h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm ignoring posts 118 and 119 because they are disingenuous and irrelevant. I note once again that you've failed to actually answer the question, EtB. Why are you reluctant to address the massive improvement in standard of living that capitalism has brought to even the poorest of first world inhabitants?



"(of course there are downsides regarding lifespan and such)"

...aaaaand there's the kicker.

I agree, there will be hordes of tree-hugging swampies who romanticise the notion of the noble savage, and who would love to return to the simple ways of hanging out chatting and getting stoned out of their gourd every night.

For some reason it calls to my mind a documentary I saw about childbirth. One of the cases they were following was that of a couple who were going to have a "natural" home birth, "natural" in this context meaning the mother sits in a huge, electrically heated bath surrounded by scented candles and a CD of whalesong. It was her idea to do this. She was a repulsively ugly obese hippy who did all the talking and had no job. He, poor sod, didn't speak a single word at any stage of the doc. His role seemed to be (a) provide semen (b) provide somewhere for this appalling woman to live and (c) indulge her every ridiculously expensive whim regarding the birth of their child. They (no, hang on, get it right, HE) had spent in excess of £30,000 installing a birthing pool in their home, on consultants and helpers and all sorts of things. It was all going to be so wonderful and natural like childbirth should be - no drugs, no nasty modern medicine-style pain relief, no doctors.

And then she went into labour. She was in the pool for something less than an hour, in pain, before she pissed all her husband's hard work and money up the wall, gave up, screamed for a doctor, went into a hospital, got shot full of pain relieving drugs and had about as unnatural a birth as it's possible to imagine. They even used the machine that goes PING! They had a healthy child, and she pronounced herself disappointed. Her husband didn't comment, although I was kind of hoping that the doc would end with a voice-over as the credits rolled saying he'd divorced her, thrown her out of his house and got custody of his child.

There's an old story that also makes me similarly angry, about the tycoon and the fisherman.

A tycoon is on a holiday somewhere hot and agreeable, and he gets talking to a local, asking what he does. Guy responds that he's a fisherman - in the morning he takes his boat out, catches a few fish, sells them to his brother who has a restaurant, then spends the rest of the day hanging out in the sun by the beach.

Tycoon says "You should save up, get a bigger boat." Fisherman asks why. "Well, then you could take someone else out who could do your fishing with you. You'd catch more." Fisherman observes that his brother doesn't need any more fish. "You could start selling to other restaurants. Of course, you'd need to save up and buy a van to deliver them. Then after a couple of years, you could save up and get a refrigerated store to keep them fresh. And get another boat, a bigger, better equipped boat, maybe with a loan from the bank. And you could employ people to do your fishing. And you'd need a salesman. And drivers. And an accountant. And clerks. If you work really hard, after twenty or thirty years, you'd be rich, like me, then you could retire."
Fisherman says "And what would I do then?"
Tycoon responds "Well... you could go fishing in the morning, catch a few fish, then just hang out the rest of the day on the beach."

Now - the moral of this story seems simple enough - the tycoon is stupid because he can't see that the fisherman already has the simple pleasures that the tycoon thinks he needs to work hard for thirty years to achieve.

But this makes me angry, because the kind of smug git who relates that story has missed a much larger and more important point.

Sure, our man can just laze around, because he's got a lifestyle that's pretty sweet. But the tycoon's idea results in a better life for all the people the fisherman would have employed. The sum total of human happiness is significantly improved if the fisherman does get off his backside and expand his empire, whereas living the simple life is very much the epitome of selfish "I'm alright Jack" attitudes.

Plus, what the tycoon doesn't say is: you could fish, and hang around by the beach. And if you get ill, or old, you will be able to afford better care. And if you have kids, you will be able to afford a better education for them. And if something bad happens that's outside your control, you will be in a better position to get through it if you have money than if you don't.

Romanticising the simple life is fine - but give me soft toilet paper and good dentistry any day.

"give me the future. I need to know."

I suspect you'd need to know the future if you lived in 2200AD, 3200AD, etc., wouldn't you?

>>I'm ignoring posts 118 and 119 because they are disingenuous and irrelevant. I note once again that you've failed to actually answer the question, EtB. Why are you reluctant to address the massive improvement in standard of living that capitalism has brought to even the poorest of first world inhabitants?

