From: John Grigg (starman2100@lycos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2001 - 22:18:43 MDT
Miriam English wrote:
>Wow, Lee you just totally miss the point.
At 11:25 AM 19/08/2001 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>Olga wrote
>
> > I wish the store managers who stayed up nights thinking about how they
> could
> > improve their supermarkets in order to beat the Safeway down the street
> > would also come up with some ideas about how best to treat farmworkers.
> >
> > I wish the "immense concentration of knowledge [taking] place in the minds
> > of a few people who have an enormous incentive to improve the quality
> of the
> > stores" would also develop some incentive to improve the quality of
> people's
> > lives - people who provide the basic foodstuff and products for their
> > stores.
>
>Well, as we say, "wishes don't make horses". What possible incentive
>would anyone have to lie awake at night thinking of the best way to
>treat farmworkers?
Miriam wrote:
>Ummm... try compassion? good sense? a desire to give >a whole underclass a chance to get in the race? to >avoid future problems? to build goodwill instead of >hate and envy?
Do all that just to be nice? lol! Hey, how about...., UNIONS!!! Strong unions could really help in this matter. But, bringing the corporations to their knees can be hard. What ever happened to the legacy of Cesar Chavez?
Miriam wrote:
Did you even read the piece Olga posted? Cheryl and Ralph Broetje seem to
have found incentive... and many others undoubtedly would like to help but
are constrained by the financial system that you speak so highly of -- the
very one that you say airily will solve these problems. Olga points out so
nicely that it doesn't.
(end)
>I think that what is happening, Olga, is that you divine *your own*
>motivations, and find them quite pure. I agree. I am certain that
>you really do have the best interests of the farm workers in mind.
>But you don't lie awake thinking of it at night. Instead, just like
>the rest of us, you lie awake thinking of your own problems, and it
>is a horrible mistake to think that a great leader will do any
>differently.
Miriam wrote:
I am sure you don't lie awake at night worrying about these sorts of things
Lee, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume that is true of all others. I,
for one, *do* lie awake at nights worrying about exactly these sorts of
things. How the hell are we going to get anywhere if we can't give fellow
humans a hand up out of the places they are stuck in? If we have an
enormous underclass when the spike arrives then they will hate us with a
fury.
(end)
The great science fiction writer Joe Haldeman wrote a book with this very scenario! In one scene a conference of immortals is violated by a bomb set by angry terrorists who consider them immoral. I believe the title was _Buying Time_.
Miriam wrote:
How will we be secure in immortality when there are people who can't
be certain of eating tomorrow? They would have nothing to lose in taking
everything from us. And in a strange way I almost feel they would be right
to do so.
(end)
Aha, I see a future terrorist among us! Just kidding! ;) There is a spanish science fiction film called I believe, _The Mutants_ which tells the story of a suppressed underclass of people who do not fit in with the genetically engineered and beautiful mainstream.
The film was done in an over-the-top way, but still made a strong emotional point. A band of mutants simply want to leave the planet for space, but violence leads to even more violence as they are pursued.
This is such a common theme throughout science fiction. I have a feeling the superwealthy immortals of the future will "raise up" enough people around them
so they will feel protected. Sort of like vampire lords with their ghouls. lol And they may not advertise who they are...
Miriam wrote:
I just know that many will rush to the defense here saying that the spike will make technologies so accessible that poverty will be eliminated, but
poverty is only part of the problem, and the spike alone won't eliminate it anyway. We have had the ability to distribute all human knowledge for free
to all the priveleged members of society for many years now, but powerful financial pressures have prevented that from happening.
(end)
Huh? I don't quite understand what you wrote. I thought the priveleged members of society had excellent access to all human knowledge! They may have to pay for it, but they can easily afford the tuition at Yale, or wherever. lol
I would say we have had the ability/possibility of distributing all human knowledge for free to the poor and disadvantaged, but the choice has been made not to.
What I would like to see is a first class public education system(k-12) and then a very inexpensive or even free college/vo-tech system. I would tie to this computer labs for children where advanced educational software grounds them in whatever they need/want to know.
I'd like to think over the next ten or so years we will see computers/software enable disadvantaged people in preparing for educational and career success on a level never before witnessed.
MIT is in the process of putting the contents of almost all their classes onto the net. I think this is a wonderful thing so people can not only explore the topics, but "wade in" and see if they might ever handle the subject.
