Government and Corporations by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Government and Corporations

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Friday, January 7, 2011 18:22
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Tuesday, January 4, 2011 2:31 PM

Okay, I'm calling Godwin on whoever started this comparing Azula to Hitler, even if it was *me*.

Azula is far smarter, and more entertaining, plus, she has friends. I'm kind of a fan, even if, as they always do, the villain go over the top with evil, a writing flaw that has always bugged me (The writers get too worried that their audience is going to sympathize with the villain so they have the villain do something evil) <- My sister calls this "Kittening" which comes from a film called Dungeon Master, in which the villain, said DM, tells our hero a story about how he tortured a kitten to death. The only point of the story is to make us hate the villain and sympathize with the hero, because up to that point, we were so totally failing to do so...

Select to view spoiler:

But back to the topic at hand. The insanity thing is also just a weak plot device to get around the problem that realistically there is no way that Aang is going to *outsmart* Azula and make it believable

And HK, as for what happened to India and Britain, when Britain conquered India, it formed an empire that was 90% India. When that empire lost Britain, it shrugged and moved on.

What happened in the US isn't that different. Our revolution was a disaster. We accomplished nothing, and Ben Franklin got pretty much marginalized out of the new corporate govt. which just served its own master, the British East India Company which is in a manner of why their flag became our flag.

As for the Bill of Rights? we inherited that as a british colony in 1689, and one of the major goals of the founding fathers, particularly the federalists, was to get *rid* of it. So, yes, you're right, it merits no romanticism.

Recently I looked at a time map of the destruction of America and her people from 1820-2010, because it so much mirrors what is happening in Brazil right now.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011 2:37 PM

DREAMTROVE

Byte

You have a point on the utter disaster that is corporate efficiency. But for a comparison, try government efficiency.

This is why we need a third way.

My best friend of many years once did an analysis of corporate efficiency by assessing the amount of work done by a worker who was actually working, and the total amount of work done in a final corporate project, divided by the total number of people involved in the project and the total time investment. He found it to be 10%. For a corporation to accomplish 1000 hours of work, they hired 10,000 hours of labor.

This prompted me to do a similar study of the corporation where I worked, which was much smaller, but nonetheless, I got the same result.

So, I prompted people I knew who worked for govt. to do a similar analysis. They came up with figures closer to 1%. Clearly, neither of these are acceptable, but it's also clear to see why, even though govt. has more money, corporations have more power. Want to displace them both? Come up with a more efficient form of organization.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011 2:43 PM

DREAMTROVE

Frem,

meet the new boss...

The problem with this method of displacing power is the same as any: What you get as a result is connected to how you got there. The people who *did* replace Nixon's goons were the neocons, who arranged the whole thing, including staging both sides of watergate.

They had lots of issues with Nixon, but their main one was the war. Though neocons were not at all against war, they were against *that* war. They had two major problems with it:

1) It was against communist china, which was a globalist force. Being globalists and former commies themselves, the neocons had no interest in war with China.

2) The war was eating up military resources that they wanted to deploy elsewhere, in particular, to the middle east. Immediately the neocons set about redeploying to Iraq and Iran, and beefing up support for Israel and the Saudis.

So, yeah, you can get rid of the Nixons, but what you get instead in something you have to think long and hard about before you do anything. Many a third world country has had this problem with assassination and revolution, as have some first world countries, even quite recently.

I think the intelligent revolution has its replacement already designed, but even that can lead to disaster. Just look at the ANC.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011 2:43 PM

BYTEMITE

Exactly, DT. :) This is what I'm getting at here. There's got to be a way we can organize which is both more efficient and less soul-sucking (freer). Also, I am right with you on both government and corporations sucking.

Gonna go read up on ANC now though.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011 4:58 PM

DREAMTROVE

The ANC is the govt. of South Africa and has been for 20 years or so. The point being that they were designed, initially by the Soviets, specifically to take over from the Apartheid govt which had been originally designed by the Germans, when that govt. eventually fell.

The thing is, with decades of preparation and even more decades in power, the ANC is still a total disaster as a govt. Planning to be in power is not a cure all is my point. Not planning to be in power gets you out of power right quick. So I'll grant the ANC one thing: They're still in power. However, they haven't done a damn thing worth doing, and have driven their country that, let's face it, was once the economic shining star of Africa into the dregs of the continent. A quick google search shows that the median wage in south africa is one fifth of what it is in neighboring botswana, just about an exact reversal from when the ANC took power.