Whoaa! Say what? You are looking forward to spending an hour in (when was it?) 2210. You admit that you can't really judge whether this will eb prefereable to now/ likely given the possibility of thermonuclear war.

I am suggesting that it is specifically the dynamics of capitalism that make something like thermonuclear war a possibility - and not due to the availability of technology but because of the dynamics of competition.

You're failing to grasp the argument, I fear. Comparing present to future is specious. We also have to worry about the pain in the middle. That pain may be fatal.

I hope you now see the relevance. There was never any disingenuity on my part.

"it is specifically the dynamics of capitalism that make something like thermonuclear war a possibility "

Nonsense. Absolute balderdash.

Existential conflict between rival factions of people is not, I'm afraid, something you can blame on capitalism.

In fact, it's even arguable that the mechanisms of capitalism are what PREVENTED nuclear war from happening and made it less likely in the future. The US drew the USSR into a highest-up-the-wall contest the Russkies had no chance of affording, and though it took decades, the capitalists won and the imminent threat of nuclear conflict receded. (Obviously it hasn't gone away and there still exists the possibility of rogue elements setting off a weapon - but the doomsday scenario of a full exchange of ICBMs is, I would contend, now all but inconceivable.)

As I say - the comparing past/present/future idea is specious. Does our judgement of the benefits of progress really come down to 'I really like Science Fiction'?

But if you *really* insist - let's compare the richest man of 1711 to a poor inhabitant of Bootle.

Mr 1711 would have been Louis XIV of France. All those Louiseses with the Xs and Is are hard to keep track of. Luckily this had a memorable nickname nickname: The Sun King. So let's compare and contrast:

- He lived to the age of 72. The life expectancy in Bootle is 65. http://bit.ly/wO3Vfg (If we were talking parts of Glasgow, we'd have got 56).

- How big to you reckon a Bootle housing association property is? Versailles has 2,700 rooms in 67,000 square meters. You could even dedicate a whole room to your Scalectrix. Nicely decorated, too. Lots of lovely mirrors in the hall.

- Fancy a walk in the garden? see the majestic fountains play! Smell those jasmine-bedecked arbours. Sefton Borough Councils has let its parks become slightly run down in comparison, believe you me.

- Good food is central to happiness. On the one hand...all the greatest chefs from France. On the other...the best you can cobble together from Lidl and Iceland.

- A convenient measure of happiness that we touched on was, I recall 'getting to shag babes'. (Status, anyway. But if it's Status we're after, then surely that equates to happiness). Louis XIV had hundreds of mistresses, official and unofficial (wouldn't you?). Some guys in Bootle may get lots of sex - but my guess is that the babes aren't quite so state-of-the-art. And Louis even had folk to wipe him down afterwards.

- Nice clothes? The finest brocades the Ottomans have to offer. Silks from the orient...or Primark? You've mentioned that our 1711'ers had to contend with lice. well not if people undressed and re-dressed them several times a day and sprayed them with scented unguents. Who do you reckon smelled better - Louis XIV or a down at heel Scouser?

- Access to the finest arts and learning around. Louis was a noted sponsor of the arts - particularly ballet - and science. I suspect you are mistaken in believing that our contemporary Bootleonian has greater opportunities in that regard. He'll surely have a telly. He may have a library full of Jack Reacher novels nearby. It can't be guaranteed he'll have home internet access. More importantly...a tragedy of poverty is that it has a crushing effect on people's horizons. What's the point of learning about all that stuff when it's so far outside your experience? What's to use of opening yourself to opportunities when there are no opportunities around? (Yes, yes. I know it's this stuff that you'll be desperate to leap on.)

NOTE: I am, of course, laying on the stereotype a bit thick. There will, of course, be people in Bootle reading Baudellaire. But socio-economic environment dictates that it will be harder for them to reach that point. Much harder.

Honestly? I'd be Louis XIV. But that's really, really not the point. Yes - we have progress over time. Of course we do! We're not all running around holding crudely shaped lumps of rock. The issue is whether we can move from past to future without our progress being at the pain of others. The condition of Capitalism appears to be that the progress comes with pain. It is also possible that the painful nature of progress under Capitalism is a fatal flaw.

>>
Nonsense. Absolute balderdash.