One thing to remember though, even having all this knowledge online, or even offering free classes may not be enough. As discussed here earlier, some people just do not have the intellectual power to do "top ten list" jobs in the information age. Which is not to say they could at least fulfill whatever limited potential they have.
>So all of his wonderful speeches about "benefitting
>the people" are mainly power ploys to defeat his adversaries, gain
>power from the (ignorant) crowds, and ultimately work towards his
>own best interests.
Miriam wrote:
>What shit is this Lee?
>Straw man. Very big straw man.
I never saw you so worked up before! I do agree though.
> > While supermarket customers' "body language, their shopping patterns, and
> > most of all, their buying habits" may indeed be worthy of a specialized
> > field of study, I'm afraid farmworkers' problems are all pretty much the
> > same:
> >
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134331325_migrantkids19m.htm
>
>Yes, their problems *are* just the same. And your problems remain yours,
>and my problems remain mine.
Miriam wrote:
Do you have children Lee? Of course kids don't need to be helped. They
should be abandoned at birth. Their problems are theirs and yours are
yours. Heaven forbid that anybody help anybody else.
(end)
Ahh, but in one way or another in the econo-ecology we live in, those children(later adults) will have their effect. Will it be positive or negative? Strengthening for the economy or draining? Is it easier to provide health care for children, or care for them later on when problems have taken hold and things are expensive? And should we go with college and vo-tech, or instead opt to build even more prisons?
Maybe, what Lee needs is a "Twilight Zone" experience where he wakes up and finds himself a migrant worker with educational amnesia and lacking the hefty intellect he presently has. Otherwise, he still remembers who he is... Empathy is a trait some people just don't have. Lee probably considers himself a fair man.
> > Nowhere is the need for children's programs more pressing than in this tiny
> > town, population 2,609, where 96 percent of children live in poverty.
>
>Here is the fatal urge. You read about some unfortunate situation such as
>this, and you want to DO SOMETHING. (Of course, it's really none of your
>business; you actually spend most of your time worrying about your own
>*local* problems.)
Miriam wrote:
>Oh, how terrible that anybody would consider helping >anybody.
I think he is "parodying" the typical american citizen with a short attention span when it comes to being concerned about others.
>Hence even if it means for a great leader, or the government, to TAKE
>IMMEDIATE ACTION BY SEIZING ALL ASSETS OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE MORE THAN
>THEY NEED, you have an immediate sympathy for something, so long as it
>solves the problem.
Miriam wrote:
What is it that you have with this demon Lee??? This terrible, nasty straw
man that wants to come and seize all your assets. He has no place in this
discussion.
(end)
Lee may still be smarting over April 15th... ;)
>Look at the words in that paragraph I snipped: the "need for children's
>programs", "96 percent of the children live in poverty".
>
>Well, all sorts of people everywhere in the world and all throughout
>history have **needs**. We must not focus on the so-called causes of
>poverty, but rather focus on how *anyone* ever escaped poverty. To find
>out how wealth is created in the first place, one must start with Adam
>Smith, or any thinker who really tries to get at root causes. Wealth was
>*never* created by taxing one sort of people and benevolently bestowing it
>on those who have *needs* by means of "programs".
Miriam wrote:
Adam Smith never solved that problem. It remains in spite of many attempts
to put his beliefs into practice. He defined a narrow set of rules that
might work fine if we were motivated by money alone... but nobody has been
able to find that out because we aren't. Until we can formulate ways to
manage the *real* world we have to deal with a whole mess of practical
patches to fix a multitude of problems.
It is not clean and doesn't have the crystalline beauty of a simple rule,
but little by little humanity *is* rising to a level of intelligence and
tolerance through an incredibly complex set of checks and balances that
will make the spike possible. Selfishness alone won't do it.
(end)
I totally agree with your analysis. I think Max More is right in promoting the microloan programs going on in the third world. It is an example of teaching a person how to fish instead of simply giving them a fish each day.
Even singularity level technology is not a must-have to solve much of the dire poverty. If gov'ts were not so corrupt in pocketing foreign aid money/their own gov't money meant for the poor, we would see so many lives saved. And if we donate food and medicine we are likely to see it sold on the blackmarket where the price is way beyond what the poor can pay. And I have not even mentioned where governments purposely starve certain populations they view as being troublemakers.
Where are you Cesar Chavez when we need you again? South America needs you! Maybe his spirit will inspire those who could make a difference if they really struggled to do the right thing.
best wishes,
John Grigg
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