Ergo, staging a successful revolution and actually running a country successfully are two very different things.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 5:14 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Interestingly, there is an article on Alternet which addresses your question exactly, Byte.

Do We Have to Live Like Peasants to Be Truly Sustainable? There has to be a happy medium between living as a poor peasant in an adobe hut and living in a McMansion while driving a Hummer. But how do we find it?

www.alternet.org/environment/149391/do_we_have_to_live_like_peasants_t
o_be_truly_sustainable/

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 7:21 AM

DREAMTROVE

Sig

good points all, but the snag is that the sustainable lifestyle must be economically competitive, or the masses will not opt for it. When we find alternatives, we must make sure that they can be provided freely and easily, and when we do so successfully, recognized that they will be attacked by entrenched financial interests.

My suspicion is that it is easier to upgrade third world hut communities into sustainable technological ones than it will be to convert financially successful unsustainable ones.

The end result of this is that the future powers will come from todays third world, and todays powers will be tomorrows third world.

Recently I ran into some statistics on electronics sales worldwide, and I think I posted them here, but it was curious and ominous for the US. The worldwide most popular product is the cell phone. It's least popular in the US. Second was the home computer, with the smartphone coming in third, and television fourth. However, if you take us out of the equation, it changes, television plummets to obscurity, as we represent half the world market for TV. smartphones move up, but still don't displace home computers. around 80% of computer sales are outside the US.

Ten years ago, the US represented 95% of all internet traffic. Today we represent 8%. Americans are more likely than any other country to be using their internet for video.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 9:19 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Interestingly, there is an article on Alternet which addresses your question exactly, Byte.

Do We Have to Live Like Peasants to Be Truly Sustainable? There has to be a happy medium between living as a poor peasant in an adobe hut and living in a McMansion while driving a Hummer. But how do we find it?

www.alternet.org/environment/149391/do_we_have_to_live_like_peasants_t
o_be_truly_sustainable/

Bullshit. We are not all the same. Sure some are going to choose to live as peasants and others are not. You need to stop saying "we", see i busted my ass in college, raising two bastards, and working the whole time so that i could have my lake home. That others choose to sit around on the stoop drinking forties and smoking grass all day waiting for the welfare check is their business. As long as I want my home and there is a contracter who wants to build it then it gets done. Its called freedom. Who the fuck are you to tell anyone that they should not live in a home of a given size. See, the happy medium is already there. Some live in shit hole apartments and others live in mansions...it balances out. Sure we can't all live in huge homes, but the great thing about freedom is many have made the choice not to or made it impossible for them to do so. But really you have some fucking nerve trying to decide how we should all live.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 7:53 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
if possible, offer the open hand, the civil refusal, FIRST - but if the choice came down to violence or submission, then violence was preferable.

Mind you, I don't actually advocate a "kill the bastards" strategy, so much as NOT simply forgiving them and setting them on their merry, or handing them BACK the reigns of power after a mere chastisement, come on, you have to understand my point there - how many times this has bit us on the ass within our own lifetimes ?

I am a pacifist, at least philosophically. So, not a big fan of violence.

However, when evil is rampant, the only thing that can check evil, the only thing that can stop the train wreck, is consequences. Hard, physical consequences. I don't see any other way.

It is like holding a kid back from running into traffic. You just gotta do it. Sort out the non-violent long term solutions later.

I hear what you're saying, Frem. 100%.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 9:22 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"the sustainable lifestyle must be economically competitive"

Against what? For whom? There are so many assumptions built into that statement I don't even know what it means.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011 10:36 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
However, when evil is rampant, the only thing that can check evil, the only thing that can stop the train wreck, is consequences. Hard, physical consequences. I don't see any other way.

Yep, and instead we offer rewards, incentives, bailouts...
And wonder why such behavior continues.

-F

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Friday, January 7, 2011 4:30 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"the sustainable lifestyle must be economically competitive"

Against what? For whom? There are so many assumptions built into that statement I don't even know what it means.