>>Existential conflict between rival factions of people is not, I'm afraid, something you can blame on capitalism.


I'm rather puzzled by this. Are we perhaps working to two different understandings of what 'Capitalism' means? And if so, is your understanding that Capitalism = USA, Communism = USSR?

I'm using it in a broader sense to mean (something like) a system of production which requires the accumulation of profit. (But ask me another day and I'll give you an equally over-simplified definition).

To that extent, both the USA and USSR were competing within a Capitalist economy - by definition, because the whole world was not Communist.



Under your Existential Struggle theory, what is that except two economic blocs competing for market share?

It's not capitalist in the sense meant here I suspect. Societies built upon the accumulation of wealth are as old as, er, societies. From Mesopotamia, to the Yangtse Valley, Aztecs, Egyptians or Song Dynasty, the entire history of humanity is about energy capture from resources and the accumulation of the associated wealth. The struggle to achieve "financial advantage" would appear to be something hardwired into humanity.

"I'd be Louis XIV."

I wouldn't:

"All his diseases, ailments, indigestions, vapors and disordered fancies are here chronicled in most minute detail, together with a full description of the purges, emetics, tonics, ointments, plasters, lavements and surgical operations which were from time to time administered..." http://www.nytimes.com/1862/07/27/news/new-publications-journal-health-louis-xiv-written-drs-vallot-l-aquin-fagon-all.html

"The condition of Capitalism appears to be that the progress comes with pain"

Isn't that the condition of humanity?

"what is that except two economic blocs competing for market share?"

Hang on, you're changing definitions mid-post - your broad sense meaning was about the accumulation of profit. Now you're talking "market share", except you don't mean what people normally mean by market share because you're talking about actual people, "market share" in the sense a pope or mullah might apply it, rather than a CEO.

Also, you appear to be implying that unless the WHOLE WORLD is communist, then the WHOLE WORLD is capitalist, because one bit of the world is capitalist and that that forces everyone else to compete with them, on their terms, whether they want to or not.

I think you're right - we are perhaps working to (more than) two different understandings of what "capitalism" means. For starters, you yourself appear to be working to at least two different definitions of capitalism depending on what your argument is.

For one thing, you make a category error characterising capitalism as requiring the accumulation of profit. It does not. It requires the accumulation of CAPITAL - clue's in the name. I'm not going to lecture on the difference.



Capitalism, we should at least be able to agree, came about after the end of feudalism, and did not exist before.

But you seem to be suggesting that ANY two groups, at ANY stage in history, that ever came into conflict over resources, be it fertile land or trade routes or whatever, were, by your definition, economic blocs competing for market share.

You see capitalism *everywhere*.

I can't argue with that.

Once again I'm reminded of the frustration of trying to discuss things with Christians. Things start out well, but sooner or later you have a disagreement over something that at first blush appears trivial and easily fixable. Then it becomes apparent that the reason for the disagreement is that your interlocutor isn't using the dictionary definitions of common words. You ask for their, personal definition, and they get evasive and start to make excuses why the waffly definition they're giving isn't necessarily the only one they'll want to use, and it might mean something different tomorrow.

And eventually the conversation becomes pointless because to a simple question like "Can you prove god exists?", they can't agree on a single, rational definition of the word "god". Or "exists". Or "prove". Or, sometimes, "you".

If when you say "capitalism" you actually mean "any and all competition between two groups of people for any resource where one group comes out ahead" (which is how it appears), then capitalism as a system is approximately four billion years old, is massively successful and isn't going away.

I did quite carefully use the word 'profit' instead of 'wealth', swl.

Referring back to the OP, it implies an unequal exchange.

And in your last line...

'The struggle to achieve "financial advantage" would appear to be something hardwired into humanity.'

