Billionaires

[NAOS]

When I choose to view a NAOS post I am almost always treated to a guy who believes that discussion equals climbing upon an intellectual high horse and mocking the intelligence and knowledge of his opposition. Since the post above is simply more of the same I'm not going to get into a spat over any of it, but I'm interested to learn if I am the only one here who sees logical inconsistency in claiming that tar pits were used long ago for therapeutic reasons and therefore the value of vast unknown underground oil reserves was already there prior to the technology that we utilize today to exploit them. Yes, I slightly overstated the case that they had no value prior to industrialization, but come on...

Or, maybe your own sensitivities are such that you simply have a hard time with the force of my difference? Perhaps I'm not as big of a problem as you think.

You didn't slightly overstate anything. The terms and colors of what you said were very stark. ...But HeyHey already addressed this issue well enough. Thanks, HeyHey.

I think it would be most accurate to say that I believe the oil reserves gained value to human society as a result of the technology. But yeah, I guess if the paradigm someone is arguing from is anti-capitalism then we're probably going to butt heads from time to time.

I once had a neighbor who was self-described anti-human. Maybe NAOS is in that category as well. We had some interesting conversations about his position that humans are so bad that he would be honored to kill himself as long as everyone else agreed to do the same. I told him not to hold his breath. The irony (to me, not him) is that he uses more than his fair share of resources in this world. I hold nothing against him for doing that, but by his logic, he certainly should.

I'm not simply "anti-capitalist".... even PKM probably remembers one of my "gems" wherein I described the liberatory powers of capitalism. I don't like soapbox-style political reductions.

And I'm especially not someone who harbors a pessimistic psychology. I'm all for celebrating human drive, desire, affect, etc. If you'd read any of my posts about religion and morality this would be abundantly clear. Since you haven't, you'll just have to take my word for it, and know that you're way off on this point. ...But why are we talking about psychologies right now? Why was it necessary for you to construct an other who was reduced to such a clear negative stance? I'm confused.

To claim that something has "gained value" is to embody a certain perspective, and the metrics it has for measuring things. What perspective is privileged in your specific claims about the increase or invention of value? I, for one, think you romanticize this perspective (and yourself?) too much when you go on to wax poetic about human progress and the miraculousness of human life and fail to acknowledge that much of what you call "value" and "progress" has had very dark sides. The oil economy isn't simply benign. Moreover, it's not actually true that "human ingenuity/will" conjures these things into existence. That's just more romanticism.

My position is that humans (and human society) are a remarkable occurrence (regardless of whether intelligent life has ever happened elsewhere in the universe). I am unashamedly in favor of human progress. I love pristine places and enjoy them often, but the beauty of those places which are mostly untouched by man does not cause me to feel, like some do, that man is therefore bad. As a matter of fact, I think a world filled with innovation and competition and capitalism and religion and science and wars and victories and all the rest that comes with our complicated culture is infinitely preferable to the path this planet would be taking at this very moment had intelligent life never emerged. Yes, there would be many beautiful vistas (some of which we have destroyed), and no forest creature would ever know the terror of a rifle shot, but there would also never be anyone to truly appreciate those beautiful vistas (or to recognize that we have also proven ourselves capable of creating beautiful ones of our own) or to record the history or to argue ethics or anything else.

"Pristine"; "untouched"; our human culture as "infinitely preferable" to other paths (and do you imply here that human intelligence was the beginning of intelligent life on earth and that there are no examples outside of it?); human appreciation as beyond the pale of other animal forms of appreciation. All very Romantic. I wonder what your perspective would sound like if you tried, for the sake of experiment, to drop this flowery stuff and justify your beliefs otherwise? Aren't you interested?

 

[NAOS]

Capitalists' contributions to progress FAR outweigh that of innovators. The iPhone hardly has any innovations, and yet, through solid design and clever marketing, Apple managed to change the landscape of technology and push human capabilities further than ever before. That is the case with pretty much all technological progress. And that is why the West, with their capitalist mentality, managed to become the world's dominant culture (and by far the most technologically advanced).

Ideas are dime a dozen. Most of the ancient world's great inventions were invented numerous times over, only to disappear once the few who had access to them were defeated or lost interest.

LMAO. Link?

 

[NAOS]

The conversation hadn't even gone there, so you are saying you think he was being preemptive?

I'd honestly be interested in understanding people like NAOS and their opinions better, and maybe they would change my mind. But I'm not interested in engaging with someone who wants to be an *** about things.

