problem than minimum wages and environmental laws.

Switzerland has no minimum wage, yet factory workers generally start off at $36'000/year. Bam.

Next, how can you claim the moral high ground, when you'd remove all incentive to create and maintain 3rd world factories, putting millions of people out of work? Would you really prefer to see someone starve to death than work 18 hours a day? Who the hell are you do make that call? I can promise you 3rd world workers don't give two shits about your "ethics".

As for military spending, I agree entirely with you.

[scott nathaniel]

The great majority of people are natural born followers, and as Scotty has been all too eager to demonstrate, don't give two fucks about freedom or prosperity.

I am definitely a follower. You see by following, one has their back covered, and it's easier to sneak off the path, quietly, stealthily. You see, I am smart, you are stupid. The whoever says no, and you bemoan like a bitch, woddling delusional steps toward a false sense of getting whoever to say yes. While you're doing that, we-the-smart-ones, openly accept the whoever's no: nossa'. All the while prospering from all dem nos. You are too vocal. You always want to make a grand-ol' declaration. That is stupid, Steve, really, really stupid. Life is about actions, not ideals. Come, prosper with us, the followers. You may look like a pussy, but you'll know, and we'll know, that you are not. On the other hand, bitching about the rules, yet still abiding by those rules, makes you a pussy no matter how often you attempt to convince yourself otherwise. Join the darkside, Steve. It's actually brighter over here.

[Steve Ballmer]

Keep this up and LSZ will be starting a Scotty appreciation thread. You bastard.

[Machinesworking]

Quick show of hands, who here has received their Push?

The scarcity model applied to luxuries is a redundant point.

Unless you've found a way around the basic laws of physics, every thing we have is scarce. This is not debatable, this a simple fact that most four year olds can grasp. Once cookie gone, no more cookie. I cannot believe we even have to discuss this.

There is no struggle for survival the human species has now based on scarcity, that ended with the advance of civilization. What didn't end is the thinking that makes people think there is scarcity, hence your cookie and Push analogies, instead of food and water etc.

Sure, luxuries are nice, but we live in a world where a swiss citizen that skies only once every five years demands pro quality skies and a house big enough for all these unused luxuries, then complains about the cost of labor and taxes... Your Push and cookies analogy is perfect because it exemplifies all the reasons why the scarcity model is out of control in western societies.

[Steve Ballmer]

What point are you trying to make here? Are we supposed to not want quality skies? Do you really believe that we'd live in a better society if everybody had shitty skies? Know what, I'm sold. I hereby revise my stance and henceforth will support MORE government intervention for a decrease in ski quality. Because ethics.

[Steve Ballmer]

I wasn't talking about natural resources, I was talking about want. We could eliminate want, especially relative want. If everyone is equal there is no scarcity.

Great, so now you want to engineer people's desires. Is it not enough for you to monopolize the distribution of Moogs that you want to control our thoughts too? Fucking fascist.

[Steve Ballmer]

I never said we should abolish the police.

You said you wanted to abolish the state. The police are part of the state.

Not intrinsically.

[Steve Ballmer]

unlike Marxism, doesn't involve mass-murder.[/b]

When did Marxism ever involve mass murder?

Since Marx called for a war on all capitalists.

[Steve Ballmer]

Quick show of hands, who here has received their Push?

Unless you've found a way around the basic laws of physics, every thing we have is scarce. This is not debatable, this a simple fact that most four year olds can grasp. Once cookie gone, no more cookie. I cannot believe we even have to discuss this.

Are you saying that according to the laws of Physics it is impossible that everyone who wanted a Push could not have one? I don't remember that from my Physics A-level syllabus.

No, I suggested that scarcity is an intrinsic part of our material existence, and provided Push as an example of scarcity in the 1st world. There's a difference, the subtlety of which is apparently lost on you.

[Steve Ballmer]

Did he?

1st plank of his Manifesto.

[Steve Ballmer]

Did he?

1st plank of his Manifesto.

quote

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.