Lifeboat Earth

[Vraith]

From V.s post it would seem that inequality is at least in part an 'organisational' problem as well as a 'greed' based one. But I'm guessing that inequality would be found in all societies, no matter what their heirarchical/political/societal structure; we may all be born equal in the 'eyes of God' but thats where it ends.

It is indeed partly a structural/organizational problem.
And yes there was/is/will be inequality of SOME kinds in any possible society.
Inequality of some kinds in even necessary for a dynamic system.
But we have to manage the limits/bounds [bottom and top] and protect the integrity. Not managing the bottom is kinda like starving the system...not managing the top is like cancer...and not managing integrity is like letting infection run free. [That is ridiculously simplified, and only roughly accurate].

But, back to the original lifeboat and its deeper problems:
IF, in fact, we ARE on a lifeboat and resources ARE limited...why/how does the ethics even apply? As the song says: "But I've got to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter." Ethics is irrelevant...and how long, exactly, will it be before one lifeboat is attacking another lifeboat cuz it has a fishing pole, or some fresh water?
Why not party like it's 1999, why not slaughter like you are the Master Race, why not save the poor like some Mother Theresa, Ultimate Version? There isn't really any difference, is there?

I'm tending, more and more, to just dismiss ethics of this type/using this approach/method.
Cuz more and more I'm coming to believe this:
The purpose, use, and meaning of ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes when "death is on the line." It isn't even applicable. The purpose, use, and meaning of ethics/morality is LIMIT THE NUMBER OF SITUATIONS WHERE DEATH IS ON THE LINE.
The ETHICAL dilemmas isn't "What the fuck do we [and/or should we] do when we're on a lifeboat." The ETHICAL dilemma is "How do we prevent as much of this crap as possible from happening."
[[one purpose, use, meaning, anyway...and that's all of course a little rant-y. ah well]]

[wayfriend]

The purpose, use, and meaning of ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes when "death is on the line." It isn't even applicable. The purpose, use, and meaning of ethics/morality is LIMIT THE NUMBER OF SITUATIONS WHERE DEATH IS ON THE LINE.

... and therefore ethics/morality is about not going against Sicilians?

Sorry.

[Vraith]

... and therefore ethics/morality is about not going against Sicilians?

Sorry.

Don't be, I did it on purpose to take a little of the edge off the rant...pretty sure we have as many princess bride fans here as SRD fans...

[Fist and Faith]

Ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes, but it is at those times that they count the most. When they count at all. You don't learn squat about your morality when everything's going well for everybody. What kind of test is it when there's plenty of food for all? The test comes when you can eat well, or eat not so well because you share with those who are starving.

[Rau Le Creuset]

Love is better than hate and friends are much better than enemies. We all call ourselves humans and whatever that means, I don't think it's that we should divide ourselves from one another.

[Vraith]

Ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes, but it is at those times that they count the most. When they count at all. You don't learn squat about your morality when everything's going well for everybody. What kind of test is it when there's plenty of food for all? The test comes when you can eat well, or eat not so well because you share with those who are starving.

[[[applying/staying consistent with the original, and what you say there]]]
Ok...what kind of test is it when there's plenty of food for all?
Cuz that is the situation the world is in right now, right this instant.
There is, literally, much more food than we need. Not only enough for everyone to eat, but enough for everyone to eat very well. Yet people are starving.
I'd say that "counts" far more than the pure hypothetical/imaginary.
In fact the real situation answers the pure fantasy one. We obviously think it is OK to kill the swimmers cuz rafts are few, even if we don't want to admit it, want to pretend it's a deep dilemma. Cuz we're already killing the hungry even though there is plenty of food.

I'd say that teaches a lot about our morality.

[Avatar]

Tribalism & The Zero-Sum Outlook.

--A

[peter]

But here's the dilema [and it's a difficult one to state baldly without sounding like a **** but I'll try]. If you feed the poor, the hungry, the starving and raise them from this state - they breed until the same state persists again [why would they not - they are often totally dependant on offspring to survive old age themselves and in that game there is safety in numbers]. So you try to exert a little restraint into the system "We'll feed you [you say] - we'll even give you this transistor radio, but the deal is you get sterilised after two children". Now you are exerting judgements about how other people should live - about their personal freedoms that you would not expect to have placed on yourself. Now your a **** [and you are!] So how do you do the right thing, how do you help without actually making the situation worse? I guess you try to break the chain that demands mass numbers of offspring [but try telling that to the pope].

