What I mean is that success is not always a cash thing, saving a life, making somebody smile, protecting a child etc. They are things to aspire to (I think), at least a large and increasing part of society should, but need ignored in favour of maximum cash.
To get max cash for min effort then ignore all these and asset strip like a mad person or rob a bank. So this is the distinction really.
It seems to measure success in cash terms (success == profit) is a bit skewed. If we could measure and recognise success using more variables than how much monetary worth somebody has then things could improve and kids would have more to aspire to.
Definitely, I’ve had similar discussions with people. If giving a homeless person food made you money (for lack of a better yardstick), then we’d be living in a very different society.
The problem with money isn’t necessarily intrinsic to the system itself, but rather a problem with us. If we introduce a point system (currency), then it inevitably turns into a game (I have more points than you). After a certain point, the wealthy don’t see currency as a tracking of debt. They see it as a Pac-Man score. And they want to be on that hi-score list.
Yes this one is dangerous, but if we do believe in evolution then perhaps its unavoidable. I do think though that allowing everyone on the planet access to education would mean we all evolve as one.
At the moment why should a tribe living in a jungle not physically evolve different from us? Its easily misinterpreted I grant, but borders, firewalls, censorship, manipulation and such like would tend towards differences in the species as they mentally evolve in their own closed space.
I think you want to draw a distinction between physical evolution and character evolution. Superiority in physical evolution implies the possibility of breeding an ubermensch which is gonna get you in trouble with pretty much everyone except white supremacists.
On the other hand, I evolve during my lifetime as a person, but it’s not a hereditary evolution passed down genetically. My understanding of genetic evolution is that it’s a jump based on mutation that stick around because it help a species survive, allowing it to travel to the next generation. Education, intelligence, and wisdom is passed down by good archiving and preservation of knowledge and stories.
EDIT: Sounds like I’m calling you a racist haha. I’m not! I meant that your wording was dangerous.
I’m not sure that he is, but until we can’t breed with one another, then we are the same species. It is unlikely we will evolve too differently though due to being so inter-mingled nowadays with fewer long lost tribes. My own view is that Humans are evolving character as you put it differently memetically now , the meme to my mind is now more important and faster at evolving and transferring information memetically rather than genetically. It is the meme rather than the gene that will decide humanity’s future. Cheers
@chadrickm There is no right answer to this, one believes either position or the other, or one is able to see both positions from a third position, and chooses one over the other, but is able to revise that choice as new evidence dictates.
To illustrate notice the symetry, the question can be reversed (its just we don’t normally see this because we want to believe what we believe).
As in: should someone be manipulated into believing something, because someone else believes its in their best interest? (I don’t accept we know who’s smarter in this - I contend both are acting unconsciously, but with different beliefs about what’s true, real etc.).
Intelligence, smartness are all narrow and IMO inadequate terms and those that are judged smart according to convention are often very dumb in other respects, not least the degree to which they are held captive by their own beliefs.
@janitor if you don’t watch or read X, why do you think what you say about them is valid? It certainly appears to miss the point that I was making. Its pointless to discuss when all we do is bat beliefs back and forth, and don’t drill down and examine them from each other’s perspective.
Yes, I loved the decentralisation (pillars) TED talk - the point about exploitation becoming possible when we are no longer able to know or remember how people have behaved in the past. If technology can help us regain community based trust in others, groups and so on, then we’ll make great leaps towards a better system, and people will behave better.
Respectfully @Al_Kafir as I do not wish to offend you with what is today called “pseudo/false-science” (which is a term I’m OK having associated with my beliefs), I’ll drop it as being “off-topic” and focus on something most of us can agree on. Basing our design decisions on “the designs of” natural systems is something I can get behind 100%. I believe we would do well to continue down this path. Alluding that mankind might be multiple species already (as I don’t know of any races of people that cannot procreate with other races) is something I outright reject and as has already been brought up, a very very dangerous proposition as has been proven time and again throughout history (again as has already been said).
