Why democracy is failing America

[PLAYER57832]

Besides, you still haven't made any clear points about the exact nature of the malign influence 'corporations' have on society, or how to make things better. You're just saying lots of words.

I see, so you don't see anything inherently wrong in meeting people's short term demands over and above long term consequences?

Well, that itself says a lot.

If you just cannot envision the long term consequences, then I mean pollution, destruction/negative alteration of every ecosystem on Earth without knowledge of what we do or the long term result. I could also point to introducing multitudes of artificial substances into our food chains, world, without knowing anything more than how many people will die in the next year from exposure to the single substance.

Except, that gets too big and too widespread, so its "dismissable".
That is why Global climate change probably will wind up causing great harm. There is too much pressure to pretend it is not happening.

[mrswdk]

I mean, why do you assume that 'corporations' will cause those things and what exactly would you do to prevent them? 'Education' is not a specific answer, and neither is 'removing power from corporations'.

And who says that corporations don't make long-term business models, business models that rely on society not imploding at some point in the future? Why do you assume that 'people' and 'society' can be taught to care about the long-term, but that corporations have no reason to care?

[thegreekdog]

You're missing the point because you are projecting a political bias on me. Let me try something different and simple. It should not take multiple paragraphs of mostly irrelevant information to address. Why do you think beaches and dunes are eroding and why do you think governments don't do enough about it?

OK, now you are paying attention to a detail, an example I brought up... and have gone away from the basic point which was that your use of "rent seeking" specifically allows you to ignore those details. Ironic, that.
Anyway, to answer that , its not just about beaches eroding. Its about us subverting the natural system without regard.

Beaches are "meant" to erode and be reconstructed, but in a particular manner. We dam up rivers, reducing silt loads, which ultimately result in less sand. We build on cliffs that should erode in some places, again... reducing the input of sand. Other areas that, if left lone, would from barriers are left vulnerable. This impacts spawning grounds of various species, including species of extreme import. We also degrade various types of wetlands by forcing them to take on far more materials (and of different types) than they are designed to utilize.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that while you can parcel out each of these into a specific, individual need or desire, the overall picture is one of a need for all of us. By parcelling it out and pretending that such individualism is appropriate, you don't just minimize the impacts, you utterly disregard the true import of it all.

And yes, science is not about rent seeking. I'm not talking about science. There is little to no rent seeking in science.

Exactly.

Well, make that "there shouldn't be". The problem is that money is only available from the profits of rent seekers in our current system... and thus it all gets subverted.

Which, brings us back to my original point.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist when it comes to global warming. I'm talking about politics and the role of government. The government (and citizens and businesses) are given the science and they are determining how to cope with the science that tells them X. How do businesses, citizens and the government decide what to do about the science they are given? The question is not necessarily "what should they do," the answer is "what do they do and why do they do it."

See, this divide "I am not talking about global warming, I am talking about politics and government" is false. Right now, science very much is, sadly, too often about individual demands -- "rent seeking", if you will. This is because it depends so heavily upon popular funding. The government is still the primary functionary for funding basic base line research, but much of that has been cut or subverted to answer to individual needs and desires. A lot has just plain become privatized. Even tax-payer funding is funneled through private entities in various way -- most notably through turning government programs into contract entities.

Science needs to be seperate. Part of why it is not is this tendency to just label everything AS IF it were all equal. The term "rent seeking" does that very well. You could substitute "special interests" or several other terms used in the past. The point of all of them is to put a label on a whole group of things so that they can be talked about in esoteric terms, and debated en masse, instead of individually.

The problem is that right now, we face a series of very critical and far reaching environmental crisis. We cannot afford to just dismiss it all as mere special interest, rent seekers or anything else.

Yet... I fear we are past the point of no return here in this country. Undoing the uneducation that has happened in the past 20 years will take more than 20 years, and I fear outside interests will long have already ceased control here before that can come to pass.

I AM a conspiracy theorist when it comes to our national interests versus other nations. I think we have been quite naive in opening up ourselves so fully to entities like China, Saudis Arabia and the like. Our security rests only in the prevalence of free information. Yet, that is a tenuous hold, today, in the age of the internet and so readily subverted information.

You are incredibly frustrating. I'm done.

[PLAYER57832]

I mean, why do you assume that 'corporations' will cause those things and what exactly would you do to prevent them? 'Education' is not a specific answer, and neither is 'removing power from corporations'.

In the US, corporations have usurped much of the power previously held by individuals. That, in itself is a spoilage because it means those individuals who are party to the corporation essentially have multiple votes, more power because they have both the power weilded by the corporation AND their individual power. That, alone is worrisome because it subverts democracy, and without any good cause. There is nothing in becoming a corporation or achieving business success that truly say you are a better judge of what is best for the world around.

When you add in that corporations are artificial constructs of profit, designed primarily to protect the holders from harm caused by poor business decisions, a sheild between their personnal lives and business lives.. no other field offers that type of protection. The key to responsibility is consequence. Corporations inherently allow people to ignore and deny real consequences.