Like Kiki said.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 6:39 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"the sustainable lifestyle must be economically competitive"

Against what? For whom? There are so many assumptions built into that statement I don't even know what it means.

I think I got what DT was saying, let me see if I can explain.

The "against" is the corporations and government. Corporations and governments exist as money makers and the system they've built around them makes them economically viable.

But imagine if a large-scale movement happened with the general population (who the sustainable lifestyle would theoretically be economically viable for).

The demand in the population will be for sustainability, and honestly, sustainability is not something modern corporations can currently do simply because of how they're organized. Combined with necessary technological developments to keep up with demand, and I see the sustainability movement really being something that happens at an individual and community level.

People at an individual and community level will then be producing the goods everyone else wants, and so then would become more economically viable than the modern corporations. Economies become smaller because of the local focus, but exchange of goods and services also becomes more efficient, and economies become stable and self-sufficient.

At the same time, because the focus is on sustainability, the natural environment starts to prosper again, and we take care of a few threats to the natural environment along the way just by going sustainable.

Best case ideal scenario, sure. There's bound to be some hiccups. One of those problems is whether we can develop the tech to simplify production as much as I can see we'd need to. I tend to bank on human ingenuity more than I do on human laziness, but that may be a flaw and a bias in my personal outlook.

The other is whether TPTB try to hijack control of the tech revolution in progress, and intentionally prevent widespread distribution of the necessary tech, or even make sure the tech is destroyed. We have to change and adapt faster than they do, which means lots more people will have to start thinking for themselves than currently do. More than anything else, this is where the plan can fail, because I do lack faith in the ability of the human mind to free itself from the lies most of us have been told.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 9:44 AM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"the sustainable lifestyle must be economically competitive"

Against what? For whom? There are so many assumptions built into that statement I don't even know what it means.
Like Kiki said.

Against the other lifestyles available to that society.

What people don't get about greed is that it is not driven by selfishness, it is driven by necessity, most of the time, for most people.

If you have two lifestyles, and one will cost you 10,000 a year and the other 20,000 a year, and you have 10,000 a year of disposable income, which one do you think most people are going to opt for?

Sure, some fringe conscientious people will either go into debt, get a second job, or sacrifice part of their life (say, by not sending their kids to college) so they can live the less economically competitive but more ecofriendly socially responsible lifestyle, but how many?

Once you have that number, ask if that is your goal? Will it save the world if 5% of the people live responsibly and the other 95% live destructively? Or do you want 95% living responsibly (lets assume without a totalitarian dictatorship, you'll never get 100%, but you can minimize the damage of the rest.)

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Friday, January 7, 2011 9:56 AM

DREAMTROVE

Thanks, good points, but not what I meant.

I mean it's simple economics. Let's deal with specifics:

Here's an unsustainable thing: People consume fossil fuels. Extracting these from the earth can be costly, environmentally damaging, politically inconvenient and we all agree there's a limited supply, even if we disagree on that number.

Possible solution:

1. Solar cells.

Right now, Oil is $87 a barrel. Nat. Gas is $4. Polysilicon is around $25,000.

We would like people to use polysilicate based fuel because it's buy once, use forever, and there's a limitless supply of silicon because the planet is made of the stuff. However, that's asking them to make a huge outlay at the outset.

Solution?

Reduce the price. Nat Gas didn't used to be so cheap. Lots of money has been poured into the energy industry to find ways to get it cheaper and easier. Billions of dollars. Maybe trillions.

Pour that money into solar.

How? By pouring it into business. A business, like a factory, consumes a tremendous amount of electricity. if they get a break for using solar, they'll want to buy it.

When they buy, they will buy far more. The more that gets produced, the cheaper it becomes. The more companies that are competing in the industry, the faster this will happen.

Of course, the more the tax burden on those businesses, the slower that will happen.

This is already happening with solar. We need this to happen with everything that is sustainable.

Think. If it were $250/barrel or the equiv. to get your solar cells, and $125 for heating oil at the home level, then you'd be a fool not to buy the solar cells instead.

And once you go green, you never go unclean.

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Friday, January 7, 2011 6:22 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:

However, when evil is rampant, the only thing that can check evil, the only thing that can stop the train wreck, is consequences. Hard, physical consequences. I don't see any other way.

One man's evil is anothers bright idea.

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