I wouldn’t be offended by it, I was just asking out of interest. I agree it is off-topic and the right to hold one’s own beliefs is to be respected. I have no issue with Creationists or whatever, my only issue is when something is presented as something it is not…that’s all. To present something as Science, then I think we can rightly ask for some “scientific” evidence to support it. Anything that can’t be falsified really, I would count as outside the realms of Science and into the realms of …something else. We agree though that it belongs elsewhere, which was where this whole thing started as I recall…lol.
I think something got miscommunicated here and it is not a dangerous proposition. Whether this was the case or was not would be irrelevant to the reality in any case. We could at some point diverge into separate species though given the right conditions - ie separated groups evolving separately over many generations. This opinion is the scientific view and has supporting evidence. Whether or not it is a “dangerous proposition” seems a non- sequitur to my mind.
As I said, evolution happens in exactly the same way in micro and macro evolution, the only argument I have heard against this position is a religious one not a scientific one.
Absolutely no problem with you having your beliefs, but the scientific jury at least is not out on the theory of Evolution, though I fully recognise there are other non-scientific arguments.
There is a personal freedom answer to “Should someone be allowed to do something that is not in their best interest?” and there is a statist’s answer to this. There may also be more answers to this as I’m polarizing the topic I’m sure. I just wanted to point out that there will always be propaganda and to have freedom we must be allowed to follow our own beliefs about the facts we know. And greater knowledge will help each of us decide for ourselves. I am way off topic though…
Back to the topic at hand. Yes, greed does motivate. Profit motivates, other things motivate as I’ve posted before. Having the resources to pick what I will focus my time and energy on, verses a day job that puts food on my table, but might not represent what I love, motivates me. This is why I love the concept of the network paying app builders and I love the idea of it paying any creative person or team who creates. It’s a beautiful system as far as I can picture it
I’m having trouble wording my thoughts on this, but I’ll give it another go.
It’d be great for artists to be able to subsidize. Like, I want to make cool shit, create things that I’m proud of. But to do that, you have to risk failure. But in my industry, risking failure isn’t just time. It could put you in debt the rest of your life, and blackball you from getting money. There’s too much at risk.
I love the idea of collectives, and finding ways for people to succeed as a group, fail as a group. But still having something softer to land on than life-ending spikes.
So, for that reason, I liked in theory what what music labels and studios offered. Here’s a pile of money that we’ve collected from work. We’ll give this out to you to make your thing. The problem with that system was it’s centralization. One group, and even one person, could hold that over artists head. It gave an immense amount of power to one group.
I’ve been trying to think of how you can use escrow systems to create a trustless collective.
One thing I keep hearing about how to make film/tv is Netflix! Netflix buys libraries of works and then subsidizes their original content through that. It’s a system that’s exists for decades. It also creates a gateway, the thing we’d want to avoid. But on some level, it’s the right idea. Pooling funds to subsidize risky work.
Well, I said saw the intro which was enough to confirm it is what I thought it is.
I just went back and now I’m 10 mins into the video and yes, it is indeed what I thought it was! In fact the video is about that book I mentioned: Propaganda (book) - Wikipedia
I am familiar with this “genre” and I have that book (I read its first chapter). I my younger days I happened to read at least 25 books by S. Freud and C.G. Yung, so I happen to be quite familiar with the matter.
I acknowledge all that material, but I don’t understand what do you expect me to do? Refuse to drink Coke and eat GMO food? I don’t have any intention whatsoever to do that.
It’s a funny idea - to record a video about how governments and corporations use this or that principle to “control” citizens or consumers. First off, they don’t control because you can always refuse to listen (as I told you, I mostly refuse to listen). Secondly, of course they try to impact how you feel about the government (or what product or service you buy), why wouldn’t they?
Everyone is responsible for their own actions and should act in their own interest while minding basic rights (or simply, property rights) of others. It is their (marketing department’s) duty to the shareholders to do that. They are not forcing you to watch ads or buy their products, are they?
The government doesn’t have a duty to the shareholders, but as we already know State is based on coercion so they don’t really care about much. They can force you to do whatever they please (for example, to buy more expensive electric energy because they determined that’s in your best interest) and there’s nothing you can do about that (except watch these videos).