I appreciate your comments, though, alt.

You're so Epicurean. So sensitive. Ever dabbled in stoicism? Or does it all feel to rough?

 

[NAOS]

They are ideas made to maximize diffusion into the market. Ideas that would not exist if it wasn't for someone trying to maximize their profits.

The West is Europe and its daughter colonies. Shortly after time of the Roman Empire's collapse, Europe was at about the same level of technical development as China and the Middle East. Liberals will often point out that this invention or that originated outside of Europe in order to counter the Eurocentric view of human progress, but they miss the point entirely. Europeans are no more, or less, innovative than anyone else. And yet, within a few hundred years, they shot past competing powers at a confounding rate. By the 1700s, Europe was leagues ahead of the Middle and Far East (how ideas of racial supremacy began). The engine that drove this progress was the advent of capitalism toward the end of the low Middle Ages. Capitalism spread cutting edge technologies far and wide across Europe, whereas before such inventions would be relegated to the originating group to be stuck there or eventually forgotten. Infrastructures required for that continuing spread had to be developed, and universities to pass on the knowledge had to be built.

Capitalism has been, by far, the prime pusher of human progress. It is why we have a globalized society, and why we've managed to build a civilization that is unlikely to ever collapse. It is really quite obvious.

Progress toward what?

 

[Siro]

LMAO. Link?

It pushed the spread of computerization to a new level. Humans + computers > Humans - computers. Like I mentioned before, I have a very realist perspective on progress. It is increased capability. The romantics are the ones who talk about the "dark side", not me.

 

[NAOS]

Some people have an abundance mentality and some people have a scarcity mentality. Those two groups are going to have a difficult time agreeing about very much related to subjects like this.

..... and here he goes again with this light-dark, optimism-pessimism, etc. If you start with dualities, it makes Romanticism purrrty easy.

Let me stand up to your statement with no uncertain terms: Your distinction is dumb. Humans are more complex than this. If you believe these kind of reductions are possible (and important to make), then it is you who harbors the pessimistic psychology, and it's time to stop pointing fingers in that regard.

 

[NAOS]

It pushed the spread of computerization to a new level. Humans + computers > Humans - computers. Like I mentioned before, I have a very realist perspective on progress. It is increased capability. The romantics are the ones who talk about the "dark side", not me.

which capacities are increased? Are they increased at the expense of other capacities?

 

[Dr. Jones]

Lawyers also deal in values "made up" by humans but they would not be caught dead using language this vague. Don't you find it curious that the language we use for something so central to all of our lives is full of vague definitions and confused concepts? You wouldn't use this kind of language in a contract, would you?

Thankfully, this is a message board.. A welcome distraction to daily contract life.

 

[Siro]

which capacities are increased? Are they increased at the expense of other capacities?

Communication, access to information, increased information processing, increased effective memory, and too many other benefits to count individually. And these are made available to billions of people, not just the elite few. At what expense? Maybe some environmental degradation, although I'd have to study the resource trade-off with replaced technologies. I'm sure you can come up with an argument about the value of face-to-face interaction or what have you, but the massive increase in capability is beyond dispute.

 

[Miggs]

Capitalists' contributions to progress FAR outweigh that of innovators. The iPhone hardly has any innovations, and yet, through solid design and clever marketing, Apple managed to change the landscape of technology and push human capabilities further than ever before. That is the case with pretty much all technological progress. And that is why the West, with their capitalist mentality, managed to become the world's dominant culture (and by far the most technologically advanced).


Ideas are dime a dozen. Most of the ancient world's great inventions were invented numerous times over, only to disappear once the few who had access to them were defeated or lost interest.

You mean the West we won by using such great advances to slaughter a group of people and help enslave another?

Ain't technology grand.

 

[Siro]

You mean the West we won by using such great advances to slaughter a group of people and help enslave another?

Ain't technology grand.

Yes, that's the one. And yes.

 

[NAOS]

Communication, access to information, increased information processing, increased effective memory, and too many other benefits to count individually. And these are made available to billions of people, not just the elite few. At what expense? Maybe some environmental degradation, although I'd have to study the resource trade-off with replaced technologies. I'm sure you can come up with an argument about the value of face-to-face interaction or what have you, but the massive increase in capability is beyond dispute.

c'mon dude, that's all you got? And you're giving it to someone else on a MESSAGE BOARD? I'd like to see a better effort, but whatevs.

Reading this brings me back to the opinion that you aren't as much a realist as you think. Sounds purrrrty idealist to me.