That's not man-made—that is fundamentally how the world works from the [microbes in the] ground upwards.
There is difference though. We kinda are not microbes.
Is it the important part?
Apparantly so. When I talk with people about my delusional commie dreams they often enough remind me that we're not living in this reality of mine that is our current present. I mean we can talk all day long about what an ideal society should look like or what you or I personally see as a good one. I mean everyone is a philosopher till shit hits the fan. At the end of the day what matters is what happens right now and what will happen in the future.
At which point do we decide that success by a certain means is unacceptable? You can have a colony that feeds itself as cannibals rather than as farmers—or even game hunters; it's quite obviously less work. Or they could be a bandit camp; robbing anyone unlucky enough to encounter them—that's a path to success, and easy wealth; technically. They could even offer the neighboring settlements a payment plan, that they don't resort to robbing them so long as they pay tribute every week.
we simply don't? If a community lives happily as cannibals for thousands of years which some do that's their thing. But again we do not live in this kind of society. We have only the one we're living in and this is the one we have to work with. It was never a completely free market economy and it most probably never will be. That's my point. But what we can see is a historical evolution of a society with less regulations and less government interference gaining wealthy trough more social regulations.
Besides you Americans have also this interesting view point where you mostly measure success in terms of money and income. As a society that is. You rarely if ever ask the question what's necessary for living a happy and fulfilling live. Surveys show that money and wealth do not lead necessarily to more happiness in your life this seems only to work to a certain point where you don't have to worry about your basic needs anymore. But above that point? What ever if you own 1 million or 1 billion dollars doesn't seem to have any impact on what ever if you live a good live.
There is no negative side to that. Can you express a positive side to a culture of 'non-doers' and 'non-inventors'?
it wasn't my intention to go about positive or negative traits in that aspects. Just more an observation on my part about the cultural differences. How you approach problems as a society you know. It is really more about consequences. Don't get me wrong the "European" or to be more specific the German way of life isn't necessarily better or worse. It's simply a different approach at things. But if you want a negative effect in my opinion? That you Americans tend to collectively ignore systemic issues which do exist. And you favour personal responsibility over regulations/authority here. We Europeans tend to have an easier time to accept authority in some respects. I mean imagine if the US would get rid of all traffic laws with the argument to boost personal responsibility. People should drive simply more carefully. I mean that would be crazy from a rational stand point. Because there are a ton of people out there which drive only carefully because there are laws that force them to do it and because they have to get a driver licence which they can loose if they are caught. Self regulation doesn't work in every case. That's simply not how modern societies like ours work.
Yes this means a medical doctor in Cuba might have to pay their rent as a cab driver, or that a PHD in Liberal Studies would likely need to develop a more practical/ marketable skill set unless their family can (and is willing to) support them—until someone else does.
Cuba is an extreme though at least in my view. Not everything has to be about extremes nor did I say we have to follow a Cuban model of life. Again all I am saying is if I have to chose between someone sitting at his console all day or selling drugs. I would want him to sit at the console. Not because I like him or don't like him. But because we've seen time and time again what happens when you leave to many people starving out there. Homelessness is another example. It costs a community way more to deal with the homeless compared to just giving them homes. Even if you make laws against homelessness because now someone has to get out there, check on them, get them in custody or out of the town and so on and so forth. Do you know why most dictatorships fall apart? They become to expensive at some point.
Without the intention to attack you but I vaguely remember that you support laws against loitering. But why? In a completely free market economy and without any regulations homeless people should certainly have the right to spend their time where ever they want. I always feel like you simply don't want to see the consequences of the capitalist system around you for the lack of better words. And if someone stands out like a sore thumb in this system it's the homeless people.
Life is not free; everything comes at a cost.
So you do agree that no one should inherit something? Good idea Gizmo! Warren Buffet for example said if I remember correctly that he's not going to hand down his billions to his children.
Seriously though, yes I agree with you but maybe we should not put this thought to the extremes I do not believe it will lead us in a direction that you will support. Because you get already a lot of things for free you never "deserved" so to speak. Like your citizenship for example or your right to vote or what ever else is written in the constitution. You did absolutely nothing for those privileges except that you had the luck to be born by parents which happend to be in the right country which grants you those privileges which at some point someone in history declared as god given unalterable rights which the founding fathers held as self evident. But in truth they aren't self evident. For a large part of our recorded history humans lived in some sort of hierarchies with kings, nobilities, dictators, tyrants call it what you want. Most of the time only a relatively small group of people actually enjoyed the kind of liberties we see as self evident today. Like the right to vote or even to own land. With a king around? You can't own land. It's his land. All of it. Officially by god. You just have the right to work on it as a peasant. And when your lord, or the king decides you're out then you're out. No court or anything. That's what feudalism was about.
As our societies progressed those privileges have been expanded to more and more people. From kings to peasants, from slave owners to slaves, from men to women, from heterosexuals to homosexuals and so on. Maybe we simply are near a point where we will expand those privileges again where we say, ok everyone regardless who has a right to a live in dignity which includes food and shelter regardless what profession they follow. Why? Because they are citizens and we see it as self evident. The German constitution contains it. Actually everyone has a right to a live in dignity and to a minimum which allows him to exist in this society.