{One point re the song v. - If I'm going to die tomorrow that is exactly the point that 'it' matters most [ethics and every thing else as well] - I believe this and I'm sure you do as well, I probably just missed it in the ensuing talk ]

[Fist and Faith]

Vraith, the fact that I cannot imagine how to make sure everybody in the world is fed, and will not devote every moment of my life to trying to feed every hungry person, does not mean I will not give my own food to help the hungry person I see in my neighborhood. That's not a contradiction.

[Vraith]

But here's the dilema [and it's a difficult one to state baldly without sounding like a **** but I'll try]. If you feed the poor, the hungry, the starving and raise them from this state - they breed until the same state persists again

Now if only that were TRUE. But: no one is, and rarely has, except in moments of disaster, said "Just keep throwing food at them."
You know what happens when people are well fed, and educated? They STOP making so many babies. Always, so far.
One could even say the reason they have so many babies is because we leave them in desperate circumstances [[in many cases they are FORCED to remain in those circumstance by their own "Leaders," sometimes by the disembodied/no one is responsible "system."]]

And, again, lets look at where the logic of the original leads...
I mean...if its bad [ethically wrong] to FEED them, it is also bad to educate them [ teach them to fish, in someones words]...after all, they'll just take away OUR JOBS, we need those...what will happen to our fishermen and their families if they catch their own fish! And bad to pay them for any resources/things they might have to trade...they'll just use OUR money AGAINST us!
Those damn poor will end up building there OWN LIFEBOATS!...WE won't have enough left to build OURS! If it is good to let them die, it is better to just kill them, best of all to kill them right now. Ethically speaking, from the lifeboat.

[wayfriend]

Ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes, but it is at those times that they count the most. When they count at all. You don't learn squat about your morality when everything's going well for everybody. What kind of test is it when there's plenty of food for all? The test comes when you can eat well, or eat not so well because you share with those who are starving.

And so Les Miserable.

Yes, but also, when the test comes, it's too late to figure out some ethics if you don't already have some. You'd better already have them, and they'd better be deeply ingrained. Otherwise the temptation is to invent whatever ethics justify what you think you need to do.

[Fist and Faith]

Ethics/morality is not defined by the extremes, but it is at those times that they count the most. When they count at all. You don't learn squat about your morality when everything's going well for everybody. What kind of test is it when there's plenty of food for all? The test comes when you can eat well, or eat not so well because you share with those who are starving.

And so Les Miserable.

Yes, but also, when the test comes, it's too late to figure out some ethics if you don't already have some. You'd better already have them, and they'd better be deeply ingrained. Otherwise the temptation is to invent whatever ethics justify what you think you need to do.

Doing whatever you think you need to do is an ethical stance. Nothing needs to be invented. (Unless you feel the need to justify that stance, to others or yourself.)

[Vraith]

Vraith, the fact that I cannot imagine how to make sure everybody in the world is fed, and will not devote every moment of my life to trying to feed every hungry person, does not mean I will not give my own food to help the hungry person I see in my neighborhood. That's not a contradiction.

That's a different thing entirely, especially from the original, which is saying something else...it is saying that NO ONE should EVER spend ANY time helping the poor. And that THAT is the GOOD thing.

[Zarathustra]

... Lifeboat Earth can support the most people when it is the people who consume the least.

There’s no evidence that this is true. The people who consume the least are also the people who produce the least, so there is less to go around if you rely upon the least productive people to bring more resources to market. As our global population has grown, we’ve all consumed more per person, and yet rather than depleting our resources, we've produced more. The ability to consume more (yes, it's an ability) leads to the ability to support more people. This ability doesn’t come naturally. You have to earn it. You have to build the means of production to use it. We could, for instance, supply a 3rd world country with all the high-grade steel in the world, and they wouldn’t be able to turn that into modern jets or ships. And yet, because we have the ability to consume more of this resource, we are able to turn the resultant products into an even greater resource, that could support growth of many more people, by transporting other resources via ship or plane.