I therefore find the video largely irrelevant. What’s good about it? It shows (although that’s not exactly new) that PR/marketing/advertising employs psychology to fulfill its goals. All right. If you don’t like it, don’t expose yourself to such content. It also shows that State is very evil and completely unrestrained, but it doesn’t (I believe) call on the viewer to contribute to its demise.
The laissez-faire principle and Natural Law tells me almost everything - if not everything - I need to know.
You don’t have to eat donuts all day just because you see ads on trams or the tube.
Advertising is a form of free speech. You have the right to refuse to listen.
“Fairness” is expressed through voluntary exchange on the free market.
Middleman will ultimately drop out of the value chain if he doesn’t add value.
Motivation for farming is gain (profit). Whoever profits more, he can give more (should he want to) to the less fortunate around him.
It is clear that you don’t understand, or being charitable, don’t agree with what I’ve said. It is hard for me to take you seriously when you say “I know this stuff” and then make statements that to me show a lack of understanding, such as “don’t watch” enabling people to liberate themselves from this control. We are not talking about individuals here, but how a population, indeed the whole western world (be extension of American innovations), is being controlled.
I rarely watch, but I am still controlled. Both because it is impossible to completely disconnect from the messages themselves (bar living in a cave and never leaving, no internet of course), and it is impossible to interact with others who are controlled without oneself being limited in choice of options, action, language, topics and ultimately thought. What I see as “blindness” to this from you and others who seem to feel they are immune or it simply isn’t important, can just as well be confirmation of how damned effective it is.
Its quite amazing to me. It is though pointless to debate with you for the reasons I have already outlined in the previous post.
You can’t liberate a population that doesn’t want to be “liberated” (in fact they may see your act of their “liberation” as enslavement) unless you resort to force. Haven’t you ever met a person who likes to receive unsolicited email? Someone who wants to trade freedom for (relative) security? Such people are more numerous than you think and loathe the idea of freedom and independence.
You dislike my approach to fighting intrusive advertising (“don’t listen”), but at the same time you are determined to “liberate” even those who don’t want to be liberated by intrusively broadcasting your own concept of what’s right for them. (If you do not plan to intrusively broadcast your message, how are you going to achieve your goals and reach out to those people are controlled? That’s just a rhetorical question.)
From now on I’ll abstain from commenting on any and all topics unrelated to technology and privacy because it just consumes our valuable time and doesn’t create anything useful. Thanks to the devs soon we’ll be able to use the s/w and play on the test net which will be great.
No this is the whole point of much of the potential of the network.
Janitor you’re basically making psychopathic arguments about preserving a right to exploit people. Those are incredibly weak arguments considering a context of a forum and effort meant to empower people. You are missing the state that most people are in. Your goal here seems to be to argue for weakening the actual liberating potential of the technology by conflation of its liberating potential. You don’t have a right to molest the population.
So lets be clear again. The crypto tech and new net tech can be used (should be used!) to get rid of the schemes used to impoverish and prey on people and censor. You don’t get to pay someone to interrupt someone else and steal their attention and time. You’re taking some thing that doesn’t belong to you. Out of practicality open access for content and speech makes more sense- its a different issue, much much less basic and essential. Its needed now. Society is going to go to this new model. We won’t be dealing with ads, or pay walls or pass words- to argue otherwise is to be pro SOPA/PIPA/CISP/TPP in orientation. We will set the price and pay only if we feel like it, only the amount we think its worth, probably a micro amount and likely only for future contributions. Don’t like it? You can try to run to government to try to prevent it. They’d have to eliminate any free speech to prevent this. But what you’re putting forth is an ad for what doesn’t work. Why even have stuff like MaidSafe if its just to perpetuate more of the same.
You keep saying I want to make people do things. I am suggesting a small number of aware other people will introduce tech to help rule out the very weak (like tobacco firms) preying on children. I associate psychopathy with weakness. You can’t argue for the sake of injustice and appeal to slogans like “market.”
psychopathic arguments, a right to exploit people…
Nice!
Above I said I won’t comment on this topic any more but I think I should remind you that few days back you were arguing for various measures against misbehaving users.
To be clear, I don’t want to ask the admins/moderators to remove or post or God forbid ban you. I’ll take my right not to listen
