Hi Squonk and Platt,
I had to jump in...
SQUONK:
> You are the result of your culture.
> Your culture is one of consumerism.
> Therefore you consume.
> In consuming you do not exert your will; you reinforce the patterns of your
> culture. This makes you vulnerable to media manipulation of your social
> values and may limit your freedom NOT to consume. (Try buying nothing for a
> month?)
ROG:
Free economies are based upon people servicing each other in an
interdependent fashion. Buying is one such transaction, as is producing,
employing, working, selling, investing, teaching etc. Buying isn't something
we do against our will, it is our way of getting our will within the system.
If you have a better alternative to free enterprise, please feel free to
explain. But may I suggest you do it in ways that don't dismiss others'
competence to decide for themselves. We aren't zombies, and we don't need
intellectuals protecting us from our own will.
By the way, MY SHAVING CREAM is CFC free. Get with the times dude, we need to
protect our ozone. As for biodiversity, I am a fan of this as well. Modern
economies and science are the only way to protect biodiversity from the
ravages of 6 billion people. Advanced cultures learn to live in harmony with
their environment (and yes, we still have some learning to do) Alternatives
to free enterprise have atrocious records at environmentalism, while modern
cultures have been improving in most measures.
S:
> It is a tenet of the MOQ that higher value levels regulate those levels
> immediately below them. I define intellect as that which is of higher
> quality than social patterns of value.
R:
A tenet of higher level patterns is a little thing called empiricism. This
means that we don't do any intellectual idea, we do SUCCESSFUL, PROVEN
intellectual ideas. Bad ideas are discarded. True socialism is absurdly
unsuccessful, and violates virtually all current theories on successful
management of complex dynamic systems. If you want to argue as being on the
side of intellect, I propose you get out of the 19th century and into the
21st. Just a suggestion though!
Rog
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:10 BST