"Education", IS an answer..but I specifically refer to knowledge of how the world around us works, consequences of actions.

And who says that corporations don't make long-term business models, business models that rely on society not imploding at some point in the future? Why do you assume that 'people' and 'society' can be taught to care about the long-term, but that corporations have no reason to care?

LOL --- "long term" in business is 5 years. As for the imploding bit.. irrelevant. There is no surviving the demise or our environment. That is, I am sure individual humans will survive, but the knowledge needed to avoid many of the impending environmental tragedies is enormous and the impetus to work on them is just not there.

There IS enormous effort being expended on attempting to control zebra mussels and asiatic carp. However, those efforts are almost given to failure. Those are relatively direct problems with relatively direct and very visable impacts. Expand to something like the channelization of various rivers and you have a lot of controversy, a LOT of people who completely misunderstand the problems and want "solutions" that are either just temporary transitory fixes (at great expense), or will even make the situation worse. People don't want to hear that the real solution is to not live so close to rivers, at least in flat land, without expecting it to flood. Move on to something broader, more esoteric and requiring more effort to fix and you see even less effort. Look at how little effort is truly being expended on global warming, for example.

[PLAYER57832]

You are incredibly frustrating. I'm done.

I don't accept a lot of what you consider "given".

The trouble is, you don't have evidence to back you up. I do.

[mrswdk]

If you would stop ignoring the fact that corporations are dependent on their customers for survival then you would see that, far from being some sort of conspiracy to rape and enslave humanity, in reality corporations are nothing more than a manifestation of the desires of their customers.

[thegreekdog]

You are incredibly frustrating. I'm done.

I don't accept a lot of what you consider "given".

The trouble is, you don't have evidence to back you up. I do.

No, the trouble is that you completely ignore everything I type.

Example:

thegreekdog: "Hey Player, what does 2+2 equal?"
Player: I disagree. Your problem is that you don't consider the real costs. [insert rambling paragraphs on the environment or health insurance].

It's like having a discussion with someone who speaks a completely different language without google translator.

[BigBallinStalin]

You are incredibly frustrating. I'm done.

I don't accept a lot of what you consider "given".

The trouble is, you don't have evidence to back you up. I do.

No, the trouble is that you completely ignore everything I type.

Example:

thegreekdog: "Hey Player, what does 2+2 equal?"
Player: I disagree. Your problem is that you don't consider the real costs. [insert rambling paragraphs on the environment or health insurance].

It's like having a discussion with someone who speaks a completely different language without google translator.

Good simile. +50 Saxibucks

[Phatscotty]

We are running up the charges on future generations credit cards faster and bigger, and we are arrogantly, ignorantly, but knowingly, going to stick them with the principle and almost all of the interest. The future generation has no say whatsoever about their opportunities being robbed, about the claims that have been made on them and their life's work and earnings, dictating how many children a family can afford to have, dictate how many hours a week both parents are going to need to work just to get by; condemned to ever increasing taxation and inflation rates, forced to depend on money that is worth less and less.

The next generation has no say, is not represented, cannot possibly explore other ideas. No matter how corrupt or how evil or how greedy or how irrational, they are not given a choice concerning the all-seeing social contract, and therefore a claim has already been made on them, for an average of more than half of everything they ever earn in their entire life.

[mrswdk]

In China, politicians are free to consider the long-term picture without elections forcing them to pander to short-termist foolishness every four years.

[BigBallinStalin]

In China, politicians are free to consider the long-term picture without elections forcing them to pander to short-termist foolishness every four years.

Yeah, another interesting thing is that the governors (provincial politicians) all compete on economic growth. So, many of them strive to make their places more conducive to business. It's an interesting model (which took about 30 years to finally getting good), and it's much better than many of the other democratic, developing countries.

There's some potential problems with China's political institution though.

[kuthoer]

In China, politicians are free to consider the long-term picture without elections forcing them to pander to short-termist foolishness every four years.

Yeah, another interesting thing is that the governors (provincial politicians) all compete on economic growth. So, many of them strive to make their places more conducive to business. It's an interesting model (which took about 30 years to finally getting good), and it's much better than many of the other democratic, developing countries.

There's some potential problems with China's political institution though.

Exactly, their political institution is corrupt and could implode. It's who you know in government that greases the palm in China. This could then be used against the very same people, once the very same government officials get sacked.

I wouldn't invest my hard-earned money in any private business in Chine, unless it had the approval of the Chinese People Army.

[mrswdk]

In China, politicians are free to consider the long-term picture without elections forcing them to pander to short-termist foolishness every four years.

Yeah, another interesting thing is that the governors (provincial politicians) all compete on economic growth. So, many of them strive to make their places more conducive to business. It's an interesting model (which took about 30 years to finally getting good), and it's much better than many of the other democratic, developing countries.

There's some potential problems with China's political institution though.

ikr? I was pretty impressed by some of the stuff that the Chinese model of federalism has achieved. That said, it comes accompanied by a couple of other policies (notably the hukou system) that sorely need an overhaul.

It'll be interesting to see how the CCP go about tackling their gremlins in the years to come.