Roy Schestowitz wrote:
__/ [ Paul Bramscher ] on Saturday 10 March 2007 04:48 \__
Linonut wrote:
After takin' a swig o' grog, Paul Bramscher belched out this bit o'
wisdom:
I'm not suggesting it's such a wonderful thing to save electrons,
because they're scarce. Rather, there's also a huge implied savings in
development efforts -- less of a human footprint (cubicles, cars,
offices, electricity, the whole works) entailed when as little reworking
as possible is required. Ideally, I wish our whole society could trend
this way -- eventually get to the point where we only need to work
perhaps 2-3 days/week and enjoy 4-5 day weekends.
Buckminster Fuller was always claiming that would happen.
It will never happen, not as long as businesses compete for wealth using
laborers (including well-paid laborers such as myself).
Oh no, it actually *must* happen. At the rate decent jobs are being
off-shored, real earning power declines, etc. there will be no point in
working 2 jobs to afford an over-priced apartment or piece of real
estate. All indicators suggest that that market is hosed.
It was early 20th century anarchists like Kropotkin who wondered why we
couldn't capitalize on the work of previous generations, live in houses
already built, work less, etc. The answer (you are correct) is that
businesses seek to continually increase their wealth.
But they're leaving the US. Thank the gods. I say let 'em go, and good
riddance to them.
The jobs murder should also be attributed to the flawed patent system,
lobbied for by titans. It eliminates competitiveness and leaves freer
countries to innovate and then export. Suddently the tables are turned.
Small businesses are being locked out while titans argue in courts, only to
find that companies overseas suddenly offer the same products for half the
price. The only way for the West to compete is to embrace collaboration
(build bridges, not walls) and eliminate barriers (e.g. IP). Yesterday I
read an article which poses the question:
Which country will inherit the earth? But wait. The question was, will it be
China or India?...
It shouldn't be surprising, when one takes the long historical view.
Both India and China had flourishing civilizations while the Americas
and northern Europe where still lagging in many ways. They also had
high population densities in comparison, elaborate art and philosophical
systems, exported massive amounts of goods, etc.
In comparison, the US was a colonization effort from the start, and it
would seem that the old skimmers-off were only swapped for new ones
after 1776.
In consequence, given the off-shoring/outsourcing in industry, and (for
want of a better term) fascism in academia, there is a dying off of
local expertise, ingenuity, and autonomy all across the land: a
pervasive dumbing-down.
It's certainly not accidental -- the dynamic Microsoft has relied on, in
its position of monopoly, is "needs creation". They have somewhat
saturated the market with solutions, so now they need to create new
needs. Making people more stupid, dependent, helpless, etc. -- i.e.,
take things away from them -- is one way to go about that.
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