Are you saying:
a) the struggle to improve our material circumstances is hardwired?
or
b) the struggle to improve our material circumstances at the expense of others is hardwired?

a) Certainly. b)...*Possibly*...in case of resource competition. But there's an absolutely key difference between those two.

b)'s the important one. Let's allow that there will generally be resource competition and that some will come out on top. Well...this is related to Davey Hume's 'Is/Ought Problem' (ie how things are don't tell us how they ought to be). A Marxist would recognise that Capitalism is nothing more than the result of this naturally occurring process. An ideological Capitalist would say that there's nothing wrong with this process and who cares if the less lucky ones feel the pain for their gain. The Marxist would rather do something about the pain*. This is partly - well, just because - in much the same way that we try to do something about other naturally occurring causes of pain. But it's also because the particular conditions of Industrial Capitalism, unique in history, qualitatively different to Mesopotamia, the Yangtse, the Aztecs are such that common-or-garden trading for profit has reached an unstable state that will blow up in our faces.





* Actually, the Marxist would say that those suffering the pain will tend to do something about it, given time. This can get messy.

@Elf:

Did I not mention? The scouser's got a cough.

Thank you, Rudest Elf.

From that link:

"The personal appearance of the King, about whose beauty so much was said by his flatterers, was anything but attractive... he was deeply marked with the small-pox. His teeth were "very bad." At the age of 47, he had lost "all the teeth on the left side of the upper jaw," and they had been so awkwardly pulled out that a sort of fistula was created between the mouth and the nasal cavity, which had to be healed by the actual cautery. The King was subject to frequent shivering fits. That famous ... wig which we see in all his portraits, did not prevent him from catching cold in his gorgeous but uncomfortable apartments in Versatiles. In that bed, the artistic decorations of which were admired with so much hopeless envy he passed many a wearsome night, his slumpers being sometimes disturbed by "bugs," and sometimes by "gravel." It is only once recorded in these volumes that the King took a warm bath, and no doubt the hygienic and comforting properties of that luxury were practically unknown to the medical men of that time. The humblest bourgeois of the present day lives in greater comfort and is better cared for in sickness than LOUIS XIV with all his pomp. "

There's more, but I think that makes my point admirably. I love the idea that the richest man in the world couldn't sleep because the (presumably) best bed in the world contained "gravel"!

It's also worth recording that his wife had six children, just one of whom lived to be an adult.

I'd still take Bootle.

"The Marxist would rather do something about the pain*. "

But what? Do something practical, something that works, and the world will embrace it. Tell people to do something that's against their personal interests (and in particular tell RICH people to do something that's against their interests) and... well, good luck with that.

"Industrial Capitalism... has reached an unstable state that will blow up in our faces"

The problem you have is that communists have been saying that for about a hundred years now, and capitalism has obstinately refused to actually blow up. It's fizzed a few times, and it's surely fizzing now, as it does with tedious regularity, but does anyone honestly believe it's going to blow up? I know I don't.

Oddly I'm reminded of another kind of Christian - the one who's forever predicting Judgement Day is just around the corner. The less intelligent ones set a date. The truly dumbass ones set a date in their own lifetime, so that they have to face the music and make excuses when, surprise surprise, nothing happens. But most apocalypitically obsessed Christians content themselves with dark foreboding warnings that sin has reached such a state that it will blow up in our faces and we'd all better get to reading our Bibles and praising Jebus 'cos he's a comin' back.

Common people. Salt of the earth. Y'know - morons.

"Does our judgement of the benefits of progress really come down to 'I really like Science Fiction'?"

SF is irrelevant. I didn't suggest comparing to the future, someone else did. It's a distraction.

Judgement of the benefits of progress is simply "is life better now than it was?", to which I think the answer is clearly yes, despite your list of the benefits of being the Sun King.



Here's a question for you: you've made a judgement, clearly, that capitalism as a system is lacking, and that communism is preferable.

What real world observations support your conclusion?

>>Here's a question for you: you've made a judgement, clearly, that capitalism as a system is lacking, and that communism is preferable.

>>What real world observations support your conclusion?


Well I still maintain that we all secretly admit that Communism would be the perfect world. The only disagreement is if/how we can get there.

What would convince me that Capitalism is lacking? Something like being a freelance recycler on a Lagos rubbish dump would probably be a clincher.

"we all secretly admit that Communism would be the perfect world"

I don't think that's a secret. I agree. The problem you have is that while scarcity exists, competition exists, and there will be winners and losers. Communism in a world with limits on resources *doesn't work*. The only way to make it work is to eliminate competition, and the only way to do that is to eliminate scarcity. Communism absolutely will not get us there. Capitalism... might. And if you've got a third system you think would work better - that would adequately stimulate and reward the innovations required to get us to a state where the communist utopia would work - bring it on. But it's got to be *better* than what we've got now, or nobody will go for it.