Is this the right way for everyone? No I wouldn't say that. Only you Americans can decide if that is something for you. I am not trying to convince you. Just to have an open mind about alternatives.
When a society unwisely allows a loafing culture,
Here is I think a good message for you. Humans are by nature not loafers or lazy. We simply tend to hate stuff where we see no meaning in which bores us and then we tend to become lazy. I have yet to meet someone who's not interested in something at the very least. Because honestly if you know someone who's really a loafer - I don't know what that means in detail for you, it could very well be that he has severe psychological issues. If it was really a human trait to be lazy we would have died out already. All lazy species, safe for the sloth which is also not lazy it's just a joke from my part, have actually disappeared from nature. I worked with a lot of troubled teenagers over the years where people would often describe them as "lazy" and "loafers". The trick was to find out what motivates them. And this is simply put for everyone different. Now you can't make a career out of everything but if you really want to teach people copying skills and this is what we're really talking about here actually you have to get them somehow in the hope that this motivation will carry over to other skill sets and areas of interest. But the moment you call someone a loafer or lazy or what ever you loose them. Doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't be harsh! But if you push people over their braking point things can become ugly. They can become criminals. Bullies. School shooters.
Everyone human being out there has motivation if they don't then there is most likely something wrong. No child on this planet is born without curiosity which is one of the strongest force for motivation learning new things is exciting. So a child without curiosity? That doesn't exist. A child without curiosity would die because it is such a crucial skill for our survival that it's really a part of our DNA. When 2 year old sits around and constantly throws a cup of the table while it's laughing? It's experimenting, observing and learning. When I used to work in day care it was a clear sign that a child had issues if it wasn't observing one way or another it's surroundings. Do you know when this natural born curiosity stops? The moment children come in to the school. It's crazy. The number of questions children ask drops dramatically. What I am trying to say is that we should maybe try not to see things just from one perspective.
That's not good enough; and is no excuse. That is paying to live under threat; amidst people who are already criminal.
Not so much a threat as more a fact of live I would say.
Treat someone like a dog and he will bite one day. History I think is on my side in this one. The French revolution, tsarist Russia hell even the US with their riots for example. They are all manifestations of a larger frustration if we talk about societies now. Remember? If they have no bread, let them eat cake, peace to huts, war to palaces and so on. And suddenly you end up with violent mobs which bash the heads of the nobility against walls or torture them by ripping their nails out etc. Yes this all happend during the French revolution and worse particularly the first days have been exceptional in brutality. What I am talking about is social stability. Sure you can decide to leave everyone who's not
willing to work for a living in the gutter. But will it lead to a better outcome for you personally? Unless you propose that we send also everyone who's loafing and not working into a prison or labour camp I don't think there is any realistic way how you will prevent civil unrests on a massive scale when people are meet with existential crises in increasing numbers. My experience is that those people see it just like you do. But from the opposite direction. And here is how. That society is threatening THEM. Either do as we say and adhere to our rules where
we define what you have to do and work, or fuck off and live as a bum! It's all your fault. This is another very ugly form of victim mentality. And then people act surprised when such a kid which never learned how to deal with frustration and anger in his live and grew up with the idea of entitlement is lashing out at society and starting to take a hand gun or rifle and fucking everyone and everything up. This is the microscopic effect of a larger issue in our society which gives people conflicting rules to live by where we define success by how much money and wealth we have and where consumerism is the expression of it while at the same time we tell people they have to actually accomplish their life long dreams. But those students are not stupid. They see them self as losers and they believe they will never accomplish anything in life. America my friend is dealing with a major depression and paradox here. And the growing opiate epidemic? Why do you think this happens so often among white supposedly middle class families? We can observe how many of the issues which have been usually unique to poor minorities like drug abuse, increasing violence (particularly gun violence) is now making it's way in the suburbian predominantly white cultures for the lack of better words which have been used in their standards of living to grow since the mid 1950s. But this is now kind of collapsing and people start to feel the cracks everywhere. For the first time a lot of people have the feeling their children will be worse off than they or their parents have been. People loosing their jobs, stagnating wages, whole towns that loose what defined them for decades. I am not saying this is directly comparable but for someone who has been dealing with depressions and anxiety since well I can remember as a child it doesn't surprise me even one bit that a lot of young people and adults take out their guns at the society they feel treats them like shit. Aggression and hate particularly resentment are one way to deal with depressions and anxiety you know - I've been at some very dark places in my mind in the past. And I am afraid Giz you will not solve this issue by simply telling people to shut up and suck it up. It will just make it worse.
I am not saying my way or the highway or that it's the solution to everything. But seriously we have tried so many stuff in the past. Why not give it a shot? Give people their dignity by not making them worry about if they will have enough on their plate or a full fridge. Where they can make their own decisions without someone telling them what to do.