It seems there is a lot of zero-sum thinking in this thread, and no recognition that greater consumption leads to even greater levels of production.

capitalism ungoverned, is a causal factor in poverty

Prove it. Capitalism has been responsible for lifting more people out of poverty than any other force in history. Besides, when people talk about capitalism, no one is talking about “ungoverned.” That’s a caricature, something that has never existed. Not only does every form of capitalism exist in a country that regulates trade (to some extent), capitalism itself has mechanisms which self-regulate … the laws of supply and demand, for example.

Z, I was putting together a big post rebutting your arguments, but when I started to look at things like peak oil, raw materials shortages and so on I found that our 'resourcefulness' has changed the balance of these things since I last checked (a good while back obviously ). So, your argument that the earth could sustain 100million people doesn't seems as ludicrous as I first thought.

Hah! Thanks for saying so. Yes, the peak oil myth used to bug me until it was proven wrong so demonstrably, that no one talks about it anymore. We have enough oil to keep burning at current levels for perhaps centuries … far past the point when we’ll switch to something like fusion.

I’ll concede the point that there has been a lot of imperialism in the past, and some resource stealing. However, this is vastly outweighed by the benefit that Western countries have brought to the rest of the world by putting those resources to infinitely better use than the original “owners” [did they really own it just because they lived closeby?]. If we hadn’t invented the tools, the designs, the system, etc. then people like the Chinese never would have been able to steal it from us. We’ve paved the way, and now developing countries are following our path at a much faster pace than we did ourselves.

You're welcome, planet.

the 85 richest people on the planet now own between them more wealth than the total owned by the bottom 50% of the worlds population. {Not sure what the significance of this is other than as a 'shock value' input}. But is 'inequality' really the point - I'm not so sure. Sure it's a piss off to see your neighbour driving around in a better car than you, but this to me seems to be one of the driving factors that will make a man/woman suceed. The key thing is that people have the security of health, education, abode and nutririon [together with of course freedom from oppressionand fear of persecution] as the base line from which to start from. Over and above this where does inequality come into it?

Excellent points. I don’t think inequality is a causal factor of poverty, it’s a result of success. If it causes anything, I believe it works just as I’ve outlined above with the example of Western countries leading the way and making it easier for others to follow. Without income inequality, no one would be rich enough to start the business that employs others so that they can increase their income, too.

I realize that some very smart people think that the positive benefits of inequality turn into negative effects if the inequality is great enough, but I'm not convinced. I am sure, however, that the only way to make inequality disappear is for everyone to have nothing.

[SerScot]

I'd argue that heavy regulation of capitalism is what causes (or at a minimum contributes to) the accumlation of capital into few hands. Consider if boom and bust cycles are allowed to occur naturally people who have accumulated capital will lose it as their businesses fail. The assets of those businesses will not disappear other smaller entrepenures will then have the opportunity to acquire those assets at discounted prices.

Smoothing out the boom bust cycle protects the accumulated captial of the rich and causes everything, including wages, to stagnate. We need the boom and bust cycle to allow opportunties for different people to "win" at the game of captialism.

[Zarathustra]

Good points, SS. I do think the over-regulation of capitalism creates most of the problems that people blame on capitalism. The blame game is so disingenuous. The people who cried the loudest (i.e. Dems) about Wall Street guys ruining the economy did nothing once they had the power to punish those "fat cats." In fact, they bailed them out, hired them to work in the administration, and continued on with business as usual. And then Obama was reelected, proving that his voters don't actually care about this as much as they claim. Bail out GM? Of course! They employ lots of union workers. But I thought Big Business was greedy and should be punished for its destructive business practices, not rewarded and saved. Well, not if it helps Dems, or is done by Dems, apparently.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Hah! Thanks for saying so. Yes, the peak oil myth used to bug me until it was proven wrong so demonstrably, that no one talks about it anymore. We have enough oil to keep burning at current levels for perhaps centuries … far past the point when we’ll switch to something like fusion.

I will have to find the article but there was a recent experiment in which the researchers were successfully able to cook a batch of algae into refinable crude oil in only a few hours. The end product can be sent through a fractional distillation plant like crude oil pulled out of the ground. This means we can now seed this algae onto parts of the ocean (keep it fenced in with some surface buoys, of course)--which will also have the net effect of sucking some carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere--and cook it into usable oil when it is ready.