Meanwhile, you're still deliberately misunderstanding or ignoring questions for comedy effect.

Question: how do you know capitalism is lacking, and that communism is preferable?

Answer: I know capitalism is lacking because some people living with capitalism have lives I don't envy.

Yeah. Brilliant.

Let me present you with another choice then:

1. Freelance recycler on Lagos rubbish dump.
2. Freelance plumber in Enver Hoxha's Albania.
3. Freelance labourer in a gulag in Stalin's Russia.
4. Freelance playwright in Mao's China.

One element of capitalism that guarantees its future is that no matter how low your station, the system offers the fantasy, the possibility, that if you just get lucky or work hard or meet the right people, you could turn your life around and get rich. Stories abound of people who do just that. They're the exception, sure. But it happens, and the dream is there. Communism has to, by its very nature, crush that hope. You'll never be rich under communism, not until EVERYONE is. So what's the point?

There's another question for you, or rather two:

1. Do you agree that communism can actually only work post-scarcity?
2. If not (and I assume you don't...), how do you motivate people?

It's a serious question. Right now, people are motivated to innovate by the promise that by doing so they can become rich. If you knew, for absolutely certain, that anything you invented or developed would be appropriated by the state, and that you would not benefit from having come up with it - why would you bother?

But it's a none question, SoRB. Even leaving out a pointless debate about whether what I'm talking about has anything to do with Hoxha's Albania, Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.

I have not advocated anything that requires anyone to live those lives. However, you and I require others to do the rubbish dump thing.

>>One element of capitalism that guarantees its future is that no matter how low your station, the system offers the fantasy, the possibility, that if you just get lucky or work hard or meet the right people, you could turn your life around and get rich.

Except that your chances become much, much lower the further away you start from that position. And, indeed, those who succeed do so by pushing others further away. See OP.

I mean - Jaysus - isn't it an incredible waste of human potential? <stands back and waits for anti-chav sneering. )

"those who succeed do so by pushing others further away"

Your apparent proposed solution is to set up a system that ensures nobody fails by making it impossible for anyone to succeed. An Olympics where everyone is guaranteed to win a medal, except it's made of cardboard and the word "Olympics" on it is spelled wrong.

And yes, of course it's a waste of human potential.

I never said you'd advocated anyone living the lives real people had under real life communist regimes. Only a fool would say "let's have communism the way it's been done before", because that's one thing people won't queue for.

I asked for your real world corroboration for the superiority of communism. All you gave me was real world data on a weakness of capitalism.

Yet again, you come across like a creationist Christian. "Give me your evidence for biblicial creation," I say. "Evolution is false because the fossil record has gaps!" you squeal. Well, yes, there are gaps. That doesn't mean evolution is false and EVEN IF IT DID that's not positive evidence for creationism. Give me your evidence for creationism. "Evolution is false because the eye couldn't have evolved in one step by chance!" Yes, again, that couldn't have happened, except that's not what we claim happened, it doesn't happen "by chance", and again, even if it did prove evolution false WHICH IT DOESN'T, that's still not evidence FOR creationism. Give me your evidence for creationism. "Evolution is false because..." Etc. etc.

Stop telling me why capitalism is bad. Give me real world corroboration that communism is superior. Not theories. Data.

You seem to think I'm saying 'Stop doing Capitalism!' I don't think I am. I'm saying:

a) that Capitalism will evolve over time, in some good ways and some bad ways.

b) we want to make sure that we maximise the good ways. *But* there is a dynamic within Capitalism which has to maximise the bad for the sake of competitive advantage. (The republicans are right: minimum wages, health and safety, etc *are* bad for business.)

c) there are perils in the whole process.

and various other stuff.

Your criticisms of what you think I've been saying would be valid if and only if you had been paying attention to what I'd been saying.

The Creationsist comparison in particular is completely shoddy and inattentive. It's like someone who finds out that someone is a Christian and then criticises them based on masive leaps of imagination about what their views might be. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

I may be saying things badly and may need to give more clarification. But you don't seem to be up for that - more interested in the usual brand of smackdown w*nk. Meh. It's a hobby, I guess.