The only reason regulation of capitalism allows wealth to accumulate into the hands of only a few is because those with vast amounts of wealth are able to influence enough politicians so that they can rig the game in their favor, making it more likely that they accumulate more wealth even faster than they did before. If we put a stop to shopped legislation that is pre-written by corporations then the corporations will no longer have the ability to tweak the rules into their favor.

If we start using better models of farming, such as vertical farming, then we can increase food output in areas which desperately need it the most--1 hectare of land can, with a layered structure, provide enough area to grow 5 or 10 hectares' worth of food when combined with hydroponics. Of course, areas of the world which are plagued by generational poverty and starvation have governments which are completely filled with criminals getting fat on corruption. If you send $1 in aid, corrupt officials will probably steal 90% of it.

[ussusimiel]

I realize that some very smart people think that the positive benefits of inequality turn into negative effects if the inequality is great enough, but I'm not convinced...

I don't know how smart I am, but when it comes to capitalism people can talk in an extremely undemocratic fashion (I am not implying you here, Z). There can be a sense that the business leaders of our time are in some way heroes, and that they deserve to be recognised as such (as if they act the way they do solely for the benefit of humanity and not the financial gain, the power and the status).

The implication is that the whole word would fall apart without them. This is the arrantist of arrant nonsense! To imply that those people who do not share their entrepreneurial drive are in some way deficient or lower on the human scale (and couldn't fend for themselves without their providential leadership) is such a throwback that it is small wonder that some worry about oligarchy. (I know that this is extreme but Ayn Rand is widely read and taken seriously by a frightening number of people )

And this is where an interesting ethical question can be asked: entrepreneurs, by their very nature, must be risk takers and rule benders (or breakers), the question is, do ethics apply to them at all, or, under capitalism are they a special exception?*

I am sure, however, that the only way to make inequality disappear is for everyone to have nothing.

The opposite is what people like me fear which is that the distance between the ultra-rich and the rest of us becomes such that their influence over our lives is beyond our reach because our democratic vote no longer matters. (This fear of plutocracy is slightly different from that of oligarchy, as it is solely based on wealth and power rather than any perceived difference in nature.**)

u.

*A parallel question that has occurred to me recently is one that relates to authenticity (which I know is of interest to you, Z), which is, can people (enterpreneurs), who operate almost solely out of the egotistical expression of their desires and drives, be seen as acting authentically when they make no effort to engage with their unconscious motivations or examine their lives in a broader context. (This sweeping generalisation is based on personal observation, I have not done any looking around to see if it has any other basis. )


**I understand the argument that less government interference would mitigate this but, as I have mentioned before, I believe that this is based on a couple of false assumptions: firstly, the belief that the economy can be fundamentally separate from politics (to paraphrase Foucault (a very smart person ): the economy is always the political economy). Secondly, that people behave 'rationally'.

[peter]

Interesting observation pertaining to the influence of capitalism on the world of today that comes out of Oliver Stone's 'The Untold History of the United States'. [Vraith has warned me of Stone's propensity for being economical with the truth and I fully take this on board in reading the book.] Stone and co-author Kuznick state explicitly that the world we live in today is not [in their view] the only way the post 20th C. world could have been or indeed anything approaching the best one. Amonst a number of examples of how the world of today has been shaped by capitalism, they cite the example of The House of Morgan [J P Morgan to you and me] who advised Wilson at every step of the disastrous 1919 Paris Peace Conference to ensure that the interests of Wall Street and Buisiness were neither threatened or ill-served by any decisions that were taken there. [nb I cite this as an example of the degree of Buisiness - Government entwinement both current and historical, not as a judgement of it's value one way or another.]

[Fist and Faith]

The only reason regulation of capitalism allows wealth to accumulate into the hands of only a few is because...

Not regulating capitalism also allows wealth to accumulate into the hands of the few. Somebody does a good job at something; puts profits into doing it even better; buys out the competition, forming a monopoly, which, without regulation, is entirely permissible; etc.

What economic system prevents wealth accumulating into the hands of only a few? Have we seen it happen anywhere? Somebody who can figure out how to get more than others is always there. Which society that was based on equal distribution of wealth and goods did NOT have someone sitting at the top?